Social Media

Since the Canadian government considers the establishment of TikTok Technology Canada Inc. by ByteDance Ltd. an endeavor that poses a national security risk, the business will be disolved. However, while TikTok offices in Canada are shutting down, the mobile app and the web services can still be accessed without restrictions.

Australia has proposed a ban on social media for children under 16. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that firms must follow regulations or face fines.

Meta plans to use an AI-based age prediction tool to identify teens on Instagram. The tool, internally called "adult classifier", will categorize Instagram users into two groups - under or above 18 years old.

After nearly two decades online, Reddit is finally profitable. In the third quarter, the company recorded a massive 68% increase in revenue alongside 47% more daily users. The figures are $29.9 million and 97.2 million users. Obviously, the popularity went above the 100 million threshold a few times already.

TikTok has announced that it will soon enhance the way users express themselves with .gifs that come up as a result of AI-generated suggestions. The animated images in question will all come courtesy of Giphy thanks to a new agreement between its company and the social media platform. It is slated to result in a change to the direct message (DM) interface in the latter's app.

Meta is reportedly building an in-house AI-powered search engine for its Meta AI chatbot. The bot currently uses Google and Bing to answer questions about current events.

A user report that was later confirmed by Instagram's head, Adam Mosseri, shows that some videos on this service look blurry due to the fact that video quality is directly tied to the amount of views it receives. According to him, the quality difference isn't huge, but many users think it's enough to lower their visual experience.

In a recent tweet, a former Apple employee claimed that the tech behemoth conducted a full-scale operation to extract people, including her grandmother, from the turmoil in Kharkiv in 2023. Turns out, Tim Cook really is the master of logistics - be it of any kind.

Ford's CEO had nothing but praises for the Xiaomi SU7. In a bid to gauge Ford's EV competiton, CEO Jim Farley imported the SU7 from China, and has been loving it so far.

Linus of Linus Tech Tips admitted today that he bears some personal responsibility for the exploitation of Congolese children in cobalt and lithium mines. He made the statement in his latest video podcast by partially agreeing with an English teacher's accusation of having "blood on his hands" and then asking how these critics would do better in his situation.

After parting ways with over 20,000 employees in 2022 and 2023, Meta continues to cut jobs. This time, the number of people laid off is smaller, but this new downsizing does not miss Reality Labs and departments in charge of popular products such as WhatsApp or Instagram.

TikTok is laying off hundreds of employees globally, which includes 500 in Malaysia alone. The company is shifting its focus to AI-driven content moderation amid regulatory pressure and efforts to improve platform safety.

Turkey has now banned Discord after they denied the authorities' request to share private user information. The court decision was caused by "child sexual abuse and obscenity" suspicions pointing at some users of the platform. The ban comes shortly after Discord was blocked in Russia, but for different reasons.

Over a dozen US states have sued TikTok, alleging it harms youth mental health through addictive features like endless scrolling, pushing minors into excessive use, and easing exploitation via live-streaming.

CheckMag Google is notorious for tracking people across websites, and this extends to almost every service it offers, including Android and YouTube. If you are on a quest to escape Google's aggressive data practices, you might want to consider hosting your own YouTube front end. But how easy is it, and is it worth it?

The new MediaTek-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra has officially trumped its Snapdragon forbear in performance benchmarks with a significant margin, but incomplete data raises questions about efficiency and battery life.

YouTuber and engineer James Bruton has managed to build an AT-AT that is large and stable enough for a human to ride on. He mainly used 3D-printed components for this. Bruton documented the construction process and published it on YouTube.

Elon Musk announced an update to the block feature on X (formerly Twitter), allowing blocked users to still view public posts from those accounts. Accounts with private posts should remain unaffected.

In a recent battery life test that mimicked real-life usage conducted by a prominent YouTube channel, the iPhone 16 Pro Max was outperformed by Samsung's S24 Ultra by quite a prominent margin. However, the new iPhone 16 variants did manage to outperform their predecessors, thereby proving Apple's battery life improvement claims.

