In an AMA this weekend, Instagram head Adam Mosseri shared some insight into why some videos on the platform appear reduced in quality well after they’re posted, and it all boils down to performance. Responding to a question about old stories looking “blurry” in highlights, Mosseri said, “In general, we want to show the highest-quality video we can. But if something isn’t watched for a long time — because the vast majority of views are in the beginning — we will move to a lower quality video.” If the video later spikes in popularity again, “then we will re-render the higher quality video,” he said in the response, which was reposted by a Threads user (spotted by The Verge).
Further elaborating in a follow-up reply, though, Mosseri added, “We bias to higher quality (more CPU intensive encoding and more expensive storage for bigger files) for creators who drive more views.” The comment has sparked concern from small creators in the replies who say it puts them at a disadvantage competing with others who have larger platforms. Meta has previously said it uses “different encoding configurations to process videos based on their popularity” as part of how it manages its computing resources.
The performance system “works at an aggregate level,” Mosseri said, “not an individual viewer level… It’s not a binary theshhold [sic], but rather a sliding scale.” In response to one user who questioned its fairness for smaller creators, Mosseri said the quality shift “doesn’t seem to matter much” in practice as it “isn’t huge” and viewers appear to care more about video content over quality. “Quality seems to be much more important to the original creator, who is more likely to delete the video if it looks poor, than to their viewers,” he said. Understandably, not everyone seems convinced.
It’s now harder to know where celebrities are flying to and their carbon emissions, with Meta shutting down Instagram and Threads accounts devoted to tracking private jets, TechCrunch reports. “Given the risk of physical harm to individuals, and in keeping with the independent Oversight Board’s recommendation, we’ve disabled these accounts for violating our privacy policy,” Meta told the publication. Deleted accounts include those tracking the flights of Taylor Swift, Bill Gates and, the head of Meta himself, Mark Zuckerberg.
Jack Sweeney, a college student in his early 20s who runs the accounts, confirmed the news on his personal account. It’s the latest in a line of pushback he has faced in the past. In Late 2022, Elon Musk suspended Sweeney’s @ElonJet account — which tracked Musk’s flights — on X (then Twitter). He soon made an account with the handle @ElonJetNextDay to post Musk’s flights with a one day delay. Then, one year later, Taylor Swift’s lawyers sent Sweeney a cease-and-desist letter stating, “While this may be a game to you, or an avenue that you hope will earn you wealth or fame, it is a life-or-death matter for our Client.”
In May, Sweeney’s job became a little bit harder, with the Biden administration allowing anyone with a private aircraft to keep their registration data anonymous. However, Sweeney said tips and other research make it still doable.
A massive amount of music discovery is happening on Instagram.
Spend just five minutes scrolling through music content on Reels and Stories, or even pics and carousels in your Feed; you’re going to encounter a lot of songs.
And now there’s a way to save songs you discover on Instagram right to Spotify.
More to the point, Instagram users who encounter YOUR music on social can now save those tracks to Spotify. Which gives you all the more reason to share any music you’ve distributed to Instagram within your own content.
Saving tracks from Instagram to Spotify
The new feature is rumored to be rolling out globally on both iOS and Android. So if it’s not yet available, check back soon.
And it’s always a good idea whenever new app features launch to update to the latest version.
As a user, once you’ve integrated your Spotify and Instagram accounts, you’ll see a Spotify logo and “Add” button associated with the audio (shown below).
Just tap that button to save a track to:
Your ‘Liked Songs’ playlist on Spotify
The ‘Your Library’ tab on Spotify
So far, Instagram has only enabled saving to Spotify.
But it’s possible that in an attempt to catch up with TikTok — who’ve already integrated with Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music — Instagram could partner with more streaming platforms in the future.
This is just the latest in a string of changes at Instagram that show how important music, music content, and music sharing has become to the platform.
Rumor has it Instagram is even working on a feature that would let you use Notes to share your listening activity. More on that if and when it happens.
Meta is bringing facial recognition tech back to its apps more than three years after it shut down Facebook’s “face recognition” system amid a broader backlash against the technology. Now, the social network will begin to deploy facial recognition tools on Facebook and Instagram to fight scams and help users who have lost access to their accounts, the company said in an update.
The first test will use facial recognition to detect scam ads that use the faces of celebrities and other public figures. “If our systems suspect that an ad may be a scam that contains the image of a public figure at risk for celeb-bait, we will try to use facial recognition technology to compare faces in the ad against the public figure’s Facebook and Instagram profile pictures,” Meta explained in a blog post. “If we confirm a match and that the ad is a scam, we’ll block it.”
The company said that it’s already begun to roll the feature out to a small group of celebs and public figures and that it will begin automatically enrolling more people into the feature “in the coming weeks,” though individuals have the ability to opt out of the protection. While Meta already has systems in place to review ads for potential scams, the company isn’t always able to catch “celeb-bait” ads as many legitimate companies use celebrities and public figures to market their products, Monika Bickert, VP of content policy at Meta, said in a briefing. “This is a real time process,” she said of the new facial recognition feature. “It’s faster and it’s more accurate than manual review.”
Separately, Meta is also testing facial recognition tools to address another long-running issue on Facebook and Instagram: account recovery. The company is experimenting with a new “video selfie” option that allows users to upload a clip of themselves, which Meta will then match to their profile photos, when users have been locked out of their accounts. The company will also use it in cases of a suspected account compromise to prevent hackers from accessing accounts using stolen credentials.
The tool won’t be able to help everyone who loses access to a Facebook or Instagram account. Many business pages, for example, don’t include a profile photo of a person, so those users would need to use Meta’s existing account recovery options. But Bickert says the new process will make it much more difficult for bad actors to game the company’s support tools “It will be a much higher level of difficulty for them in trying to bypass our systems,” Bickert said.
With both new features, Meta says it will “immediately delete” facial data that’s used for comparisons and that the scans won’t be used for another purpose. The company is also making the features optional, though celebrities will need to opt-out of the scam ad protection rather than opt-ion.
