Digital Information World

Facebook, in its latest venture, is attempting to unveil the future through an app. With the help of Forecast app, community members can post questions and have verified experts answer them. These experts are invite-only and are background checked by Facebook. After the questions have been answered, the community can vote their thoughts on the answers which they think are more likely to come true. Whether this app is designed to provide any form of practical guidance is, ironically, unclear.

This app is only available for iOS although there have been no announcements for an Android version.

The primary initiative of Forecast started on Tuesday with academics and health experts predicting and explaining the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. This idea by Facebook is essential in these times of uncertainty but the real cause for concern is the fact that people can vote on the answers. This might increase misconceptions and spread misinformation for which Facebook is already infamous for, and the voting feature might only reinforce existing beliefs about societal misconceptions. The app has more and more questions as you scroll down the pages, topics ranging from health to world events to Netflix shows.

Forecast, an iOS app, and a public website is a community-centered platform around crowdsourced predictions. Members of the community can pose questions about the future, make predictions of what might happen, and discuss and distill their knowledge into a single forecast. In the Forecast announce video, the NPE team said that Forecast is a community meant for crowdsourcing predictions which are built to harness the power of collective insights.

A major query that Facebook wants to be answered is whether the use of the Forecast app will help spread awareness and further the public's knowledge of Coronavirus and how it will help to flatten the curve? Again, in the Forecast announce video it was stated that it will help by furthering knowledge of COVID-19 and its impact on the world for all the users of Facebook.

The video further explained that the forum members can browse questions and suggest their own, make forecasts, and share them with the world.

This app is a fun and intuitive way for people to discover new interests and find people with similar thinking to them. That being said, Facebook should implement a strict anti-obscenity policy to prevent the formation of unwelcome groups or communities. People can explore answers and gain information about new technology or things in the past.

This app cannot be taken as a practical guide for real-life ventures due to the voting feature. This app can be accurately described as an experiment to see if the community or society is well-informed about present-day matters. Or to study what type of mindset is prevalent on region-specific issues. It is unclear as to the purpose of this app and what Facebook wants to achieve by launching this app as they will, without a doubt, gather and compile the data from the various polls that will be launched on this app. Although the reliability of this app is in question, it seems like an interesting and unique idea that will develop as time passes, and like the idea of these apps will normalize. Studies will undoubtedly be conducted on these apps and the results are sure to be interesting.

Read next: Facebook Is Working On New Tabs And Filter Options For News Feed

Entering 2020, few could have predicted the major changes to living and working that would be thrust upon the population of almost the entire world. Despite a few naysayers who had been predicting an “overdue” economic crash for a few years now, most experts were expecting growth in most major economies to see significant growth.

Things began changing very quickly, as country by country, economies shut down as the vast majority of people were told to stay at home. With restaurants, bars, cafes, non-essential shops, and the leisure sector all closed, discretionary spending by consumers tanked.

With consumers not spending, planes not flying, and many not at work, major stock indices took a dive. As this infographic states, the Dow Jones fell around 28% in the space of a month, with markets in Europe and Asia also showing similar declines. As economies have begun opening up, the stock markets have been very optimistic, erasing most of the losses that they’d incurred by mid-June.

Not Over Yet

However, many economists are predicting this to be a short-lived recovery as a ticking time bomb of unemployment edges closer to exploding around the world.

In the United Kingdom, around 9 million Brits are currently having their salaries paid by the government through its “Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme”. Some of these employees are expected to go back to work as non-essential shops and some other sectors begin opening back up.

However, this won’t account for all jobs that are currently furloughed. Martin Lewis, the founder of the Money Saving Expert website recently predicted that hundreds of thousands of people are likely to be made redundant in the coming months as the government support programmes are wound up.

Things are similar in the US, where there are around 20 million people currently unemployed.

Many of these job losses will be in the travel, retail, and leisure sectors where many businesses will fail as a result of restricted trading.

How Will the Digital Job Market be Affected?

Jobs in digital marketing, programming and other related digital jobs have seen a rise during the crisis. Many businesses have been investing heavily in more search engine optimisation, redirecting marketing budgets to efforts that will yield results in the medium to long term.

Ecommerce, streaming and gaming have all performed well, with the downloads of mobile games rising by more than 50% during the spring.

These roles can typically be done from home, so haven’t been affected as much by the requirements for social distancing. We’ve also seen more traditional industries quickly enact remote working, with companies like Twitter going as far as saying employees can now work from home forever.

The long term effects of this are still difficult to predict since we do not yet know how many people will return to the traditional office working pattern once restrictions are lifted in full.

However, if more people and businesses, who have seen the benefits of remote working, decide to keep it permanently, we may see a more mobile digital labour market where people can work for businesses in other cities, countries and continents. This would be an interesting prospect and could have many positive and negative effects on the economy.

The Economic Impact of the Coronavirus on the World - infographic

WABetaInfo revealed that WhatsApp is now working to add animated stickers to make your conversations interesting than ever. It will be something close to GIFs in the emoji keyboard. You can repeatedly play animated stickers. However, unlike GIFs, it will stay animated even after playing. This new upcoming feature is still under development. After it is launched, it will be accessible to Android and iOS users along with WhatsApp Web too.

