The program is being funded by part of Facebook’s $5 million investment in publishers that serve historically marginalized communities.

Participants were chosen by Facebook staff, International Center for Journalists staff and coaches, from the more than 200 applications submitted in the U.S., based on demonstrated impact on their communities, commitment to the program’s requirements and readiness to pursue their biggest business opportunities.

Facebook Journalism Project offered more details on the participants:

• One-half of the group is made up of Black-owned, Black-led publishers, from some of the nation’s oldest Black newspapers to digitally native organizations.
• 80% of the participants focus on local news.
• Two-thirds are from the Midwest or South, which have historically received less investment than their colleagues on the coasts.
• Just over one-half are for-profit organizations.

The program will run from mid-October through early 2020, followed by a six-month period to executive on specific grant-funded initiatives.

The Sustainability Accelerator program is being led by:

And the participants, with descriptions courtesy of Facebook Journalism project, are:

• Black Voice News, a nearly 50-year old newspaper based in Riverside, Calif., that has made great strides in its digital transformation and is owned by the second generation of the founding family.
• Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, a watchdog group of veteran investigative reporters based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is the only entity of its kind in the Caribbean. The organization recently earned the support of the American Journalism Project to support its growth.
• Community Voice of Wichita is Kansas’ only Black newspaper, growing from the Wichita community to a statewide entity over the past 20 years.
• El Mundo Boston, a nearly 50-year-old news organization making the transition to a digitally focused news operation for the Latinx community of the greater Boston area.
• Flint Beat, a digitally native publisher from Flint, Mich., notable for its tenacity, solutions journalism work and its collaborative efforts with the publisher’s readership.
• Hola Carolina, the sole major Spanish-language news outlet for the western North Carolina region, has extensively covered the Covid-19 pandemic in the region and has played a key role in organizing distribution of personal protective equipment to the community.
• Indian Country Today, a nationally followed news organization with a base in Arizona, airs a weekday newscast through the FNX network and Arizona PBS, the only major broadcast focused on news for indigenous Americans.
• La Raza Chicago, the city’s largest Spanish-language paper, has been serving its community for over 50 years and is working to pivot its business model to more fully capture its digital potential.
• Lakota Times of South Dakota has built a reputation of incredible journalism covering the Lakota community in South Dakota and across the country over its 15 years.
• NextShark, one of the largest online destinations for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, reaching an audience of up to 15 million people per week on social media.
• Outlier Media fills critical information gaps for low-income Detroiters and provides a model for how local newsrooms can reliably and efficiently serve the needs of these news consumers. The Outlier approach has inspired several similar efforts in other cities across the country.
• Prism, a national digitally native outlet whose staff is entirely composed of people of color, Prism provides community members with concrete entry points for where they can better understand and participate in efforts toward necessary social change.
• PushBlack reaches more than 9 million Black Americans across a variety of digital efforts including news, history and finance content delivered on Messenger From Facebook and its Black History Year podcast.
• Rafu Shimpo, founded by Japanese students in 1903, has a storied history of providing Japanese-Americans in the Los Angeles area with quality local news.
• Sahan Journal’s reporting centers on the immigrant and refugee experience in Minnesota from its base in Minneapolis, helping young journalists of color and people of immigrant backgrounds to develop as storytellers and authors.
• St. Louis American, closing in on its 100th birthday, is a community institution in its region with extensive partnerships that will help it transition its already successful business into its next chapter.
• The Atlanta Voice is transitioning from the Atlanta area’s most significant Black newspaper into a truly multimedia news organization, from revamping its digital business model to investing in new production facilities that will allow it to deliver news and information Black Atlantans and others have come to rely on over the last 55 years.
• The Charlotte Post has kept Black residents in Charlotte, N.C., informed for over 100 years and is focused on revamping its businesses to make further staff and technological investments.
• The Miami Times, the South’s largest black newspaper, is a nearly 100-year-old family-owned operation that recently transferred to its next generation of leadership.
• The Tennessee Tribune has brought the diverse, multifaceted Black community of Nashville, Tenn., to life each week for the past 30 years. The newspaper is ready to improve its digital presence and develop a more comprehensive video strategy.