That could draw criticism from privacy advocates, particularly given Meta’s messy history with facial recognition. The company previously used the technology to power automatic photo-tagging, which allowed the company to automatically recognize the faces of users in photos and videos. The feature was discontinued in 2021, with Meta deleting the facial data of more than 1 billion people, citing “growing societal concerns.” The company also faces lawsuits, notably from the Texas and Illinois, over its use of the tech. Meta paid $650 million to settle a lawsuit related to the Illinois law and $1.4 billion to resolve a similar suit in Texas.
It’s notable, then, that the new tools won’t be available in either Illinois or Texas to start. It also won’t roll out to users in the United Kingdom or European Union as the company is “continuing to have conversations there with regulators” in the region, according to Bickert. But the company is “hoping to scale this technology globally sometime in 2025,” according to a Meta spokesperson.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado is suing the town of Vail over its dismissal of artist Danielle SeeWalker from an artist-in-residence program, following an April complaint about SeeWalker’s past work.
The suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court, states that the town violated SeeWalker’s First Amendment rights in canceling her residency over political reasons before she’d even painted a single brushstroke.
“… SeeWalker’s free speech rights under the federal and state constitutions were violated when the town of Vail abruptly canceled her residency after she expressed her personal views on the war in Gaza on her social media page,” according to an ACLU of Colorado statement.
Then there’s Caroline Calloway. The influencer and author, who lives in Sarasota, drew the ire of the internet when she posted on X “where there’s a Callowill, there’s a Calloway” and said she wouldn’t be leaving her home, even as officials were stressing the importance of evacuating. (“You are going to die,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor warned anyone who stayed put.) In an interview with New York Magazine’s Intelligencer, Calloway said she was staying to check on elderly neighbors, adding that her sense of humor is just “very dark.” On Thursday, she apparently sent a text to Intelligencer’s writer with a picture of herself and her cat with the message “I lived bitch.”
All of this wouldn’t feel so dystopian if the US—and the world—wasn’t hurtling toward a scenario when social media platforms, particularly TikTok, weren’t becoming a lot of people’s go-to news source. Even as Anderson Cooper braves the storm to give CNN viewers updates on Milton, a new report from Pew Research shows 52 percent of Americans who are on TikTok regularly get their news there. Not from media outlets, but from influencers and content creators.
While these accounts may be relying on reports from traditional outlets when they deliver news, their posts are “probably interspersed with a lot of very non-traditional content—like skits, funny dances or promotional content,” Aaron Smith, Pew’s managing director of data labs, told Axios. On-the-ground reporting from influencers, then, becomes mixed with entertainment. Watching it, or, admittedly, writing about it, feels like missing the point.
Loose Threads:
Lots of people were following the Waffle House Index during Hurricane Milton: If you don’t know, the Waffle House Index tracks whether or not a local outpost of the chain is open in a given location. If it’s closed, the coming storm is probably bad, because Waffle House prides itself on keeping its restaurants open as often as possible. When the chain closed several locations, people took notice.
X content
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The Fat Bear contest has a winner: Grazer beat Chunk to win Alaska’s Fat Bear Contest. It was her second win, and she defeated the bear who killed her cub earlier this year.
Stay safe hiking out there: Thanks to a video from @stanchrissss, lots of people are posting TikToks demonstrating the ways they show people who they are while passing on hiking trails. For @stanchrissss and friends, it’s showing women they’re gay/uninterested. For one woman, it’s saying things like “I shot him twice and he cried.”
The Ohio mystery rug discoverer says she got hacked: A lot has happened to Katie Santry since that whole haunted rug thing we told you about last week. Including, maybe, getting hacked.
Glocks, military-style rifles and “ghost guns” have all been advertised for sale on easily accessible sites like Facebook and Instagram. Each ad appears to be in direct violation of Meta’s own policies, raising questions about the company’s ability to effectively moderate content. Some of the ads go even further, potentially violating local and federal laws.
Meta has banned ads for the sale of firearms since 2016. The company’s policy simply states: “Ads must not promote the sale or use of weapons, ammunition or explosives. This includes ads for weapon modification accessories.”
But more than 230 of these ads ran on Meta’s platforms in just over two months, many directing users to Telegram for the actual transaction, according to a new study released Oct. 7 by the Tech Transparency Project and the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund.
“TTP’s investigation shows that Meta is giving gun traffickers unparalleled reach,” said Katie Paul, director of Tech Transparency Project. “Until Meta enforces the rules it has on the books, its advertising engine will continue to be a vector for dangerous weapons that threaten the safety of Americans and others around the world.”
Meta’s massive reach
Meta’s business help center explains that “ads can appear on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and Meta Audience Network.” That means an individual ad can have a massive reach across platforms, showing up in a user’s individual Facebook and Instagram feed as well as in stories or in their Messenger inbox.
But ads are just one part of the problem.
In fact, a CBS News investigation released Oct. 2 found numerous listings on Facebook Marketplace for firearms, pellet and BB guns, in violation of the company’s policies. After CBS News asked Meta about the listings, they were removed, though CBS News continued to find new listings. A Meta spokesperson said 98.4% of problem listings on Marketplace are caught by its systems before being flagged by users.
When CBS News reached out to Meta to ask about the TTP report’s findings on the prevalence of gun ads, a Meta spokesperson explained that the company’s ad review is an ongoing process both before and after publication, and pointed CBS News to Meta’s ad policies.
“We’re committed to delivering trustworthy shopping experiences for people, communities and businesses through our policies, safety measures and technology,” according to a Meta business blog.
In the past few years, several people have been charged with selling firearms and illegal gun accessories on Meta platforms, specifically via Instagram profile pages.
“We enforce our commerce policies through our commerce review system. As part of our ads review process — which includes both automated and human reviews — we have several layers of analysis and detection, both before and after an ad goes live,” the company said in a statement provided to CBS News.
A redacted image of guns for sale on social media, from the Tech Transparency Project report released Oct. 7, 2024.
Tech Transparency Project report
In the past few years, several people have been charged with selling firearms and illegal gun accessories on Meta platforms, specifically via Instagram profile pages.