In the initial stages of the launch, the chat spicing up feature is visible to few WhatsApp users only. At the moment, it is allowed to save and resend it to other contacts. However, it cannot be individually downloaded and utilize sticker packs like those currently available in static stickers.

Right now, animated stickers are not being widely circulated. Instead there are only few people who know about it. But, watch out and stay attentive. It won’t take long for the animated stickers to circulate and expand widely.

In the second stage, the feature will become importable to a third party. Ultimately in its last stage, it will be available for download in WhatsApp store. Users will be able to use it freely like they use stickers other emojis present in the keyboard.

There are no predictions about animated stickers actual roll out date, but WABetaInfo ensures that it won’t take that long. WABetaInfo further added that to use this perk up feature users will need to update to the latest beta version of WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business Account.

Apart from these animated stickers, WABetaInfo informs that WhatsApp is planning to launch a modern doodle user interface and some new emojis that will help users express their feelings even better!

WhatsApp chats will become exciting than before. The new doodle user update will allow WhatsApp users to search for their desired emojis or stickers instead of scrolling through the entire list. This at times becomes annoying and time-consuming. Hence the user only has to type the emotion on the search tab and he’ll be amazed by the results.

The other emoji update will also be launched soon. Emojis are the most predominant part of the conversation. However, few users reported that they are now drilled with old emojis. Hence, WhatsApp planned to roll out a few more invigorating emojis, to make the conversations exciting.

WhatsApp is always working beyond the limits to give a satisfying experience to its users. Upcoming features will for sure give a land marking experience to its client. Till then, keep your fingers crossed.

Screenshot: Androidpolice.

Read next: You May Accidentally Hijack Someone’s WhatsApp Account Due to A Mobile Number Reuse

Google has a big problem with security, this is something that most users as well as tech industry commentators are well aware of. Google is also aware of this, but their attempts to create a vast reaching tech empire often clash with their desire for increased security, and it’s fair to say that Google has a pretty big tendency to prefer the former over the latter in spite of the fact that this causes a lot of problems and makes consumers trust Google a lot less than might have been the case otherwise.

It seems like Google is taking a step towards improved security, at least as far as the new feature that Chrome for Android is getting is concerned. This new feature is similar to what people have been seeing in Chrome for desktop, and it basically involves a safety check, however, its still in development phase n Canary version. If you do a safety check, you will get a lot of information that will enable you to boost how secure you are while you are surfing the internet, something that a lot of different users are probably going to end up appreciating quite a bit at the end of the day.

If you do a safety check, you will be told whether or not your Safe Browsing feature has been turned on. You would also get a verification regarding how up to date your browser is, something that can have a pretty serious impact on your overall security all in all. Perhaps the most important thing to note here is that if you perform a security check you will get a scan of all of your passwords and you will be informed if any of them have been compromised, and if this does end up being the case you will be given a number of options that you can look into that would make it easier to figure out how you can get this problem fixed without any trouble.

Lately, people have noticed an increase in the number of ads in their Twitter feed (and even on users profile pages). Twitter has slowly been increasing its ad load for some time now, but it seems that in recent weeks, it had increased more than usual.

Twitter was asked about this, and they responded that their team regularly experiments and makes changes to their advertisement experience while also holding up their principles and standards for a high-quality experience for the users. Also adding that they are constantly testing and innovating, and will keep doing it and learn from it.

This means that as Twitter is trying new display methods, users are looking at more ads in their Twitter feed. One reason for this can be Twitter’s need to address slowing ad spend as a result of COVID-19. In its Q1 report earlier this year, Twitter reported a slight decline in ad spend. It noted that the advertising income reduced by 27% Year-over-Year from March 11th until March 31st. This is because of events around the world canceling and sheltering in place in the US.

Twitter is being affected by fewer businesses in operation because of the lockdowns, specifically from fewer sports and events taking place. In order to generate more revenue, it needs to increase the number of ads while simultaneously capitalizing on increased usage during the outbreak.

There is a 24% increase in usage reported in Q1, meaning that ad exposure opportunity for the remaining operating businesses is present, and with increased usage, Twitter can capitalize on this. So, the users can expect to see more Promoted tweets in-stream while the advertisers can have more opportunities to increase exposure to the Twitter audience which is more active than usual.

Twitter will likely maintain such increases in ads to maximize revenue generation if usage levels remain stable. And if they remain stable, you can bet that Twitter will look to maintain any such increases moving forward, as a means to maximize revenue potential. Additionally, Twitter has announced that it will show users more relevant content, based on their activity.

Twitter explains that in the app’s default configuration, the users’ home timeline will show the top Tweets first. The system uses a machine learning model to predict what tweets will interest them the most based on their activities. The model needs to learn this via training and must be constantly updated due to user interest changing all the time. Twitter also added that they have reduced the time required to refresh this model from 7 days to about a day by redesigning the data logging pipeline. This upgrade will make Twitter feed more up-to-date with rapidly changing interests and time.