Although described as a social network, SocialAI is in fact more like "a space for reflection, support, and feedback," as mentioned by Michael Sayman, its creator. What makes it special is that all interactions it facilitates put human users face to face only with AI bots, as imagined by the dead internet theory.

As the concerns regarding the toxicity of social media for teens increase and more studies prove them legit, Instagram decides to turn normal accounts into "Teen Accounts" for users aged under 18. They will be automatically set as private, and changing the defaults will need a parent's approval, who will also be able to monitor them.

Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter, in a recent interview, stated that the PC-equivalent for the PlayStation 5 Pro console would cost a 'fair bit more'. This is hardly a surprise, since the whole point of a gaming console is to provide a decent gaming experience while being easy to afford. The PS5 Pro's absurdly high pricing may rattle this trend a bit, but it's hard to argue that its value proposition is worse than a PC.

The prominent YouTube channel Out of Spec Reviews recently range-tested the Tesla Model 3 Long Range (2024) on the highway at 70 mph, and the results were beyond impressive. Not only did the Model 3 exceed its EPA estimate, but it also outclassed its predecessor by almost 60 miles.

While European and US users of Facebook and Instagram were allowed to choose for their data not to be used to train AI, Australians didn't have any opt-out options available. As a consequence, all of their public posts since 2007 were used by Meta. For now, Facebook representatives couldn't confirm a future freedom of choice in the matter to Australian users.

Tesla's Cybertruck, while hugely controversial, is by no means starved of raw power. In a recently posted video, the Cybertruck can be seen attempting and defeating a rather large mud puddle after a few failed attempts. Later on, the Cybertruck even helped out a stuck Toyota off-roader, proving its might.

As X/Twitter remains banned in Brazil, new users from this country helped Bluesky exceed 9 million subscribers while also recording almost 5 million monthly active accounts. Founded in early October 2021, this US-based decentralized microblogging social platform opened signups for everyone this year, in early February.

The latest Sony PS5 Pro news sees Sony seemingly tease the design of the rumoured premium gaming console, confirming previous leaks that suggest a minimal visual update, rather than a complete aesthetic overhaul.

Brazilian Supreme Court has ordered service providers and app stores to block X (Twitter) within five days after the company failed to name legal representative, a requirement for foreign companies operating within Brazil. The move is another chapter in the continuing row between Justice Alexandre de Moraes and Elon Musk, who is accused of helping spread fake news and threats against the justices.

Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of Telegram, has been arrested by French authorities. The detention is allegedly linked to an ongoing investigation into Telegram's operations, which focuses on insufficient content moderation and lack of cooperation with law enforcement agencies. French authorities claim that Durov's inaction allowed many crimes to be committed through Telegram, and the platform has become a hub for organized crime.

xAI has released Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini beta AI LLMs on X with the enterprise API arriving later this month. Grok-2 ranked among the four most powerful large-language models on the LMSYS leaderboard and among the top six across a range of standardized AI benchmarks.

The Tesla Cybertruck has had a particularly difficult time keeping its name out of controversy. However, there is no doubting the fact that it is an incredibly powerful vehicle with great potential for heavy duty tasks, provided they aren't over long distances. A recent video detailing the Cybertruck's off-roading capabilities in a notably perilous terrain truly drives home the point that the Cybertruck is more than a capable off-roader.

The US Senate has passed the “Kids Online Safety Act” (KOSA) to protect children online. The bill requires large social media, online gaming, and virtual reality sites that act as forums for user-generated content to actively prevent minors under 17 from harm. Safeguards include limits on ads, communications with minors, geolocation, automatic recommendation, and time use.

CheckMag Society is waking up to the notion that smartphones may not be the best thing for our mental health, or our time management. Governments are looking to ban phones in schools and a part of the population is beginning to ditch smartphones in an attempt to claw back some of the time lost to doom scrolling. Here are X phone solutions that can help curb your smartphone addiction.

