Technology

Meta is changing ad targeting options across its platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, meaning businesses will no longer be able to direct ads to users of a specific race, political affiliation, or sexual orientation. The move comes after years of criticism concerning the company’s advertising algorithms, which have frequently been perceived as invasive.

The recently renamed company announced the changes in a blog post on Tuesday, noting that the “difficult decision” was driven by feedback from civil rights experts and policymakers. Set to take effect Jan. 19, Meta’s ad options will no longer offer Detailed Targeting concerning topics which “people may perceive as sensitive.” Examples include topics relating to health, race, politics, religion, or sexuality.

“[W]e’ve heard concerns from experts that targeting options like these could be used in ways that lead to negative experiences for people in underrepresented groups,” said Graham Mudd, Meta’s vice president of product marketing and ads.

The company stressed that users’ inclusion in a targeted topic group isn’t assessed by evaluating their physical characteristics, but rather analysing the content they interact with. Even so, many have found Facebook’s assumptions about them to be disturbingly, unnervingly nosy.

“This change impacts all Meta properties where advertisers can display ads, including Facebook/IG/Messenger and our audience network,” a Meta spokesperson told Mashable.

Meta acknowledged that the removal of topic targeting may adversely impact the ability of Facebook and Instagram’s advertisers to reach a relevant audience, but noted the changes don’t mean all targeted advertising will be removed entirely. Advertisers can still choose to target potential customers via their age, gender, location, inclusion on customer lists, and whether users have engaged with the advertiser’s posts in the past.

So Facebook’s advertising will still be vaguely creepy, but more like it’s lurking in your driveway than at your bedroom window.

Meta also plans to add more options to the list of categories users can choose to see fewer ads from. While you can currently opt to reduce the number of ads you see related to politics, parenting, and pets, early next year you will also be able to reduce the volume of ads served to you that concern issues such as gambling and weight loss. It’s a long overdue change that should hopefully help people struggling with addiction or disordered eating.

Facebook’s algorithm sucks, and Congress wants to do something about it.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing forward what it’s titled the “Filter Bubble Transparency Act.” Axios got a copy of the proposed legislation, which would require companies like Meta (yes, Facebook) to, simply put, provide users with an option to opt out of algorithmic content feeds (like Facebook’s News Feed or Instagram’s feed) based on personal data.

In other words, the bill is aimed at the heart of what makes Facebook and Instagram so addictive — and, lawmakers argued in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol building, deadly.

“The algorithms Facebook uses to maximize user engagement on its platform undermine our shared sense of objective reality, intensify fringe political beliefs, facilitate connections between extremist users, and, tragically, lead some of them to commit real-world physical violence, such as what we experienced firsthand on January 6th,” Representatives Anna G. Eshoo of California and Tom Malinowski of New Jersey wrote in a January letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg.

The Filter Bubble Transparency Act, introduced by Representatives Ken Buck of Colorado, David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Lori Trahan of Massachusetts, and Burgess Owens of Utah, would require a subset of online content providers (the big ones) to offer users what it terms an “input-transparent algorithm.”

“The term ‘input-transparent algorithm means an algorithmic ranking-system that does not use user-specific data to determine the order or manner that information is furnished to any given user on a covered internet platform, unless the user-specific data is expressly provided to the platform by the user for such purpose.”

What this means, in layman’s terms, is that a company like Meta (aka Facebook) would need to provide Instagram users with a feed option that wasn’t based on data it collected on them from across the web. For example, Facebook tracks users’ shopping habits across the web. If this bill were to become law, then Instagram would need to offer users a version of its feed that wasn’t affected by that data.

Notably, the bill would not just apply to Facebook — other large tech companies like Twitter would likely fall under the legislation as well (though Twitter already offers users a reverse-chronological timeline). The legislation also carves out numerous exceptions for companies that employ less than 500 people, or possess data on less than 1,000,000 people, for example.

SEE ALSO: People are fighting algorithms for a more just and equitable future. You can, too.

We reached out to Facebook for comment, and asked if it believed it is being specifically targeted with this legislation. We also asked if Instagram would offer users a reverse chronological feed were the Filter Bubble Transparency Act to become law. We received no immediate response.

