In Meta’s latest earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg said that time spent on Instagram globally this quarter has increased by “double digits year-over-year,” largely driven by improvements to its AI-powered recommendations algorithm that keeps people hooked. The proclamation comes amid concerns (and legal battles) around Instagram’s “addictive” design.
[Business Insider]
How TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube copied their way to victory.
When teen Instagram users on accounts with parental controls have conversations about self harm or suicide with Meta AI, the platform will now proactively alert supervising guardians that the child’s safety could be at risk. This builds on a similar feature that Meta introduced for Instagram search in February.
If you or anyone you know is considering self-harm or needs to talk, contact the following people who want to help: In the US, text or call 988. Outside the US, contact https://www.iasp.info/.
The AI translations are expanding to Japanese, Korean, French, German, and Italian on Instagram and Bahasa, Indonesian, Arabic, French, Vietnamese, and Thai on Facebook, according to Instagram boss Adam Mosseri.
Go to your profile in the Instagram app and open the hamburger menu in the top right corner. Scroll down to “sharing and reuse,” then toggle off the sliders for “allow people to create with and reuse your content” for Posts and Reels. Then, below that, also turn off “allow people to create and reuse your original audio on Meta AI.”
“We want your algorithm to feel like something you talk to rather than something that happens to you,” Mosseri says. This month, Instagram announced it would start letting you tweak your algorithm.
I’ve compiled some screenshots of the concepts below, but check out Mosseri’s post to see the mockups in motion.
Agents walked into a polling place on primary Election Day to demand that one of the workers, Paigelynne Gonyea, delete her post, claiming she “may be in violation of federal law.” The post contains the name of Jonathan Ross, the agent who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, who has been named by a number of media outlets, including The Verge.
On Friday, US Representative John Mannion wrote to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin requesting the agency “promptly review this incident and put a stop to any ICE activities that target protected speech under the First Amendment.”
[@turndapaigeofficial - Instagram]
Meta said it didn’t have indicators of the post being nonconsensual, but in addition to arguing that was incorrect, the board says Meta should determine that “AI-generated impersonation is non-consensual by default.”
The app launched late last year on Amazon Fire TV and expanded to Google TV in February. It’s getting some new features, too: you’ll be able to watch Stories, and Instagram is testing a “dedicated home” to watch horizontal videos as well.
Check out how it works in a post from Instagram. However, you’ll only be able to write individual captions to photos and videos in new carousels, not old ones, according to Meta’s Nicole Rechtszaid.
The $3.99-per-month subscription adds features like letting you keep a story up for 48 hours and the ability to customize your bio’s font. You can see the whole list of features on Instagram’s website.
The platform is testing a way to limit teens from seeing too many posts related to topics like nutrition, weightlifting, or anxiety management. It sounds similar to the “nudge” notifications Instagram launched in 2022, though this one will apply across home, explore, and reels feeds.
Meta also announced that its 13-plus setting is expanding globally to Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger.
The @obamawhitehouse account briefly showed images of Iranian propaganda, which have since been taken down, as spotted earlier by TMZ. The account belonging to the US Space Force Chief Master Sergeant was also hijacked.
The New York Times and Reuters report that a memo was sent to Meta employees on Monday reassigning 7,000 of them, and said that “As org leaders worked on the changes, many of them incorporated AI native design principles into their new org structures.”
The memo told employees to work remotely on Wednesday, when it will lay off about 10 percent of its workforce, roughly 8,000 people, with emails sent at 4AM local time.
Adobe’s updated Premiere video editing app, which launched on iOS last September, will finally arrive on Android “this summer.” It’ll include some Android-exclusive templates and effects designed for YouTube Shorts.
There are also Android-exclusive tools coming to Instagram’s Edits app, including AI upscaling and automatic audio track separation.
[Google Blog]
When Instagram’s iPad app launched last year, it would open up to a feed of Reels instead of the usual mix of posts you might be familiar with from the iOS app. Now, though, the iPad app has a more familiar home feed that works like the one in the iOS app, as reported by 9to5Mac.
Did those influencers in your Instagram feed go to Coachella, and do they even exist in real life? Creators can voluntarily add a new label to their account if they frequently post AI-generated or modified content starting on Monday.
This is in addition to Meta’s automatically applied “AI info” label for content on its platforms that it detects as being AI-modified.
Why nuclear options like age limits and repealing Section 230 won’t make social media safer.