Twitter says that their new model is much better as compared to their old model in terms of training and real-world prediction after the refresh of the model. Also adding that newer data and models are favored by users, who come to Twitter for the most up-to-date information.

Although there will be more ads in-stream, it will be more relevant in general, based on the new algorithms. Twitter does seem to give more relevant information (except a few tweets that pass through the filter) based on the topics selected displayed in the Explore tab. It will still interesting to see if it changes with the upcoming updates.

Photo: Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Read next: Twitter Is Testing An Instagram-Inspired Feature To Sift Unwanted Messages

Instagram, a widely used platform is continuously working to lend a helping hand to people in this pandemic. The Facebook-owned app with millions of followers has decided to unleash a feature called “Reels”.

This feature Reels is similar to a feature that is available on TikTok. The Reels feature allows you to create a short 15-second video. You can further play with your creative mind and edit the video. Editing features include: adding text, music, stickers, applying ghost transition, and a lot more. Other editing features include time captions. This time caption characteristics will let words appear on the video.

Apart from the video, the Reel tab has the audio settings too. It allows the reel video maker to record videos and use different audio. The different audio can be from an audio library or some other video.

Instagram users can share the reel video with their followers. The new reel video will be available in the Reel tab. Reel video uploader will have access to see how many times his video was played, liked, and appreciated. Like other videos and photos, this reel video will also be discovered on the follower’s newsfeed and explore tab.

At the moment, the Instagram reel feature doesn’t have a variety of filters and effects that TikTok offers. Those special effects help the users to cover blunders in the video. But Instagram is promising to bring something better than this.

Brazil, Germany, and France citizens can find this reel option next to the Boomerang option. Sometime back, only Brazil users had the approach to the TikTok clone Reels on Instagram. Now, Germany and France users can also get their hands on this new feature.

Many people believe that it is an attempt by Instagram to attract TikTok users. We all know about the rivalry between China-based App and American apps. Chinese Apps have been often criticized for copying U.S, based apps. Now the situation seems to be upside down.

Also read: To Tackle Online Child Sexual Abuse, TikTok Has Now Joined The WeProtect Global Alliance

The director of Instagram product management Robin Stelin explained that sharing videos or snippets with a piece of background music are not something new in the market. The trend is pretty old. The only thing that makes the product stand out is the creativity.

However, we cannot say that Instagram Reel is cloned to TikTok’s feature. TikTok’s culture is a different one. People share their videos on a broader compass. It doesn’t offer sharing videos with a specific audience. Even if a Tiktok user uploads video on his private account, the video will be accessible to the followers. Whereas, Instagram proffers the facility to share the content with a wider audience or to close friends, only.

TikTok is mostly about creating funny content by acting to make the audience laugh. That’s how you get followers on TikTok. On the other hand, Instagram is usually about glamor and glory. People are not likely to go funny and act weird to make the audience laugh. Instagram is more serious than TikTok.

Hence, although Instagram's new Reel feature is compared with TikTok’s Reel feature. But it looks like that Instagram had some own reasons to introduce the feature.

Read next: Instagram May Soon Ask Users To Provide Their Government IDs To Combat Troll Accounts

During this pandemic when most of us are unable to reach markets, Facebook brings an exciting opportunity for vendors to hot sell their products online, through Instagram. At the start of next month, Instagram will reveal a new feature that will let creators sell their commodities online. Of course, the lockdown has made the economy fall of the hill. Due to this, shop keepers and businessmen are suffering. They are facing a recession period. This is an alarming situation.

During this time, Instagram announced that they’ll uncoil a feature. With the help of this latest feature, Instagram will help small business to sell commodities and make earnings for their living.

However, it might not be a piece of cake. There are few standards set by Instagram to sell through creators account. The Eligibility criteria is as follows:

Comply with Instagram policies
Represent your domain and business
Located in a good know market
Demonstrate loyalty
Provide authentic information and follow the practices

Failure to satisfy the above-mentioned eligibility criteria, the social media app has the authority to disable the account and permanently ban you. You need to make sure that the information you are providing is 100% correct.

The update is still in process and is expected to reveal on 9th July. For this purpose, Creators will need to show evidence of their trustworthiness and a genuine existence in the market. The creator account should also be backed up by a follower base. The number of followers is not specified by Instagram. Creators will also be able to represent a tagged product, which will be linked to its official website. Hereby official website we mean to say the website of the business on which they claim the ownership and sell products.

Like all other social media platforms, Instagram has been working to give a better experience to its users. The Facebook-owned social network has been working for a shopping corner for a long time. In 2016, Instagram introduced shopping tags. These shopping tags appeared on users' Instagram feed while scrolling. Latter in 2018, they introduced a shopping feature into their stories and explore section. Then in 2019 Instagram update allowed influencers to tag each product in their story. Before this update, celebrities, influencers, and other well-known personalities had to mention details of every product they were carrying. After this update, it became easy for them to mention every product they were wearing in their stories. It could be about a shimmery eye makeup kit or stylish bag.

We can’t disagree with a fact that this highly recommended platform is always bringing up new features for its users. But unfortunately, the Instagram creators feature is a huge left out. YouTube, a widely used platform is been supporting online business since 2018 in the US. For this purpose, Instagram is allowing merchants to operate the business online.

