Spotify launches new collaborative playlist feature called Jam
Streaming music service Spotify has announced Jam, a group playlist feature that can be used by up to 32 people. Spotify describes the new social feature as a "personalized, real-time listening session for your group to tune into together".
It is, in many ways, an amalgamation of several existing features of Spotify, such as Blend, personalized playlists and collaborative playlists. All users of Spotify -- free and paying -- are able to contribute to a Jam, but the ability to create them is limited to Premium Subscribers.
Facebook now allows you to create multiple personal profiles so you can maintain separate online personas
After a period of experimentation, Meta has finally decided to permit users to create multiple Facebook profiles. Each profile -- and you can have up to four -- can have its own connections, and will have its own customized Feed.
Meta suggests that Facebook users could use the new option to keep personal and professional relationships separate, but there are many reasons for wanting to maintain more than one Facebook profile. But while the change to allow multiple profiles is a big one, there are limitations and some things are not changing.
Twitter could be about to undergo a huge rebrand as Elon Musk signals a desire to drop the bird logo
Since Elon Musk's arrival at Twitter, it has been difficult to keep track of the fast-paced changes. The latest signals from the billionaire owner indicate that even more dramatic changes are afoot -- including ditching the Twitter brand and all bird-related imagery.
In a series of tweets, Musk said "soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds". Indicating that the change could happen very quickly indeed, he added: "If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow".
Avoid Threads if you value your privacy
The arrival of Threads this week saw Meta taking another step into the social arena with its Twitter clone. There have been lots of entirely understandable concerns voiced about Twitter recently, particularly in light of the chaotic impact of Elon Musk, and this has led to swathes of disgruntled and worried users switching allegiances and joining the likes of Bluesky, Mastodon and, now, Threads.
Whether jumping ship, leaving Twitter and signing up for Threads makes sense very much depends on your reason for doing so. If privacy is your main concern, for instance, there is little -- if anything -- to be gained. Coming from the same stables as Facebook, the fact that Threads sucks up personal data should surprise no one, but the sheer volume and range of what it collects is slightly breath-taking.
Jump on the Threads beta program to get access to new features faster
It can hardly have escaped your notice that Meta officially launched what it is hoping will be its Twitter killer, Threads, this week. The new social platform has already proved astonishingly popular, with millions upon millions of users signing up in a matter of hours.
But while there is a great deal of excitement about what Threads has to offers and how it could disrupt social media, there has also been disappointment at the limitations of the mobile apps. If you're one of the many users who wishes that Threads had more in the way of features, options and settings, Meta has just launched a beta program which anyone is free to join.
Meta publishes Threads Dictionary to help newcomers decipher the jargon
For many people the release of Threads, Instagram's text-based conversation app, represents an alternative to Twitter -- a platform which is widely considered to have become more toxic and problematic under Elon Musk. But for an even larger number of people, Threads will be their first step into this type of social media.
Switching from Twitter, Mastodon or Bluesky to Threads -- or using them in conjunction with each other -- is painless, but for anyone who has never used such a platform, the language surrounding it can be slightly mystifying. And this is why Meta has released a Threads Dictionary to bring users up to speed.
Twitter loses its second head of trust and safety since Musk take-over
Content moderation on Twitter has been something of a prickly subject during Elon Musk's time as CEO. Having already lost Yoel Roth back in November, his replacement has now also resigned.
Ella Irwin is leaving the role after just six months as head of the trust and safety team. While Roth has been openly critical of Twitter since his resignation last year, the reasons behind Irwin's departure are not yet clear.
Montana becomes the first US state to ban TikTok
Governor Greg Gianforte has signed a bill that bans TikTok in Montana, making it the first US state to do so. He says that the decision was taken in order "to protect Montanans' personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party".
A month ago, the state legislature passed a bill that requires app stores to block the service, and having been signed by Gianforte, the law will come into force next year. The law bans TikTok from operating in Montana, with daily fines of $10,000 in case of violations. TikTok is expected to fight the ban with the claim that it infringes on users' First Amendment rights.
If you're a Discord user, you're probably going to be forced to change your username very soon
It's a decision that could have been taken years ago, but Discord has finally decided to change its odd policy on usernames.
The gaming-focused social chat platform has long forced users to put up with name that end in a four-digit "discriminator", but this is coming to an end. Discord has announced that the four digits at the end of usernames are to be removed, and this means that many users will be forced to choose new handles.
Interest may be growing in Twitter rival Bluesky, but Mozilla is betting on Mastodon
With changes implemented by Elon Musk having disastrous consequences for Twitter, there has been something of an exodus of users. It is "something of an exodus", because while many people are finding new social homes on the likes of T2, Spoutible, Mastodon or -- if they can get their hands on an invite code -- Jack Dorsey's Bluesky, many people are hedging their bets and maintaining something of a presence on Twitter until it becomes a little clearer what the likely successor is to be.
Realistically, the battle seems likely be fought between Mastodon and Bluesky, and Mozilla has just announced an expansion of its investment in the former. The company behind the Firefox web browser has launched its own Mastodon instance, Mozilla.social, in private beta.
WhatsApp makes a very strange change to disappearing messages
WhatsApp is not alone in offering a disappearing message feature. It is an idea that's fairly self-explanatory: messages can be configured to automatically delete after a certain period of time -- something that's ideal for certain sensitive information.
But in a slightly confusing move, WhatsApp is introducing the option to stop disappearing messages from disappearing. The option is called Keep In Chat, and it is being described as "your new sender superpower".
Twitter quietly updates Hateful Conduct policy to remove protections for transgender users
Twitter has undergone some huge changes since Elon Musk took over at the social media platform, many of which have been very public. But others, like a recent update to its Hateful Content policy, have been quietly slipped out without announcement.
The policy change sees Twitter removing sections that specifically protected transgender users. This means that a long-standing ban on the purposeful deadnaming or misgendering of trans users has been lifted, leading to condemnation from LGBTQIA+ groups and angering the trans community.
Twitter is now owned by X Corp as Elon Musk announces legacy blue checks will vanish in a puff of smoke on 4/20
Twitter Inc no longer exists, having been merged into Elon Musk's X Corp. The change was spotted in documents relating to a lawsuit against Twitter, and it continues the CEO's drive to create X, "the everything app".
And having already made a great deal of fuss and noise about killing off "legacy" verification blue checks to force people to buy a Twitter Blue subscription, Musk has announced a new "final date" for their removal. It is 4/20. Because of course it is.
Elon Musk says that only verified (i.e. paying) Twitter users will be able to vote in polls and appear on the For You tab
Having tried various tactics to get Twitter users to pay for a Twitter Blue subscription, Elon Musk is now trying something new -- confiscation.
Having tried bribing users with Blue-exclusive features, and threatening non-subscribers with stripping them of verified status, the latest announcement sees Musk promising to take features away from anyone who doesn't pay up. Specifically, he warns that non-verified users will not be eligible to appear in the suggestions on the For You Tab, and they also will not be able to vote in polls on Twitter.
Twitter says it is stripping all verified accounts of their 'legacy' blue ticks from April
With the chaos that has followed the arrival of Elon Musk at Twitter, it's often difficult to know which announcements to accept at face value, and which to take with a pinch of salt.
The latest announcement concerns the blue ticks used to signify verified accounts. The social platform has announced that "legacy" checkmarks (that is, those that have not been paid for) will be removed starting on April 1 -- April Fool's Day.
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