After months of legal challenges, TikTok is back online for U.S. users. The app’s restoration comes just hours after President-elect Donald Trump stepped in to prevent it from “going dark.” The Chinese-owned social media platform confirmed its return in a […]
One of the chief complaints among early foldables has been how thick the hardware is, and it’s been a major focus for manufacturers. With new images of the upcoming Oppo Find N5 and OnePlus Open 2, new records are being teased, and it reveals a device that’s truly jaw-droppingly thin.
Donald Trump, who has long called climate change as a "hoax", is to waste no time in his plans to strip nature protections, ban wind turbines and drain every last drop of oil from US soil.
Bluesky experienced explosive growth last year, particularly toward the end, necessitating that the platform ramp up its moderation efforts. In its recently released moderation report for 2024, Bluesky said it grew by about 23 million users, jumping from 2.9 million users to nearly 26 million. And, its moderators received 17 times the number of user reports they got in 2023 — 6.48 million in 2024 compared to 358,000 the previous year.
The bulk of these reports were related to “harassment, trolling or intolerance,” spam and misleading content (including impersonation and misinformation). The presence of accounts posing as other people has been a known issue in the wake of Bluesky’s popularity spike, and the platform updated its impersonation policy in November with a “more aggressive” approach in an attempt to crack down on it. At the time, it said it had quadrupled its moderation team. The new report says Bluesky’s moderation team has grown to about 100, and hiring is ongoing. “Some moderators specialize in particular policy areas, such as dedicated agents for child safety,” it notes.
Other categories Bluesky says it received a lot of reports about include “illegal and urgent issues” and unwanted sexual content. There were also 726,000 reports marked as “other.” Bluesky says it complied with 146 requests from “law enforcement, governments, legal firms” out of a total of 238 last year.
The platform plans on making some changes to the way reports and appeals are handled this year that it says will “streamline user communication,” like providing users with updates about actions it has taken on content they’ve reported and, further down the line, letting users appeal takedown decisions directly in the app. Moderators took down 66,308 accounts in 2024, while its automated systems took down 35,842 spam and bot profiles. “Looking ahead to 2025, we're investing in stronger proactive detection systems to complement user reporting, as a growing network needs multiple detection methods to rapidly identify and address harmful content,” Bluesky says.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/blueskys-2024-moderation-report-shows-how-quickly-harmful-content-grew-as-new-users-flocked-in-000149354.html?src=rss
At a victory rally the day before being sworn into the presidency, Donald Trump extolled his plan to “save TikTok” from the law that banned it through a joint venture with the US.
On its face, the plan does not appear to comply with the law’s requirements for a qualified divestiture that TikTok’s service providers like Apple, Google, and Oracle could rely on to avoid hundreds of billions in potential fines. Even so, at least some of TikTok’s service providers seem to be relying on Trump’s flimsy promises, allowing TikTok to restore service to the app mid-day Sunday, on the first day of its ban.
Trump is proposing a joint venture where the US government owns 50 percent of TikTok. That raises a host of its own First Amendment issues since any content moderation whatsoever might be considered a government act, and the Constitution prohibits the government (not private companies) from infringing on speech.
It’s not entirely clear how Trump envisions this all playing out, but Trump says, essentially, that TikTok would have a “partner” in the US government, “and they’ll have a lot of bidders and the United States will do what we call a joint venture.” Trump claims there is “no risk” to the US because “we’re not putting up any money. All we’re doing is giving them the approval without which they don’t have anything. So, I don’t know, it sounds like that works.”
Trump also reinforced the idea that the whole reason he likes TikTok is because he thinks it helped his campaign. He credited his 21-year-old staffer, nicknamed “TikTok Jack,” for helping him get on the app that helped him win over young voters.
And though the stated purpose of forcing TikTok to divest from its parent company ByteDance (a move Trump himself first tried to do in his first term) was to remove a possible backdoor for the Chinese government to US data, he now says that “frankly, we have no choice, we have to save it — a lot of jobs. We don’t wanna give our business to China.”
Here’s Trump’s full comments on TikTok during the rally:
And as of today, TikTok is back. So, you know, I did a little TikTok thing we have a guy, TikTok Jack he’s a young kid, like 21 years old. And we hired this guy, and I went on TikTok; can you believe what I’ll do to win an election?And we went on TikTok and Republicans have never won the young vote, the youth vote. They win a lot of votes, but they never won the youth vote. We won the youth vote by 36 points. So I like TikTok. I like it. I had a slightly good experience wouldn’t you say?