Read next: Instagram will most likely become a more favored source of news in place of Twitter

Android smartphones are some of the most in-demand handheld devices around the world. Millions of apps can be installed on these devices, but there are some that you should be aware of. On Tuesday, security researchers warned Android users about 47 malicious apps that are disguised as games on Google Play Store.

These apps were detected and reported by Avast, one of the global giants in digital privacy and security, probably famous for its Antivirus software used by millions. Of all the apps reported, 17 are still available on the Google Play Store and Google is also investigating them before removing. These apps have been downloaded more than 15 million times.

These apps are disguised and contain HiddenAds, which is a type of Trojan (a type of virus) for the Android platform. The virus poses as a harmless game or app that is completely safe to use and requests device administrator rights upon installation. Upon successful installation, the virus displays disruptive ads even when the app installed is not running. This is very annoying and slows down the device by consuming its active memory, hence endangering its health as well.

Researchers at Avast made this discovery initially by using apklab.io’s automatic detection software which was based on a previous campaign about HiddenAds found in Google’s Play Store. Avast was able to detect them by comparing the similarities in features, network traffic, and activities of the applications with previous data available.

The apps can hide their icons on an infected device and display intrusive ads on it. Seven of the detected apps possess the ability to open the phone’s browser to display additional ads. Even if the user removes the app from their device, the ads will still be served continuously. These apps have low Plat Store ratings and reviews in which users complain about getting nonstop ads and low functionality of their features.

The threat analyst at Avast, Jakub Vávra said that campaigns like HiddenAds might slip into the Play Store by complicating their true purpose and activate once it has been installed, slowly infecting the device. It’s also very difficult to prevent them because developers of such apps use one-off accounts for each app. He also added that Google has been a great partner in removing malicious apps from the Play Store and that the users must be watchful of the signs of installing a bad app on their device. Such signs include unknown developers, negative reviews, and extensive permission requests.

Adware (malicious software that floods a user with excessive ads within and outside the app that contains it) apps are often very difficult to distinguish because they are often masquerading as entertainment apps like gaming apps. However, the reviews of such apps will often be highly negative, complaining about serving a lot of ads and having low functionality. The developers of such apps also have only one app on their accounts, which is another clue that the app has malicious intentions. Users should also check the permissions that the app they download requests before its installation.

So, by following and being aware of similar signs as mentioned above, users can be safe from falling victim to such malicious apps and protect their privacy and devices from harm.

Some of the malicious apps that are to be deleted are as follows:

Draw Color by Number

Skate Board - New

Find Hidden Differences

Shoot Master

Stacking Guys

Disc Go!

Spot Hidden Differences

Dancing Run - Color Ball Run

Find 5 Differences

Joy Woodworker

Throw Master

Throw into Space

Divide it - Cut & Slice Game

Tony Shoot - NEW

Assassin Legend

Flip King

Save Your Boy

Assassin Hunter 2020

Stealing Run

Fly Skater 2020

Microsoft announced that the company is rolling out a preview version of the Microsoft Defender for Android. Microsoft Defender is the company’s antivirus software, and earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it is developing an Android and iOS version of the Windows Defender app. However, the tech giant did not provide any specific information regarding a launch date. The company announced the Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) for Android at the RSA security conference in Feb 2020.

Now, the company is releasing a public preview for the Android version of the Defender antivirus software. It comes with complete protection against phishing. Moreover, the Defender app for Android will also make sure that it immediately block any unsafe or malicious sites sent via SMS, emails, or applications. A senior program manager at the company, Kanishka Srivastava, explained that the app instantly performs scans to detect malware and PUA (potentially unwanted apps).

The Defender app will send a notification to the end-user if a safe application is installed on the device. The notification lets users know that the downloaded application is clean. The company is using a technology called Defender SmartScreen. This technology immediately blocks network connections created by malicious applications without the users’ knowledge.

The new Android application will operate like a classic smartphone antivirus software that is able to scan the smartphone for malicious applications as well as other malware. The Defender ATP for Android application efficiently works as a gatekeeper for a company’s network. The application helps IT staff to lock Android mobiles out of the company’s network or prevent people from accessing corporate applications.

You may also note that the company started a public preview for Defender antivirus for macOS only one year ago. As a result the Windows Defender ATP was renamed as Microsoft Defender ATP (Advanced Threat Protection). The client also offers complete threat and virus protection, and it can perform quick or complete system-wide scans.

The company still plans to launch an iOS version of the Microsoft Defender antivirus software, however, it will be limited as Apple sandboxes iOS applications. Apple also hinders most end users from sideloading applications without the Apple App Store in the first place. We are not yet sure what the iOS version of the Microsoft Defender app will actually offer to its users.

Also read: Microsoft Makes Teams More Consumer Oriented By Adding Features for Personal Use

The corporate vice president at Microsoft 365 security, Rob Lefferts, stated that the company will launch additional features on Android in the upcoming few months. Today, the company also announced that it is making Microsoft Defender ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) generally available on Linux.

