TikTok agrees to deal to cede control of US business to American investor group
The deal closes a long-running drama in which U.S. authorities have sought to compel ByteDance to divest.
Social Media
Threads wants to be the app you can’t wait to open in the morning
This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. By all measures, Meta’s Threads app had a very good year. The app was Apple’s second-most-downloaded iOS app of the year, trailing only ChatGPT. Threads now has 400 million […]
Facebook is testing a link posting limit for professional accounts and pages
Meta said that the test impacts professional accounts and pages on Facebook.
Bluesky launches a privacy-focused ‘find friends’ feature without invite spam
The Bluesky contact matching feature is opt-in and your data won’t be used to spam your friends, the social network says.
Bluesky claims its new contact import feature is ‘privacy-first’
Bluesky is finally letting you find people you already know, one of several common features on other social platforms, like notifications and bookmarks, that have been notably absent at the growing upstart. Unlike rivals, it claims it’s not sacrificing privacy to do it. The Find Friends feature is “privacy-first by design,” unlike what Bluesky says […]
Facebook Messenger’s desktop app is no more
The app remains usable via the web, Facebook app, and through the mobile app for iOS and Android.
Grok is spreading misinformation about the Bondi Beach shooting
Grok’s track record is spotty at best. But even by the very low standards of xAI, its failure in the aftermath of the tragic mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Australia is shocking. The AI chatbot has repeatedly misidentified 43-year-old Ahmed al Ahmed, the man who heroically disarmed one of the shooters, and claimed the […]
OK, what’s going on with LinkedIn’s algo?
Women ran an experiment to see if LinkedIn’s new algo was being sexist and thought they proved it. But there’s more complexity involved, experts say.
Retro, a photo-sharing app for friends, lets you ‘time-travel’ through your camera roll
Retro’s new feature, Rewind, lets you look back at your photo memories and scroll through them with a dial.
Trump could introduce ‘mandatory’ social media reviews for travelers
The Trump administration could soon require tourists from dozens of nations to hand over their social media handles before entering the country. Under a proposal from US Customs and Border Protection, the agency would make social media history from the past five years a “mandatory” part of the screening process, as reported earlier by The […]