Technology

Facebook published new recommendations for group admins yesterday evening in an attempt to help them facilitate conversations about race and inequality. Groups, which are essential to Facebook’s business strategy, have struggled to moderate discussions about the Black Lives Matter movement and injustice in the US, with many admins and moderators deleting posts they consider “political.” The deletion decisions prompted members to leave groups they’d been in for years, argue with each other, form splinter groups, and sometimes temporarily shut the groups down entirely. Facebook directly addresses the political post ban that many groups follow and recommends that leaders create specific lists of topics that aren’t allowed. It cites “discussions on legislation, political candidates, or specifi...

The beloved online game Neopets is launching an open beta for a new mobile site, the company announced on Twitter Friday. “The Neopets Mobile Beta has arrived! Now you can explore the breathtaking land of Neopia from the palm of your hand!” the very excited company tweeted. In a video posted to Twitter, Neopets brand manager Stephanie Lord thanked fans for their support over the past 20 years, and encouraged fans to test the site. “While this is an open beta, we’re in the very early stages of development and looking forward to all your feedback to help guide the product moving forward.” Neopets has been slowly fading over the past several years, but has maintained a cult following, especially among young women who credit the site with helping them learn to code. Its creators sold the site ...

Destiny 2’s first ever Fortnite-style live event just wrapped earlier today, and it was unfortunately not quite what some players were expecting. Instead of something monumental and game-changing for a key part of the game world, it was more of a slow burn alternative to a standard video game cutscene. And instead of delivering a strong narrative pay off on a season’s worth of otherwise dull and repetitive activity, the Almighty event ended without any meaningful change in direction or surprising new development. For the last three months, developer Bungie has been building up a clash between the Destiny world’s artificial intelligence supercomputer Rasputin and a large planet-destroying ship called the Almighty. All of this past season’s activities have revolved around communicating with ...

Apple will allow customers to buy products including iPads, Macs, and AirPods, via monthly installment payments on the Apple Card, Bloomberg reported. Payments will be managed through the Apple Card section in the iPhone Wallet app and added to customers’ monthly Apple Card bills, according to Bloomberg. For iPads, Macs, the Apple Pencil, iPad keyboards, and the Mac XDR Display monitor, a 12-month, interest-free payment plan will be available, and for AirPods, HomePod, and Apple TV, the plans will be six months interest free. Last year, Apple rolled out a 24-month, interest-free payment plan for iPhones purchased with an Apple Card, and gives 3 percent cash back. Apple launched the Apple Card last August in partnership with Goldman Sachs. Users get a digital card connected to the Apple Wal...

More than 140 scientists who receive funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Saturday urging him to better enforce the social media platform’s policies against incendiary language, The Washington Post reported. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is the philanthropic organization founded by Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan in 2015, which focuses on using technology to solve social challenges, including criminal justice reform. It is a separate entity from Facebook. The scientists said in the letter that allowing President Trump to use Facebook “to spread both misinformation and incendiary statements” was not only a violation of Facebook’s policies but “directly antithetical” to CZI’s goal of building a “more inclusive, just and he...

Facebook has removed almost 200 accounts connected to white supremacist groups that were trying to rally supporters to attend protests over police violence against black people, the Associated Press reported. The accounts in question were linked to two hate groups Facebook had already banned, the Proud Boys and the American Guard. Demonstrations continued over the weekend across the US, spurred by the May 25th death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Authorities have charged fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin with second-degree murder in Floyd’s death, after a video showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck as other officers looked on. The other officers, who were also fired, have been charged with aiding and abetting murder. Facebook had been monitoring the accounts and started to ...

Apple has just been granted a patent for software that would generate “synthetic group selfies,” which as Protocol points out, could be a way to take group selfies for social media even if you’re trying to stay socially distant from your friends. According to the patent application (first discovered by Patently Apple), an Apple device user (it’s not clear whether the feature would be available on iPads, iPhones, or both) could invite others to take part in a group selfie, and the software would arrange them together in a single image. The selfie could include still photos, stored video images, or live streaming images. Users could keep the original selfie as well as the group version, and the original user and recipients of the group image could modify the selfie, for instance, putting the...

Yelp is launching a new tool to allow businesses on the platform to identify themselves as black-owned, CEO Jeremy Stoppelman announced in a blog post Thursday. Customers will be able to search the Yelp app for black-owned businesses they want to support. Over the last week, Yelp says it saw a huge increase in the searches on the app for black-owned companies across various industries. The company also said that it is donating $500,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Yelp will also double its match of donations from employees who contribute money to select organizations that are either black-led or black-serving, including Black Futures Lab and Know Your Rights Camp through June. Yelp will also provide additional paid mental health days and organize ongoin...

In the days since the death of George Floyd, technology’s biggest companies and their leaders have made public statements expressing solidarity with Black communities. The communications — which, really, are press releases — condemn racism and call for unity. Some at least name George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. Some have said “Black Lives Matter” outright. More meaningfully, many companies have committed donations to causes fighting racial injustice in the millions of dollars. So some of the wealthiest businesses in the world are showing up in a moment when the national attention has turned to racial injustice. But surely, they must have shown up before? It hasn’t even been six years since the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown spurred the protests in Ferguson, Missouri...

The English Premier league is set to restart in the coming weeks, and Sky Sports is working with EA Sports’ FIFA division to create simulated chants and crowd noises designed for specific teams. The goal is to replicate “the vibrant atmosphere of Premier League clashes,” according to a press release. While some sports leagues are beginning to pick up seasons suddenly paused by the global coronavirus pandemic, safety precautions means teams play in empty stadiums. Sky Sports viewers can choose to watch the channel either with the added sound effect or without. Watching live sports without the constant background cheering is a bizarre experience. Anecdotally, I watched a recent soccer game out of the German Bundesliga league that was played in an empty stadium, and found myself distracted by...

Facebook is limiting the spread of pages and groups linked with the word “boogaloo,” an internet slang term used in some far-right extremist circles to refer to the idea of an impending second American Civil War, as first reported by Reuters. The boogaloo term has since evolved into a disjointed anti-government movement with various and at times conflicting views. Facebook says it will no longer recommend boogaloo pages and groups to users and is demoting them in search results, Facebook tells The Verge. The change was made on June 2nd. On May 1st, Facebook updated its Violence and Incitement policy to ban boogaloo and similar terms when used with images or statements depicting armed violence. On Thursday, the FBI arrested three men in Nevada who self-identified with the boogaloo movement ...

While showing up at a protest can demonstrate your opinion to the world, you may not want your face — or the faces of other protesters — to be included, especially when there is the possibility that authorities will collect and use that information (as they have for tracking movements during COVID-19 social distancing). As a result, many consider it vital to obscure the faces of people in any photos you may post on social media and other online sources. (For additional information, here’s a toolkit produced by the Authority Collective, offering information and advice on this subject.) What follows are some strategies for removing facial features from your photos. Of course, you can open up your images on a desktop or laptop using Photoshop or Preview to blur or scrub, but we’re going to as...