The Microsoft Defender ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) is available for macOS, Linux devices, and Windows PCs. If you want extra details about the Microsoft Defender ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) for Android public review, you can visit the company’s official documentation page which is available on the official website of Microsoft.

Read next: You better get used to the name ‘tracking beacons’ instead of Cookies

Just when Twitter was planning to go big by offering advertisers the opportunity to use their platform, the company recently had to bear a ‘data security incident’ that involves the storage of billing information in the browser’s cache.

The news of data breach first got revealed by customers who use Twitter ads and Analytics Manager as they received an official email by Twitter explaining how information like email addresses, phone numbers, last four digits of credit cards, and billing address of users were being stored incorrectly in the browser’s cache.

The letter further stated that Twitter has updated the instructions on May 20th, 2020 that are sent to the browser’s cache so such a breach doesn’t occur again but that also means that any billing information which you may have checked on ads.twitter.com or analytics.twitter.com before the time period may still be at the risk of exposure. This is because most browsers keep the data stored in the cache for 30 days minimum and if the same computer is being used by multiple people, then they can have access to that information.

Fortunately, for now, there hasn’t been any proof of sensitive information being compromised of any user but that doesn’t also mean that nothing can happen in the future. As a security precaution, the email from Twitter Business department also suggests that users should also clear the web browser caches upon logging out.

Twitter has openly apologized for the mishap and has even promised the users that nothing of such sort will ever happen again.

A glimpse of the network requests which return sensitive JSON fields, it seems like Twitter has made the right fix. Now instructions are being sent with "cache-control: no-store" headers which means that browsers are strictly instructed to not store any information.

A good example of its practical implication can be JSON Fields returned by the `tax_settings` API endpoint. As there is a lot of information about the business customer, the endpoint now uses 'cache-control: no-store' header to stop the similar information from being cached.

The would have been a greater risk of the data breach if malware developers could have come to know about the bug. But for now, everything is under control as malicious actors cannot come to the computer desk to access such information directly.

Notice of Data Security Incident on Twitter Ads and Analytics Manager

Featured Photo: @ravinepz / unsplash

Read next: You better get used to the name ‘tracking beacons’ instead of Cookies

Today, Google has announced a range of privacy and security improvements for users, including new updates to the data retention practices of the company. The search giant announced that its default settings are now being changed to auto-delete some of the users’ data.

Now, your search history and location will be automatically deleted after 18 months. For YouTube, the company announced that it will delete histories including the videos you watched and for how long you watched a particular clip, after 36 months.

The company will apply new updates to new users or those who turn on Location History for the first time. However, old users will soon be displayed prompts to adjust their settings for the new changes. Google decided to not apply the new changes to existing users as some people may not want their ‘curated’ data to be erased without their permission.

In May of the year 2019, Google launched new auto-delete controls to allow people to force the regular erasure of logs collected about users by Google. However, the feature was an opt-in option.

The company collects this data to improve the user experience and target ads. According to David Monsees, product manager at Google, this information surely makes Google’s products useful, but the company will no longer keep activity data unless a user asks Google to keep the records.

However, the default retention settings will not apply to Google Drive, Photos, and Gmail, as the company does not use this data to target ads. Moreover, some users may want to keep their personal info for longer than 18 months on Google Drive, Photos, and Gmail.

The company has also introduced some other measures such as Google Search will now display a box displaying the settings and providing a new way to adjust the settings if a user uses Search to ask if their account is secure or not. The company will also shortly introduce other related ‘dynamic cards.’

If you have shared your location with your friend, Google will later remind you that the permission is still active, and now it is easier to access the ‘Incognito Mode’ in Google applications.

Also read: Google Focuses on Security With New Chrome Feature For Android Users

Photo: AFP via Getty Images

Read next: Security researchers catches 47 Adware-riddled Android apps on Google Play Store which were disguising as innocuous games

Facebook has been facing a lack of trust among advertisers over false and misleading information and hate speech taking place on the platform.

Neil Potts, the head of trust and safety of Facebook attended a call with nearly 200 advertisers recently. On the call which was held by the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada, he was questioned about why the companies should put their brand’s reputation at stake by advertising on Facebook. To this Neil, responded by agreeing to the fact that there was indeed a trust deficit between the two parties and that when a conversation is held and people share different opinions, it is most likely the reason for the “trust deficit” to grow stronger.

These remarks made by Potts’ were first highlighted by Financial Times. These remarks and the call held by the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada, give clear signs that Facebook’s directorship has started struggling because of the huge amount of pressure that it is facing by the Advertisers campaign.

When Facebook’s spokesperson Andy Stone was asked about the comment made by Neil Potts on the call, He stated that it was rather usual for them to have discussions with the advertisers and talk about issues and problems they are facing as well as policy matters. He said that this was something they do ordinarily and will continue doing so.

The civil rights groups arranged boycotts, which started recently this month to bring attention to Facebook’s lack of activity about the controversial posts which were made by President Donald Trump, as well as the comment made amid a protest which started that the looting would soon turn into a shooting. Lately, big brands such as Ben and Jerry’s and Patagonia and Magnolia Pictures have declared that they have plans to remove their ads from both Facebook and Instagram.

