After coming under fire for allowing advertisers to use race-related information to exclude entire swaths of Facebook users from seeing an ad, the social media company has decided to tweak this feature to address concerns that it could be used to illegally discriminate against people based on their perceived ethnicity. [More]
Facebook Tweaks Its “Ethnic Affinity” Advertising Feature To Address Discrimination Concerns
By 11.11.16
Brands Can Message Ads At You On Facebook If You Message Them First
By 11.9.16
Do you like Facebook Messenger because you get messages and chats from people you actually know, and you don’t get a lot of ads or solicitations from brands or companies you’ve made purchases from in the past? Yeah, about that. Brands are about to start blasting out messages into Facebook users’ feeds, and the only way around it is to not contact them through Facebook. [More]
Facebook’s Out Of Ad Space On Facebook, So It Wants To Put Ads On Your TV
By 11.4.16
First Facebook took over your web experience. Then it took over your phone. And now, more than a decade after the internet’s second-biggest advertising company (Google’s first) launched infamously in a Harvard dorm room, Facebook is all set to start delivering video ads on a whole new platform next week: your TV. [More]
Judge: George Washington Did Not Care About Biometric Data Storage
By 10.28.16
We live in a world that’s constantly throwing new technology, new business, and new quandaries at us. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Uber, Twitter, and the smartphone that we use to access them all on either didn’t exist, or existed very differently, as recently as a decade ago. The framework for our legal system, however, was built in the 18th and early 19th centuries. And that means sometimes trying to apply to the latter to the former can result in entertaining, if accurate, dissonance. [More]
Facebook Allows Advertisers To Exclude Users Based On “Ethnic Affinity”
By 10.28.16 — Updated: 10.31.16
Advertisers have always targeted their marketing to the demographic most likely to be interested in their product, but is there a difference between running an ad that you know will probably mostly be seen by people who fall into just one ethnic group and an ad that actively excludes people outside of that group? [More]
Facebook Unveils Its Own Snapchat-Like Photo Filters
By 10.27.16 — Updated: 10.31.16
There’s just something about Snapchat, all the other messaging services just can’t help themselves from mimicking the quick photo messaging app in one way or another: from Instagram’s “Stories” feature to Facebook’s experiments with self-destructing messages. Now, the big blue “F” is taking another stab at being more like Snapchat, debuting a set of filters that users can place over their photos — think puking rainbows and cartoonish eyes. [More]
Facebook Relaunches “Safety Center” Anti-Bullying Hub With More Resources
By 10.24.16
Six years ago Facebook launched The Safety Center as a way to address bullying and provide users with copies of the social network’s community standards to ensure that anyone using the site can do so safely. Today, the company relaunched the Center and updated its Bullying Prevention Hub in order to reach more of its 1.7 billion users. [More]
Rumor Has It: Instagram Testing Live Video Feature
By 10.24.16 — Updated: 10.31.16
Remember the days when social media apps were all totally different? Neither do we. To that end, there are some rumors floating around that Instagram is taking a page from parent company Facebook’s playbook with tests of a new live video feature. [More]
Facebook Wants You To Order Food Through Restaurants’ Pages
By 10.19.16
If you want to accomplish everything online without leaving Facebook, perhaps that will be possible soon. Today, the social networking site announced a new feature: users will be able to order food from a restaurant directly from that restaurant’s Facebook page. [More]
Facebook Messenger Wants To Help You Have Interesting Conversations
By 10.18.16 — Updated: 11.1.16
Do your friends think your online conversations are, well, kind of boring? Facebook Messenger wants to change that with a new feature designed to help users strike up interesting conversations. [More]
Facebook Now Lets Users With iOS Devices Stream Videos On Apple TV, Chromecast
By 10.14.16 — Updated: 11.1.16
The next time you fall down a watch-these-disembodied-hands-make-food video hole on Facebook, you won’t have to watch it on your phone or tablet: Facebook will now let users on iOS devices stream video on their TVs vy way of Apple TV or Chromecast. [More]
With “Workplace,” Facebook Tries Again To Invade Your Office Space
By 10.10.16
Lots of people use Facebook to communicate with friends, but in spite of launching “Facebook At Work” nearly two years ago, the company has yet to convince many businesses that Facebook could be used to manage an office space. Today, Facebook is relaunching At Work with a new name and new features it hopes will be appealing to enterprise users. [More]
Facebook Launches Yet Another Standalone App, This Time For Events
By 10.7.16
More than two years after Facebook forced mobile users to download the standalone Messenger app if they wanted to start private conversations with “friends,” the big blue social juggernaut could going down that road again with the launch of another standalone app for events. [More]
Oculus Developing A Lower-End, Standalone Virtual Reality Device
By 10.7.16
If you’re one of those people who was perhaps interested in buying the Oculus Rift, only you don’t own a computer powerful enough to handle it, the Facebook-owned company says it’s got a new virtual reality product in the works that won’t require a Windows PC or even a mobile phone to use it. [More]
Facebook, Shopify Let Users Buy Stuff Straight From Messenger
By 10.6.16
For all its popularity, Facebook has yet to convince users or businesses to think of the social media network as an e-commerce platform; but not for lack of trying. It recently tested shops built directly into retailers’ Facebook pages, created a dedicated shopping feed, and just this week launched Marketplace, a competitor to Craigslist. Now comes a new feature that will let Facebook users browse and buy from retailers through Facebook Messenger. [More]
Glitch Caused Facebook’s New “Marketplace” To Show Ads For Drugs, Animals, Adult Services
By 10.4.16
Shortly after launching on Monday, Facebook’s Craigslist competitor, Marketplace, became overrun with ads for drugs, exotic animals, adult services, and other illegal items in violation of the company’s own policies. Today, the social media network blamed a glitch for allowing the posts to become public. [More]
Facebook Creeps Into Craigslist Territory With “Marketplace”
By 10.3.16
You’ve like seen it for years: “friends” using Facebook as their own personal garage sale to persuade you and others to purchase their belongings, apartments, cars, and other items on Facebook. Now, instead of seeing those posts littering your news feed, or in area “buy, sell, or trade” groups, the social media giant has created its own dedicated Craigslist clone, dubbed Marketplace. [More]
Facebook Testing Messenger Feature That Prompts You To Pay Your Friends Back
By 9.22.16
If you’re the kind of person who’s always forgetting who you owe for dinner, cab rides, or coffee, Facebook Messenger is testing a new feature that will gently nag you into paying your pals back. [More]
