Social Networks

YouTube TV customers will continue to get NBCUniversal’s suite of cable channels and local NBC stations after the media conglom and Google reached a tentative agreement. According to a source familiar with the talks, Google and NBCU are finalizing their agreement and the NBCU-owned networks will not be going dark on YouTube TV. Their previous agreement was set to expire Sept. 30 at midnight ET, but the parties reached a short-term extension while they continued working to hammer out a long-term deal. It’s unclear if NBCU’s new deal for YouTube TV will bundle Peacock Premium as part of the internet-TV service, as NBCU was asking. The contract fight escalated earlier this week, after NBCU on Sunday began warning YouTube TV customers they could lose networks like NBC, USA Network and CNBC over the stalled talks. Google has claimed that NBCU is asking for higher rates than it charges YouTube TV’s pay-TV competitors. In addition, the internet giant said NBCU, by bundling Peacock Premium with YouTube, that would effectively double-charge customers for the same content (while requiring them to log in separately to Peacock’s apps). NBCU said that it was seeking “fair rates from Google for YouTube TV’s continued carriage of…

June Aye | Pixabay M’Niyah LynnOctober 1, 2021 A recent report from The Wall Street Journal found that Facebook was aware Instagram created a toxic environment for its users, particularly teenage girls, which would negatively affect their mental health and well-being. Young women have reported feeling increased levels of anxiety with higher rates of depression and eating disorders because of their Instagram usage. Part of the problem is that users on Instagram, a social media platform that is popular among celebrities, influencers and friends, help portray the false and unrealistic reality that people’s lives are perfect, The Wire said. According to information from researchers that was posted to Facebook’s internal message board, “Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” he Wall Street Journal said. The information, which was found from slides from a March 2020 Facebook presentation, also showed that 13% of British users and 6% of American users connected their suicidal thoughts to Instagram. Over the years, Instagram has increasingly made people, especially teen girls, concerned over likes which makes posting stressful. “Instagram stopped being a place for friends and family and started becoming a place for…

Eight parents mourn children poisoned by deadly pills bought on Snapchat. Matt Capelouto’s daughter, Alex, was home for winter break from Arizona State University in 2019 when she died after buying and taking the pill. She didn’t get a chance to open her Christmas presents.  One month into the pandemic in 2020, Bridgette Norring’s teenage son was found unconscious in his bed by his brother.  Luca Manuel was just 13 when he took the drug the afternoon before he was supposed to start back at school for the first day of in-person classes since lockdown. His mother, Amanda Faith Eubanks, held her son for the last time as he was being put into the coroner’s van inside of a body bag. These are just a few cases over the last few years in a wave of deaths among teens and young adults who bought what they believed to be a prescription pill — like a Percocet, an OxyContin or a Xanax — that turned out to be a counterfeit pill containing a deadly dose of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid a hundred times more potent than morphine.  Many of those pills are being traded openly via social media, particularly on Snapchat,…

Waverly farmer's Facebook page shows single stalk of corn growing; 500 people and 15 classrooms nationwide are watching Waverly's Paula Peterson stands near the stalk of corn she has been measuring since June at her home in Waverly. Peterson has been watching this stalks growth as a part of an educational Facebook page entitled "Farmer Paula has a Farm." ELSIE STORMBERG, Waverly News Elsie Stormberg Waverly News WAVERLY — Paula Peterson never thought so many people would be interested in watching corn grow. Since June 18, almost 500 of Peterson’s family, friends and acquaintances from throughout the nation have been keeping tabs on one stalk of corn on her and her husband Tom’s property in Waverly via a Facebook page entitled “Farmer Paula has a Farm.” The stalk is located one row in on the edge of a cornfield on the eastern side of the Peterson property. On June 18, Peterson made her first post showing a 31-inch stalk that had been spray-painted bright orange so she won’t lose it.    » Read More

Here are seven major companies whose stocks moved on the week’s news Facebook, under scrutiny from lawmakers, said it would suspend its plans for Instagram Kids. Photo: Nina Riggio/Bloomberg News Facebook Inc. A version of Instagram designed for children isn’t getting a lot of likes in Washington, D.C. The social media giant said Monday it would suspend its plans for Instagram Kids after lawmakers voiced concerns about the platform’s effects on the mental health of young people. During a Thursday hearing, Senate members then accused the company of disregarding internal research showing that Instagram is harmful for significant numbers of teen girls. Facebook shares fell 3.7% Tuesday. Resume Subscription We are delighted that you'd like to resume your subscription. You will be charged $ + tax (if applicable) for The Wall Street Journal. You may change your billing preferences at any time in the Customer Center or call Customer Service. You will be notified in advance of any changes in rate or terms.  » Read More