In 2019, two former police officers were found guilty of conspiracy to deal firearms without a license, selling firearms to a convicted felon and making false statements about the sales on federal firearms licensing paperwork. They both advertised the guns on their Instagram pages.
Two Los Angeles-based men were charged in June 2024 with selling more than 60 firearms, including untraceable “ghost guns” and guns with scratched-off serial numbers, through Instagram accounts. Both men have pleaded not guilty.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to CBS News’ questions about how prevalent gun sales are on social media platforms.
It’s not clear whether the allegations in those cases involved specific ads or just posts on their feeds. However, ads are frequently used across Meta platforms to increase business and profile reach and are a revenue driver for the company.
Furthermore, each ad on the platform is supposed to be reviewed by Meta systems before going live. A 2021 announcement from Facebook explains, “Our ad review system is designed to review all ads before they go live. This system relies primarily on automated technology to apply our Advertising Policies to the millions of ads that run across our apps. While our review is largely automated, we rely on our teams to build and train these systems, and in some cases, to manually review ads.”
Studying Meta’s ads
Between June 1 and Aug. 20, 2024, TTP searched the Meta Ad Library for “a series of gun-related terms: pistol(s), Sig Sauer, Glock(s), Glock 17, Glock 19, Glock 43, Draco, rifle(s), Ruger, ammunition, ammo, automatic switch, automatic sear, and rounds.”
Two of TTP’s search terms — “automatic switch” and “automatic sear” — refer to illegal machine gun conversion devices. These small, inexpensive devices are easy to install onto semi-automatic firearms to immediately turn them into fully automatic weapons, allowing users to shoot up to 1,200 rounds a minute. They’ve been illegal since 1986.
Thirty-four of the ads TTP found were for auto sears or switches. Two of those also included photos of switches that had swastika designs.
Most of the gun ads TTP identified — 215 out of the total 237 — ran on Instagram. The platform remains one of the most popular social networks for teens in America; a 2023 Pew Research survey showed about 59% of teens between 13 and 17 use Instagram.
Many of these ads also reached Instagram users in EU countries, where gun sales are strictly regulated. Meta’s data showed that one ad reached more than 15,500 adults in the EU, specifically the Netherlands and Portugal.
Summary data on three gun-related ads from Meta, from the Tech Transparency Project report released Oct. 7, 2024.
Tech Transparency Project report
Most of the ads push users to Telegram to complete the actual sales. Telegram is not owned by Meta and has been sharply criticized for its unwillingness to enact any kind of moderation on users. In August, the owner of Telegram was arrested by French authorities. The Paris prosecutors office said he was detained as part of an investigation into complicity in complicity in cybercrimes like the transfer and creation of child sexual abuse material and narcotics trafficking. Some of the Telegram accounts found in TTP’s study advertised international shipping, which could violate numerous international laws regulating arms sales.
In a statement to CBS News, a Telegram spokesperson said, “While Telegram already removes millions of pieces of harmful content each day, further strengthening moderation is the top priority of 2024.”
Slipping through the cracks
Gun safety advocacy groups have long criticized tech companies for not doing enough to crack down on gun sales.
“Meta has made a clear promise to keep gun sales off their platforms and it is clear that Meta has failed to do so,” said Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy of Everytown for Gun Safety.
A spokesperson for Meta said in a statement that between April and June 2024, the company “took action” on 1.9 million pieces of firearm content on Facebook and 242,000 pieces of firearm content on Instagram. They said over 99% of that content was caught before it was reported by users. These numbers do not include advertisements.
A spokesperson for Meta pointed to a recent community standards enforcement report that found between April and June 2024, the company “took action” on 1.9 million pieces of firearm content on Facebook and 242,000 pieces of firearm content on Instagram. They said over 99% of that content was caught before it was reported by users. These numbers do not include advertisements.
NEW YORK — A lively discussion broke out backstage during Climate Week NYC between a TikTok comedian, a buzzed-about actress, a Latin cuisine entrepreneur and a cooking content creator.
Convened by World Food Program USA to educate the panel’s audiences — over 1.8 million Instagram followers combined — about hunger, the four weighed best practices for authentically breaking down weighty topics on social media.
Mark Zuckerberg announced today that Meta, his social-media-turned-metaverse-turned-artificial intelligence conglomerate, will upgrade its AI assistants to give them a range of celebrity voices, including those of Dame Judi Dench and John Cena. The more important upgrade for Meta’s long-term ambitions, though, is the new ability of its models to see users’ photos and other visual information.
Meta today also announced Llama 3.2, the first version of its free AI models to have visual abilities, broadening their usefulness and relevance for robotics, virtual reality, and so-called AI agents. Some versions of Llama 3.2 are also the first to be optimized to run on mobile devices. This could help developers create AI-powered apps that run on a smartphone and tap into its camera or watch the screen in order to use apps on your behalf.
“This is our first open source, multimodal model, and it’s going to enable a lot of interesting applications that require visual understanding,” Zuckerberg said on stage at Connect, a Meta event held in California today.
Given Meta’s enormous reach with Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, the assistant upgrade could give many people their first taste of a new generation of more vocal and visually capable AI helpers. Meta said today that more than 180 million people already use Meta AI, as the company’s AI assistant is called, every week.
Meta has lately given its AI a more prominent billing in its apps—for example, making it part of the search bar in Instagram and Messenger. The new celebrity voice options available to users will also include Awkwafina, Keegan Michael Key, and Kristen Bell.
Meta previously gave celebrity personas to text-based assistants, but these characters failed to gain much traction. In July the company launched a tool called AI Studio that lets users create chatbots with any persona they choose. Meta says the new voices will be made available to users in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand over the next month. The Meta AI image capabilities will be rolled out in the US, but the company did not say when the features might appear in other markets.
The new version of Meta AI will also be able to provide feedback on and information about users’ photos; for example, if you’re unsure what bird you’ve snapped a picture of, it can tell you the species. And it will be able to help edit images by, for instance, adding new backgrounds or details on demand. Google released a similar tool for its Pixel smartphones and for Google Photos in April.
Powering Meta AI’s new capabilities is an upgraded version of Llama, Meta’s premier large language model. The free model announced today may also have a broad impact, given how widely the Llama family has been adopted by developers and startups already.