Romney lost it by 40 points not so long ago. We won it by 36 points. That’s a very big spread.But I said, we need to save TikTok, because we’re talking about a tremendous — who, who in this audience goes with TikTok? Many? Yeah, very popular. And frankly, we have no choice, we have to save it — a lot of jobs. We don’t wanna give our business to China, we don’t wanna give our business to other people. And I said, you know, TikTok without my approval — meaning the president’s approval because Congress gave the president the right to make a deal to whatever he wants and uh… they did that a long time ago when they have a different president. They didn’t know that I was gonna be at the president, I guess.
So I said very simply, a joint venture. So, if TikTok is worth nothing, zero without an approval, you know you don’t approve, they’re out of business, they’re worth nothing.
If you do approve, they’re worth like a trillion dollars, they’re worth some crazy number. So I said, I’ll approve, but let the United States of America own 50% of TikTok.I’m approving on behalf of the United States.
So they’ll have a partner, the United States, and they’ll have a lot of bidders and the United States will do what we call a joint venture. And there’s no risk, we’re not putting up any money. All we’re doing is giving them the approval without which they don’t have anything. So, I don’t know, it sounds like that works. What do you think, good? So, whether you like TikTok or not, we’re gonna make a lot of money.
TSMC has been promised $6.6 billion under the Biden-administration's CHIPS and Science ACT to help build three cutting-edge chip fabrication plants in Arizona.
TikTok has returned — at least partially — in the US following a nationwide ban, but other popular ByteDance-owned apps, such as the digital card game Marvel Snap, video editing app CapCut, and the social platform Lemon8, are still blocked. None of these apps, including TikTok, are currently available to download on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, either.
Though many users expected CapCut and Lemon8 to be affected by the law banning TikTok, Marvel Snap’s ban took some by surprise — including its own developer. On Sunday morning, the game studio Second Dinner said in a post on X, “This outage is a surprise to us and wasn’t planned. MARVEL SNAP isn’t going anywhere.” Marvel Snap is published by Nuverse, a game developer owned by ByteDance.
Screenshot: The Verge
Users trying to open MarvelSnap, CapCut, and Lemon8 will see a message similar to the one TikTok displayed when it went dark on Saturday night. “A law banning CapCut has been enacted in the U.S,” the pop-up inside CapCut reads. “Unfortunately, that means you can’t use CapCut for now. Rest assured, we’re working to restore our service in the U.S. Please stay tuned!”
TikTok, along with several other ByteDance-owned apps, shut down in the US just hours before the federal divest-or-ban law went into effect on January 19th. The ban also affects TikTok Studio, TikTok Shop Seller Center, Hypic, Lark - Team Collaboration, Lark - Rooms Display, Lark Rooms Controller, and Gauth: AI Study Companion.
Both Google and Apple display notices to users trying to search for ByteDance-owned apps. While the Play Store says, “Downloads for this app are paused due to current US legal requirements,” a banner on the App Store notes, “TikTok and other ByteDance apps are not available in the country or region you’re in.”
It’s still not clear when Marvel Snap, CapCut, or Lemon8 will start working again or when they’ll reappear in mobile app stores.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri took to Threads on Sunday with yet another announcement this weekend, the timing of which surely had nothing at all to do with TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps (briefly) going dark: a new, free video-editing app called Edits is on the way. Instagram's Edits will cater to people who edit videos on their phone, and will offer “a full suite of creative tools.” That includes higher-quality recordings, shareable drafts, trending audio, insights about your Reels’ performance and an “inspiration tab,” on top of the usual editing tools.
If all that reminds you of CapCut, TikTok’s sister app for video editing, you’re not alone. In response to the immediate comparisons, Mosseri called Edits “CapCut, but more for creators than casual video makers.”
Edits isn’t available yet, but you can pre-order it on the App Store if you’re an iOS user and Mosseri says an Android version is “coming soon.” While he puts the release sometime in February, the App Store page says March 13. And don’t expect anything too polished when it arrives. “The first version is going to be incomplete, so please be patient, but I’m really excited to put this in all your hands,” Mosseri said.
The Edits app logo
Edits/App Store
The announcement came shortly after TikTok said its app was coming back online in the US, a mere 12 hours or so after it shut down. CapCut hasn’t come back yet, but it’s expected to follow suit. Trump said on social media that he would announce an executive order after he’s sworn in that would extend ByteDance’s time to sort out TikTok’s future.
