The Interface
By Casey Newton
issues
The Interface comes to an end
Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.⬆️ Trending up: Snapchat has helped more than 1 million users register to vote. More than half are first-time voters, and more than 80 percent are younger than 30. (Dylan Byers / NBC)…
Facebook outruns the FTC
Yesterday I wrote about Coinbase’s attempt to ban politics as an act of wishful thinking. Reader Tyler Hogan responded with a really sharp comment, which he gave me permission to share here:This goes further than “managerial class wants to remind plebs who’s …
Coinbase bans politics
Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.🔼 Trending up: Facebook estimates that 100,000 new poll workers have signed up in response to the company’s election efforts. In North Carolina alone, 11,000 people signed up from Sat…
Facebook's Oversight Board gets some competition
On Thursday I wrote about Telepath, a buzzy new network that is taking a highly interventionist approach to content moderation. I got two smart criticisms from readers. Andrew Losowsky, my colleague at Vox Media and head of the Coral Project, pointed out that…
Can Telepath fix what Twitter broke? PLUS: your thoughts on 'Mark in the Middle'
Thanks to everyone who read and wrote in with their thoughts on “Mark in the Middle,” the long feature we published yesterday based on listening to a summer’s worth of audio recording from inside Facebook. As you might imagine, I heard from a lot of folks ins…
🚨 Mark in the Middle
Send us tips, comments, questions, and more of that audio: casey@theverge.com and zoe@theverge.com.
YouTube gets sued by its moderators
Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.🔼 Trending up: Facebook removed networks of accounts run from China that promoted and criticized both President Trump and Joe Biden. It’s the company’s first takedown of Chinese accou…
TikTok's weekend of "Ekejechbecehggedkrrnikldebgtkjkddhfdenbhbkuk"
Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.🔼 Trending up: Facebook says it’s helped 2.5 million people register to vote across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger in time for the 2020 US election. The company has set a goal to …
TikTok's Systrom shock
Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.🔼 Trending up: Facebook announced new policies to limit the spread of groups that promote violence and share health advice. It will no longer recommend these groups to users. It’s als…
Mark Zuckerberg on AR, VR, and "putting an Apple Watch on your face"
Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.🔽 Trending down: Conspiracy theories about the origins of the Oregon wildfires are still spreading through private Facebook groups, days after the social media giant announced it was …
Sophie Zhang and The Social Dilemma
Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.🔼 Trending up: More than 400,000 people have registered to vote on Snapchat. The app has rolled out a series of voting tools, including a feature that lets users register to vote in t…
TikTok picks a partner
Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.🔼 Trending up: Facebook is giving employees paid time off to work the polls in November. The effort comes amid a poll worker shortage due to COVID-19. (Sara Fischer / Axios)🔼 Trending…
Three takeaways from a day with TikTok
Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.🔼 Trending up: Google is giving more than $8.5 million to nonprofits and universities using artificial intelligence and data analytics to better understand the coronavirus crisis, and…
Adam Mosseri on redesigning Instagram
⭐ ByteDance is in talks with the US government about possible arrangements that would avoid a full sale of TikTok’s US operations. The move comes after the Chinese government took steps that make a sale to a US tech giant like Microsoft more difficult. Miriam…
Trump attacks Section 230
Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.🔽 Trending down: A video of a man shooting himself with a gun started circulating on TikTok Sunday night, despite the company’s attempts to take it down. Creators warned that the clip…
Facebook and the view from nowhere
⬆️ Trending up: Google released a dataset of search trends for researchers to study the link between symptom-related searches and the spread of COVID-19. The goal is to help researchers understand where new outbreaks might occur. (Google)⬆️ Trending up: Pinte…
The clock ticks on TikTok
I got lots of smart feedback on yesterday’s column on why it’s time for Twitter to retire its Trending feature. Two points I wanted to share. One, a former Twitter employee reminded me that the company makes a not-inconsiderable amount of revenue from letting…
Twitter tinkers with Trending
I made a couple mistakes in yesterday’s column about Kenosha. Facebook has about 15,000 third-party moderators, not 30,000. And I should have noted that the moderation site in Arizona that I referenced has closed since I wrote about it. Sorry for the errors.
Facebook has a Kenosha problem
Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.⬆️ Trending up: Facebook is teaming up with academics across the country to determine whether the platform is influencing the 2020 election, although the results won’t be public until…
TikTok walks into a Walmart
Today in news that could change public perception of the big tech companies⬆️ Trending up: Twitter will now hide tweets containing text that has been copy and pasted without any modifications from the source. The news comes shortly after a number of accounts …