Social Media

Discover the best articles, videos, and resources on social media. How social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok shape our lives. Follow along on Refind to get the most relevant new links picked for you.
9 Best Articles in 2021
medium.com
How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds — from a Magician and Google’s Design Ethicist — Mediummedium.com
~16 min read · From 2016 · When using technology, we often focus optimistically on all the things it does for us. But I want you to show you where it might do the opposite.
technology
digital life
startups
WIRED
Inside Facebook's Hellish Two Years—and Mark Zuckerberg's Struggle to Fix it AllWIRED
20+ min read · From 2018 · How a confused, defensive social media giant steered itself into a disaster, and how Mark Zuckerberg is trying to fix it all.
facebook
history
russia
Guardian Tech
'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopiaGuardian Tech
20+ min read · From 2017 · The Google, Apple and Facebook workers who helped make technology so addictive are disconnecting themselves from the internet. Paul Lewis reports on the Silicon Valley refuseniks who worry the race…
addiction
fbchange
digital life
Facebook Newsroom
It’s Facebook Official, Dating Is HereFacebook Newsroom
From 2019 · Facebook Dating makes it easier to find love through what you like.
relationships
social media
facebook
Cloudflare
Understanding How Facebook Disappeared from the InternetCloudflare
Oct 4th · Today at 1651 UTC, we opened an internal incident entitled "Facebook DNS lookup returning SERVFAIL" because we were worried that something was wrong with our DNS resolver 1.1.1.1.  But as we were about to post on our public status page we realized something else more serious was going on.
technology
social media
networking
Most highlighted
So now, because Facebook and their sites are so big, we have DNS resolvers worldwide handling 30x more queries than usual and potentially causing latency and timeout issues to other platforms.
MIT Technology Review
He got Facebook hooked on AI. Now he can't fix its misinformation addictionMIT Technology Review
20+ min read · Mar 11th · Three years ago, the company began building "responsible AI." This is the story of how it failed.
facebook
technology
social media
Most highlighted
the fraction of people who logged in to Facebook six of the previous seven days. L6/7 is just one of myriad ways in which Facebook has measured “engagement”
It found that there was indeed a correlation, and that reducing polarization would mean taking a hit on engagement.
The researcher’s team also found that users with a tendency to post or engage with melancholy content—a possible sign of depression—could easily spiral into consuming increasingly negative material that risked further worsening their mental health. The team proposed tweaking the content-ranking models for these users to stop maximizing engagement alone, so they would be shown less of the depressing stuff.
The New York Times
Designed to Deceive: Do These People Look Real to You?The New York Times
4 min read · 2020-11-21 · The people in this story may look familiar, like ones you’ve seen on Facebook or Twitter or Tinder. But they don’t exist. They were born from the mind of a computer, and the technology behind them is…
deepfakes
technology
social media
Buffer
The 20 Best New Social Media Tools to Try in 2017 (And How to Use Them)Buffer
~20 min read · From 2016 · The social media world is a fascinating one. Every so often, a new social media platform emerges to capture our attention (Peach) or become part of our daily lives (Snapchat). The social media tools landscape can be just as fascinating — and robust! Every week, people build and launch new social media tools, empowering us marketers in […]
social media
tools
social media tools
The Economist Data Team
How heavy use of social media is linked to mental illnessThe Economist Data Team
5 min read · From 2018 · Youngsters report problems with anxiety, depression, sleep and “FoMO”
social media
mental health
health
New this week
PayPal in $45 bln bid for Pinterest -sources
Reuters
Network-Based Platforms Must Be Regulated. But How?
Harvard Business Review
The Facebook Whistleblower Won’t Change Anything
WIRED
The tech billionaire aiding the Facebook whistleblower
POLITICO
Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name
The Verge
Building the Metaverse Responsibly
about.fb.com
Teen Girls Are Developing Tics. Doctors Say TikTok Could Be a Factor.
The Wall Street Journal
Does Social Media Turn Nice People Into Trolls?
Radiolab
Instagram Struggles With Fears of Losing Its ‘Pipeline’: Young Users
The New York Times
‘It spreads like a disease’: how pro-eating-disorder videos reach teens on TikTok
Guardian Tech
Why these Facebook research scandals are different
The Verge
The Great Beyond — Real Life
Real Life
YouTube’s stronger election misinformation policies had a spillover effect on Twitter and Facebook, researchers say.
The New York Times
Opinion | The Moral Panic Engulfing Instagram
The New York Times
Google and YouTube say they won’t allow ads or monetized content pushing climate denial
TechCrunch
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Cloudflare
Understanding How Facebook Disappeared from the InternetCloudflare
