Friday Social: Snapchat Time Machine, Facebook Whale, and factcheckUK

  • 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

Conservative Party Criticised for Twitter Rebrand

Twitter has criticised the Conservative Party for misleading social media users during this week’s live TV debate, when it temporarily re-branded its @CCHQPress handle and profile imagery to ‘factcheckUK’.

The new branding, which at first glance would appear in the news feed to be an independent fact-checking service such as Full Fact, was immediately slammed across social media. The name and imagery was quickly reverted to the original, but the damage was done:

Facebook’s Whale

Facebook is testing another new app – this time, a meme-creation app called Whale.

The Next Web has reported on Whale, which appears to be a dressed-up meme generator allowing users to use existing imagery and filters and stickers. It’s currently only available in the Canadian app store, so we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for a wider roll-out while we know deep down that our love for the imgflip days of yore will never die.

Amnesty International’s Social Privacy Takedown

A new report by Amnesty International argues that Facebook and Google are too reliant on user data.

The organisation states that the tech companies’ persistent surveillance threatens human rights and free expression. And yet, “billions of people have no meaningful choice but to access this public space on terms dictated by Facebook and Google”, according to Secretary General of Amnesty International Kumi Naidoo.

The full report can be read online.

Snapchat’s New AR Lens

It worked once, so Snapchat is hoping it’ll work again – Snapchat is rolling out a new augmented reality ‘Time Machine’ lens, allowing users to scroll through their aging journey in just a few seconds.

Hot on the heels of its previously successful lenses – the baby face and gender swap of May – the new feature is clearly trying to hang on to that cross-platform success.

 

This Week in TikTok

  • In our new weekly feature, we’ll take a brief look at some our favourite recent trends on the ever-changing video app.
  • It seems like everyone might be loving a Charlie’s Angels transformation more than the film itself, if first reviews are anything to go by…
  • The hashtag #zerowaster has been trending this week, with 8.5 million uses
  • One of the cutest makeup trends on TikTok at the moment is set to Ant Saunders’ Yellow Hearts
  • In need of a little reassurance? The #TranslateThis trend is here to (self)help.