In contrast to OpenAI’s models, Llama can be downloaded and run locally without charge—although there are some restrictions on large-scale commercial use. Llama can also more easily be fine-tuned, or modified with additional training, for specific tasks.
Creed is having a moment. Actually, if we’re being precise, it’s having innumerable moments, over and over again, all across the internet.
On Instagram, the band has been repurposed as a comedic device for dunking on President Joe Biden; on TikTok, shitposters imagined what it would be like to explain the butt rock legends to an alien race; and on X, Creed is an easy punchline for commenting on political theater. All the while, those memes are collectively accumulating millions of likes, views, and shares.
It’s safe to say that if Charli XCX hadn’t already made 2024 a “brat summer,” then this—as far as memes are concerned—would be Scott Stapp season. And Stapp, for his part, seems to be fully aware of it. “I’ve seen so many [memes],” the Creed frontman says. “Some are hilarious and I find myself just laughing, and some are really heartwarming in terms of how much time and energy the fan has put into creating the video.”
The wildest part of all isn’t that Creed is being memed to death—it’s that the band is seemingly being memed back to life. In 2024, Creed quietly clawed its way back from internet punchline to real, honest-to-god, record-selling rock band. By June, the band found itself back in the charts—the top 40 no less. Last month, the band’s Greatest Hits was climbing in sales.
As a result of its unexpected resurgence, Creed is even back touring, playing sold-out shows with fellow postgrunge staples like 3 Doors Down. On top of that, they’re selling tickets for arena gigs for upwards of $100. For the super Creed-core, there’s the band’s second-annual Miami-to-Nassau “Creed cruise” in 2025, which lists top-tier tickets for an eye-watering $4,300. Those tickets, by the way, are sold out.
Sure, old music finds new audiences all the time, often with a bump from the internet—but Creed isn’t other bands. Creed is a band that hasn’t released a new studio album in 15 years and has spent most of that decade and a half as the butt of internet jokes. By industry standards, Creed was, at least until recently, six feet under.
“Back in 2020, Creed hadn’t toured since 2012, so we were kind of intrigued, I think would be the word, to see the interest and to see the songs having new life and resurgence and renaissance,” says Creed’s agent, Ken Fermaglich, who has been with the band for decades.
All of that begs a couple obvious questions: Why here and why now?
According to YouTuber Pat Finnerty, whose channel “What Makes This Song Stink” ritually roasts bands of Creed’s ilk, the equation for Creed’s comeback is a simple one: time + cringe = popularity.
Creed, Finnerty says, are now past the 20-year mark after which most old bands can feel new again. “But then there’s the meme thing—you see all these memes of like ‘this band sucks,’ but now, to use the parlance of our time, ‘this band fucks,’” he adds. “They’re switching it from ‘this band sucks’ to ‘this band fucks’ and it’s actually funnier for them to get into it.”
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“I am so proud of my little plum, my little dragon, for making the journey to be with us,” she wrote.
Munn shared on Instagram that Méi, whose name means “plum” in Chinese and was born September 14, was carried by a surrogate, whom Munn called “a real-life angel.” Munn has undergone several surgeries as part of what she characterized as “aggressive” treatment for breast cancer, including a double mastectomy and related reconstructive surgeries, an oophorectomy and hysterectomy, and more. The surgeries meant removing Munn’s ovaries, uterus, and fallopian tubes to prevent her body from creating estrogen, which her type of breast cancer responds to. In the same June Vogue interview detailing her treatment, Munn said that she had also frozen her eggs because she and Mulaney “don’t feel like we’re done growing our family.”
She said that prior to any chemotherapy, radiation, or the surgeries, she’d undergone egg retrieval that resulted in two healthy embryos. She knew that though she wouldn’t be physically able to carry her own pregnancy, she and Mulaney had options.
“A surrogate isn’t a scary prospect to me anymore because there’s nothing I can do,” she said. “I don’t have the ability to carry a baby anymore, so if we want to build our family, this is our option. This journey has made me realize how grateful I am to have options for not only fighting cancer, but also having more children if we want, because I know a lot of people don’t have those options.”
Munn thanked her daughter’s gestational carrier profusely in the post announcing the baby’s arrival.
“I had so many profound emotions about not being able to carry my daughter,” she wrote. “When I first met our gestational surrogate we spoke mother to mother. She showed me so much grace and understanding, I knew I had found a real-life angel. Words cannot express my gratitude that she kept our baby safe for 9 months and made our dreams come true.”
Mulaney, who is slated to return to the Broadway stage this winter in All In: Comedy About Love, spoke with David Letterman in April, telling the fellow comedian that Munn’s pregnancy with son Malcolm was “a big surprise,” but that fatherhood had changed his life.
“It wasn’t so much that I thought I wouldn’t [have a child] as. . . it was never a good day to have [a kid],” Mulaney said. “I just wasn’t thinking about it. I was just. . . kind of living one minute to the next. And then this guy came along. I was starstruck when I met him. I went, ‘Oh, there you are.’ I was looking in not good places and then, ‘Oh, there you are.’ That was my first thought.”
Angie Nwandu launched The Shade Room in 2014 as a side hustle. Today, that side hustle—which grew from an Instagram-only celebrity tabloid into a media company with a 40-person staff—reaches 29 million social media obsessives by tapping into their wolfish appetite for drama.
The Shade Room pioneered a unique, if somewhat innovative, brand of digital media, merging elements of fan culture around the machine of celebrity news (Shade Room regulars are called Roomies). More than your run-of-the-mill gossip rag or news aggregator, TSR evolved into an information hub for “the culture,” Nwandu says, “but also a reflection of it and voice for it. We’re known as a megaphone.”
The primary focus of the platform is the fragile world of Black celebrity. Want to know who NFL quarterback Jalen Hurts got engaged to or why Naomi Campbell has beef with Rihanna? Maybe you are wondering why a Louisville woman claims Kanye West “telegraphically” told her to allegedly steal a vehicle with a child inside? TSR has you covered.
