Engadget

The Threads app has passed the 200 million user mark, according to Meta exec Adam Mosseri. The milestone comes one day after Mark Zuckerberg said that the service was “about” to hit 200 million users during the company’s latest earnings call.

Engadget

Netflix has finally set a date for the next season of Squid Game, almost three years after the Korean drama became a massive hit in the US.

Engadget

Google has responded to allegations that it “censored” searches about Donald Trump after Elon Musk baselessly claimed the company had imposed a “search ban” on the former president. The issues, Google explained, were due to bugs in its autocomplete feature. But Musk’s tweet, which was viewed more than 118 million times, nonetheless forced the search giant to publicly explain one of its most basic features.

Engadget

The Senate has passed two major online safety bills amid years of debate over social media’s impact on teen mental health. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act, also known as COPPA 2.0, passed the Senate in a vote of 91 - T3.

The bills will next head to the House, though it’s unclear if the measures will have enough support to pass. If passed into law, the bills would be the most significant pieces of legislation regulating tech companies in years.

Engadget

In his two decades running the company now known as Meta, Mark Zuckerberg has gone through many transformations. More recently, he’s been showing off a seemingly less filtered version of himself.

Engadget

The next time you DM a creator on Instagram, you might get a reply from their AI. Meta is starting to roll out its AI Studio, a set of tools that will allow Instagram creators to make an AI persona that can answer questions and chat with their followers and fans on their behalf.

Engadget

Meta’s Oversight Board is urging the company to update its rules around sexually explicit deepfakes. The board made the recommendations as part of its decision in two cases involving AI-generated images of public figures.

Engadget

Meta has taken down tens of thousands of Instagram accounts from Nigeria as part of a massive crackdown on sextortion scams. The accounts primarily targeted adult men in the United States, but some also targeted minors, Meta said in an update.

Engadget

Already fascinated with y2k-era tech, some members of Gen Z have wondered what those early, simpler social networks were like.

Engadget

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) has come back online nearly a decade after shutting down. But the once venerable source of Apple news appears to have been transformed by its new owners into an AI-generated content farm.