YouTube's resident mobile device destruction expert has plated a Tesla Cybertruck in $60,000 worth of 24 karate gold in his latest video on Tesla's controversial electric pickup truck. The gold electroplating process required moderate disassembly and copious amounts of pink goop.

TikTok and ByteDance have filed a federal appeal to fight the recently passed TikTok ban. The companies counter that the ban in unconstitutional and unfairly targets TikTok despite prior reports of Chinese employee and government access to US user data.

It doesn't always have to be a deliberate lie. In the "Bad News" game, you can use your own techniques to manipulate followers and generate clicks. The learning effect is surprisingly high.

Debate It has been just over 20 years since Facebook first launched as a Harvard university project. In that time, a significant number of other platforms have launched including TikTok, Twitter (X), Snapchat, Instagram and more. But do these platforms still contribute something to society or do they cause more harm than good?

(Update: 2024-04-24 11:00 PST President Biden has signed the package into law.) TikTok is now a dead-man walking after the US Senate passed a ban included in a $95 billion aid package to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. After President Biden signs it into law, ByteDance will have 270 days to leave the American market, face heavy fines, or sell TikTok to an American-friendly company. TikTok will file a lawsuit as soon as the package becomes law.

The U.S. Senate is set to pass a TikTok ban stuffed into an Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine support package that includes the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which itself passed the House Wednesday. The act includes a fine on TikTok of $5,000 per user located in the United States to force ByteDance to divest TikTok or leave the U.S. market. The Senate can vote on the package as early as Tuesday.

The Chinese Government has forced Apple to delist WhatsApp and Threads from the App Store according to a report by Wall Street Journal, resulting in the inability of the Chinese users to download the said apps from the official channels. This can prove to be the final nail in the coffin for WhatsApp in China as the service has been banned since 2017.

After a test phase, plans are said to have matured to require users to pay after registering on X (formerly Twitter) before they are allowed to post. This was announced by Elon Musk himself, and he blames AI.

A Facebook page with 1.2 million followers claiming to offer free access to Midjourney AI got caught for pushing malware and infostealers. It, along with many other hacked pages doing the same thing with other generative AI tools, was uncovered by Bitdefender, a cybersecurity company.

WhatsApp has officially announced a new change for the Android app. While the old version of the messaging application had a navbar on the top, the new version redesigned it and put it on the bottom. This updated navbar is said to be "closer to your thumbs and easy on the eyes."

CheckMag With AI seemingly infiltrating all corners of the internet, it's time to actually ask whether AI content has a place in tech media, and if so, what is its place? What about the ethical and legal implications? Reader comment is welcome on this one, so make your voice heard in the poll or with a comment.

Popular messenger service WhatsApp will soon update its privacy policy and terms of use. Users must agree to the new regulations, or their account may be suspended.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has passed a bill banning minors under 14 years old from holding social media accounts. This law protects young children from being exposed to dangerous online predators, inappropriate content, and cyberbullying until they have matured enough to handle more adult communications and content.

Meta is looking to give WhatsApp users the ability to use Meta AI without creating a dedicated chat. The feature allows one to write queries directly in the search bar making it faster and easier to get information from Meta AI.

Elon Musk's words ring true as the Tesla Cybertruck proves to be the electric car company's most challenging product yet. While YouTuber MKBHD's thoughts on the Cybertruck see the good mixed in with the bad, he points out a glaring door panel gap, which was later revealed to be a very broken door latch.

Nothing wants the community to collaborate on a custom Community Edition of the Nothing Phone (2a), with four design stages over the span of six months. The tech startup imposes no limitations on submissions, and the community will vote for which ideas get to go through to production.

The US House of Representatives has passed the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” putting TikTok one step closer to a complete ban in the US. The bill, if passed into law, will force ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to sell its US business in 6 months or risk having the app, among other things, delisted from the app stores in the US.