Facebook

Facebook is the quintessential social network, but you may not always feel like being social every time you log in to your Facebook account. Whether it's because you don't have the energy or the time to engage with friends, you do have the option to browse Facebook without anyone knowing you're online. The way to achieve this is by turning off your "Active Status," which can be done within...

Facebook has introduced a tool that lets users export notes and text-based posts to third-party services, making it easier than ever to leave the social network without saying goodbye to your content. The new "data portability types" mean people can now directly transfer their notes and posts to Google Docs, Blogger and WordPress. The updates are extensions to Facebook's existing tool that...

When it came to adding a Dark Mode option to its iOS app, Facebook was late to the game. The social network announced it was coming in June 2020, but dragged its feet for months before eventually rolling it out to mobile users in November the same year, over 400 days after Apple first introduced the feature in iOS 13. Dark Mode‌ has been available on the social network's website for a while ...

Facebook has just made a photo transfer tool globally available that lets account holders easily download all their pictures and videos from the social network to Google Photos. Previously, the majority of Facebook users wanting to download their media from the site had to do it manually. From today, however, users with a Google Photos account can automate the job, and Facebook says more...

After previously only existing as an "Easter Egg" setting, Facebook in April 2019 added a Dark Mode theme as an official display feature of its standalone Messenger app. Facebook says that Dark Mode is designed to provide less harsh brightness in situations where ambient lighting is lower while maintaining contrast and vibrancy. If you have an OLED iPhone, such as an iPhone X, iPhone XS,...

With the release of iOS 11, Apple nixed its built-in integration with Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Vimeo, a feature that allowed iPhone and iPad users to store their third-party account information and access it within apps that needed to use those services. The equivalent feature remains in macOS High Sierra, although Apple has removed it completely from macOS 10.14 Mojave, which many...

Facebook's experimental NPE Team today has launched a new app called "Kit" or "Keep in Touch" for connecting with close friends over Messenger on the Apple Watch. To get started, users scan a QR code on the Apple Watch, or enter an access code at fb.com/devices. Then, users select a Messenger contact and can quickly send that person a message, voice recording, emoji, or their location with a...

Facebook is rolling out a new feature in its iOS app that lets users temporarily mute push notifications and put the app on hold if they think it's taking up too much of their time. Called "Quiet Mode," the new setting can turned on for a certain period of time or scheduled to come on at specific intervals. Quiet Mode be found by tapping the hamburger icon in the bottom right corner of the...

Facebook has quietly released Tuned, a new messaging app designed to provide a "private space" for couples to connect, reports The Information. Designed by NPE, an experimental group within the company that was established last year, the app encourages couples to share messages, notes, cards, voice memos, photos and Spotify songs with each other, thereby creating a "digital scrapbook" of...

Facebook today launched a standalone Messenger app for macOS and Windows platforms, allowing users to video and text chat with friends and family from their desktop computer. Along with all of the expected features, Messenger on macOS supports Dark Mode. The Messenger app connects directly to your Facebook account, so you can chat with existing friends without needing an email or phone...

Facebook is testing a new feature that would allow Facebook Stories to be cross-posted to Instagram Stories, reports TechCrunch. Right now, Instagram Stories can be shared to Facebook Stories, but the reverse is not possible. The new option would allow Stories to be shared interchangeably from one platform to another. Jane Manchun Wong, who often digs into unreleased features in social...

Facebook today announced that it has canceled its F8 developer conference that was set to take place at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California on May 5 and 6. In a statement, Facebook said that given "growing concerns" about COVID-19, the in-person component of F8 has been nixed. Instead of F8, Facebook is planning locally hosted events, videos, and live streamed content. This...

Facebook today announced that its "Off-Facebook Activity" feature is now available to users around the world, after soft launching in Ireland, South Korea, and Spain last summer. Off-Facebook Activity lets you see a summary of the data that third-party apps and websites have shared with Facebook, and delete it if you see fit. As Facebook explained, other businesses send the social network...