Along with companies removing their ads, Facebook is also facing a revolt from its employees and politicians about its inactivity on President Trump’s posts. However, the rising advertiser revolt is a bigger threat to Facebook because a huge amount of money on Facebook’s annual revenue, which is roughly $70 billion, is contributed by these advertisers.

Nevertheless, Potts has also said that the platform is working to bring the advertisers to trust them more and Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg also stepped in and promised to review all the things which took part in the rising boycotts.

Read next: Twitter Sends An Official Email To Business Users Accepting The Billing Info Leak

A lot of people are often wary when they think of the various apps they are using on a regular basis, and they are cognizant of the fact that a lot of apps try to take data from users without their consent as well as snoop on users daily activities which is something that seriously infringes on users privacy yet is simply not the sort of thing that anyone seems to be holding any of the major tech firms out there accountable for.

A new feature in the latest version of Apple’s smartphone operating system iOS has revealed that TikTok might just be monitoring what you are typing out even if you are doing the typing on a different app. This new feature gives you a notification every time an app pastes something or copies something to the clipboard. The creator of popular Twitter bot Emojipedia Jeremy Burge recently revealed a video that showed iOS sending a notification that TikTok had pasted something from an app that he was using after every few keystrokes.

iOS 14 beta has a banner to confirm when you paste from another device (eg copy on a Mac and paste on iPhone)

Seems to be bugging out and showing with every keystroke in TikTok pic.twitter.com/aFKNfZnpyb
— Jeremy Burge (@jeremyburge) June 24, 2020

It is possible that this is simple some kind of a glitch, but with all of that having been said and out of the way it is important to note that only TikTok seemed to be copying what users were typing out on different apps. The reasons behind this are unclear but at the end of the day this does indicate that TikTok might be monitoring your keystrokes in order to gather more data on you. This is the sort of thing that would most likely turn a lot of users against the rapidly growing social media platform, and it might hamper TikTok’s current efforts to fully penetrate the North American market which it is doing by setting up offices and attempting to compete directly with the likes of Facebook.

In a statement to media outlets TikTok explained that this behavior was triggered by a safety feature created to pinpoint spammy users. The company further informed that to avoid any confusion they have removed the anti-spam feature, while they've already submitted an updated version of TikTok to the Apple's App Store.

Read next: After Brazil, Now Users In Germany And France Can Also Enjoy Instagram Reels (A TikTok-inspired Feature)

Google Chrome has rolled out a new feature "Touch To Search" that would allow users to tap words on a page for their definition. The meaning of the specific word along with other details will be available at the bottom of the screen.

As of yet, the feature is not rolling out to the general public, as it's in testing phase, however, interested Chrome users can enable it on stable version.

The new feature would work for both – dictionary definitions and short descriptions of the specific word. A pronunciation guide will also come alongside the dictionary results.

We also observed that long-pressing rather than tapping will give you the basic tap search, which would allow you to do a simple search in a pull-out tab.

The newer version is also similar. However, pulling up on the bar gives you a tab from Google’s search results, taking you directly to the relevant details.

The setting page of tap to search explains that "Touch to search sends a word and its surrounding context to Google Search, returning definitions, picture, search results and other details."

In post-publication testing, we were able to identify the feature to be controlled by a ‘Contextual Search definitions’ flag. This is located at chrome://flags/#contextual-search-definitions.

After enabling the Touch To Search flag, users can turn it off from Sync and Google services in Chrome for Android settings.

Good news for Chrome Android User now you can learn about topics on websites without leaving the page

Google Chrome will now let Android users search with a single tap right from any web page

You may have seen your friends or family members sharing an outdated article on Facebook. This will happen a lot less now as the social media giant is rolling out a new feature that will warn users about sharing articles older than 90 days. On Thursday, Facebook introduced a new notification screen that will inform if you try to share content that is more than three months old.

Now, when you will tap the share button on an old article, the popup will appear warning you that this content is may be outdated. However, it is not yet clear whether this feature operates with simply copying and then pasting a specific link. The new feature aims to help people have the necessary context they need to make informed decisions about what they should share on Facebook. According to the company, old articles shared out of their original context play a role in spreading misleading information across Facebook’s platform.

When the notification will appear, you will see two options- Continue and the ‘Go Back’ option. If you will tap on the ‘Continue’ button, the content will be shared on your timeline. Sometimes, an old article is relevant, and the continue button will allow you to share that news.

According to John Hegeman, VP Feed and Stories, the timeliness of the content is a crucial piece of context that helps you to decide what you should read, trust, share on social media. Publishers have also been concerned over old articles misconstruing the ongoing events. Some publishers have even started to add labels on older articles just to make the context clear.

The company is also planning to introduce other sorts of labels like providing additional context on content related to the coronavirus pandemic. Facebook will also include background on the source link and a link to Facebook’s COVID-19 Information Center. This will help the platform to provide more reliable and authentic health information to its users.

Also read: Google Chrome will now give definition to Android users with a single tap

Recently, Twitter also tested a new feature that would warn users before they share articles that they have not actually read. The feature essentially asks users if they would like to read the article before they retweet it. Along with the new update Facebook announced today, it is nice to see that major social media platforms are making efforts to combat disinformation across their respective platforms- particularly, as the United States Presidential Election rapidly approaches.

