Tag: Free Speech Social Media App

LinkedIn has added some new measures designed to better protect users from inappropriate comments and content, while it’s also updated its Professional Community Policies to better reflect member expectations of professionalism and respect in communications across the platform.

First off, on individual content warnings and actions – from this week, LinkedIn members who have had their content removed due to rule violations will now get new notifications on their posts informing them of such, while those who make any such report will also get more info on what happens next in the process.

As you can see in these examples, when you make a report about content on LinkedIn, you’ll now see this new page which outlines the next steps, while those who have had a post removed will be alerted via a new informational prompt.

Up till now, LinkedIn hasn’t provided any real transparency on this process, and while you won’t get a full rundown of what actions have or have not been taken as a result of each report, the new prompts will provide more context on how LinkedIn actions such.

The new warnings are being rolled out to LinkedIn users in the US, France and Canada from today, with more regions to follow in the coming weeks. 

In addition to this, LinkedIn’s adding new prompts to its post composer in order to encourage civil interactions, while it’s also adding new warnings to messages that may include harassing content, enabling users to easily report such for review.

This is part of LinkedIn’s broader crackdown on inappropriate messages – last month, LinkedIn also shared how it has updated its automatic detection systems to better detect such messages based on past incidences of harassment within its connection streams.

Romance scams, inappropriate advances and targeted harassment were the three most common issues identified in LinkedIn’s investigations into such, and its new systems can now detect these types of messages more accurately, and better protect users from even having to see them.

These new report prompts are built on the same system, making it easier for users to quickly report LinkedIn creeps and alert the platform to such behavior. 

In addition to these new tools, LinkedIn has also updated its Professional Community Policies “to make it even more clear that hateful, harassing, inflammatory or racist content has absolutely no place on our platform”.

The new guidelines are built around four key principles:

• Be safe – We require everyone to be civil and respectful in every single interaction. Especially in our world today, hate, discrimination, racism, harassment, including unwanted romantic advances, or bullying have no place on LinkedIn.
• Be trustworthy – We require members to use their true identity, provide accurate information about themselves or their organization, and only share information that is real and authentic. We do not allow fake profiles, fake jobs, or misinformation.  
• Be professional – We require content to be professionally relevant and on topic, such as sharing and gaining expertise, hiring or how to get hired, or learning or teaching a new skill. Explicit, shocking or inflammatory content is not allowed. 
• Respect others’ rights and follow the law – Adhere to privacy, copyright, and other applicable laws when you’re using LinkedIn.

The regulations are pretty much as you would expect, and largely in line with the previous guidelines for LinkedIn, though the specifications around harassment, discrimination and racism are more specifically spelled out, which is in line with LinkedIn’s renewed approach, under new CEO Ryan Rozlansky, on tackling inappropriate content on the platform. 

Part of that effort can be linked back to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which served as a wake-up call to all social platforms as to how they can, and need to be part of a broader societal shift in how such issues are addressed. But LinkedIn, now with more than 700 million members, is also seeing more on-platform engagement and activity – and with that, there also comes more inappropriate actions, which requires a more defined approach to address.

LinkedIn’s also likely to see a major uptick in activity as the economic conditions recover over time, so it’s important that LinkedIn does indeed take steps like this to better protect its increasingly active user base.

With the US Presidential Election now only 34 days away, TikTok has this week announced its new ‘Elections Guide’, which will help connect its users with authoritative voting information, and limit the spread of misleading reports and updates via the app.

As you can see in these screenshots, TikTok’s Elections Guide will prompt eligible US users to register for the poll, while also providing official information on the voting process in each state via the National Association of Secretaries of State, BallotReady, SignVote, and more. 

As explained by TikTok:

“As with our COVID-19 resource hub, the election guide can be accessed from our Discover page and on election-related search results. We’ll also be linking to the guide at the bottom of videos relating to the elections and on videos from verified political accounts.”

