Facebook announced a new initiative today aimed at improving its policies and the role its platform plays in elections. The company acknowledged that it was slow to respond to election interference efforts that took place on its site and says it wants to learn more about social medias role in elections around the world. To do that, it's putting together a group of researchers that will then develop a research plan, get proposals for projects that address issues defined in its plan and manage a peer review process that will determine who will receive funding and access to Facebook data for their research.

The commission of experts will initially work for one year and Facebook says membership will be determined soon.

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It appears inevitable that censorship is coming to social media. The political head of steam behind the idea is such that it’s going to happen. Oh, sure, it will be voluntary codes of conduct, fights against fake news, but it will amount to much the same thing – it will be possible to say some things on Facebook, Twitter and the like, and not others.

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Amy Porterfield is a social media and content creation mastermind and top speaker, trainer and consultant for young entrepreneurs and professionals looking to maximize their social media reach and engagement.

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What predicted Facebook’s FB, +1.63%   scandal involving data firm Cambridge Analytica and the private information of 50 million user profiles without their consent?

How about the 2010 film The Social Network?

The movie, directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, was a fictionalized account of how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg messily developed the social-networking site while at Harvard.

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Facebook purged  583 million fake accounts in the first three months of 2018, demonstrating the amount of spam, violent content and hate speech that gets smeared across the social network.

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There are some new products and services that are very obviously good  — a cure for a deadly disease, for example, or some other type of medical innovation. But other innovations have value that is more uncertain, such as an unproven technology. In her latest research paper, Wharton management professor Valentina Assenova examines the role of social networks, both online and offline, in the spread of these complex innovations.

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Convinced that faith communities would want to share prayer requests, announcements and service opportunities without going to multiple platforms and without being awash in advertising, a group of friends created an app just for that.

With $2 million in seed money, Pray.com was beta tested with 100 churches in 2016. Today, 6,000 faith communities and thousands of other groups use the app to host their members’ need for prayer and offers of support, as well as to recruit volunteers for local service projects and to collect donations, said two of the co-founders.

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Half a million doctors worldwide are sharing their knowledge on a social network for medics to find answers for their patients.

On MedShr, set up in 2014 by a London cardiologist, doctors can post details of cases and other medics can give their input.

A doctor treating a young Afghan refugee in Serbia, who needed plates and pins in his legs, received advice from other specialists that helped formulate a plan to help the boy walk again. In Kenya, hospitals run by junior doctors are able to get remote support from seniors.

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When is the best time to post on social media? Unmetric, an AI-powered social media analytics platform, reviewed social media posts from 100 brands over a five-week period, then compiled the data into an infographic that explores the answers to that question.

The data shows...

• Surprisingly, Instagram user activity peaks at 3-4 AM on Sundays (because of global interactions, yet Instagram posts on Tuesdays received the best engagement.

• Facebook's sweet spot for engagement is on Thursdays, 9-10 AM; and weekends show lower engagement on Facebook.
• The most rewarding time for brands to post on Twitter is between 11 AM and noon.

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The next money-maker could be this tool for connecting marketers to social media creators so they can team up on sponsored-content Facebook  ad campaigns. The Branded Content Matching search engine lets advertisers select the biographical characteristics of creators fans they want to reach, see stats about these audiences, and contact them to hammer out deals.

Leaked screenshots of Facebook’s promotional materials for the tool were first attained and published in German by AllFacebook.de.

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Against the backdrop of social media controversy — remember Facebook, of course, and 87 million users’ data exposed to Cambridge Analytica — oversight is tightening in Europe.

The regulatory gaze become more fully trained on social media as in Germany, intelligence official Hans Georg Maassen said last week that regulation may be needed for social media companies if the European Union finds that more transparency is needed.

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According to a survey in 2017 by the Royal Society for Public Health, Britons aged 14-24 believe that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter have detrimental effects on their wellbeing. On average, they reported that these social networks gave them extra scope for self-expression and community-building.

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Cryptocurrencies are digital currency designed to represent the architecture of the internet. Rather than counting on a standard financial institution to guarantee and verify business deals, cryptocurrency transactions are examined or confirmed, by the computers of the users on the currencys network. The computers used in verifying the deals usually receive little amount of the currency as a reward.

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Most organisations believe social media has a role to play in their marketing communications, but, equally, most would struggle to explain exactly what that role is. There’s little doubt that social media takes up a significant amount of consumer time and attention but without understanding the influence and quantifying the commercial benefits for brands and businesses, no marketing activity should be above question.

Like every other marketing activity, a social media strategy must be judged on its positive impact on business or brand metrics.

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In 2015-16, roughly four-in-ten adults across the emerging nations surveyed by Pew said they used social networking sites, and as of 2017, a majority (53%) use social media. Whereas, over the same period, social media use has generally been flat in many of the advanced economies surveyed.

Internet use and smartphone ownership have also stayed level in developed markets over the same period vs rising in emerging economies.

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Today, seven out of 10 Americans use social media. Despite the opportunity (and in spite of the lip-service paid to social), more marketers are skimping on their approach. Reposting 30-second TV spots to YouTube and uploading billboard or print ads to Instagram are commonplace, and a detriment to your brand.

