Science

Screw It, Trump Is Banned From Twitch Too

Former President Donald Trump’s part in egging on the riotous mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6 has now earned him permanent bans from Twitter, Snapchat, Shopify and, most recently, Twitch. Read more...
Tags: Facebook, Twitter, Science, Social Media, Snapchat, Software, Computing, Donald Trump, Twitch, Operating Systems, Live Streaming, Video Hosting, Capitol, Video On Demand Services, Universal Windows Platform Apps

Snapchat Will Soon Permanently Ban Trump's Account

President Donald Trump, the apparent owner of a Snapchat account, will soon be permanently banned from Snapchat. Read more...
Tags: Science, Snapchat, Platform, Suspension, Donald Trump, Company, Account

Here Are All the Trump Sycophants Who Got Banned From Social Media After the Capitol Riot

Last week, Donald Trump riled up a mob of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol while members of Congress were voting to certify the results of the 2020 elections—a de facto act of sedition that failed to bring about his fantasized coup and resulted in five deaths.Read more...
Tags: Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Politics, Science, Technology, Pinterest, Congress, Youtube, Social Media, Snapchat, Airbnb, Cameo, Donald Trump, Gofundme

Snapchat Spotlight Is TikTok Except It's on Snapchat

In another universe, this year in tech might have been defined by TikTok’s survival of numerous assassination attempts. Just as the (first) TikTok ban came down, Instagram swooped in with Reels; today, Snapchat announced that it’s launching a TikTok copycat feature called Spotlight. It’s not the first TikTok ripoff…Read more...
Tags: Science, Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok, Whos Psyched For Another Rollout

Twitter Debuts Coward Mode

Great news for chickens: It’s now easier than ever to pretend you never posted that cringe to Twitter, which is rolling out a new, Instagram Stories-like type of post that auto-deletes after 24 hours. These are called Fleets, which is slightly confusing until you realize it’s a bad pun.Read more...
Tags: Apps, Twitter, Science, Technology, News, Instagram, Social Media, Snapchat, Tweeting, Jack Dorsey, Fleets

Unfortunately, Facebook's New 'Vanish Mode' Won't Make The Platform Disappear

After cribbing some of Snapchat’s other distinctive features, it looks like Facebook is officially bringing disappearing messages to its platform. As of today, “vanish mode” is available on Messenger for users across the U.S., and a “handful” of other countries, according to Facebook—and those same features will be…Read more...
Tags: Facebook, Messenger, Science, Snapchat, Magic

WhatsApp Brings Disappearing Messages To Its Platform

Good news for WhatsApp users who might want to keep their chat history a bit less permanent: the company announced a new “disappearing messages feature,” which will start rolling out to its more than one billion iOS and Android customers worldwide starting today. Read more...
Tags: Facebook, Science, Messaging, Snapchat, Whatsapp

Contribute to Chaotic Video Calls With Simple Gestures Using This Video Lens

By now, most of us have given up trying to contribute during a crowded video call, and instead just mute our mics and politely nod in agreement until it’s time to hang up. Six months after we desperately needed it, Cameron Hunter has come up with a clever solution to help you respond during video calls without having…Read more...
Tags: Science, Snapchat, Hacks, Video Calling, Cameron Hunter, Snap Camera, Vc Lens

Instagram's New Reels Feature Is Pretty Obviously Facebook's Attempt to Take Down TikTok

TikTok is facing a widespread crackdown due to security concerns, which has left Facebook an opening to take down the rival social network. The company will use Instagram to do it, just like it did with Instagram Stories to keep Snapchat at bay. Instagram launched a new TikTok-esque feature, Reels, in India earlier…Read more...
Tags: Facebook, Science, Instagram, India, Social Media, Snapchat, Instagram Stories, Tiktok

This Artist Filmed His Life With Snapchat Spectacles for a Year and Created a VR Time Machine

Time travel is one of those things that fascinate people. Although time travel currently isn’t possible—thank God, as if humans needed another way to make a mess of things—this creator decided to do the next best thing: film his life with Snapchat Spectacles 3 for a year and create a virtual reality time machine.Read more...
Tags: Science, Snapchat, Virtual Reality, Time Travel, Spectacles