Michigan State University President Samuel Stanley on Friday announced the college has replaced its Title IX coordinator, a position that oversees the university's sexual misconduct complaints.Stanley said Nicole Schmidtke will temporarily be serving as MSU’s Title IX coordinator, replacing Tanya Jachimiak.Jachimiak was hired as associate vice president for MSU's Office for Civil Rights and Title IX Education and Compliance in February of 2020 and also had the title of Title IX coordinator, according to her LinkedIn page.Stanley gave no explanation for Jachimiak's departure from her role in the letter he sent to the campus community. MSU spokeswoman Emily Guerrant said Jachimiak's change in position is the result of a "personnel issue."Guerrant said Jachimiak is still employed by the university but declined to comment further.Jachimiak could not be reached for comment. She joined MSU after working as the Title IX and Section 504 coordinator at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and before that in a similar capacity at the University of Illinois at Chicago."MSU is committed to the safety of each community member and has a policy in place that not only adheres to federal guidelines around Title IX but goes beyond the extent of what is required by law," Stanley wrote in the Friday letter. Stanley outlined several policies…

ClaimHumans have stripes or invisible stripes.ReportingAdvertisementsOn September 28 2021, the following post made a series of claims about humans having “stripes” that are visible but aren’t actually stripes, and that they also have stripes that do exist but which are not visible. The post’s claim was via a series of screenshots from Tumblr; the gallery of screenshots was shared to Imgur on September 30 2021:You’re a tiger HarryGoogle Trends data indicated a spike in searches for “humans have stripes” beginning on September 30 2021. Related queries included “do humans have stripes under uv,” “can cats see human stripes,” “humans have invisible stripes,” human stripes uv,” and “Blaschko lines.”First and foremost, “humans have stripes that we normally cannot see” was not a new claim. Posts on Reddit dating back more than a decade (and intermittently after that) covered the issue:TIL humans have stripes (we just can’t normally see them) from todayilearnedSeptember and October 2021 posts claiming that “humans have stripes” typically involved screenshots of a November 15 2020 Tumblr post by u/keuhkopussirota. That post was framed in terms of aliens discussing human stripes (and possibly confusing stripes with stretch marks), but later “notes” on the original post made the claim that “cats can…

SAN FRANCISCO — Over the past few weeks, top Facebook executives assembled virtually for a series of emergency meetings.In one gathering last weekend, half a dozen managers — including Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, and Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs — discussed pausing the development of an Instagram service for children ages 13 and under, said two people briefed on the meeting. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, weighed in to approve the decision, the people said.The meetings continued this week, with a larger group that included Facebook’s “Strategic Response” teams, which are overseen by Mr. Clegg, the people said. The executives debated what to do about internal research around teenagers and Instagram, they said, and decided to publicly release some information but annotate it to add context.Facebook has been in an uproar over the past few weeks, which the meetings were held to quell. The tumult began after The Wall Street Journal published a series of articles last month that showed Facebook knew about the harms of its services, including teenage girls saying that Instagram made them feel worse about themselves. The articles were based on a trove of Facebook documents, which were leaked by an unidentified…

Whether an Instagram post is accidentally or intentionally deleted, it can be easily recovered again. However, when it was deleted matters. Instagram users have the option to quickly and easily restore a post, but there is a time limit for getting the content back before it’s permanently deleted. When a post is deleted, it immediately disappears from view, but users can still find it in a different section of the Instagram app. Here’s a quick explanation on how to get deleted Instagram posts back, and how you have before it is too late.  There are multiple options when it comes to creating content on Instagram beyond simply sharing a photo. Users can create an Instagram Story, a picture or video that only lasts 24 hours before it disappears. Alternatively, users can post a Reel, which involves creating a video up to 60 seconds long. Then there is the option to post a long-form video through Instagram's IGTV, with the ability to upload a video anywhere between on minute and one hour in length.  As Instagram explains, users will need to access the 'Recently Deleted' section of their account in order to restore a post to its former glory. To do this, visit the Instagram profile,…

Throughout the pandemic, we’ve watched as companies have had to get more and more creative in order to stay afloat. But start-ups have been doing this forever which is one of the many reasons why they can be so admirable. If you’re interested in just which companies are on the up and up in Canada, a new list of 15 Canadian companies on the rise for 2021 from LinkedIn will help you out First of all, you’re probably wondering, how does LinkedIn determine these rankings? Good question. LinkedIn uses its own data and a 4 pillar methodology consisting of employee growth; jobseeker interest; member engagement with the company and its employees; and how well these startups pulled talent from the flagship LinkedIn Top Companies list. Plus, companies must have been 7 years old or younger, have at least 50 employees, be privately held, and be headquartered in Canada in order to be eligible. So let’s get into some results! Recent Posts: Canada has a unique new loonie & you can find it in circulation right now Lululemon will be the official brand of Team Canada for the next four Olympics As part of this year’s #LinkedInTopStartups @fp_coalition founder @RobertDowneyJr shares what…