Social Media News Round Up: Facebook's Ad Breaks, Twitter banning dehumanizing language and more

Social Media Platforms are constantly evolving and updating with newer features to increase relevance and stickiness for users, brands and businesses. Here is our weekly roundup of Social Media News this week.

Social Samosa brings you all the latest news, platform updates and trends dominating the digital ecosystem. Social Media News this week was dominated by Snapchat and Amazon's collaboration on visual search, Facebook making illicit use of phone numbers for targeted advertising, and more.

Twitter shared private conversations with developers due to a bug

Twitter announced that due to a bug it may have shared direct message interactions of 1% of it’s users to developers in an API. It claims the bug was found and fixed. Read more here.

Pinterest opens their API to third-party influencer-marketing platforms

Pinterest has opened it’s content marketing to third-party influencer-marketing platforms to help brands and influencers to collaborate and create invigorating content. Read more here.

Instagram co-founders exit Facebook

After Whatsapp’s co-founder Jam Koum announced his departure from the company following arguments with Facebook over data privacy in April this year, today Instagram co founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have resigned from the parent company. Read more here.

Facebook rolls out Ad Breaks in 21 more countries

Facebook’s pre-video and mid-video Facebook Ad Breaks are being initiated in 21 more countries, including France, Germany, Spain, Colombia, Mexico, and more. Read more here.

Snapchat collaborates with Amazon for Visual Search

Snapchat has announced a new feature called visual search in partnership with the online shopping app, Amazon which would allow users to search for a product by pointing their app’s camera to a physical product or it’s barcode. Read more here.

Twitter routes towards banning dehumanizing posts

Twitter is planning to expand their hateful conduct policy to restrain dehumanizing language; the process is in the development stage as of now and would assess feedback as well. Read more here.

Instagram adjoins notifications to it’s website and lite version

Instagram’s web and lite version wouldn’t indicate notifications until recently. If you’ve used these versions lately you would’ve noticed a pop-up allowing you to turn notifications on. Read more here.

Facebook Stories hits the 300 million DAU mark & opens up for ads

Facebook is subjugating Stories, with the layout’s 300 million Daily Active Users as revealed by its research manager in a recent event in New York City in addition to plans of opening Stories for ads. Read more here.

Facebook uses phone numbers taken for 2FA for targeted advertising

According to a recent update, Facebook invades it’s users’ privacy, by using their phone numbers provided for 2FA for targeted advertising. The also use the users’ contact list which Facebook may or may not have access to, but shadows that contact information. Read more here.