I recently phoned Nwandu to chat about the controversial influence of The Shade Room and the legacy she wants to leave behind. The platform has slowly branched into different coverage areas—politics, investigative reporting, spirituality—and she says that’s all part of a larger plan to eventually move beyond celebrity gossip, which she describes as “tiring.”
Nwandu hasn’t gotten there yet. The week we spoke, music mogul Diddy was arrested after a grand jury indicted him on charges including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy (he pleaded not guilty), so we also talked about that—and Nwandu was an open book.
JASON PARHAM: The Shade Room was a pioneer of social-media-centric celebrity news on Instagram. Today there are hundreds of accounts that do what you do. How does that feel?
ANGIE NWANDU: Nobody ever gives this nod to The Shade Room but we served up a blueprint that was able to be replicated. I’m friends with Shawn McKenzie [founder of The Spiritual Word] and Jason Lee [founder of Hollywood Unlocked], and we’ve had conversations. I had talks with both of them where I shared tips and advice. I’m happy to see that our blueprint was able to inspire other Black media companies who are thriving in their own right. To see the success of all these platforms is amazing to me. I’m actually really proud of that because who doesn’t want to start something that creates a ripple effect?
The Shade Room has never shied away from controversy but I imagine there are editorial guidelines that you follow. What won’t you post?
If I say which stories, it would defeat the purpose now. I will say, what we don’t do is out people. A lot of people send us very salacious stories where they are outing people. That’s something that we stay away from. In the beginning we were kinda wild, but generally that is something we have avoided. I’ve seen the damage in what it does to people who are not ready to step out in that way. We have tried to move away from invasion of privacy in certain areas.
But is it not called The Shade Room for a reason?
We’re trying to change what we post and move towards positivity. We used to post clapbacks all day long and we have eased off of that. It’s been hard because our name is The Shade Room—like, if Diddy goes to jail, we have to get that up. But there’s a lot we won’t post. It’s been a dance, for sure.
Meta Connect, the big developer event and hardware showcase from the company that runs Facebook and Instagram, is kicking off next week. Meta is likely to show off its new VR and mixed-reality technology, put a shiny polish on its meandering metaverse ambitions, and delve into all the fresh ways it plans to squeeze artificial intelligence into every crevice of its devices and services.
The event takes place on Wednesday September 25, starting at 10 am Pacific time. The keynote address, where most of the new stuff will be announced, will be livestreamed. The host for the event will be Meta CEO and newly minted cool guy Mark Zuckerberg. Zuck’s hour-long presentation will be followed by a developer-focused address at 11 am led by Meta CTO and Reality Labs chief Andrew Bosworth. You can watch the events on the Meta Connect website or on Meta’s YouTube channel. And yes, you can also watch it in VR in Meta Horizon.
The focus of the event will likely be a fusion of Meta’s mixed-reality efforts and its AI ambitions across its product line. Like any tech event, there are bound to be surprises. Here are the big things to look out for.
Blurry MetaVision
The one thing Meta won’t likely be announcing is a very expensive VR headset. It’s a move informed by where the mixed-reality-device market is right now—and whether people actually want to spend big to buy in. Instead, rumors abound about a so-called Meta Quest 3S, a headset which could be a cheaper version of the Meta Quest 3 with lighter features.
Meta was briefly the bigwig in the AR/VR space 10 years ago when Meta (then Facebook) bought the VR company Oculus. Shortly thereafter, Facebook changed its name to Meta and sank $45 billion into its vision of a digital universe that most people just don’t seem to give much of a damn about. Workplaces aren’t using Meta’s Horizon Workrooms that much—we’re all still on Zoom—and despite the initial bouts of expensive corporate land grabs for digital real estate, users aren’t exactly eager to move into the metaverse.
Other companies have struggled to find their virtual footing. Apple released its first-mixed reality headset, the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro, in February. Since then, the product has been regarded as a rare misstep for the company, or at least very clearly a first-generation product not intended for the masses. The device didn’t sell very well and was widely criticized as being an expensive, heavy, and ultimately lonely experience. (Apple mentioned the Vision Pro only once, in passing, at its optimistic iPhone announcement event on September 9.)
Had the Vision Pro’s, well, vision panned out, Meta may have been more inclined to pursue the pricy premium category of VR headset. In August, The Information reported that Meta seems to have abandoned—or at least delayed—plans to reveal an update to its Oculus Quest Pro that would have gone into the ring against Apple’s Vision Pro. Bosworth, Meta’s CTO, responded to that news on Meta’s Threads platform and insisted the move is not that big of a deal, but rather a natural part of the company’s device iterations. Still, it is a move that makes sense in the aftermath of the Apple Vision Pro fizzling out.
Instagram announced Tuesday that it will be rolling out new protected accounts for people under 18. The accounts will automatically be private and can only receive messages from people they follow. Jo Ling Kent spoke with parents and Meta’s safety chief about the changes.
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Meta on Tuesday launched Instagram Teen Accounts, a more limited experience for younger users of the platform, in what is the technology company’s latest effort to assuage concerns about the impact of social media on kids.
Meta will automatically migrate all Instagram users under the age of 16 to the new service, which features built-in protections through settings controlled by their parents. The move is designed to address mounting criticism that social media can harm young people’s mental health, as well as put parents at ease about the kind of content their children are exposed to and who is able interact with them.
User profiles on Teen Accounts are automatically made private and can only be viewed if a request to access a teen’s information is accepted. The new tool also places restrictions on messaging, allowing parents to see who their kids are communicating with, and includes a feature that silences notifications at night. Such features may be deactivated, but only with a parent’s permission.
“We know parents want to feel confident that their teens can use social media to connect with their friends and explore their interests, without having to worry about unsafe or inappropriate experiences,” Meta said in a statement Tuesday. “We understand parents’ concerns, and that’s why we’re reimagining our apps for teens with new Teen Accounts.”
Beyond giving caregivers more control over a child’s Instagram usage, a new “Explore” feature lets teens select topics they want to see more of, according to Meta.