So it’s pretty similar to the approach that both Facebook and Twitter are taking with their election awareness pushes – though you would expect that TikTok will have less of an impact in this regard, given that more than a third of its daily users in the US are aged 14 years old or younger.

But still, it could have an impact. Snapchat, for example, which also caters to a younger audience subset, recently reported that it’s already prompted 400,000 people to register to vote in 2020 via its in-app pushes. TikTok’s audience skews even younger than Snap’s, but any further pushes in this respect can have benefits, and can help drive awareness of civic participation.

And as we’ve seen, TikTok, despite its own efforts, has already been caught up in political controversy. Negotiations over the app’s sale to a US company are ongoing, and it may still face a full ban in the US if it can’t arrange a separation from its Chinese parent company. The rising tensions between China and the US have put the app in the middle of global trade discussions – so despite TikTok not accepting political ads and not being focused on news content, as such, it’s still involved in political messaging, in one way or another.

Given this, it makes sense for TikTok to align with the other social platforms and offer informational pushes. And even if they don’t end up having a major impact, it’s still worth TikTok, from a PR perspective, working to distribute accurate, timely, and helpful election information. 

As we head into the peak holiday shopping season, Instagram has this week published a new set of guides on how businesses can utilize Instagram shops, in order to reach potential customers via the platform.

Facebook first announced Instagram Shops back in May, and they’re gradually being made available to all businesses. And for those who can access the option, it could be a great way to maximize your holiday sales, tapping into the engagement of Instagram to grab customers as they browse through their feeds.

Instagram’s new ‘The Season for Shops‘ mini-site includes a range of guides, covering each aspect of the Instagram Shop set-up process.

Instagram has included specific overviews for:

Each guide includes graphic overviews of key elements, helping to clarify the process.

The overviews can be a great help in getting a better understanding of the Instagram Shops process, and how it can work for your business and products. 

Instagram’s also included detail on exactly how to add shopping tags in posts, Stories and in live-streams: 

There’s also info on how to create your shop and Collections via Commerce Manager:

The visual descriptions make it much easier to understand the key elements – and given the various steps required, that could be a big help in getting your Instagram shop up and running faster. 

And it could definitely be worth taking the time to go through the notes and tips here. With over a billion active users, and 80% of those users following brands specifically for product updates, there’s clearly an active base of potential shoppers on the platform. 

Making it easy for them to go from your latest image to owning that item could lead to significant results, and with shopping tags available in all elements, there’s a lot of opportunity. 

You can check out the various new Instagram shopping guides here.

Looking to give your SEO process a boost?

Even if you’re confident that you’re on the right track with your SEO efforts, Google is always making changes, and launching algorithm updates, all of which can have a significant impact on your page rankings if you’re not up to speed.

In order to stay on track, it’s worth utilizing SEO tools to check the latest info, and update your process as necessary.  

To help with this, the team from Grazitti Interactive have put together this infographic, which looks at a range of SEO tools which are worthy of consideration, covering a range of elements within the optimization process.

Check out the full infographic below for more detail.

How much screen time is too much for young kids? 

This has become an even more pertinent question in 2020, with children forced to spend more time indoors, and even attend school online, significantly boosting their internet usage and exposure.

The good news is that not all screen time is bad. Using screens as a babysitter or to placate a temper tantrum probably isn’t all that great. But doing school remotely, watching movies together as a family, and having video chats with friends might actually be a good thing.

In short, when it comes to screen time quality is a lot more important than quantity. This will be great news to the 85% of parents who are worried about how much screen time their kids are getting right now, and the more than half of those who fear that their child will be addicted to screens before the pandemic subsides. 

Screen time, even social media, can also give kids a chance to connect with their peers, staving off the loneliness that’s become such a standard part of pandemic life. Even if you’re a parent who’s been warned against the evils of social media, it might be time to take a second look. Setting up rules and boundaries on accounts and devices can give kids a safe space to reach out to their peers during these difficult times.

Learn more about why we should reevaluate screen time for kids from the infographic below.

