Friday Social: India Ban TikTok, Social Mourns Notre Dame and 3D Photos are Coming

  • Social Media

Our #FridaySocial is a weekly round-up of the key social media news stories from the previous seven days.  Let us know your thoughts in the comments or via Twitter – @Umpf

Social Media Mourns for Notre Dame

The tragic fire that engulfed Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was well-documented on social media this week, with thousands of online users posting heartfelt messages alongside pictures and videos of the iconic monument.

Live videos and Periscope streams from the blaze racked up thousands of viewers, as the world watched to see if the fire could be subdued.

The subsequent damage was met with an outpour of sorrow and support online, however some are questioning the responsiveness of social media platforms to process real-time events and filter out harmful fake news.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all fell victim to conspiracy-led accusations of the fire’s origin being widely shared, despite the stories having no facts, information or validity – causing many to call for more stringent fake-news checks.

Indian Government Ban TikTok

Social media mega-platform TikTok has been banned in India, in a bid to tackle ‘pornography and illicit content’.

The Indian government has ordered Apple and Google to remove the app from their stores, prohibiting downloads in the country – alongside restricting media companies from sharing any videos from the app.

This comes after investigations were launched into the safety regulations of the platform, which failed to suspend the accounts of people sending sexual messages to under-age users.

ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, has appealed the ban.

Social Goes Dark – Again!

Three hours… that’s how long many people couldn’t access Facebook, Instagram AND Whatsapp on Sunday, forcing people everywhere to spend ‘real’ time with friends and family. *shudders*

Thousands of users from around the globe reported the disruption at around midday on Sunday, the second outage in as many months to wipe out the popular platforms.

Facebook hasn’t commented on the cause of the problem, or how many users were affected.

3D Photos are Coming to a Screen Near You

Have you spotted any 3D photos on your Facebook timeline yet?

The new function, which has been very slowly rolling out on iOS, allows a user to tilt their phone to see an alternate ‘3D’ angle of a still image, giving it greater depth and a more immersive viewing experience.

A nifty feature, but not yet universal. At the moment, you’ll need a dual-camera iPhone to take one, however an announcement this week has revealed that the funky function will be coming to Android devices very soon.

And finally… ‘Celebs as Things’

A strange but brilliant viral trend came around this week, introducing; Celebs as… (Just read and enjoy)