The big news at Twitter recently may have been the departure of Jack Dorsey, but incoming CEO Parag Agrawa has wasted little time in stamping his mark on the company.

After revamping its privacy policy, Twitter has now acquired Slack rival Quill. As a result of the acquisition, the messaging service has a very short future ahead of it. Users have just a few days to export their messages before Quill servers close down and all user data is deleted.

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Having stepped down as CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey is not done with change. His other company Square has just announced that it is changing its name to Block -- something it says "differentiates the Square brand, which was built for the Seller business, from the corporate entity".

With the rebranding there will be no organizational changes; Square, Cash App, TIDAL, and TBD54566975 will continue to maintain their respective brands. While a press release expresses some of the thinking behind the change in name, many believe it is also a reference to blockchain, and could signal a move into cryptocurrencies.

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Twitter has announced an important change to its privacy policy so that the sharing of images and videos of people without consent is now forbidden.

In many ways this is simply a tightening up of existing privacy protections and anti-doxxing policies, giving individuals a route to having media depicting them removed from the platform. The new policy does not apply to everyone, however.

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Following the release of her latest album, 30, Adele has had a greater impact on Spotify than the artist -- or anyone else -- expected. The new LP has already been streamed millions of times, and this is hardly surprising for Adele's first album in six years. But the singer has also managed to convince Spotify to make a big change to the platform.

The streaming music service has stopped shuffling albums by default, in recognition of the fact that bands and artists craft albums with a great deal of attention to detail, carefully curating track order to create a narrative or mood.

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Almost a decade after killing off support for previews of Instagram posts within tweets, Twitter and Instagram have finally made friends, relented and decided to bring the feature back.

The reappearance of Twitter Card previews is something that will be welcomed by people who cross-post between Instagram and Twitter. It comes as great news for anyone who was irritated by Instagram's decision to stop displaying previews of tweeted content back in 2012.

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Twitter and other social platforms have long been accused of having a liberal bias, censoring conservative voices, and being biased in favor of left-wing ideologies. But a new study shows that -- at least in the case of Twitter -- the reverse is true.

Having conducted an in-depth analysis into the effects of machine learning and recommendation algorithms, Twitter found that it is right-leaning news outlets that benefit from the greatest amplification. The question is "why?".

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Having been kicked off Twitter, Donald Trump is making good on his promise to launch his own social media platform. The new venture is TRUTH Social and it is the former US president's attempt to "fight back against Big Tech".

TRUTH Social comes from the newly created Trump Media and Technology Group and Digital World Acquisition Group, and Trump says that it will operate as "a rival to the liberal media consortium", adding, "I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon". From what we can see of it at the moment, it looks very much like a Twitter-clone.

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A problem that has long troubled social media users is the etiquette surrounding blocking people. While there are certainly some people you would have no qualms about blocking in a heartbeat, there are times when this could be, well... awkward.

And so Twitter has come up with a solution. Known as a "soft block", the option makes it possible to get rid of a follower without either blocking them or notifying them that you have done anything.

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Things have been a little quiet from Donald Trump since his presidency came to an end. The cessation of online rants was helped by Twitter slapping him with a permanent ban over concerns that his tweets were an incitement to violence.

Having attempted to launch his own social media platform as a replacement, Trump is now trying a new tactic. The former president has asked a federal judge in Florida to get Twitter to restore his @RealDonaldTrump account, claiming that he has been censored.

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It is a few months since Twitter added Tip Jar -- now simply known as Tips -- giving users a way to receive donations and appreciative financial tips from followers. Now the company has expanded the capability two key ways, in a move that will be welcomed by creators and entertainers alike.

Firstly, the Tips option is being made available globally to iOS users, with the promise that Android users will get it in "the coming weeks". Secondly, and more interestingly, Twitter is also making it possible to send and receive tips using Bitcoin.

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People who have signed up for the Windows Insider program are among the first to be able to get hands on with Windows 11, but the preview builds that have been released so far are not complete. Microsoft is still working away on the operating system ahead of next month's rollout, and CPO Panos Panay has given us a glimpse of the new Photos app that is coming.

In typically dramatic style, a "pumped" Panay describes the updated app as being "beautifully redesigned" -- and this is something you can judge for yourself thanks to the video he has shared.

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In a recently published transparency report, Twitter has revealed figures that show a disappointing adoption of 2FA (two-factor authentication) by users.

While the number of users choosing to secure their account with 2FA is on the increase, it "remains relatively low", says Twitter. And we are talking low numbers here -- a mere 2.3 percent of the Twitter userbase is concerned enough about security to enable two-factor authentication.

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Twitter is experimenting with tweaking the Like button on tweets. In a test the company is running at the moment, some users are seeing Upvote and Downvote options in place of the more familiar heart icon for liking a tweet.

Different styles of button are currently being tested, but it seems that the experiment is more for the benefit of Twitter than Twitter users. The experimental feature is not the tweet editing option so many people have been begging for for so long, and nor is it -- Twitter is at pains to emphasize -- a "dislike" button.

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Twitter may delight and infuriate in just about equal measure, but if there's one thing that the majority of users can agree on it is that it would be great to have a tick of verification. For many people, getting verified on Twitter has been a goal for a long time, and the company only recently re-opened applications after a lengthy period of suspension.

Being able to apply for Twitter verification is, of course, absolutely no guarantee of being verified, and huge number of people have been disappointed to be rejected. Unhelpfully, Twitter has -- until now -- failed to make it clear why a request for a blue badge has been denied. But now the company says it will be providing more detail.

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Recommendations based on AI are something we encounter all the time. From shopping sites, streaming services and social media we're constantly shown stuff that the AI thinks we'll like.

But how easy would it be for an attacker to manipulate these recommendations to promote conspiracy theories or spread disinformation?

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