Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Messenger are coming back online after widespread "technical issues" took down many of Meta's biggest apps for several hours Wednesday. "We’re 99% of the way there - just doing some last checks," the company wrote in an update on X nearly four hours after first acknowledging the outages.
Meta is expanding its feature that helps users avoid “Facebook jail.” Earlier this year, the company began allowing Facebook creators to complete in-app “educational training” for first-time rule violations in order to avoid strikes on their accounts. Now, the company is expanding the feature to all Facebook users and opening it up to creators on Instagram.
It’s that festive time of year again. All of the algorithm elves living inside our favorite music-streaming apps have begun cranking out personalized “best of” lists in the vein of Spotify Wrapped and Apple Music Replay. This year, however, there’s a new kid on the block.
Elon Musk’s attorneys filed for an injunction against OpenAI and Microsoft on Friday, accusing them of anticompetitive practices. He wants to stop OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit company. Musk first sued OpenAI earlier this year for allegedly violating its founding mission of building AI “for the benefit of humanity,” but he withdrew the lawsuit a few months later.
Riot Games added some new clauses to its Terms of Service that could put some players in hot water for unbecoming behavior that occurs “across the various places that touch their gaming experience.” Players can face penalties, suspensions and even “Riot-wide bans” if they are caught violating these new rules.
Australia is set to ban under 16s from social media services after the Senate passed a bill to that effect by 34 votes to 19. The legislation will return to the House of Representatives, which will need to approve amendments before it becomes law.
Earlier this year OpenAI unveiled Sora, a text-to-video AI model, showing off detailed scenes and complex camera motion from relatively simple prompts. It's been radio silence since then, but the company recently granted artists free early access to the tool for testing.
Instagram spruced up its DM features on Monday. You can now share your live location with friends, handy for meetups at concerts or other crowded places. The social platform also now lets you add nicknames in one-on-one or group chats, and there are over 300 new stickers to share in DMs.
Threads is making more changes to address long-running complaints from users. This time, the company is testing out improvements to its search and trending topics feature in updates that Adam Mosseri described as “long-overdue improvements.”