Social Media News Roundup 23.10.18

Fake news ‘threat to democracy’ report gets back-burner response from UK gov’t

The UK government has rejected a parliamentary committee’s call for a levy on social media firms to fund digital literacy lessons to combat the impact of disinformation online (TechCrunch)

Facebook's Testing Video Polls Within Ads

Facebook's running a new test which enables selected advertisers to add video polls to their Facebook ads. (SMT)

Teens use Instagram more than Snapchat, report says

Snapchat may be losing ground to Instagram with some of its most important users: teens.

Instagram is now the most-used social media platform among teens, according to research firm Piper Jaffray. (Mashable)

Snapchat’s new segmented lens tech makes the screaming cowboy meme real

Snap has added new lenses to Snapchat, including the option to create ones that apply effects to things like the sky or hair or use a portrait mode cutout to put users on an entirely new background. Snap has offered lenses like this before, but now they’re coming to the publicly available Lens Studio tool for anyone to use. (The Verge)

Pinterest unveils new 'Product Pins' shopping feature

Pinterest has become the latest social media platform to focus on e-commerce with its newest Product Pins feature. The social discovery platform has long been used as a space for fashion inspiration, and this latest feature aims to make the process even easier for its users. (Fashion United)

YouTube is investing $20M in educational content, creators

YouTube is investing $20 million toward educational content through its new Learning Fund program. (The Verge)

How A Twitch-Owned Wiki May Be Inflating Streamers' Views

Twitch streamer Chris “Bognogus” Steinert was live on camera, reading an article about space exploration game No Man’s Sky on Gamepedia, online gaming’s equivalent of Wikipedia, when he discovered his own livestream playing at the very bottom of the page. Steinert was streaming his galactic wanderings to an audience of 3,183 viewers. (Kotaku)

'We use social media to tell stories nakedly, on an individual and honest level' – audience engagement at Vogue international

Hannah Ray, head of social strategy and storytelling, Vogue International, explains how the publisher's traction with younger audiences is growing (Journalism.co.uk)