Despite TikTok’s latest deadline expiring, which would have seen all US downloads of the app banned this past weekend, the app remains available, and in operation, for American users, at least for the time being.

While the US Government has given preliminary approval for the Oracle/Walmart takeover offer for TikTok to progress, as yet, there’s no official deal in place, and as such TikTok was set to be banned in US app stores yesterday, in line with the original Executive Order.

But as with the White House’s ban on WeChat, a US court has now blocked the move, allowing TikTok to maintain regular operations as the details of the deal are finalized.

To recap, on August 6th, US President Donald Trump issued two Executive Orders, which outlined separate bans on the operations of Chinese-owned social apps TikTok and WeChat within the US. Both orders were set to go into effect 45 days after they were issued, which meant that all downloads of TikTok and WeChat would have been banned on September 20th. 

However, days before the original deadline, TikTok announced that it has made significant progress in arranging a takeover deal, which lead to the US Department of Commerce issuing TikTok with an extension on the proposed ban till September 27th, giving it more time to finalize the deal. WeChat, meanwhile, challenged its ban in court, and a US Magistrate ruled that the ban could not go ahead, due to lack of evidence in relation to the concern that the app could be a threat to national security. 

It seems that TikTok has argued along similar lines, and now, it too will avoid an app store ban in the US. There’s currently no timeline on the new ruling, which was issued by the US District Court in Washington just hours before TikTok was set to be removed from availability.

TikTok issued a short statement on the ruling yesterday, saying:

“We’re pleased that the court agreed with our legal arguments and issued an injunction preventing the implementation of the TikTok app ban. We will continue defending our rights for the benefit of our community and employees. At the same time, we will also maintain our ongoing dialogue with the government to turn our proposal, which the President gave his preliminary approval to last weekend, into an agreement.”

It’s the latest in the messy takeover of TikTok, with the US Government, pushing for complete separation of the app from its Chinese parent company, in order to protect US user data and stop potential interference by the Chinese Government. President Trump has also said that the ban is, in part, a form of punishment for China over the spread of COVID-19. It’s unclear which element is the bigger concern in the US Government’s ban action.

In the days leading up to the weekend deadline, US officials had said that there would be no appealing the TikTok ban this time, with some noting that doing so would look bad for the Trump administration and its authority in such matters. And while the official explanation for the latest ruling has not yet been released, it’s expected that TikTok’s legal team argued along the same lines as WeChat’s defense – that while there is speculation that these apps could share data with the CCP, and could distribute pro-China messaging, the evidence of such is not sufficient to a full ban at this stage.

So, right now, TikTok remains unchanged, and continues to be available for US users as normal, and it’ll likely remain that way until the details of the Oracle/Walmart takeover deal are finalized, one way or another. If the deal falls through, which is still a possibility, TikTok could still face a full ban in the US on November 12th. 

Details of the separation arrangement are set to be challenging, with the parties working to appease both the US and Chinese governments in the deal. 

So while we are further along in establishing TikTok’s future in the US, there is still some way to go.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens between now and November.    

YouTube marketing is huge. But YouTube channel art is where content creators like you can really shine. Channel art can be used to convey key information about your channel, including your tagline, upload schedule, your other social media accounts, and so on. 

YouTube channel art can be stunning, valuable banners that help get your message across. Whether you’re promoting a giveaway you’re running or encouraging viewers to follow your other social media platforms, your banner can tell your story in a place everyone can see. 

There’s only one problem: graphic design isn’t exactly your forte. Even drawing a stick figure is challenging. 

Art and design may not be your thing. But good news: you don’t have to be an artist to use templates. That’s why they’re so handy. They’re easy-to-follow, easy for you to be creative, and easy to navigate. There’s no limit to what you can add in to a template to promote your business. If you’re not sure where to get great templates that communicate your business mission and values, here’s what we recommend. 

10 Easy YouTube Channel Art Template Makers You Need to See

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