Social Media Daily News Roundup 06.09.2019
Today’s social media news, rounded up in one place so you don’t have to go anywhere else.
🌴 Facebook dating launches in the US, along with new dating features
🌴 Twitter’s testing new tabs for lists and bookmarks, new ‘topics’ shortcut
🌴 Facebook establishes new research challenge to develop improved detection of deep fakes
🌴Facebook funds 12 more Watch shows in Europe
Facebook dating launches in the US, along with new dating features - Social Media Today
Facebook is finally coming through on some of the promises it made at its F8 Developer Conference back in May.
Earlier this week, we reported that its desktop refresh is now going live, and now, Facebook Dating is finally being launched in the US market, in addition to the current 19 regions where the option is already available.
First announced in May 2018, Facebook Dating is, as it sounds, a match-making tool within Facebook, enabling users to create separate Dating profiles in order to keep their regular profile information separate. Facebook can then use its vast data banks to help match you up with relevant Dating users - and given what Facebook knows about people and their habits, it actually makes a lot of sense, and could, theoretically, provide better matches than other dating apps.
Twitter’s testing new tabs for lists and bookmarks, new ‘topics’ shortcut - Social Media Today
As Twitter continues to work on its proposed topic streams option, which would potentially enable people to swipe across to view curated tweet timelines around specific subjects, it's also looking at new ways to help connect users to more content-specific listings, with a view to increasing engagement through discovery.
This week, social media expert Matt Navarra (who, incidentally, spoke to Twitter's Sara Haider in the first episode of his new podcast) spotted two new Twitter tabs in testing - one which links straight through to your tweet bookmarks, and another to make it easier to view your lists.
Facebook establishes new research challenge to develop improved detection of deepfakes - Social Media Today
While debate rages around digital data protection and the best ways to ensure people's personal information is kept safe online, another key area that's slowly emerging as a more significant concern is 'deepfakes'.
Deepfakes are videos that have been manipulated to make it appear that a person is saying and/or doing something they did not - examples of this in action have seen celebrity faces added to pornography, and US politicians making confessions which could actually trick some users.
Visit Social Media today to watch a deep fake video of Obama.
Facebook funds 12 more Watch shows in Europe - Digi Day
Facebook will fund a dozen new Facebook Watch shows across Germany, France and Sweden, particularly in the news category.
Facebook is commissioning shows with publishers like Axel Springer, Burda, Gruner + Jahr, Brut, Le Monde, BFMTV and Expressen. Burda is creating three shows while Gruner + Jahr is producing four. The series are both daily and weekly. Other shows will include popular local news personalities and interactive elements like a live panel where Facebook audiences can seek advice. Facebook has been building more interactive elements around Watch, like Groups and Watch Party, after finding this encourages more user comments.
Facebook has had a fraught relationship with news publishers, a tension that’s particularly pronounced in European countries like Germany, which are wary of the dominance of U.S. tech platforms, including Facebook. But Facebook’s investment in news programming is a sign to some publishers that the relationship is improving.
