Twitter is taking a proactive stance against cyber-bullying, Snapchat faces legal scrutiny over a filter, and Pinterest is taking the world by storm. These are some of the major social media headlines here in the news.
Twitter Upgrades Harassment Reporting
In a world of cyberbullying and even non-threatening trolling, Twitter is upgrading its reporting system for victims of online abuse. For the first time, users will have the option of grouping five tweets when reporting harassment on Twitter. This is a massive upgrade. In the past, it took roughly six clicks to report harassment, and Twitter only allowed users to report one tweet at a time. Twitter has acknowledged past lapses at enforcing harassment on the platform.
The new feature makes it easier for Twitter users to report threats and share lists of blocked Twitter accounts with other users. Twitter’s launch of the Twitter Safety Center allows users to have access to all of Twitter’s resources for harassment. Learn how to use social media for your business, and without bullying, by checking out our blog.
Snapchat Caught Snapping While Driving
Snapchat revolutionized social media by creating a variety of filters for individual posts, or stories. Now, the ultra-popular feature is at the center of a serious lawsuit. A Georgia Uber driver is suing Snapchat and another driver in the wake of a violent car crash. Wentworth Maynard claims that he suffered serious head injuries when driver Christal McGee hit him.
His lawyers say that she was driving faster than 100 mph. Maynard’s lawyer claims McGee was driving fast while snapchatting. They say that the high rate of speed was a direct result of a specific filter within Snapchat that records your speed as you take a photo or video.
Police say they never blamed either driver for the crash, and to this point, there is no evidence of speeding. Maynard’s lawyers argue that Snapchat is encouraging risky driving with this filter. Snapchat has not responded to the lawsuit. Snapchat has taken a stance against driving while using the app. There are several filters promoting safe driving with stickers like “I won’t snap and drive” and “Stop the texts. Stop the wrecks.”
Pinterest’s Global Explosion
Pinterest is welcoming millions of new users, and many of them are from outside the United States. Because of this international growth, Pinterest is launching featured curated collections localized in the UK, Japan, Germany, Brazil, and France. In the next few months, these new features will be available in other countries as well.
Pinterest started with those five nations first, because that’s where the platform is seeing the largest explosion of new users. The new feature demonstrates exactly how important the international market is as Pinterest continues to grow. With ads attracting more users outside of the United States, Pinterest is planning to expand these curated collections in other countries including Canada, Australia, and Ireland.
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