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Apple is currently on a role to update its operating systems to the next level and that also means that there are some new significant changes coming to your mobile or computer screens.

One of the major changes that have caught our attention is associated to Safari in the latest version of macOS - “Big Sur” as according to the recent announcements made by the company on annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), Apple has blocked Google Analytics from tracking and collecting user data. They are selling the major move as a new exclusive privacy feature which will ensure that no one would now be able to keep an eye on your web browsing activity if you are using Safari on a Macbook.

Safari’s privacy report will show you all the trackers that the browser now automatically blocks once a user visits any such website that follows the user in any way. Below is a screenshot of the similar change taken from Apple’s press release.

It shows that Apple will actually also block more popular trackers such as DoubleClick, Amazon, and Optimizely as well.

As privacy has become the utmost need of every internet user today, Apple is definitely taking steps in the right direction because users can now also choose the websites a Safari extension can work with and also how tools made for data breach cannot also now reveal your password - even not to Apple.

Overall, users of macOS Big Sur will also enjoy the liberty to add a privacy report widget to their desktop to have an easy access to the list of trackers which the browser may have blocked in the past 7 days at least.

Furthermore, it is important to note that neither Apple nor Google has given any official confirmation regarding Safari blocking Google Analytics. This piece of information is just an interpretation of many experts who first saw a review of such a change on WWDC and now are predicting that Apple may take such a turn. There are also tech experts who have argued saying that Apple would only block third-party storage access and not the whole Google Analytics.

No one also knows how Safari will look with the new macOS so there are chances that the predictions can be wrong.

Impact On Digital Marketers

If this change gets implemented, it would turn out to be bad news for marketers and many site owners as well - especially if their large number of users visit from a Safari browser. They are going to lose a valuable set of data that majorly is based on how a Mac user engages with a particular website.

Nevertheless, even if the rumors around the update turns out to be true, it would still be applicable for the desktop version of Safari which fortunately holds less than half the share when compared to mobile Safari.

Safari Desktop vs Safari Mobile Market Share

If we look at Safari’s desktop browser market share, then it stands at 9.4% worldwide. In USA, Safari holds 15.4% of the desktop share. But still, while the world may call it as a second most popular desktop browser it stands way behind Chrome and may not create a large impact.

However, if Apple goes for the similar strategy on mobile Safari, then there can be more trouble for marketers as the mobile version of Apple’s browser has 24.4% market share all around the world and 55% in the USA alone - making it as the most popular mobile browser.

What Will Be The Future of Advertising With The Change?

Lately, Apple has already been working introducing a more private browsing experience to its users. With their existing efforts to block trackers, there has already been a 60% decrease in pricing for Safari targeted ads.

If Apple further plans to expand its tracker blocking capabilities in Safari, it will become even more difficult to target ads and the price will also eventually go down.

On one hand, it may benefit the ad buyers with low rates but websites that publish ads are going to have a really tough time as well.

We will still have to wait and see what really happens.

Update: As highlighted by AppleInsider, Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) in Apple's Safari 14 browser is not completely blocking Google Analytics tracking system, "instead, it's blocking third-party tracking cookies and cross-site scripting requests on Google Analytics from loading. The Privacy Report feature just reflects that. It looks like first-party Google Analytics cookies aren't blocked, so it'll still function as an analytics platform."

Facebook has been adding new color customization options to improve the user experience of the app. The social media giant is introducing more color palette options for Facebook Groups. With the new update, the company aims to help color-blind and vision-impaired users.

One example of this new feature was shared by Matt Navarra, a well-known social media expert, on Twitter. Navarra shared a screenshot displaying how the new feature looks like. In the screenshot, it can be clearly seen that Facebook has added new color customization options that provide more contrast. The color options will help vision-impaired user to conveniently see the content posted in a Facebook Group.

The company has added fifteen color options in total. You can choose from these colors or you can also allow the Facebook app to create a custom color for your Group. Facebook generates the custom color based on the dominant color in the cover photo of your Facebook Group. The new update will offer a sense of personal place and it will be very beneficial for those users who have varying sight capacity.

The company launched the option to include personalized colors to Facebook Groups back in the year 2018. The company aimed to offer an extra sense of personal identity as well as a place when the feature was launched in 2018.

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Facebook held its Communities Summit in Europe back in the year 2018, and the company announced several new initiatives to enhance the group engagement. At that time, the company enabled the admins of Facebook Groups to include personalized color. The personalized color is displayed throughout the group, which provides an extra sense of personal place and identity.

Now, as the company has updated its color palette options for Facebook Groups, the new shades will more extra customization options for Facebook users. It is not yet clear when the new changes will be rolled to Facebook Group admins, but it is expected that the company will soon roll out the new changes to admins. According to Matt Navarra, Facebook will start to roll out the new change next week. The company has not yet officially announced when Facebook will release the new feature.