Facing legal pressure to change
Antigone Davis, global head of safety at Meta, told CBS News that Meta designed Teen Accounts in consultation with parents of teens and that the changes will affect tens of millions of Instagram users. Although Meta has made incremental changes over the years, the new service “standardizes the experience.” she said.
“It gives parents peace of mind. Their teens are in a certain set of protections,” Davis said, adding that Meta is seeking to “reimagine how parents and teens interact online.”
In 2023 dozens of states sued Meta, alleging the company deliberately engineered Instagram and Facebook to be addictive to young users in a bid to boost profits. The lawsuits also accused Meta of collecting data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, a violation of federal law.
Meta has denied such allegations, saying that it is focused on providing teens with “positive experiences online” and that it has introduced dozens of tools aimed at making social media safer for teens.
How will Teen Accounts be enforced?
With Teen Accounts, users under 16 need their parents’ permission to roll back restrictions, according to Meta. An additional feature lets parents further shape their teens’ online experiences by showing who how they’re messaging and how much time they are spending on the platform. Parents can also block teens from accessing Instagram during certain times of day.
To keep teens honest, Meta is asking them to verify their ages by uploading an ID card and by using a tool called Yoti, which analyses a person’s facial features to determine if they appear to be under or over 18.
Teens will be notified that their accounts are being migrated into Teen Accounts. The transition is expected to take place over 60 days in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia.
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.
New June owner Noelle Blizzard started her baking business in July 2021 as someone without much of a hankering for desserts. But after selling croissants, buns, tarts and more out of her home in Fairmount, she eventually found her sweet spot in the cake industry.
“I just don’t really like cake, I don’t really like frosting, so I had to figure it out because it was a classic thing that people want to celebrate with for special occasions,” Blizzard said. “So I set off to make cakes that I would actually want to eat, filled with really flavorful fillings, and thinking about the composition a little bit differently than I felt the cakes that I’d had before or that I could frequently get my hands on in Philly. And so our style of cakes were born.”
New June, which currently operates out of the Culinary Collective in Bridesburg, announced Wednesday that it will be opening a storefront at 2623 W. Girard Ave. in Brewerytown in November. The retail-to-go space will be a place to grab cakes, cookies, pies and other pastries.
Blizzard started New June out of her home as a self-taught baker during the pandemic before formally starting her company in 2021, even turning her dining room into a commercial kitchen at one point. Now, the bakery has grown to a team of five and has become a social media sensation, with a loyal following that shows up to pop-up events and decorating classes. The micro-bakery is known for occasion cakes in vintage style — which use Lambeth piping, ruffles and other decorations — and pressed flower designs; both of which can cost between $240 and $540 each.
The bakery doesn’t have an official opening date yet, but it plans to be up and running before Thanksgiving. Blizzard, who lives just a few blocks away, said she’s excited to interact more with customers with a brick-and-mortar store in a way that can’t be done with a commercial kitchen.
“It is something that fills me with a lot of gratitude … to bring something to my community, to get to open during the holiday season and be a part of it,” Blizzard said.
Provided Images/Melissa MacDonald (left) and Louisa Adam Barnes for New June
New June’s cakes (above) use Lambeth piping and other techniques for a vintage-style design.
New June’s bakery will be open Fridays and Saturdays to start, though Blizzard said she’ll add more hours in the future. Customers can pick up full sheet cakes, mini cakes, and cake and pie slices from their seasonal menu. There will also be more “casual” options like pumpkin tea cakes, seasonal pies (especially around Thanksgiving), tarts and an assortment of cookies. Blizzard said she plans to add more everyday options too, like a banana cake or a riff on a Tastykake.
After opening the storefront, Blizzard said she hopes to continue evolving the company and would love to add additional decorating options with buttercream and wafer paper flowers. (She worked for years at the Philadelphia Horticultural Society, so florals are a passion).
She’ll also continue to host pop-up events, including a Halloween decorating class in October, as well as Christmas and New Years-themed classes at the end of the year.
“Seeing the cakes in front of them, they say ‘It’s like a dose of joy, it’s beautiful, the cakes taste amazing, they make me happy, I love looking at them, I love sharing them with others,’” Blizzard said. “And maybe it’s that sense of joy and just total satisfaction that has really helped [relate to customers].”
IT is the first far-right party to win German state elections since the Nazis – and the success of Alternative for Germany is down to younger supporters.
Paramedic Severin Kohler says that it is now trendy among Generation Z TikTokers to back the organisation known as AfD, which is led in the state of Thuringia by a man who has been labelled a “fascist”.
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AfD fans Severin Kohler and Carolin LichtenheldCredit: Paul Edwards
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AfD MP Torben Braga — who, curiously for a German anti-immigration party, was born in Brazil and is of Brazilian and Welsh ancestryCredit: Paul Edwards
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Professor Reinhard Schramm, who lost 20 close family to the Nazi extermination camps, has had death threats and bullets sent to him in the postCredit: Paul Edwards
Severin, 28, a leader of the party’s youth wing Junge Alternative, told me: “It’s a matter of a rebellion against their parents. Being from the right is punk now.”
Almost 40 per cent of 18 to 24-year-old voters backed the AfD in Thuringia, central Germany, last week. In neighbouring Saxony, 31 per cent did the same.
Yet the local branches of the party in the two states have been classified as “right-wing extremist” by the nation’s domestic intelligence agency.
On the Instagram page of Carolin Lichtenheld, who leads Thuringia’s Junge Alternative, the 21-year-old trainee pharmacist is shown brndishing a megaphone at a rally, with the caption: “Ready to fight for the preservation of our homeland and for our future. We are the youth who are ready to resist a woke society.”
The image is hashtagged with the word “reconquista” — a reference to the recapture by Christian kings of Spain and Portugal from the Muslim Moors.
Felix Steiner, from German far-right monitoring group Mobile Consulting, agrees that young voters are attracted to the AfD.
The activist told The Sun: “Almost no other party is so active on social media platforms, especially TikTok. The message is, ‘Young people, come to us. We are the next movement’.”
Youth campaigner Severin wears a T-shirt bearing the name Bjorn Hocke — the AfD’s leader in Thuringia who has twice been convicted this year of using Nazi slogans.
