Instagram added more information to the Account Status tool it introduced last October as a “one-stop shop to see what’s happening with your account and content distribution.”

Account Status alerts people if their Instagram account is at risk of being disabled and enables those who believe their activity is being flagged erroneously to tap “Request a Review” directly from the tool.

The tool can be accessed in the Settings menu by tapping Account and then Account Status.

Following the update that began rolling out Wednesday, Instagrammers can see whether their content is eligible to be recommended to people who don’t follow them through surfaces such as Explore, in-feed recommendations and Reels.

If there is an issue, users will see a sample of their content that might run up against the platform’s community guidelines or recommendation guidelines, at which point they can edit that content or appeal if they believe an error was made.

Instagram said in a blog post Wednesday, “We know that for many creators, having Instagram recommend your content is a great way to reach new fans and grow your audience. That’s why it’s important to us that creators understand our guidelines and are able to know if something they’ve posted or have in their profile may be impacting their reach to non-followers. It’s also why we’re introducing the ability to disagree with our decision so our review team can take another look as quickly as possible and we can continue to improve our detection technology.”

The platform added, “With these updates, we want to help you understand issues with your account and better explain how our systems and rules work. We’re continuing to improve Account Status to cover more areas (like search and Suggested Accounts) and add more ways for you to understand and fix issues that may affect how you reach non-followers.”

Computer peripherals manufacturer Logitech joined brands big and small across the globe in turning to social media to promote its wares for the holiday shopping season, but it took a slightly different approach with its “12 Days of Deals” organic campaign on newcomer BeReal.

The campaign runs through Saturday (Dec. 10) and gives people on BeReal access to exclusive offers and surprise deals on products including gaming headsets, keyboards, microphones, mouses and webcams. Information on how to redeem those deals and offers is included in the captions.

Logitech vice president of global marketing Erika Priestley told Adweek the idea was hatched during a team brainstorm about how to promote the company’s holiday-focused products.

“Everyone does gift guides, and they work very well,” she said. “We felt like there was an opportunity and looked at how we could connect with consumers and expand our audience. How do we connect with the younger consumer and re-present the typical way you see a gift guide? We felt that BeReal could be an interesting way to promote these products.”

BeReal is based on the premise of authenticity, with users being prompted at a random time that changes daily to post an unedited image of what they are doing at that moment, from their devices’ front-facing and rear-facing cameras.

“We used this as an opportunity to start the relationship with the BeReal audience,” Priestley said. “People are excited for us to be on the platform and interested in continuing a dialog beyond the holiday campaign. We are hopeful that we’ll take some of the great experiences people are having with this campaign and extend it.”

Beauty and skincare brand e.l.f. Cosmetics jumped on the BeReal bandwagon in August, sharing an organic post on the application, with the first 150 users who sent a friend request to the @elfyeah handle receiving a promo code giving them a free Hydrated Ever After Skincare Mini Kit and free shipping.

“We have to show up where they’re at,” Priestley said of potential customers. “As long as we stay true to our brand, there is no loss at the end of the day. It is important to be part of these conversations.”

Meta brought avatars to messaging application WhatsApp Wednesday.

The company wrote in a blog post, “Your avatar is a digital version of you that can be created from billions of combinations of diverse hairstyles, facial features and outfits. On WhatsApp, you can now use your personalized avatar as your profile photo or choose from 36 custom stickers reflecting many different emotions and actions.”

WhatsApp said Meta will continue to improve avatars by enhancing elements such as hairstyle textures, lighting and shading.

All Facebook and Instagram users are created equally, but some are more equal than others.

The Meta Oversight Board issued its recommendations Tuesday on the company’s controversial cross-check program, and Meta vice president of global affairs Nick Clegg said in an updated Newsroom post that a response would come within 90 days.

The Meta Oversight Board said in a statement, “For years, cross-check allowed content from a select group of politicians, business partners, celebrities and others to remain on Facebook and Instagram for several days when it would have otherwise been removed quickly. Meta told the board that, on average, it can take more than five days to reach a decision on content from users on its cross-check lists. Based on the information provided to the board, Meta has taken as long as seven months to reach a final decision on a piece of content subject to cross-check.”

The independent group said it reviewed thousands of pages of internal documents, asked the company 74 questions, received four briefings from the company, held four regional workshops, received 87 public comments from organizations and individuals and spoke with experts including the source of the report in The Wall Street Journal that shed light on cross-check, former Facebook product manager and whistle-blower Frances Haugen.

“While Meta did offer some transparency as part of our review of cross-check, its responses were at times insufficient, and its own understanding of the practical implications of the cross-check program was lacking,” the Oversight Board said. “The company has room to improve, and its request to the board for an independent review of this program was an important step in that process.”

The Oversight Board outlined aspects of cross-check that ran counter to the company’s responsibility to identify and mitigate negative human rights impacts or uphold its company values, including:

• A broad scope to serve multiple and contradictory objectives that enables visibility and virality for violating content.
• Unequal access to discretionary policies and enforcement.
• Program enrollment may exceed reviewer capacity.
• Failure to track core metrics to assess the program, ascertain whether it is meeting objectives and make improvements.
• Lack of transparency and auditability about its functioning.