Facebook's controversial plan to sell ads in WhatsApp has been put on the back-burner, according to a new report today from The Wall Street Journal. WhatsApp in recent months disbanded a team that had been established to find the best ways to integrate ads into the service, according to people familiar with the matter. The team's work was then deleted from WhatsApp's code, the people said.Plans...

The Facebook for iOS app appears to be accessing the iPhone or iPad's camera in the background when the app is in use, according to multiple reports on Twitter. The sliver of brown in this demo photo is the Facebook app accessing the camera behind the timeline. When scrolling through the Facebook timeline, several users saw the camera activated in the background, as demonstrated in the tweets ...

U.S., U.K., and Australian officials have contacted Facebook to request that it provides authorities with a way to access encrypted messages sent by users over the social network, it was revealed today. Facebook-owned WhatsApp already uses end-to-end encryption to ensure only senders and recipients can read messages, but Facebook intends to extend the same protocols to its Messenger and...

Facebook today announced a new set of Portal video chat devices, including one that is aimed to compete in the streaming TV market. This device is called the Portal TV, and it connects to a TV set with a standard HDMI cable and can stream content as well as enable video calls through Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. According to Facebook, video calling is the primary feature of Portal TV,...

Facebook has attempted to pre-empt awkward questions about privacy ahead of the launch of iOS 13, with a blog post explaining what Apple's new location data alerts mean for users of its mobile app. As we've covered elsewhere, Apple has doubled down on its privacy features in iOS 13, giving iPhone and iPad users a more granular view of how third-party apps access their location information...

An exposed server with more than 419 million records from Facebook users has been discovered online, reports TechCrunch. The server was not protected with a password and was accessible to anyone. It featured 133 million records from U.S.-based Facebook users, 18 million records from users in the UK, and 50 million records on users in Vietnam. The records contained each person's unique...

Facebook paid “hundreds of outside contractors” to transcribe user audio clips from its Messenger app, reports Bloomberg. Employees who worked on the transcription were not told where the audio was recorded or how it was obtained, nor were they told why Facebook needs conversations transcribed. Facebook says that while it had indeed been transcribing audio, it no longer plans to do so....

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has voted to approve a settlement with Facebook that will see the social media giant hit with a roughly $5 billion fine over the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, reports The Wall Street Journal. The matter has been moved to the Justice Department’s civil division and it is unclear how long it will take to finalize, the person said. Justice Department...

WhatsApp is testing a feature that enables users to share their WhatsApp Status posts over Facebook, Instagram, and other services. WhatsApp's Status feature works a lot like Stories do in Instagram, in that users can use the option to stitch together photos and video to express themselves in a way words alone might not allow them to. The idea behind WhatsApp Status sharing is that it...

A database that contained contact information for millions of Instagram influencers, celebrities, and brand accounts was recently leaked online, reports TechCrunch. The database, which was hosted by Amazon Web Services and contains more than 49 million records, was accessible without a password or other credentials according to the security researcher who informed TechCrunch about the leak. ...

Facebook today announced that it is reintroducing the "View As Public" feature that's designed to let you see your Facebook profile as a non-friend sees it, so you can double check that you're not sharing information publicly that you don't want to share. In addition, Facebook is adding an "Edit Public Details" button directly to your profile, which will make it easier to adjust what...

Recently, presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren put forward the idea to reverse certain tech mergers to promote healthy competition in the market, particularly including Facebook and Instagram. In an op-ed shared today by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, that topic is revisited (via The New York Times). According to Hughes, the Federal Trade Commission's "biggest mistake" was letting...

Facebook's developer conference, F8, took place today, and Facebook announced a number of changes coming to the social network in the future. Facebook is set to gain a refreshed design, that's meant to be "simpler, faster, and more immersive," situating Facebook Groups more prominently. The new design will "make it easy" for people to transition from public spaces to more private ones....