Former history teacher Hocke harnessed the power of TikTok to target the youth vote during the election.
Incredible story of Nazi hunter and holocaust refugee
In one post he leads a cavalcade of motorcyclists riding models made by Simson — a brand associated with national pride by the far right — in the old Communist East Germany.
Yet critics say that behind Hocke’s glossy social media campaigning is a man who is a political “danger”.
In 2019 a court in Thuringia ruled it was not libellous to call Hocke a “fascist” as the opinion had a “verifiable, factual basis”.
Thin-lipped and greying, Hocke once described Berlin’sHolocaust Memorial as a “monument of shame” and demanded a “180-degree turn” in Germany’s culture of remembrance.
The father-of-four once spoke of the Germans “longing for a historical figure” who would “heal the wounds of the people”.
Ulrike Grosse-Rothig, leader of Thuringia’s left-wing Die Linke party, told The Sun: “Hocke is a die-hard fascist. He’s a danger for German society, its voters and to democracy.”
Former AfD Thuringia MP Oskar Helmerich has called Hocke “a dangerous man”.
Little wonder Thuringia’s small Jewish community has been fearful.
Professor Reinhard Schramm, who lost 20 close family to the Nazi extermination camps, has had death threats and bullets sent to him in the post from unknown sources.
Speaking at a synagogue in Thuringia’s largest city Erfurt, the 80-year-old Holocaust survivor told me: “The Jewish community is insecure and some are afraid. They are quite allergically against the AfD. This is not a normal party.”
Of Hocke’s demand for a “180- degree turn” in Germany’s culture of remembrance, the grandfather-of-three says: “So does this mean that I am not supposed to speak about my grandmother who was gassed to death in a German gas chamber?”
‘Some are afraid’
Severin insists the AfD is “against political violence”, adding: “We don’t have anything in common with people sending bullets to synagogues.”
The AfD won Thuringia — a largely rural state in central Germany — with just under 33 per cent of the vote.
It’s the latest European convulsion of the far right which has seen rampaging thugs attempt to torch migrant hotels in Britain and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally topping parliamentary elections in France.
In Germany — as elsewhere — the touchstone issue has been immigration.
Days before the Thuringia vote, a Syrian asylum seeker went on a knife rampage, killing three in the west German city of Solingen.
It emerged that the man — linked to Islamic State — had previously had his claim for asylum turned down but he had not been deported because the authorities could not find him.
Germany’s lame duck premier Olaf Scholz promised to speed up deportations and other mainstream parties followed suit with tough talk on immigration, including the conservative Christian Democratic Union.
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Andreas Buhl, a Thuringian MP for Merkel’s CDU, concedes that the former Chancellor’s open border policy was wrongCredit: Paul Edwards
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A CDU poster calling to stop illegal migrationCredit: Paul Edwards
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An anti-multicultural bannerCredit: Paul Edwards
Yesterday, it was reported that Germany’s interior minister Nancy Faeser has told the EU that controls will be brought in on all the country’s land borders, to deal with the “continuing burden” of migration and “Islamist terrorism”.
Britain, where populists Reform won four million votes at the General Election, will be watching whether moves towards the AfD’s turf will win back voters.
As well as a hardline stance on immigration, the AfD is also against what it says are over-zealous green policies, and it wants to halt weapons supplies to Ukraine.
At the Thuringian parliament in Erfurt, I met key Hocke lieutenant Torben Braga — who, curiously for a German anti-immigration party, was born in Brazil and is of Brazilian and Welsh ancestry.
The 33-year-old Thuringia MP says: “Bjorn Hocke doesn’t have a single fascist vein in his body.”
‘Political firewall’
Of his boss’s infamous “shame” reference to the Berlin Holocaust memorial, Braga says he meant it was “a shameful part of our history”.
Braga believes the security services are monitoring him and suggests “provocateurs” from those agencies were behind the “two or three cases” of people doing the Hitler salute at a recent rally in Erfurt.
Picturesque Erfurt is, at first glance, perhaps an unlikely setting for a far-right upsurge. Half-timbered town houses crowd flower-bedecked medieval squares where tourists enjoy beers on its many restaurant terraces.
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A far-right mob gather at a demonstration in Solingen last monthCredit: EPA
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Far-right AfD supporters wave German flags, including one adorned with an Iron CrossCredit: Getty
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The AfD party’s slick TikTok videosCredit: tiktok/@afd
This summer the England squad had their Euro 2024 training base a short drive away and Three Lions star Jude Bellingham was spotted having coffee in the city of 215,000.
Yet Thuringia has seen too much history in the 20th century.
After the Americans liberated Thuringia, it fell under Soviet control.
From 1949 to 1990 it was part of the Communist state of East Germany.
Post-German reunification, Thuringia and other eastern states struggled economically, with many youngsters heading to western Germany.
Immigration became a key political battleground after conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany’s borders to a million refugees in 2015 and 2016.
Last year around 334,000 people claimed asylum in Germany — more than France and Spain combined. In the UK the figure was just under 85,000 people.
The AfD — formed in 2013 as a Eurosceptic party — has seen its fortunes rise as it hammered home its anti-immigration stance.
No other party is so active on social media platforms, especially TikTok.The AfD post pictures of demonstrations. The message is: ‘Young people come to us. We are the next movement’
It called for a ban on burqas, minarets, and call to prayer using the slogan, “Islam is not a part of Germany” in 2016.
In Thuringia, Hocke led a radical AfD faction called The Wing, deemed beyond the pale even by many in his own party.
Andreas Buhl, a Thuringian MP for Merkel’s CDU, concedes that the former Chancellor’s open border policy was wrong.
He told me: “In hindsight, it should have been clearer that you can also push people back at the border who have already entered another European country.”
He pledged, as other mainstream parties have, not to work with the AfD, creating a political firewall likely to block it from taking power.
It raises the spectre that those who voted for it may come to believe that democracy is failing them.
But anti-far-right activist Felix Steiner says only around half of AfD supporters are wedded to their hardline doctrines, with the rest supporting them as a protest vote.
He added: “The AfD result could be halved if voters were satisfied with other parties’ policies.”