Snapchat: Both Black and White Employees Made the Offensive 'Smile to Break Chains' Filter

Snapchat apparently wants to make sure people know that both Black and white employees were involved in the creation of the offensive filter, or Lens in Snapchat jargon, it launched on Juneteenth that placed an approximation of the Pan-African flag behind users and asked them to smile to break the chains of slavery.Read more...
Tags: Science, Social Media, Snapchat, Lens, Snap, Juneteenth

Snapchat: Yeah, Our Juneteenth Filter Asking Users to Smile to Break Chains Was a Bad Idea

Snapchat received widespread criticism Friday for its Juneteenth filter that prompted users to celebrate the anniversary of the end of slavery in the U.S. by smiling to break chains. By mid-day, Snap quietly pulled the tone-deaf filter and the company has since issued a public apology. Apparently, this Lens was a beta…Read more...
Tags: Science, Snapchat, Augmented Reality, Filters, Snap, Filter, Snapchat Lenses, Juneteenth, George Floyd, George Floyd Protests

Trump Campaign Accuses Snapchat, a Platform That Still Exists, of ‘Trying to Rig the Election’

Following Twitter’s lead on (finally) expressing its disapproval on the President’s inflammatory tweets, Snapchat has, well, snapped too. Snap, the company behind the Snapchat app, says it has stopped promoting Trump’s Snapchat account on its Discover home page for news and stories because his public comments on other…Read more...
Tags: Science, Social Media, Snapchat, Trump

A Global Pandemic Won’t Stop the Desperate Desire to Go Viral

There’s a lot happening on social media, more than any one person can safely keep up with. Do you need to know about it? At Hall Monitor, we provide you with a digest to help you make up your mind.Read more...
Tags: Science, Instagram, Social Media, Snapchat, Tiktok, Coronavirus, Hall Monitor

How Online Platforms Are Tackling Coronavirus Misinformation

As the deadly coronavirus continues to wreak havoc in China and around the world, several social media kingpins are fighting the outbreak on a different front: By curbing the spread of misinformation and fake claims online amid a public health emergency.Read more...
Tags: Facebook, Twitter, Science, China, Social Media, Snapchat, Reddit, Who, World Health Organization, Snap, Coronavirus

Thing I Instinctively Hate Likely to Become Wildly Popular

In its quest to create new ways to make its denizens dissociate from reality, Snapchat is launching a cartoon series that puts user avatars in the episodes.Read more...
Tags: Science, Snapchat, Snap, Bitmoji, Bitmoji TV

Average User Still Spending 38 More Minutes On Facebook Per Day Than They Should

Facebook, a company so heinous that it was cited by the United Nations as being complicit in genocide, is still the most popular social network in the world. But people are at least spending less time on the site these days.Read more...
Tags: Facebook, Science, Instagram, Social Media, Snapchat, United Nations, Genocide, Our Garbage Facebook

Snapchat Employees Allegedly Misused Internal Tools to Snoop on Users: Report

Existing online today means giving over a wealth of data. The hope is that the companies safeguarding it are doing so securely, but thousands of people work for these companies, and all it takes is a few bad actors with the right access to peep at some of your most intimate personal details. And, according to two…Read more...
Tags: Science, Snapchat, Snap

Snapchat's Viral Garbage Machine Strikes Again

Snapchat filters—love’em or hate’em, about once a year one goes viral, floods your timeline, and you think to yourself, “Oh yeah, Snapchat still exists.”Read more...
Tags: Science, Snapchat, ICYMI, Filters

Facebook Has So Many Apps, It's Killing One You Didn't Know Existed

Instagram is reportedly killing off its direct message app. And the most surprising thing about this is that—Instagram has a direct message app?Read more...
Tags: Science, Instagram, Privacy, Snapchat, Whatsapp, One App To Rule Them All

Why Social Media Going Dark in Sri Lanka Isn't as Simple as You Think

Few countries on Earth have a relationship with Facebook that’s quite as complicated as Sri Lanka’s.Read more...
Tags: Facebook, Twitter, Science, Instagram, Social Media, Earth, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Sri Lanka, Misinformation

Snapchat: Hi, Hello, I'm Still Here. Please Stay.

