YouTube testing removal of public dislike counts on videos
YouTube is trying to reduce the impact of negative behaviours on the platform by experimenting with the removal of public dislike counts on videos posted by creators.
The decision to remove the public dislike counts on videos was made with the aim to address concerns around targeted dislike campaigns and how they negatively impact the creator and user well-being.
Users will still be able to like and dislike videos, and these numbers would still count towards video ranking in the platform. But, just like the Instagram’s removal of public likes experiment, creators will be able to see their full dislike counts in YouTube Studio.
YouTube is hoping that the removal can help in taking away negative stigma around certain types of content and make creators feel more comfortable in sharing such content.
Facebook working on a ‘kids version’ of Instagram
With Messenger Kids being a success and having 7 million monthly users in 70 countries, Facebook is now looking at creating a kids version of Instagram.
The current Instagram policy does not allow people under the age of 13 to create an account, however many kids still attempt to join the app by adding a fake date of birth and are exposed to potential dangers from predators.
To tackle these issues, Instagram has recently launched new restrictions that will protect youngsters, such as adults not being able to message kids that aren’t following them.
However, the best way to avoid youngsters being exposed to the platform is to build a separate kids version. Instagram’s chief Adam Mosseri says:
“Part of the solution is to create a version of Instagram for young people or kids where parents have transparency or control.”
Some suggest that creating a separate version of the app may increase bullying and abuse amongst younger audiences. But by restricting who can use the app and giving parents oversight this risk can be reduced.
Instagram is still in the planning stage on this one, so more information will be available once there is a clarification on strategy.
Instagram story drafts to be launched
Instagram story drafts have been a highly requested feature and the app will finally be launching them.
They’re great in providing users with the flexibility in how and when they want to use stories. You will soon be able to create stories, save them to your draft and post them whenever you want.
Options to save stories and downloading them to your device already exist via a third party. However, they’re not convenient within users’ creation flow, so having these features within Instagram itself will facilitate user’s creative creation process.
Just like a normal story, users will be able to use Instagram’s full feature set in the draft creation process and view them as they’ll appear to users.
This update will also be extremely beneficial for brands that have always wanted to schedule stories updates to be posted when their audiences are most active.
Twitter will be launching ‘Communities’
Similar to Facebook Groups, Twitter will soon be launching ‘Communities’. This new option will enable Twitter users to share their tweets within selected groups of users instead of sharing them with all their followers.
This option is great for those who want to talk about a variety of different topics without boring their audience with updates they are not interested in. They can now simply create communities that have similar interests and share relevant information, which will also increase engagement as people will be getting information on topics they like.
These community pages would be joinable and be close knit with only members being able to share tweets. This would provide users with private engagement options and create closer communities within the platform.
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by Hira Nasir