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With the new Google News, they did not just drop the standout tag and editors pick but it seems like the direct method to subscribe to Google News via RSS and Google News keyword searches is gone. There are still ways to subscribe, but the buttons seem to be gone in the new design.

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Are you still using RSS? If you are (and you should be, as we will see in a moment), then you should use the Feed Hawk app on your iPhone and iPad. Feed Hawk puts itself in your iOS Share Sheet and locates the RSS feed(s) from any website you visit. If you want, it can automatically subscribe you to the RSS feed in your RSS reader of choice.

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Across 39 countries, a median of 53% say they use online social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. However, that figure conceals large differences around the world, and the relationship between social media use and national wealth is not as strong as it is for overall internet use and smartphone ownership.

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According to the same Kaplan survey mentioned above, the percentage of college admissions officers using social media for admissions criteria went down from 40 percent in 2015, to 35 percent in 2016, to 29 percent in 2017. Students seem to be making it more difficult for college admission personnel to check them out on social media.

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Why would these companies pay when so many of us are willing to do it, as you say, for free? When big tech wants the public to generate a new set of data for them, they design a fun new device designed to train us to do it. And we pay them for the privilege! More and more people have either the Apple, Amazon, or Google home assistant, which we know is already recording our passive conversation for use in improving each company’s voice recognition software and AI.

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As Facebook fights its own fake news problem, Twitter looks like its interested in finding more ways to push news content to its microblogging service. According to a report at BuzzFeed, Twitter has confirmed that it is testing new algorithm-curated timelines when big events happen, then putting tweets from news organizations and other users at the top of your timeline. So far, Twitter says humans are involved in story selection, but a Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed that it could be come only algorithmic in the future.

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The biggest mistake people make when promoting their brand, company or even themselves on social media is thinking that simply posting is enough. However, that’s far from the case. Managing a Facebook, Instagram or Twitter account means having to strategize ways to keep your current audience captivated, while simultaneously attracting new users to your page.

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Every social media network relies on certain metrics to measure their social media success. Each of these social media metrics plays a critical role in the modern marketing strategy. Global brands utilize social media marketing tools to engage their customers effectively, informing them about the products and services accurately and with better relevance. Companies not using social media analytics for their marketing campaigns find it harder to connect to their online customers, leading to a vortex of unaligned marketing campaigns.

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Blockchain has gained increasing popularity over the past year. Having begun as the technology behind cryptocurrency exchanges, it has now shown promise in almost every other sector of the economy as it’s a secure, reliable and tamper-proof way of recording transactions and exchanging data.

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Twitter is cracking down on bots after it announced changes to its API that will massively reduce the impact of services that allow links and content to be shared across multiple accounts, i.e. the software that powers Twitter bots.

So that means an end to services that let those controlling large numbers of accounts to batch tweet, follow users, retweet or like tweets. Twitter will continue to allow content to be posted to accounts using software, for example, weather alerts, RSS feed updates and more, but they will now be limited to a single account going forward.

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A US law gives parents control over what information websites can collect from their kids.

The Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, imposes certain requirements on operators of websites and online services -- including social media sites -- so that personal information from children under 13 is not collected, disclosed or used without parental consent.

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Mozillas current plan aims for a removal of both features in Firefox 63 or Firefox 64, out October or December 2018. The change won't affect the current Firefox 60 ESR version but the next Firefox ESR after Firefox 60 ESR won't support both features anymore as well.

We published an overview of Live Bookmarks in 2014, but Firefox supported the feature for much longer. Live Bookmarks allowed Firefox users to subscribe to a site's RSS feed so that new articles would be displayed in a bookmarks folder in the web browser.

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A good way to go about automated tweeting is to use Google News. However, that should be used only if you’re in for a niche subject. If you use a keyword like technology, there will be too much chaos and a too high frequency of content going out.

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The ever-expanding size of the world wide web has caused an explosion of content in different horizons. Be it the case of videos, music, or text-based content, billions of netizens gobble loads of content every day.

There is an uncountable number of websites ready to feed you with the daily dose of their interesting articles. You can count us in the list if you want. But how would single human visit tons of websites to slurp all the information? Thankfully, there are ways to so.

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Shares of Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. endured a surprise rout this week, as investors were rattled by signs that users are souring on the social-media stalwarts.

Twitter said Friday that its number of monthly users dropped in the second quarter and could continue to fall as it purges fake accounts, results that echoed Facebooks bombshell guidance Wednesday that its growth is expected to slow through the end of the year.

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The societal and psychological consequences of social media in the information age are emerging slowly. The consequences of the headline-grabbing examples above are fairly obvious, but other implications might not be as immediately apparent.

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If you want better customer service -- and who doesn't? -- there are strategies, and there are social media strategies.

Like many consumers, Ryan James, has discovered the latter lately. When he needed to arrange a wheelchair for a recent flight from Budapest to Montreal, he skipped the phone just tweeted to Air Canada.

They were so responsive, says a James, college professor from Budapest. Problem solved.