In a bid to remain relevant, Snap Inc. has launched a slew of new products for its Snapchat app, including an augmented reality (AR) developer platform and a games platform.Read more...
Tags: Science, Snapchat, Augmented Reality, Snap, Snap Inc, Snap Games

Snapchat Adds Video Games in Latest Bid to Boost Sales

Users of Snapchat will now be able to play games within the app’s messaging section, the company announced Thursday at an event in West Hollywood, California. Snap unveiled six games custom made for the mobile app, including one, Bitmoji Party, it produced in-house.
Tags: Science, Snapchat, Bitmoji Party, West Hollywood California Snap

Snap Reportedly Settled With Multiple Female Employees Who Said Layoffs Targeted Women

Two cost-cutting rounds of layoffs affected hundreds of Snap employees last year beginning in March. While the company, which owns Snapchat, maintains that the majority of these employees were men, a greater number of employees across some teams who worked directly with the company’s top brass and were laid off were…Read more...
Tags: Science, Sexism, Snapchat, Discrimination, Snap Inc, Sexism In Tech

Snap Is Now Slightly Less Fucked

Snap Inc., the company behind the Snapchat app and a failed line of wearable cameras, is slightly less fucked than it was before, according to Q4 2018 earnings released on Tuesday.Read more...
Tags: Startups, Apps, Science, Technology, Snapchat, Snap, Snap Inc

Snapchat: So, About Those Public Stories That Automatically Disappear... Would You Miss Them

Snapchat owner Snap Inc. has had a rough go of it lately. Its stock, which hit the market at $17 per share (and peaked at $29.44) during its initial public offering in March 2017, is in the gutter—a high of $6.54 so far in 2019. It’s seemingly hit a wall in growth, and it’s still bleeding cash. A major update to the…Read more...
Tags: Mobile, Facebook, Apps, Twitter, Science, Technology, Instagram, Social Media, Snapchat, Snap, Snap Inc

Instagram Should Steal Twitter's Sparkle Button

Instagram broke its silence on its algorithmic kerfuffle this week, taking to Twitter to address rumors that it was limiting the reach of users’ posts. Long story short—no, its feed doesn’t curtail your posts to just 7 percent of your followers, the company said. Read more...
Tags: Twitter, Science, Instagram, Social Media, Snapchat, Give The People What They Want

Multiple Executives Reportedly Out at Snap Following Shake-Up Over Alleged Affair

Snap has reportedly ousted multiple high-ranking employees after an investigation into an alleged scandal involving its now former head of global security Francis Racioppi, the Wall Street Journal’s Maureen Farrell reported Friday.Read more...
Tags: Science, Snapchat, Wall Street Journal, Maureen Farrell, Snap Inc, Francis Racioppi

Google Has Lawsuit in Illinois Over Facial Recognition Scanning in Google Photos Dismissed

Google has had a lawsuit in Illinois over its facial-recognition software thrown out, with a judge dismissing the case on the grounds that the plaintiff in the case did not suffer “concrete injuries,” Bloomberg reported on Saturday. The ruling puts to rest one of three lawsuits against major tech companies for alleged…Read more...
Tags: Google, Facebook, Science, Privacy, Bloomberg, Cybersecurity, Snapchat, Surveillance, Illinois, Facial Recognition, Biometrics, Google Photos, Biometric Information Privacy Act

Not Even Adorable Pups Can Make Me Use Snapchat

Snapchat hasn’t had the best year. It faced blowback from its botched redesign, lost 3 million daily users in just three months, and its stock price has never been lower. But now you can add new augmented reality lenses to your dog, so that’s something I guess.Read more...
Tags: Science, Technology, Social Media, Snapchat, Please Follow My Dog On Instagram