Maybe, in time, our email will sort its way to the top of Facebook’s internal press feed.

“Absolutely no to NFT integration on Discord.”

“I’ll straight up leave and use Slack if you integrate NFTs.”

“Will be leaving Discord if you bring NTFs or crypto to the platform.”

This is just a small sampling of the deluge of comments being left on Discord‘s website after the company’s founder and CEO hinted that it would be integrating NFTs into the community chat platform.

On Monday, Discord’s founder and CEO Jason Citron responded via Twitter to a newsletter written by entrepreneur Packy McCormick. The piece basically looks at Discord’s potential as a future leader in the Web3 space.

Web3 basically is the hot terminology right now being used by people in the cryptocurrency and NFT space to push the idea that the next iteration of the internet after the social media era (aka Web 2.0) is a decentralized one. Web3 is basically a version of the internet where everything is run on the blockchain. One can see why crypto and non-fungible token (NFT) evangelists would be bullish on this, being that it would cement everything that they’re investing into now as the future.

SEE ALSO: 9 of the best gaming routers to supercharge your game

Many cryptocurrency and NFT supporters believe the billion dollar video game market is the killer industry where their Web3 dreams will come true. And, of course, Discord is hugely popular with gamers. They make up the vast majority of its user base.

Citron replied to McCormick’s Twitter post about the piece with two simple words and a screenshot.

“Probably nothing,” tweeted Discord’s founder alongside an image of an unreleased Discord feature that integrates a user’s Ethereum wallet with their Discord account.

The feature hinted by Citron looks similar to the NFT verification feature that Twitter has been working on. Basically, a user can connect their crypto wallets to the platform in order to automatically populate their account with the NFTs they own in order to showcase them publicly.

The Twitter reply quickly spread and the sentiment has been negative to say the least.

New features are coming for the desktop version of the messaging service, WhatsApp, as the company is rolling out new update through the official beta channel.

One of the new features being introduced is the incoming call ringtone and turn off all desktop incoming calls. This feature would extend more control to the users while managing call notifications when they are using the web version of the messaging application.

WABetaInfo reports that the second feature in the new update would be a new interface for Contact Info, Business Info, and Group Info. The new web interface would be similar to the interface users see on their Android or iPhone when they are looking at a contact or group info.

The new interface feature is being rolled out for specific beta testers only.

“If you want to verify if the new interface is already enabled for your WhatsApp account, just open Contact Info or Group Info (and be sure it’s not Business Info)”, WABetaInfo said.

The new features will be available for users once they update their application to the latest versions, however, there is a chance that some might not receive the new options right now. The WhatsApp update tracker said that those users will soon receive updates with more activations following.

WhatsApp desktop beta versions may be released for a specific platform in advance so the users have to wait for some days to get the new version for the platforms they are using.

Collectors of Apple products have the chance to own an original Apple computer that was hand built by the tech giant’s founders, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, some 45 years ago.

The functioning Apple-1, considered to be the great-great-grandfather of today’s sleek chrome-and-glass Macbooks, is expected to fetch up to US$600,000 at an auction in California.

Known as the “Chaffey College” Apple-1 is one of only 200 made by Jobs and Wozniak at the very start of the company’s odyssey from their famed garage start-up to megalith worth US$2 trillion.

What further adds to it rarity is the fact that this computer is encased in koa wood, a richly patinated wood native to Hawaii. Only a handful of the original 200 were made on this pattern.

Jobs and Wozniak mostly sold Apple-1s as component parts. One computer shop that took a delivery of around 50 units decided to encase some of them in wood, the auction house shared. “This is kind of the holy grail for vintage electronics and computer tech collectors,” Apple-1 expert, Corey Cohen told the Los Angeles Times. “That really makes it exciting for a lot of people.”

According to The Los Angeles Times reported the student — who has not been named — paid just US$650 for it at the time. That student now stands to make a pretty penny: a working Apple-1 that came to the market in 2014 was sold by Bonhams for more than US$900,000.

Apple raced to success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but foundered after the departure of Jobs and Wozniak. The company was reinvigorated in the late 1990s, and Jobs was brought back into the fold as the chief executive. He oversaw the launch of the iPod, and later the iPhone, before his death in 2011.