Social Media | The Verge

New Yorkers will soon need to verify their age to access algorithmic feeds

2026-07-28T19:46:49-04:00

New Yorkers who want to see their Instagram or TikTok feed curated by an algorithm, or receive notifications after midnight, will soon have to verify their ages to access those features.

New York Attorney General Letitia James released a set of final rules on how to implement the SAFE for Kids Act, signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul in June 2024. The rules lay out in more detail what social media platforms subject to the law will need to do in order to comply, including standards for understanding users' ages and how to go about obtaining parental consent for kids to use walled-off features. The law will officially go into effect on Janua …

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X Money is launching in the US starting today

2026-07-28T04:59:47-04:00

X Money, a core part of Elon Musk's mission to turn X into an "everything app," is rolling out starting today, 9to5Mac reports. The payment platform offers a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payments similar to Venmo, along with a metal Visa card users can emblazon with their X username. Other perks include Apple Wallet support and free money transfers on X. It also advertises "up to" a 6 percent APY, but only Premium Plus subscribers are eligible for it - standard Premium subscribers have to deposit a certain amount of money to get a "boosted" 6 percent APY.

X Money was previously limited to an invite-only beta, but will now be available t …

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The vertical video takeover is here

2026-07-24T13:29:13-04:00

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on all things vertical video, follow David Pierce. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

For a while, every social and media platform had its own identity. YouTube was for clips of TV shows and movies, and the home of so many members of a burgeoning creator community. Instagram was mostly pictures. Netflix was trying to be the on-demand HBO. Facebook was about friends. Twitter was about news. Snapchat was a messaging app.

All these apps did have one important …

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Facebook considers giving up and becoming TikTok

2026-07-24T07:07:17-04:00

Facebook is planning some big changes to try and keep its users from jumping to rival social platforms like TikTok - changes that sound dubiously similar to becoming a TikTok clone. Facebook head Tom Alison announced today that the platform will begin testing a "reimagined experience" later this year that will put a subset of users into a "full-screen video the moment they open the app."

Meta didn't share examples of what its experimental new interface will look like, only that it will initially roll out to countries with a noted preference for video content, with a potential expansion planned for the US next year. These tests are driven by …

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Instagram will let users endlessly swap the audio on old posts

2026-07-20T23:28:28-04:00

There's a symbiotic - and sometimes frustrating - relationship between social media sites and the creators that depend on them. Platforms need influencers' and creators' content to keep consumers on their apps; the creators, in turn, need to be able to reach those audiences to justify creating their content in the first place. Creators want a seamless way to make and disseminate their content while being able to make money; audiences want a bottomless feed of entertaining things to look at. And platforms need to keep both parties relatively happy.

Over the last few months, Instagram has added a slew of features that are helpful for creator …

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Trump is selling high-speed access to his market-moving Truth Social posts

2026-07-17T08:49:57-04:00

Trump Media, the company behind Truth Social, is selling Wall Street faster access to the "most market-moving" posts on the US President's social media platform. On Thursday, Trump Media announced plans to launch "Truth API," a licensed real time data feed for businesses that provides "the fastest access to Truth Social's most influential accounts." It goes live on August 1st.

Similar APIs are common across other social media networks, but those aren't as fraught with conflicts of interest. While Trump Media hasn't disclosed how much the API service will cost, it stands to benefit the Trump family, with them being the largest shareholder in …

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X admits its broken algorithm made the site feel like a ‘battleground’

2026-07-14T11:20:21-04:00

X's head of product, Nikita Bier, admitted in a post on Monday that X's algorithm was "missing" data about surfacing posts from people who you've followed back. Now, he says a tweak will "boost visibility of your posts to your mutuals," hopefully enhancing the sense of community instead of highlighting and spreading random arguments, but didn't explain how the data went missing in the first place.

Last week, Bier also said users who post original content will "climb faster," after admitting that top accounts on the platform have been posting "stolen" recycled content from other users, and now this tweak might address the platform's tilt tow …

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Social media limits are coming for teens across Europe

2026-07-13T05:22:52-04:00

The European Union is weighing sweeping new restrictions on children's and teenagers' access to social media, including age limits, an outright ban, and phased access. Social media platforms could also be forced to prove their services are not harmful before young people are allowed to use them.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc's executive arm could propose new legislation within months, after reviewing recommendations from a panel of experts released today. "This is not about whether children can access social media. It is about when social media can access our children," von der Leyen said.

The panel reco …

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Instagram and Facebook will likely require a redesign after EU rules they’re ‘addictive’

2026-07-10T07:49:56-04:00

Meta is in breach of the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), a preliminary investigation has found, over the "addictive" design of Instagram and Facebook. It's likely to be forced to redesign both apps and could face a fine of up to $12 billion.

The European Commission said Meta "did not adequately assess the risks of its addictive design on the physical and mental wellbeing of users, including minors and vulnerable adults." It singled out features like personalized recommendations, autoplay, and infinite scroll, arguing that they "fuel the user's urge to keep scrolling and shift the brain into 'autopilot mode.'"

The report also criticizes th …

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Meta’s new Muse Image model can pull other Instagram users into AI photos

2026-07-08T05:51:02-04:00

Meta is launching the first AI image generation model made by its Superintelligence Labs division. The Muse Image model now powers the image-making tools across the Meta AI app, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and it's coming soon to Facebook and Messenger, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

It's part of the growing Muse family of AI models that replace Meta's Llama lineup. Alexandr Wang, who Meta hired to head up its Superintelligence Labs last year, says on Threads that Muse Image is "agentic," meaning it works with its Muse Spark large language model "to reason through your prompt, search the web, and plan before it generates." Meta is al …

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