Articles about Meta

WhatsApp is now an essential communication tool for both personal and business use, and its popularity means that it is also a prime target for scammers. As such, the company has just announced the rollout of a new series of tools designed to help keep users informed and protected.

Among these new tools is a safety warning for group chats that warns about being added to new chat groups by unknown contacts. There are also tools and advice for individual chats, which are also targets for scams.

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There is some disappointing news for WhatsApp users who like to work with the desktop app. In what appears to be part of a streamlining process, Meta is dropping the UWP app in favor of a web wrapper.

There are advantages and disadvantages to this, but few people who have compared the native Windows app with the web-based version off WhatsApp can have failed to notice the performance difference. The WhatsApp UWP app has always been snappier, more responsive, and used fewer resources, so in some ways it feels like a backwards step to switch to a web wrapper.

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Facebook posts take many forms – images, videos, links, reels, and text. The company has tweaked and added to the posting options over the years and has now just announced a neat new option for text-based posts.

Just as is possible on other social media platforms, Facebook users are being given the chance to embellish their text posts with background music. Working in a similar way to adding background music toa video post, there is a limit library of tracks to choose from.

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We first heard about Trial Reels last year, and Instagram launched the feature to a limited number of creators back in December. Now the social media giant is giving more people access to the feature which is designed to help grow a following.

There is not yet free access to Trial Reels for everyone and anyone; there are entry requirements. The promotion tool is aimed at creators, and a following of at least 1,000 is needed to get started. You will also need to have an account that is set to public. So, if you meet these criteria, what does Trial Reels mean for you?

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Post an image to Instagram and it will almost certainly be automatically cropped. The reason for this is that, until now, the platform has supported 4:5 aspect ratio images, as well as the Instagram staple -- the square format.

But this is not in line with how most people shoot photographs, and the platform is finally taking this into account. There is now support for a new (new to Instagram, at least), aspect ratio.

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While WhatsApp is, ostensibly, a messaging, chat and video calling platform, it is more than that; it is also a pseudo social media platform. The Status section of WhatsApp has gradually evolved over the years to become a way to not only indicate your availability, but to express much more.

And now Status has received another massive upgrade. It is now possible to display a collage of multiple photos, share music, and much more. A plethora of new options are rolling out globally; here's what you have to look forward to.

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Using WhatsApp on an iPad has long meant making a compromise or two. The reason is that there has simply not been a version of WhatsApp designed for Apple's tablet, forcing users to turn to WhatsApp Web in Safari.

After an incredibly long period of development, Meta has finally produced an iPad version of WhatsApp. So how does the iPadOS port of WhatsApp look?

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WhatsApp has announced the expansion of its Voice Chat feature for groups. The live audio feature is something that was well-received when it first appeared in the chat app, so the wider rollout makes a lot of sense. There is a twist, however.

While the feature is now available to more users than before, the expansion is not like most feature expansions.

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Under a great deal of political pressure to do so, many social media platforms have opted to move away from using fact checking services. X and Facebook are among those to have adopted a “community notes” system that relies on crowd sourcing rather than third party companies.

Such systems have faced criticism because of the potential for manipulation, but these risks have been downplayed by social media firms. But now X has decided to take steps to improve its own Community Notes system to help detect suspicious activity that could be indicative of manipulation attempts.

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For all of the talk about establishing and maintaining connections, for the companies behind them social media platforms are about making money. Advertising plays a massive role in this, and Meta is looking for new ways to grab users’ attention.

The company has announced it is testing video ads on Threads as it explores expanding its portfolio of ad formats. There are also new ad options for creators and brands on Facebook and Instagram, as well as the slightly unusual sounding “trending ads” feature.

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Meta has announced some interesting new features for its Threads social platform, and there are other unannounced ones that have been spotted as well.

In the name of transparency, Account Status is starting to roll out so users can find out more about violations they have been committed and if any posts have been demoted.

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Remember Threads? Meta’s most recent foray into social media caused something of a splash when it first emerged, but it quickly became just another platform. Seemingly worried that not enough people are using it, Meta is now using Instagram as a way of pushing Threads usage.

While Meta has said nothing about it in any form of announcement, existing Threads users have started to notice that they are being prompted to cross-post content to Instagram. The hope, presumably, is that Instagram users yet to try out Threads will be tempted into doing so.

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Although WhatsApp is primarily seen as a mobile app -- which makes sense, as accounts are linked to a phone number -- the web client is also an excellent part of the family. The web-based version of WhatsApp has evolved and progressed impressively, but there remain areas in which it is found wanting.

A key example is the lack of support for placing voice or video calls from the WhatsApp web client -- but this is set to change.

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Facebook is so far removed from the platform it first started as, it is hardly the same product. Many users would say it is not even the same platform it was a couple of years ago, and one of the biggest changes -- and irritants -- is the sheer volume of worthless content.

By this, we mean spam-like rubbish rather than stuff you’re just not interested in, and Meta has announced that it is finally taking action that it hopes will effectively reduce and discourage “spammy content”.

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Clearly keen to keep pace with its main rival TikTok, Instagram has officially launched its video editing app designed to help creators produce more impression content. Available for iOS and Android the free video editing app goes by the name Edits, and it has many of the same features as TikTok’s CapCut.

Edits was first announced back in January, but now it is available for everyone to download. Instagram says that is helps you to “make great videos on your phone”, billing it as a “video creation app designed for creators”. It seems to be something of a work in progress, but does Edits have what it takes to appeal to the masses?

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