Articles about Facebook

If you have yet to be granted access to Facebook's trip-down-memory-lane feature, On This Day, now you're in luck. The social network has opened up the feature to all of its two billion users.

At the same time, Facebook is introducing some interesting extras, and taking steps to ensure that more negative memories are not surfaced for you. On top of this, there are new seasonal memories and new ways to celebrate friendships.

Continue reading →

Saturday night's fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor is set to be the most pirated sporting event in history. In the US, it's Showtime that will be airing the fight as a pay-per-view event, but links to live streams are already popping up online ahead of August 26th's event.

The broadcaster has already taken pre-emptive court action to kill a number of pirate streams but it is -- predictably -- turning in to a game of whack-a-mole, and once the fight kicks off it will be near-impossible to close new streams that have popped up and stop people watching for free.

Continue reading →

Some online events unite people -- such as the recent solar eclipse which was streamed online by millions of people unable to see the spectacle in person. Another uniting event occurs when a major website goes down... like Facebook.

If you've tried to visit the social network today, you may well have found that the site doesn't load. "Is Facebook down?" you may ask, and you're not alone.

Continue reading →

Facebook's Safety Check feature has been around for some time now, giving people the chance to use the social network to let friends and family know they're OK in the event of a natural disaster or other catastrophe.

It is Facebook that decides which events warrant activation of Safety Check, and until now it has also been down to the site to advertise the feature to users so they can either mark themselves safe, or check up on others -- but this is about to change.

Continue reading →

Online hate crimes are to be treated as seriously as abuse offenses committed offline as the UK's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) aims to crack down on abuse and harassment on the likes of Facebook and Twitter. New policies covering hate crime relating to race, religion disability, sexuality -- including, for the first time, specific bisexual hate crimes -- will lead to harsher sentences for offenders.

Alison Saunders, director of public prosecutions, wants to do more to fight online abuse because of the risk of it escalating into the sort of extremist hate seen in relation to events in Charlottesville. She says that abuse of all kind, and on all platforms, should be treated with equal severity.

Continue reading →

Facebook won't -- usually -- hand over your private messages to anyone after you die. The social network has used a new blogging series called Hard Questions to reveal just how it handles deaths of its users.

The site's director of global policy management, Monika Bickert, says that Facebook aims to not only be sensitive, but also to respect the wishes of the deceased. After death, accounts are memorialized by default, but everyone is also free to create a "legacy contact" who will be able to mange their account in the event of their death. But Facebook is, it says, also keen to protect the privacy of survivors.

Continue reading →

As any Facebook user will know, clickbait is rife on the social network. A very common technique used to drive traffic to ad-laden websites is to embed fake play buttons in images, or post videos that are actually static images.

Facebook is clamping down on these practices in a bid to tidy up users' newsfeeds and avoid people being transported to "low quality websites" set up by spammers.

Continue reading →

Facebook has been busy rolling out a batch of new features and even a new look in the last few days. Today the social network is taking the wraps off two more new features, both with a birthday theme.

The one that's likely to be used the most is are new personalized videos which are essentially the photo-slideshows-as-a-video we have become used to from Facebook. The second new feature is the option to "donate" one's birthday, raising money for a particular cause by calling on friends for donations.

Continue reading →

Facebook is rolling out a fairly significant redesign, giving the News Feed a cleaner look, and borrowing ideas from Twitter. The social network says that the changes improve readability and navigation, and they affect various areas.

The redesign is far from insignificant, but perhaps the most instantly noticeable changes are the dropping of blue accents, and the switch to Twitter-style round images. There are, however, more changes to explore.

Continue reading →

We'll forgive you if you've lost track of all of the changes Facebook has introduced to the News Feed over the years -- it's often something of an experimental playground. The social network's latest idea is a dedicated "Trending News."

The section is currently rolling out to mobile users, and is something of an extension of Facebook's Trending Topics. It is making its way out to Android and iOS users in the US.

Continue reading →

Looking to compete with the likes of eBay and Craigslist, Facebook's Marketplace serves as a place for people to go to buy and sell locally. Following on from success in the US, UK, Australia and other countries, the social network is expanding the exchange further into Europe.

In total, Facebook's Marketplace is spreading to 17 European countries, meaning that it is now available in a total of 24 countries.

Continue reading →

Facebook has launched its new Watch platform which will be used to show original video content. The social networking giant says that the time has come for a dedicated home for episodes of shows, and Watch will feature both live and recorded video.

Facebook will be working with a number of partners to come up with content for Watch, and advertising revenue will be shared 55:45, with Facebook keeping the smaller share. Of course, the video output has a social element to it, with Facebook encouraging viewers to make use of Reactions, and also highlighting shows that are being watched by people you are connected to on the social network.

Continue reading →

Facebook has introduced a ban on address cloaking, a technique used to bypass review procedures and display content that violates the social network's policies.

Cloaking is used to disguise the true nature of posts and ads from reviewers, so they will see different contents to real-world users when they click through. Facebook says that it will be working with other companies to find ways to fight cloaking and implement punishments. AI will be called upon to do some of the legwork.

Continue reading →

There has been a lot of excitement in the processor market lately, but unfortunately for Intel, it has largely been an AMD affair. Don't misunderstand me; I am not saying Intel has been absent -- quite the contrary. What I mean to say is, as consumers awaited substantial news from Intel, the excitement has been focused on Threadripper.

This focus may shift soon, however, as today, Intel announces that its 8th generation Core processors are on the way. In fact, the company plans to officially launch the next-gen chips on August 21 -- the same day as the upcoming solar eclipse. The video platform on which the processors will be unveiled is interesting too -- Intel is leveraging Facebook Live.

Continue reading →

Facebook has revealed it is harnessing the power of AI to support its growth across the world.

The social media giant, which has over two billion users worldwide, is now using neural networks for to automatically translate content in foreign markets.

Continue reading →