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Facebook Live is a useful tool that allows users to share real-time stories and connect with other users. The company officially launched the live video on the platform for all users back in the year 2016. Since then, users have made more than 8.5 billion broadcasts. Facebook has been introducing new tools to improve Facebook Live. The company introduced the Live Producer tool back in March of this year. The tool makes it easier for users to go live and engage with the Facebook community.

There are several features available within the Live Producer tool to improve the live publishing experience of users. Now, Facebook is rolling out the capability in the Live Producer tool which will allow users to upload a ‘Graphics package’ for use during a web broadcast.

On June 23, Matt Navarra, a famous social media industry commentator, shared screenshots on Twitter about the new feature. A new Graphics tab has been added to the Live Producer tool. Publishers can select a graphics package to upload during a broadcast. You can also use a graphics overlay URL, and the Graphics Preview option displays how your graphics look like in real-time.

On June 24th, Matt Navarra tweeted that Facebook has rolled out the Graphics feature for the Live Producer tool. With the new changes, broadcasters will be able to upload graphics packages for on-screen graphics in a broadcast. The on-screen comment allows publishers to queue up viewer comments to display on-screen, and broadcasters can also feature a link on-screen in a broadcast.

Also read: Brands And Creators Will Now Be Able To Run Ads On Instagram Without Having To Connect To A Facebook Ad Account

Screenshots: Mari Smith.

The graphics feature allows publishers to include overlays to their broadcast to interact with the audiences in unique ways. With this feature, publishers will be able to highlight as well as include viewer comments directly on top of a live stream. Publishers can also send polls to their viewers using the Graphics feature. Then, you can also show the results of a poll in real-time.

Previously, the Graphics feature in the Live Producer tool was under beta testing phase in March of this year, and a small group of publishers was using this feature. Now, it seems that the company is rolling out this feature for public use. It will be interesting to see how publishers use the new Graphics feature in Facebook’s Live Producer tool.

Read next: Facebook attempts to foresee the future with its new Forecast app

On Thursday, Google announced that the company is expanding access to its Business Messages from Google Search and Google Maps. Now, all kinds of businesses will be able to directly connect to their consumers via Maps and Search. The company added a new way in Map to help consumers to directly contact stores back in the year 2018. The tool is known as Business Messages and is available on both Android and iOS versions of the Google Maps app. Now, the company has expanded Business Messages in Google Maps and has added extra functionality.

Previously, the Business Messaging tool was available in limited regions and for limited business types. Now, all types of businesses can add business messaging through their My Business listing. Additionally, the company has also introduced smart replies and customizable welcomes messages to enhance the messaging experience for users. Product carousels have also been introduced into the messaging experience.

Businesses will be able to integrate their consumer service platforms with Maps’ Business Messages. With the new updates, consumers can now message a business directly via Google Search which will make it easier for you to connect to any business. However, this feature is currently limited to Android, iOS users will still have to message from Google Maps.

Google said that currently, twice as many brands are messaging through Google as compared to the previous year. It has been reported that Walmart is already using the new experience. Walmart allows people to quickly find updated information related to hours, pick-up and delivery options, and more. Woolworths is the largest supermarket in Australia and is using the updated experience. The supermarket enables consumers to search for various products and they can also see the availability of a product. The supermarket also provides information about store hours and COVID-19 updates.

Also read: Google Chrome will now give definition to Android users with a single tap

MyGov in India has partnered with Amplify.ai to provide information about more than 11,000 shelters across the country. Moreover, brands such as Dish are also using the new feature. Dish has partnered with 247AI, and the brand has experienced over 22% reduction in average handling time using Google Business Messages as compared to other similar channels.

The company is also working to bring the Business Messages tool to smartphone websites, and it is improving how Business Messages are surfaced in Google Search. Currently, the feature is available only in the English language, however, the company is planning to add support for other languages as well.

The desire to be able to play YouTube videos in the background while you browse through other apps is the sort of thing that a lot of people have wanted for years now. Many people use YouTube so that they can end up listening to music or their favorite speech or podcast, but having to keep the app open on your device can make that quite difficult. YouTube wants you to have your eyes on the app while you are using it, so it definitely won’t make background use available anytime soon. However, it seems like a new feature that users are going to be getting in the latest version of iOS is going to change all of this for the better in a wide variety of ways.

The fact of the matter is that iOS 14 is getting a lot of new features including widgets which a lot of people have been waiting for, but perhaps the most pertinent new feature is the picture-in-picture mode. This is a feature that a lot of Android phones already have but the fact that it is coming to Apple’s own line of phones means that people that use iPhone devices would now be able to make it so that they can play YouTube videos in the background while they are using other areas of their app all in all.

While this is certainly not going to be good for YouTube since the video streaming platform will have to recalculate its approach and take into account the many users that would start using it as a background app now, Google was a step ahead by introducing this feature in Android beforehand. Also, the fact that this is a picture in picture mode means that YouTube will probably still get eyes on its videos, except those eyes might just be a little distracted which could potentially end up being a pretty decent tradeoff all in all.

My favourite feature in iOS 14 (so far)...

...and one YouTube will be pissed about pic.twitter.com/IScSl81ygz
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) June 23, 2020

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Impact On Digital Marketers

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