The independent body issued 32 individual recommendations, which included:

• Prioritize affording secondary review to users who are likely to produce expression that is important for human rights.
• Publish clear criteria for eligibility for secondary review and allow eligible users to apply to be added to review lists.
• Publicly mark the accounts of certain entities protected by secondary review, such as state actors, political candidates and business partners.
• When content identified as violating during Meta’s first assessment is classified as high severity, it should be removed or hidden while further review is taking place.

Clegg wrote in the updated Newsroom post, “We built the cross-check system to prevent potential over-enforcement (when we take action on content or accounts that don’t actually violate our policies) and to double-check cases where there could be a higher risk for a mistake or when the potential impact of a mistake is especially severe. For example, when journalists are reporting from conflict zones.”

He said that over the past year, Meta developed principles and governance criteria to ensure that cross-check is run in a more consistent way, and the company developed a new cross-check ranker covering content from all users and using algorithms to assess situations where a “false positive” action may have been taken on content.

Clegg added that the company also: formalized a set of objective criteria for adding users and entities to cross-check; reduced the number of employees who can add them; developed a process for removing users; and established annual reviews “to make sure that we periodically verify our lists of users and entities that received secondary reviews, as well as the requirements for including them in the first place.”

Twitter allows users to mute other users on the social networking platform. When someone mutes someone else, they won’t see that account’s content on their timeline. If the user is following the account they muted, they won’t unfollow it.

Our guide will show you how to mute someone in the Twitter mobile application.

Note: These screenshots were captured in the Twitter app on iOS.

Step 1: Tap the three dots in the top-right corner of a tweet posted by the user you want to mute. Note: You can also mute someone by going to their Twitter profile and tapping the three dots in the top-right corner of their profile.

Step 2: Tap “Mute @[username].”

If you ever want to unmute the user, you can repeat these steps and tap “Unmute @[username].”

This guide was first published in February 2017 and was updated in December 2022.

Meta is bringing some of the age verification tools it has been using on Instagram to Facebook Dating.

Three options were introduced for U.S. Instagrammers in June to verify that they were old enough to use the platform: uploading accepted forms of identification, such as a driver’s license or other form of identification card; uploading a video selfie; and a social vouching option that enabled users to ask mutual followers to confirm their age.

The initiative was extended to more countries in October, and the social vouching option was discontinued.

Age verification is being rolled out on Facebook Dating in the U.S., and the minimum age to sign up for and access that feature is 18.

Meta will continue its partnership with Yoti, which specializes in online age verification and collaborated on the initiative for Instagram.

Director of data governance Erica Finkle explained in a Newsroom post Monday, “We want to make sure people are placed in experiences that are appropriate for their ages, so we use technology to understand where people have misrepresented how old they are. That’s why we’ve invested in age detection technology to find potential discrepancies in the ages people provide us and the age we think they may be based on our technology. If we detect that someone may be under the age of 18 and trying to use Facebook Dating, we will prompt them to verify their age.”

The same two methods in place for Instagram are being used for Facebook Dating.

People can upload a form of official identification to verify their age, and it will be encrypted and stored securely, and not visible on their profile or to anyone on the application. Users can control how long their ID is saved for once their age is verified.

Or people can upload a video selfie, after which Meta will share a still image from that selfie with Yoti. That company’s technology will estimate the person’s age based on their facial features and then delete the image immediately. Finkle stressed that Yoti’s technology cannot recognize users’ identities, and only estimates their age.

Finkle wrote, “Our age verification tests show that our tools are working to help keep people within age-appropriate experiences. Since we began testing new age verification tools on Instagram in June, we’ve found that approximately four times as many people were more likely to complete our age verification requirements (when attempting to edit their date of birth from under 18 to over 18), equating to hundreds of thousands of people being placed in experiences appropriate for their age. We also were able to stop 96% of the teens who attempted to edit their birthdays from under 18 to 18 or over on Instagram from doing so. And we have found that 81% of people presented with our menu of options chose to use Yoti’s video selfie to verify their age.”

She continued, “As we learn more, we plan to bring our age detection technology and verification tools to other countries globally where Facebook Dating is available, and to more experiences that require people to be over 18 to access them.”

Facebook Dating was initially introduced at F8 2019 in May 2019, and it debuted in the U.S. in September of that year.

After initial plans to roll the feature out in several markets in Europe Feb. 13, 2020—the day before Valentine’s Day—were scrapped due to concerns by the Irish Data Protection Commission, Facebook Dating was extended to 32 more countries in October 2020.

WhatsApp now allows users to send messages to themselves in the messaging application on mobile devices. For instance, users could send themselves a shopping list or leave themselves a reminder to complete a task.

Our guide will show you how to send messages to yourself in the WhatsApp app.

Note: These screenshots were captured in the WhatsApp app on iOS.

Step 1: On WhatsApp’s “Chats” screen, tap the new chat icon in the top-right corner of the screen.

Step 2: You should appear as the first contact in the list. Tap yourself.

From there, you can begin sending messages to yourself.