Oct 4th · Today at 1651 UTC, we opened an internal incident entitled "Facebook DNS lookup returning SERVFAIL" because we were worried that something was wrong with our DNS resolver 1.1.1.1.  But as we were about to post on our public status page we realized something else more serious was going on.
technology
social media
networking
Most highlighted
So now, because Facebook and their sites are so big, we have DNS resolvers worldwide handling 30x more queries than usual and potentially causing latency and timeout issues to other platforms.
The Verge
Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new nameThe Verge
3 min read · Oct 20th · The tech giant wants to be known for more than social media’s ills.
facebook
social media
Most highlighted
The rebrand would likely position the blue Facebook app as one of many products under a parent company overseeing groups like Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, and more.
we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company
A possible name could have something to do with Horizon, the name of the still-unreleased VR version of Facebook-meets-Roblox that the company has been developing for the past few years.
The New York Times
Facebook Is Weaker Than We KnewThe New York Times
6 min read · Oct 4th · A trove of leaked documents, published by The Wall Street Journal, hints at a company whose best days are behind it.
facebook
social media
decline
Most highlighted
It’s a crazy-sounding question, but it’s also revealing. Would a confident, thriving social media app need to “leverage playdates,” or concoct elaborate growth strategies aimed at 10-year-olds?
A good way to think about Facebook’s problems is that they come in two primary flavors: problems caused by having too many users, and problems caused by having too few of the kinds of users it wants — culture-creating, trendsetting, advertiser-coveted young Americans.
But Facebook’s research tells a clear story, and it’s not a happy one. Its younger users are flocking to Snapchat and TikTok, and its older users are posting anti-vaccine memes and arguing about politics. Some Facebook products are actively shrinking, while others are merely making their users angry or self-conscious
a16z
Why Web3 Mattersa16z
4 min read · Oct 7th · Web1 (roughly 1990-2005) was about open protocols that were decentralized and community-governed. Most of the value accrued to the edges of the network — users and builders. Web2 (roughly 2005-2020)…
social media
digital life
startups
Most highlighted
Tokens give users property rights: the ability to own a piece of the internet.
NFTs give users the ability to own objects, which can be art, photos, code, music, text, game objects, credentials, governance rights, access passes, and whatever else people dream up next.  NFTs exist on top of blockchains like Ethereum. Ethereum is a decentralized global computer that is owned and operated by its users.
We are now at the beginning of the web3 era, which combines the decentralized, community-governed ethos of web1 with the advanced, modern functionality of web2.
TIME
Facebook Will Not Fix ItselfTIME
6 min read · Oct 7th · Tech giants behave as unelected governments. Do we have the courage to stop them?
social media
facebook
technology
Vox
Why this Facebook scandal is differentVox
5 min read · Oct 4th · Internal evidence that former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen shared shows Facebook has known — but ignored — the harm it causes.
facebook
social media
society
Most highlighted
The reports revealed that the company knew its products can cause meaningful harm — including negatively impacting the mental health of teens — but it still has not made major changes to fix such problems.
On Sunday evening, a former Facebook employee who has previously revealed damning internal documents about the company came forward on 60 Minutes to reveal her identity
For years, we’ve known many of these issues — via journalists and researchers — but Facebook has been able to claim that they have an ax to grind and so we shouldn’t trust what they say. This time, the documents speak for themselves,” she told Recode.
The Wall Street Journal
The Facebook Whistleblower, Frances Haugen, Says She Wants to Fix the Company, Not Harm ItThe Wall Street Journal
2 min read · Oct 3rd · The former employee who gathered documents that formed the foundation of The Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files series says that her goal is to help prompt change at the social-media giant, not to…
facebook
social media
The New York Times
Instagram Struggles With Fears of Losing Its ‘Pipeline’: Young UsersThe New York Times
8 min read · Oct 16th · The app, hailed as Facebook’s growth engine, has privately wrestled with retaining and engaging teenagers, according to internal documents.
social media
Rest of World
Instagram has largely replaced TikTok in India, and erased working-class creatorsRest of World
6 min read · Oct 6th · “TikTok was a canteen; Instagram is a café. But the canteen has better food, and the café serves costly coffee that not everyone drinks.”
creator economy
social media
The New York Times
Whistle-Blower Says Facebook ‘Chooses Profits Over Safety’The New York Times
7 min read · Oct 4th · Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, revealed that she had provided internal company documents to journalists and others.
social media
Social Media

9 Best Articles in 2021

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