The Week in Social: Twitter Password Resets, Facebook Dating, and Instagram Combats Bullying

Twitter asks 330 million users to change passwords

Twitter announced on Thursday that a bug had been discovered in their password storing system, which created an unencrypted internal log of user passwords leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. Twitter CTO, Parag Agrawal, reassured users in a blog post that the bug was discovered by Twitter employees, and an internal investigation resulted in no indication that the data had been breached in any way, though they did encourage users to choose a new password as an added precaution. After apologizing and sharing tips on account security, Twitter added that they “recognize and appreciate the trust users place in the company, and are committed to earning that trust every day.”

Zuckerberg announces Facebook dating at F8 Conference

During his keynote speech at the F8 conference, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announce that Facebook would soon be entering the online dating arena. Simply called “Dating,” Zuckerberg insisted the platform would focus on helping build meaningful relationships and wouldn’t be “just for hookups.” Having been “designed with privacy and safety in mind from the beginning” Zuckerberg added that “Dating” would be opt-in only, and that profiles created by participating users would only be visible to other participants and would never be seen by friends or appear in news feeds.

Instagram introduces new Anti-bullying filter

Instagram co-founder and CEO, Kevin Systrom, announced in a blog post that Instagram will be integrating a new filter onto their platform aimed at combatting cyberbullying. The new filter will hide comments that contain any attacks on a user’s physical appearance, character, or any threat to their well-being, while notifying Instagram to repeat offenders. The filter has already been rolled out across the platform, users can still choose to opt-out in their comment controls.

WhatsApp announces group video calling feature

During the F8 conference, director of Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp, Mubarik Imam, announced that the service now has over 450 million daily users who collectively spend over 2 billion minutes making audio and video calls per day. In a seemingly direct response to Snapchat’s rollout of group video calling, Imam revealed that “since voice and video calling are very popular on WhatsApp, we’re excited to share that group calling and stickers will be integrated into the platform in the coming months.” Frequently going head to head to remain on top, it will be interesting to see whether there will come a time when Facebook’s vastly larger user base abandons Snapchat for the sake of consolidation.

Can bots cure online hate-speech? Or is it just a quick fix?

With hate-speech becoming an increasingly larger problem throughout online communities, social media networks and governments alike have started to brainstorm new ways to fight against the horrible trend while still trying to respect user privacy. The European Union has begun considering instituting measures and legislation to help minimize the sheer volume of hate-filled postings throughout social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. While many think that artificial intelligence algorithms should be able to easily fix the problem, human ingenuity has proven to repeatedly find loopholes that successfully circumvent the filters, leading to the introduction of brand new forms of hate speech.

Instagram stealthily adds native payments

Instagram has begun beta testing payments for commerce throughout its platform. Payment settings have appeared allowing users to store payment information, such as debit and credit card information, for future use when buying products from directly inside the app. Other features include the ability for users to track previous payments, as well as setting up a pin for added security. Confirming inquiries made by TechCrunch, Instagram confirmed that payments for booking appointments at restaurants or salons are currently live for a limited set of partners. The features are now available for most users in U.S and some in the U.K. with no confirmed release date as to when it will be launched globally.

Facebook bolsters image recognition AI with Instagram photos

During a speech at the F8 annual developer conference, Facebook announced that they have successfully increased the intelligence of their image recognition networks. Researchers and engineers accomplished this by sourcing 3.5 billion different Instagram images containing up to 17,000 unique hashtags. As a result, the company claims its image recognition AI is now able to achieve an accuracy rate of 85.4% on the popular benchmarking tool ImageNet.