The Sounds of Silence
Yet another reason to pause before accepting that LinkedIn request — it might be a spy. No, seriously! According to the BBC, hostile states are creating fake LinkedIn profiles to try and lure government workers into connecting and sharing state secrets. Good thing I spend so much time on TikTok. 🤪
In today's news:
Social media faces another major boycott
Facebook unveils its Clubhouse competitor
These are the most-used social media platforms
And a LinkedIn post we didn't know we needed
Read on ⬇️
Soccer vs. Social = One-Nil
Racist comments. Death threats (and worse) landing in DMs. Trolling and doxing. These are the types of responses and behaviour that many have had to deal with just by choosing to use social media. But now English soccer is taking a stand, announcing a social media boycott starting this Friday as players, leagues, and female commentators are increasingly subjected to abusive behaviour. Here's what you need to know.
Background
Last week, English soccer officials — including the Premier League and England's soccer federation — issued a statement announcing the boycott of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram by members of the men's and women's professional leagues, players' unions, as well as many others. It starts this Friday, and runs until the following Monday. "...social media companies must do more to eradicate online hate, while highlighting the importance of educating people in the ongoing fight against discrimination," the statement said. This follows an open letter in February to Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to help curb hate on the platforms, including a list of potential actions such as filtering messages.
Online hate
So why launch a boycott now? Abusive behaviour has been going on for a while. In one incident outlined by the New York Times, Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah was slammed with racist comments, negativity and hate after posting a picture on Twitter with the caption “Working with a smile!” In another incident, female commentator Karen Carney deleted her Twitter account after one of her posts about the Leeds soccer team was shared by Leeds, who invited hateful comments. But the bad behaviour ramped up more recently as top clubs attempted to create a European Super League, which threatens to upend the structure of European soccer.
What's next
This is the largest sports-related boycott of social media. But last July, more than 1,000 companies — including Unilever, Starbucks and Best Buy — joined a #StopHateForProfit ad boycott of Facebook over its mishandling of misinformation and the spread of hate speech. The ad boycott resulted in only a small dent in the platform's revenues. But since then, governments have started to demand more of social media companies, such as Australia, which passed a law ensuring Facebook and Google pay for news content. More governments are likely to follow suit.
Meanwhile, Instagram recently announced the launch of "new tools to protect our community from abuse, such as a filter for requests in your Direct Messages for messages that contain offensive words, phrases and emojis. So much for sticks and stones...
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ICYMI
Facebook is all ears
In a widely anticipated move, Facebook announced a number of new audio features last week — including Live Audio Rooms on Facebook and Messenger. These Rooms, launching in the summer, are set to compete with the invite-only audio app, Clubhouse, which continues to grow in popularity. So far in 2021, Clubhouse has had 9.6 million installs globally, according to mobile app analytics firm Sensor Tower. Overall, social audio apps have reached 20 million downloads so far this year. So it's not surprising Facebook is jumping on this trend. Twitter also continues to make its Clubhouse competitor, known as Spaces, more widely available.
In addition to Live Audio Rooms, Facebook also announced:
A Sound Studio: New audio creation tools are coming to the Facebook app that will include options such as speech-to-text, sound morphing, sound effects and the ability to mix audio tracks
Soundbites: Facebook will begin testing the ability to create "short-form, creative audio clips for capturing anecdotes, jokes, moments of inspiration, poems, and many other things we haven’t yet imagined."
Podcasts: Coming soon, you'll be able to listen to your favourite podcast from within the Facebook app.
NEWS-LIKE
🔴 In a surprise to no one, Instagram is testing ads in Reels [The Verge]
🔴 Snapchat rises to 280 million users, reports strong take-up of TikTok-like 'Spotlight' option [Social Media Today]
🔴 Twitter rolls out 4K image support on Android and iOS [Engadget]
🔴 A social media app that's truly safe for kids? Celebrities bet on Zigazoo [CNN]
USAGE-LIKE
Hootsuite and We Are Social have released The Global State of Digital 2021 Report (available for download in exchange for your contact details). And based on this slide in the report, Facebook continues to hold onto the top spot among most-used social platforms. Following closely behind are Facebook-owned properties WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. But YouTube holds strong at #2 overall, while TikTok is showing some solid growth. Meanwhile, Twitter continues to lag closer to the bottom.
VIRAL-LIKE
A LinkedIn post by an IT worker in the United Kingdom went viral recently, but perhaps not for the reason you think. In the post, Jonathan Frostick, 45, shared a picture of himself from his hospital bed recovering from a heart attack. He also shared what he had been thinking about as he had the attack. His first thought: I have a meeting with my manager tomorrow; this isn't convenient. But since then, he's made some big decisions. Frostick, a father of three, said that during the pandemic, the boundaries between work and family life started to blur, but his near death experience has put everything into perspective. Going forward, he's going to spend more time with family and less time on Zoom (easy to see why this went viral, amirite?).
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