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Daily active users in the country are up nearly 150% in the third quarter compared with the same period last year, and more than 40 million unique viewers in India have watched a show on Snapchat, with time spent on its Discover page up over 200%.

Snap said it now has more than 60 local channels in India, from 32 publishing partners, covering topics including beauty, Bollywood culture, cooking, comedy, news and sports.

New Snap Originals in the market include a series following Raftaar, the “Indian King of Hip-Hop,” from OML Entertainment, as well as a Hindi version of Phone Swap.

Team Whistle and Snap renewed Phone Swap in the U.S. this week. It is one of Snapchat’s longest-running Snap Originals, entering its 11th season and totaling over 69 million unique viewers throughout the course of its run on the platform.

Phone Swap also became the first series to go from short-form social content to long-form television show when Fox picked it up for a limited run in 2018.

Snap head of content Sean Mills said in a statement, “It’s been incredible to see a Snap Original like Phone Swap build such a loyal audience and now expand into local markets. We can’t wait for Snapchatters in India to tune-in to a Hindi version of Phone Swap made just for them. We’re thrilled to continue our longstanding partnership with Team Whistle to bring our community even more engaging shows.”

Team Whistle CEO Michael Cohen added, “Phone Swap has been a massive success and built a loyal audience on Snap over 11 seasons. We’re excited for this next chapter in our partnership with Snap to expand the show internationally, initially to India in partnership with Colosceum Media, and to continue making additional seasons domestically to give our audience the content they love on the platforms where they want to watch.”

The Hindi version will be produced in partnership with Colosceum Media and Team Whistle.

Snap also reached a new partnership with NDTV, which will bring some of its most popular content to the platform; new creator shows from Qyuki, featuring talent such as Anushka Sen and Ruhi Singh; and a new comedy series from Vir Das.

Other India-specific initiatives detailed by Snap included: support for nine Indian languages, regional Here for You wellbeing content in partnership with Mariwala Health Initiative and Manas Foundation; and local partnerships celebrating culture, including landmarkers at the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal and an augmented reality mural for the Bollywood Arts Project.

Social media consultant Matt Navarra shared screenshots via Twitter, and the social network confirmed the test, with a spokesperson saying, “More than ever, people are using Facebook to participate in their local communities. To help make it easier to do this, we are rolling out a limited test of Neighborhoods, a dedicated space within Facebook for people to connect with their neighbors.”

Navarra was tipped off by Calgary-based social media strategist Leon Grigg of Grigg Digital.

Ingrid Lunden of TechCrunch shared further details on Neighborhoods, saying that it appears in the main menu in Facebook’s flagship application, alongside staples such as events, friends, groups, Marketplace and pages.

Lunden added that the Neighborhood groups—different from traditional Facebook groups—are generated by Facebook, rather than being created and run by administrators, and they appear to be set up to open once enough people in the area express interest.

Navarra said once users choose their local Neighborhood, they can grant Facebook permission to use their location to display groups, Marketplace items, posts and other content from other users in the area.

He added that Neighborhoods profiles can be created, separate from main Facebook profiles, and people can leave or change Neighborhoods at any time and access dedicated privacy options.

Facebook also alerts Neighborhoods users that they activity may be used to show them hyperlocal or more relevant ads, Navarra said.

The company was also added to the YouTube Measurement Program as a brand suitability and contextual targeting partner, meaning that brands can apply Zefr’s contextual data for granular post-campaign verification, based on industry-standard risk thresholds as defined by the 4A’s and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media.

Zefr said these reporting capabilities will be developed and rolled out throughout 2021 at it collaborates with the video site on integration with the Google Ads Data Hub, enabling it to provide brand suitability measurement on YouTube investments across Google Ads and DV360.

