News & Reviews:   Social media

Social media apps are constantly competing for attention and sometimes imitating popular features is the path taken. That's quite obvious when you see the different platforms coming out with short-form video features to compete with TikTok. In fact, Snapchat is now a part of that gang.

Most of the gamers must have been excited to get the PS5 secured after the pre-order was announced yesterday. However, it looks like it was not an easy task as the next-gen gaming consoles were quick to have sold out today everywhere in the country. With that said, the fans who have been waiting for this moment took their rage onto social media platforms.

When it comes to music streaming, Spotify easily remains the most widely used platform with over 130 million users worldwide. And to stay on top, the company has constantly improved and added new features to its service. The latest one isn't exactly a new feature though, but more like a new way to create fancy share links to your favourite artists and podcasters.

Based on a statement by The Verge, it seems that Facebook has recently pushed out an update which allows users to have both their Messenger and Instagram chat to be combined together, allowing you to chat with users on either platform. While not much is known in regards to which Facebook-owned social media platform they plan on merging next.

Today, the Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah announced in regards to film productions, the official media agencies or indie media groups must apply for a license in Malaysia before shooting. While many are speculating that this is to prevent the previous Al-Jazeera controversy, this can also be seen to be in line with the SOPs regulations, as well as under the National Film Development Corporation (Finas) Act since we are in the midst of recovering from the pandemic.

Some of us thought of it as just another spat between political figure and private companies. But it looks like the small spat between US President Donald Trump and social media companies has blown out of proportion. Yup, Trump has signed an executive order that is aimed at social media companies like Twitter and Facebook.

Regardless of whether you're a regular social media user or own a special page, chances are you've encountered toxic people that thrive on the internet. Well, Instagram is looking to put the controls back in your hand by announcing new features that will help you manage your account.

Short videos have become familiar popular with the younger crowd in recent times, something that can be attributed to the existence of TikTok. Which is why it's not surprising to see that companies wanting to compete in that space. Just earlier this month, YouTube that it was releasing a new feature called Shorts and now Kuaishou Technology has launched Snack Video to compete.

Following the footsteps of Instagram, Facebook will begin hiding likes on users’ posts starting later today. Only the original poster (OP) will only be able to see the number of reactions, views and likes. Us Malaysians don’t have to freak out just yet, though, as the experiment will be taking place in Australia for now.