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Social media has been a rising player in the digital marketing game for so long now that many are wondering when it’s going to start losing steam.

The answer to this question? Not anytime soon.

People are in love with social media platforms.

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As social media use has risen, I am not surprised that reports show a growing trend among millennials to trust influencers less and less. The hype, bragging and self-aggrandizing make it hard for any of us to believe it is authentic. While there is no harm in a little bragging, Harvard Business Review reports that too much of it or the wrong type of bragging can hurt your chances of getting a job, being trusted or being liked by strangers.

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The one constant about social media is change, so it is a good practice to step back once in a while and ensure that your companys strategy is still current and effective.

As we enter the second half of the year, it is time to take stock in the social media strategy that was probably developed in late 2017 or early 2018. Is your company up to date on all of the social media platform changes? Do you know what is working and what is not?

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The conventional thinking is that social media conversations about brands are representative of broader consumer sentiment in the overall market. However a new study from Engagement Labs, appearing in the Journal of Advertising Research, finds online discussions and sentiment are not necessarily predictive of offline brand outcomes.

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The network theory of attitudes is a simple idea that has profound implications, if true. This is the theory that when two people hold the same attitude, they are linked together as a result, like two people holding strings to the same balloon. When different people are holding the same bunch of attitudes, they are grouped together and different groups are distinguishable by the different sets of attitudes they are holding.

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Keeping tabs on the rich, famous, and just-plain-cool is nothing new, of course. But social media can take that fixation to a pretty dark place. The feeling is common enough that some doctors are calling it social media anxiety disorder (SMAD) – although what most kids have is more like FOMO ... on steroids. While it is tough to see your kid in despair, there is a good solution that doesn't require an all-out social media ban: Just help your kid clean up their feed.

Self-comparison is a natural part of the tween and teen years. And for most kids, so is social media. While there are plenty of good things kids get out of their online connections, sometimes the combo can lead to a negative feedback loop that gnaws away at them.

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However, with the help of digital tools such as Hootsuite and Google Analytics, tracking social media is a little easier. These tools make it simple to measure engagement, likes and comments. Where people run into trouble though is measuring the actual sales that come from social media. In fact, a whopping 58 percent of brands say they measure engagement but not actual conversions; only 21 percent say they measure conversions.

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However, social media marketing efforts can span far beyond the core four: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. In fact, these popular platforms see such high users yet have such stringent algorithms that it can be hard to ensure your followers see your organic content, much less that your content helps you capture new consumers.

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Every social media has two sides — bright and dark. It can either be a help or a hindrance depending on the way how students use it. It is a known fact that social media is being used for hiring, as an educational and entertainment tool.

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Take time to organize your social media updates and create a social media calendar before you schedule them.

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To excel at social media, you must be a social media expert, right? While this is true in some respects, having narrow social media knowledge can also be limiting. A social media-only focus can actually hold back your social media strategy from reaching its full potential. You are building more than a social media presence -- you are building a brand. Social media is not an end unto itself. Vanity metrics -- followers and likes -- may be early indicators of good content, but the true test of social media is business impact. Management will eventually stop paying for social media activity that does not lead to bottom line action.

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Times change. People change. And that means you need to change too — here is how to establish your digital presence quickly and efficiently

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Some social media-content is easy to evaluate. Cute cat pictures? Great. Helpful how-to videos? Perfect. Unfortunately, parsing posts gets a lot more complicated when the content flowing through the tubes of social media involves news. Earlier this week, the House Judiciary Committee brought in representatives from Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook to discuss the companies policies and practices for evaluating and moderating content (mostly political in nature) and the internet scourge that is fake news.

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Thousands of years ago, clans gathered around fires to share their days experiences and to tell stories that established group norms and shaped social organization. Today, the fires embers have been replaced by the glow of internet-connected devices, but the communal exchange of stories and perspectives remains a fundamental force in social development.

From a business standpoint, a few important differences emerge from this evolution. Social media users can now publicly discuss their experiences with brands or products, forming large coalitions of interest that exert vast social pressure on brands and other organizations. From the presidential election to the newest cereal, everything is now a matter of public interest.

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This month marks the fifth anniversary of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, which was first coined following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. In the course of those five years, #BlackLivesMatter has become an archetypal example of modern protests and political engagement on social media: A new Pew Research Center analysis of public tweets finds the hashtag has been used nearly 30 million times on Twitter – an average of 17,002 times per day – as of May 1, 2018.

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While responding quickly to incoming customer inquiries has almost become table stakes in social media, many sophisticated brands have learned that proactive customer care can provide additional benefits to both the company and the customer.

Proactively contacting prospects and customers can create a surprisingly positive customer experience, provide marketing benefits like brand awareness, and even save servicing costs. It can also Proactively listening to prospects and customers on social media can identify key trends, new product opportunities, and customer pain points.

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Content is still king.

Today’s best social media strategists focus on aggregating content on their platforms. They elevate their own brands through collaborations with others, leveraging their content, while also minimizing operating and production costs. And the better your reputation for social media excellence becomes, the more users you will find who are willing to work together for little-to-no compensation.

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