Facebook is considering an antitrust lawsuit of their own against Apple
This week in Hard Refresh: Social we review Instagram updates, Snapchat Dark Mode, GameStop, & more!
Published in
2 min readJan 29, 2021
- Facebook is allegedly considering suing Apple over their app store practices. 2021 is certainly off to a hot start in the social media industry.
- While Facebook usage certainly increased over the course of the pandemic, the platform is warning of “significant uncertainty” in the times ahead, likely due to an increase in privacy restrictions. This is particularly interesting because of even in some of Facebook’s darkest times they’ve kept up morale and haven’t really admitted any concerns.
- The platform’s Oversight Board, comprised of third-party experts, have opted to overturn hate speech and pandemic misinformation removals.
- Instagram launched their new Professional Dashboard platform this week, providing fast, easy guidance for Creators.
- The platform has also revamped its desktop Stories experience.
- Is there a secret sauce to success on Instagram?
SNAPCHAT
- Snapchat launched a new digital literacy program this week. Loving this concept!
- Snapchat is testing out a dark mode. Spooky!
- For the sake of research, Twitter has opened its full tweet archive for free to academic researchers studying online discourse and platform trends.
- Twitter’s got a new look, and they’re embracing all their imperfections. God knows there’s so many imperfections to choose from.
- Twitter’s getting into the newsletter business with its acquisition of Dutch startup, Revue.
AR, VR, & AI
- Virtual reality has the pandemic to thank for accelerating the industry and the increase in popularity of virtual spaces.
- Google is taking a deeper look into AI ethicist, Margaret Mitchell, launching an investigation this week.
NOTEWORTHY
- Much like Gen-Z, TikTok has a vaping problem. Vape sellers are using TikTok to market to teens, and something about that just doesn’t sit right.
- LinkedIn has added new post visibility and reply controls to manage discussions.
VIRAL CONTENT
- If you’ve spent any time at all on social media platforms this week, you’ve likely seen a lot of mentions about GameStop stocks, and as with any internet drama comes a load of memes. I’m not even going to try to explain the drama to you when the New York Times has already done so, and far more eloquently than I could. One thing I will say is to never, ever, ever underestimate people on the internet. Especially ones who frequent some of the weirder corners of Reddit.
That’s all, folks. Have a great weekend!