While Threads users have been calling Instagram out for the timing of the announcement, Mosseri said the app has been in development for months, “and I think it'll end up pretty different than CapCut.” On that note, he said, “Edits will have a much broader range of creative tools and probably a smaller addressable audience. Think a place to track all your ideas instead of templates. Think AI video editing tools on a per clip or per video basis. Think new insights on why your videos are succeeding or struggling.”
One way it appears Edits may have a leg up on CapCut, at least, is the App Store page says videos won’t have a watermark when they’re exported. While the free version of CapCut has long added the easily removable ending logo to videos at the time of export, it recently started adding a corner watermark too.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-is-rushing-out-a-new-video-editing-app-that-sure-sounds-a-lot-like-capcut-205054034.html?src=rss
No matter what TikTok says in its laudatory pop-up messages, President-elect Donald Trump cannot simply declare an extension of the TikTok ban deadline and protect American companies that support it from billions of dollars in fines.
Trump seems to want TikTok available for his inauguration on Monday, because “Americans deserve” to see the event. But TikTok is officially banned starting today until it sells to a non-Chinese company, and there’s no deal in sight. Flouting that ban could get Apple and Google’s app stores, as well as service providers Akamai and Oracle, dinged for potentially $850 billion in penalties. Despite all this, Trump has reportedly assured companies they won’t face these fines if they let TikTok keep operating. Now, the question is simple: will Trump-friendly companies risk breaking the law to make the president happy?
TikTok’s status has been uncertain since last night. President Joe Biden said he wouldn’t enforce the law on the last day of his presidency, but TikTok declared it would go dark anyway. App stores removed it in accordance with the law. Then, Trump promised he’d extend the deadline, telling companies they wouldn’t face penalties — and TikTok...
Today, Meta is announcing Edits: a new mobile video editing platform. This comes just hours after TikTok (and as a result, CapCut) were banned in the US – though TikTok is currently being restored, at least temporarily.
After going dark for a few hours over the weekend, TikTok has returned following a pledge from President-elect Donald Trump to delay the app's U.S. ban on his first day back in office. Whether the popular social platform can find a permanent way to stay online in America remains unclear. If it can't, billions of...
In an about-face, TikTok has told advertisers that ad campaigns targeting U.S. audiences will resume delivering ads on Sunday, following the shutdown of its platform for just a few hours, according to a memo reviewed by ADWEEK. Live campaigns, however, will have "certain limitations." The memo notes that while TikTok has reinforced its infrastructure to...
The Android 16 Beta for Pixel devices is scheduled to start in January and some key dates have emerged. Compared to previous years, Android 16 is set to arrive in Q2 of 2025 (instead of Q3), with Google moving up the first Developer Preview from February to November.
An organization developing math benchmarks for AI didn’t disclose that it had received funding from OpenAI until relatively recently, drawing allegations of impropriety from some in the AI community. Epoch AI, a nonprofit primarily funded by Open Philanthropy, a research and grantmaking foundation, revealed on December 20 that OpenAI had supported the creation of FrontierMath. […]
“There’s a lot going on right now, but no matter what happens, it’s our job to provide the best possible tools for creators,” Mosseri said in a video posted to Instagram. He goes on to describe the app:
Edits is more than a video editing app; it’s a full suite of creative tools. There will be a dedicated tab for inspiration, another for keeping track of early ideas, a much higher-quality camera (which I used to record this video), all the editing tools you’d expect, the ability to share drafts with friends and other creators, and — if you decide to share your videos on Instagram — powerful insights into how those videos perform.
Image: Meta
This is what Edits will look like.
The insights he mentions include “a live insights dashboard,” a breakdown of follower and non-follower engagement, and metrics for how often users skip specific ones. It will also include editing tools that let people use green screens and video overlays, both common features of TikTok videos, according to its App Store listing.
In a reply to The Verge’s Chris Welch on Threads, Mosseri said Meta has been working on the app “for months.” He also said it will “end up pretty different than CapCut,” adding that “Edits will have a much broader range of creative tools and probably a smaller addressable audience.”
While Mosseri doesn’t say as much in his video, the announcement feels like a clear push to get the app into people’s minds as the future of TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps like CapCut remains in question. Edits will be available starting March 13th, 2025.
Leading AI developers, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, are threading a delicate needle to sell software to the United States military: make the Pentagon more efficient, without letting their AI kill people. Today, their tools are not being used as weapons, but AI is giving the Department of Defense a “significant advantage” in identifying, tracking, […]
Meta Sunday announced a new video editing app called Edits, after ByteDance’s video editing app CapCut was removed from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store as part of the TikTok ban. Instagram head Adam Mosseri (pictured above) said on Threads that the app will launch next month on iOS, with an Android version […]
