Social Media

Trump's Truth Social app set for release Monday in Apple App Store, per executive

In a series of posts late on Friday, a verified account for the network's chief product officer, listed as Billy B., answered questions on the app from people invited to use it during its test phase. One user asked him when the app, which has been available this week for beta testers, would be released to the public, according to screenshots viewed by Reuters.

"We're currently set for release in the Apple App store for Monday 21 February," the executive responded.

Australian law could force social media firms to reveal users' identities

The laws would require social media companies to collect the details of all users, and allow courts to force companies to hand over the identities of users to aid defamation cases.

Social media companies would also be made legally liable for the content they publish from users, removing liability from individuals and companies that manage pages.

The legislation was to be released in draft form this week, and is expected to be introduced to Australia's parliament early next year.

Facebook announces name change to Meta in rebranding effort

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the social media giant will change the name of its holding company to Meta, in a rebrand that comes as the company faces a series of public relations crises.

Zuckerberg revealed the new name at Facebook’s annual AR/VR conference on Thursday, where he outlined the company’s virtual-reality vision for the future.

Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram suffer outage

All three services are owned by Facebook and could not be accessed over the web or smartphone apps.

Downdetector, which tracks outages, logged tens of thousands of outage reports for all three platforms from around the world.

Facebook's chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer has tweeted his "sincere apologies" to those affected.

"We are experiencing networking issues and teams are working as fast as possible to debug and restore as fast as possible," he wrote.

Pasifika youth bring calm to their community online

"The fear of our people feeling disconnected, alone and existing within an anxious and uncertain time in society was what inspired the creation of 'Calm our Community'. Whilst we knew that opening a group on Facebook was not going to fix the world, we just wanted to be able to provide an additional means of support and space for those who could access Facebook." Ms Leger said.

Solomons police arrest man for Covid-19 'fake news'

Police said the man posted on Facebook that there was already a case of the coronavirus in Solomon Islands.

Police said this is not true and the country has no confirmed cases of Covid-19.

The supervising assistant commissioner for crime and intelligence, Patricia Leta said the man has been charged with spreading false rumours and released on bail to appear in court on 14 April.

"It is a serious offence to spread false rumours that cause public disharmony."

ITN's Alastair Stewart steps down after social media 'errors of judgement'

In a statement, the veteran broadcaster, 67, said: "It was a misjudgement which I regret."

ITN said he had breached editorial guidelines, but did not elaborate on the reasons for his departure.

He added: "It's been a privilege to bring the news to households throughout the UK for the past 40 years."

Stewart joined ITV in 1980 and began fronting News at Ten nine years later.

The newsreader's Twitter account has now been deactivated.

Selena Gomez says social media is 'terrible' for young people

Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival, where she is promoting her new film The Dead Don't Die, the 26-year-old said: "I think our world is going through a lot obviously.

"But for my generation specifically, social media has been terrible."

She claimed many young people were unaware of important news issues.

"It's a useful platform but it does scare me when you see young boys and girls not really aware of the news going on," she added.

"It's selfish - I don't wanna say selfish, that's rude - but it's dangerous for sure."

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp suffer outages

The website Down Detector reported that thousands of people globally had complained about the Facebook-owned trio being down from 11.30 BST onwards.

Facebook users were presented with the message: "Something went wrong."

At 14:50, the site said it had resolved the issue after some users "experienced trouble connecting" to the apps.

A spokesman for the company added: "We're sorry for any inconvenience."

Facebook did not comment on the cause of the problem, or say how many users had been affected.

Human rights advocate says Israel Folau comments hurt

Folau replied to a comment on an Instagram post saying God's plan for gay people is "hell, unless they repent of their sins and turn to God".

Tuiloma Lina Samu says those comments are harmful for people who already deal with intolerance and rejection, based on their sexuality.

"Those words hurt and they hurt significantly especially vulnerable people who are already marginalised people, who are already rejected and ostracized by communities and families," she says.