The fight for the political soul of Germany’s Generation Z goes on.
It’s a battle of ideas that may be won or lost on the feeds of TikTok and Instagram.
THIS incredible 790ft mega-yacht carries hundreds of guests in ultra-opulent cabins.
The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection gave an exciting glimpse into the new superyacht named Ilma, which includes an onboard spa and gym, in vision on social media.
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The Ilma has only just hit the seas
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A stunning pool is one of its many features
Pictures of the luxury boat shows cabins that await guests, with decor resembling a five-star hotel room leading to private terraces looking over the sea.
It also boats a huge deck for guests to bask on sunbeds.
A swimming pool with a bar behind it adds to the opulence, with separate massive dining areas.
Interior Design Director Taylor Cuff said it was in line with Ritz-Carlton‘s mission to give guests “uncompromised luxury”.
She said: “Projects like this really allow us to move the needle to create a new product and to provide a new opportunity for luxurious experience.
“It’s really important that we deliver what our guests are expecting from land-based Ritz Carlton on the yacht collection.”
She said the “absolutely stunning” yacht gave customers a chance to “connect directly with the sea”.
Taylor added: “We really wanted to do it bigger and better for Ilma and really evolve that further.”
Ritz-Carlton’s Yacht Collection website says guests – it can hold 448 of them – are greeted by spacious suites, open-air lounges and “an aft Marina” by the water.
World’s ‘most expensive yacht’ is £4bn gold-plated boat with walls made of T-Rex bones – but no one has EVER seen it
Wealthy yacht-goers pay up for an all-inclusive fare featuring 24-hour dining as well as drinks in their suites and around the yacht.
It has several restaurants offering bites ranging from sashimi to pasta to grilled steak and seafood.
In the evening, a pianist provides a romantic soundtrack to the night before a DJ comes on for those keen to boogie.
There is even a crew-guest ratio of one to one, promising top-notch service.
Bringing the kids on board is also made easier by Ritz Kids, a program offered in the summer mixing education with fun.
Apparently not satisfied, Ritz-Carlton is adding another mega-yacht to its fleet to hit the seas in 2025.
It’ll be called the Luminara and will be even larger at 794ft.
Ritz-Carlton first launched in 1983, and now has 108 luxury hotels dotted across the globe.
Aside from Ilma and Luminara, the third yacht of the company’s lavish boat collection is the slightly smaller Evrima, which has a 298-guest capacity.
The yachts sail around Asia, the Caribbean, Mediterranean and the northern Europe and Baltic regions.
The Ilma mega-yacht factfile
Capacity: 448 passengers
Size: 790ft
Suites: 224
Decks: 10
Service: As many staff as guests
Inclusions: 24-hour in-suite dining, beverages throughout the yacht, onboard entertainment, access to watersports
Jack White performed at his alma mater Cass Tech at a rally for Bernie Sanders.
Detroit rocker Jack White slammed Donald Trump, calling him “scum” and his team “fascists,” after the Republican’s presidential campaign used a clip of White’s hit “Seven Nation Army” on a pro-Trump social media post.
White said he’s suing the campaign “to add to your 5 thousand others” after Trump’s deputy director of communications, Margo Martin, posted a brief video clip of Trump boarding a plane with White’s music playing in the background.
“Oh….Don’t even think about using my music you fascists,” White wrote on Instagram. “Law suit coming from my lawyers about this.”
Other prominent artists who have objected to Trump or his team using their work include Céline Dion, Beyoncé, Johnny Marr of the Smiths, the family of the late soul legend Isaac Hayes, and the estate of the late Irish pop star Sinéad O’Connor.
White also blasted Trump over a recent controversy during his visit earlier this week to a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. According to an Army spokesperson on Thursday, an employee attempting to enforce rules against political activities on cemetery grounds was pushed aside in an altercation reportedly involving two members of Trump’s campaign staff.
“And as long as I’m here, a double fuck you DonOLD for insulting our nation’s veterans at Arlington you scum. You should lose every military family’s vote immediately from that if ANYTHING makes sense anymore.”
It would appear that Brittany Mahomes is not liking the comments she’s been getting on social media recently.
The wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is facing backlash after appearing to “like” and subsequently un-like an Instagram post from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in recent days. Brittany Mahomes, who is currently pregnant with the couple’s third child, reportedly double-tapped a post from Trump outlining the “2024 GOP platform,” including bulletpoints such as “keep men OUT of women’s sports” and “end the weaponization of government against the American people.”
On Friday, Brittany took to her Instagram Story with a text-only post that didn’t directly reference Trump or what she was biting back against, but addressed “haters.”
“I mean honestly,” she wrote. “To be a hater as an adult, you have to have some deep-rooted issues you refuse to heal from childhood. There’s no reason your brain is fully developed and you hate to see others doing well.”
She has not explicitly endorsed a presidential candidate, and does not currently follow Trump on Instagram.
Husband Patrick Mahomes told Time in April that he would not speak publicly about his choice in candidates either.
“I don’t want to pressure anyone to vote for a certain president,” Patrick said. “I want people to use their voice, whoever they believe in. I want them to do the research.”
Of course, the couple is friends with Taylor Swift via Travis Kelce, Patrick’s Kansas City Chiefs teammate and Swift’s boyfriend. The two couples have been spotted hanging out socially several times, ringing in the new year together, and even celebrating mutual pal Blake Lively’s birthday at Swift’s Rhode Island estate over the weekend. The Mahomeses have also been in the audience alongside Kelce at Swift’s Eras Tour, just as Swift and Brittany have taken in several Chiefs games together.
Swift has notably spoken out against Trump in the past, endorsing Joe Biden against him in 2020, and leading many to wonder if she’ll do the same for the coming election in support of Kamala Harris. Recently, Trump shared AI-generated images featuring young women in “Swifties for Trump” gear, writing, “I accept!” alongside them on social media, implying that the singer herself supports him. One of the images is specifically and prominently labeled “SATIRE.” Swift has not yet shared a presidential endorsement, nor responded to Trump’s tweets.
A representative for Patrick Mahomes did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment.