Yale Cohen, executive vice president of global activation standards at Publicis Media, a founding member of the 4A’s Advertiser Protection Bureau and a member of GARM, said in a statement, “Brands increasingly want to ensure that their ads are not only brand-safe, but brand-suitable based on their unique risk tolerances. We are encouraged by Zefr’s announcement of a brand safety and suitability measurement product on YouTube that maps back to the 4A’s APB and GARM brand safety and suitability definitions, in an effort to standardize brand safety and suitability measurement on YouTube.”

Zefr co-founder and co-CEO Rich Raddon added, “As major brand advertisers continue to shift their investment from television to YouTube, independent and trusted brand suitability measurement has become a necessity. Zefr is thrilled to partner with YouTube to build a brand safety and suitability measurement solution that reflects the critical work that the 4A’s and GARM have accomplished over the past year.”

The social network said in an update to an August Newsroom post that this marks the latest expansion of its Redirect Initiative to help combat violent extremism.

GNET is the academic research network of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism.

Facebook ramped up its actions against QAnon in August, banning or imposing restrictions against several groups, pages, accounts and ads on the social network and Instagram.

Earlier this month, the company said it would scrub all content related to QAnon from the two platforms, whether or not it was related to potential violence.

Facebook wrote Wednesday, “As we continue to study the impact of our enforcement against QAnon, we’ll partner with GNET to assess the impact of this Redirect Initiative, and we’ll continue to reassess the list of terms that, when searched for on our platform, should direct people to these resources.”

In one suit, the company accused defendants Sean Heilweil and Jarrett Lusso of New York of providing those services via Boostgram, which used a network of bots to automate the delivery of likes and followers of Instagram accounts.

And in the second suit, Laila Abou Trabi and Robin Abou Trabi of Dubai were accused of using a network of bots and automation software to deliver fake engagement to the Instagram accounts of Instant-Fans.com customers.

Instant-Fans.com offered similar services for Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms.

Facebook director of platform enforcement and litigation Jessica Romero said in a Newsroom post that cease and desist letters had been sent to all the defendants, notifying them that their actions violated Instagram’s terms of use, policies and community guidelines.

The social network also disabled the accounts of and sent cease-and-desist letters to seven company based in Asia and Europe that were defrauding online users who purchased items from their sites.

Romero explained, “Each of the companies used Facebook and Instagram to post ads for consumer products. When someone clicked the link in the ad to buy a product, the user was redirected to a third-party website to complete their purchase. After paying for the item, the user either never received the item or received an item that is different than the item described in the ad. In all cases, people were unable to return items or obtain a refund.”

And at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET Tuesday (Oct. 20), head of Instagram Adam Mosseri will join Dance Moms alumnus and Instagram creator Nia Sioux on Instagram Live to discuss the platform’s anti-bullying tools and how Sioux encourages positivity among her 5.6 million followers and gets involved in social causes.

The livestream will be hosted on the main Instagram account.

The Facebook-owned photo- and video-sharing network said the new guide will include information from creators and expert partners on how they maintain positivity, and the new filter is available in users’ Stories tray.

On its 10th birthday, Oct. 6, Instagram revealed that it was testing a new feature that automatically hides comments similar to others that have been reported, and users can tap “View Hidden Comments” to see them. Comments that violate the platform’s community guidelines will still be removed.

Last December, Instagram began using artificial intelligence to warn users who were about to post comments that might be considered offensive. Instagram said earlier this month that an additional warning will now surface when people repeatedly attempt to post those comments.

The social network said in a blog post that over 600 million people interact with Spark AR-powered effects across the Facebook family of applications every month, and the Spark AR ecosystem has grown to more than 400,000 creators across 190 countries.

The Spark AR Partner Network is now made up of 95 agencies and individual creators following the vetting of 77 new partners, and the company wrote, “We looked closely at a range of criteria, including technical proficiency, creativity, depth of experience and geographic location, among many other factors, to identify partners.”

Brands and businesses can browse the new website to discover and connect with vetted expert Spark AR creative agencies and consultants from all over the world, while creators and agency members can showcase their expertise and experience via the site in order to solicit new opportunities.

Members of the Spark AR Partner Network also get the opportunity to test features before they are released, along with dedicated support.

Experienced Spark AR creators who are interested in being added can apply here.