The internet has been transformed by social media, and the many platforms are now critical to how we communicate online. The Verge keeps a close eye on everything that’s happening in the social media landscape, covering key players like Meta, X, and TikTok, reporting on new features, following cultural moments, and breaking down the policies that shape how the platforms work.
The platform, built on the decentralized Nostr protocol and launched initially last year, “preserves archived videos from the Internet Archive” (it says it has “restored access” to about 500,000 Vines) and lets users post new ones. Despite today’s launch on app stores, it’s currently invite-only, according to a blog post.
As Reuters reports, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre announced plans for a bill barring teens from social media until “January 1st the year a child turns 16,” similar to Australia’s.
“I can now confirm that we are planning to submit a bill to the Parliament before the end of the year. We are introducing this legislation because we want a childhood where children get to be children. Play, friendships, and everyday life must not be taken over by algorithms and screens.”
This hub holds certain settings that work across Meta’s apps and allows for using a single password for access across all accounts and managing passkeys.
Any accounts users currently have connected in Meta’s Account Center will automatically transfer to the new Meta Account that’s rolling out “over the next year.”
The platform has doubled the maximum file size to 2MB, and the resolution limit has been upped to 4000x4000. There are photo carousels now, too.
When you’re in a Threads Community’s live chat, you can talk with real time with other users about what’s going on. For the NBA playoffs, the NBA Threads Community will be hosting some live chats to follow games. Live chats will come to other Community feeds in the coming months, Meta says.
Dan Crenshaw was supposed to be the future of the GOP. Instead, he proved politicians really can be too online.
As a result, users have been experiencing “intermittent interruptions in service for their feeds, notifications, threads and search,” Bluesky says. The company first got a report of “intermittent app outages” at around 2:40AM ET this morning.
Bluesky says it has not seen “any evidence of unauthorized access to private user data” due to the attack. It will share another update no later than 1PM ET on Friday.
[Bluesky]
A new “Messages” tab appears in this preview of its redesigned web layout that head of Threads, Connor Hayes, posted on Thursday, as Engadget reports.
Threads got DMs in 2025, but only on Android and iOS. Hayes noted that users will start to see Messages on the web version “over the coming weeks.”
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the open-source, cross-platform European Age Verification Solution it has been testing will be available publicly soon, reports Bloomberg. She said it is “completely anonymous,” using a passport or ID card to verify age for access to online services, with accuracy that complies with EU child-protection regulations.
Digital privacy non-profit the Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced it’s leaving X, citing a sharp decline in views for its posts. With EFF off the platform, some commenters agree with the organization’s thinking.
Krankor:
eff x, I agree
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Now that a jury has ruled against Meta and YouTube in a landmark trial, the sharks are circling, and what better place to find potential clients than on those social media platforms? The only problem is that Axios reports Meta pulled “more than a dozen” such ads from firms like Morgan & Morgan and Sokolove Law on Thursday.
Outage reports have gone up and down on Downdetector today, and my feed occasionally hasn’t loaded. Bluesky says the issue, which it blamed on an upstream service provider, “appears” to have been fixed, but users have taken the problems as a chance to poke fun at unpopular comments from the Bluesky team about vibe coding.
Updates: Added Bluesky’s status updates.
Why nuclear options like age limits and repealing Section 230 won’t make social media safer.
One way to reduce screen time? The Scrōll Stoppr by Yahoo. Who knows if it actually ships, but these are listed in the TikTok Shop at a price of $4.99 with free shipping for anyone who’s tried every other way to put their phone down.
The musician’s account disappeared after posting pictures from his no-phones-allowed concert to r/PaulMcCartney, spurring media reports that mods had banned him. However, as 404Media points out, the subreddit’s mods say it wasn’t them, and a site admin commented with an attempt at an explanation:
Hey all! Just for clarity, that account was never banned from the site (or the subreddit) there was a technical error that made it appear to be banned from the site. This has now been resolved. Sorry for any confusion this caused or issue for the mod team here!
Baseball is back this week and we’ve already got the afterglow of a great World Baseball Classic, an upcoming Heated Rivalry-themed game night, and Netflix completely missing the first-ever robot ump challenge because they cut away to a mid-game interview. It’s a long season — can MLB keep the momentum going?
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A New Social’s Bridgy Fed tech has been linking microblog posts and accounts across services like Mastodon and Bluesky for a while, but now that ability applies to more macro content as well:
….users on platforms like Mastodon will see the announcement with the article attached, but platforms that support long-form like WordPress and Ghost will get the whole article, and both will be treated as the same post across the Fediverse.
A beta feature in development for WhatsApp would display users’ status updates at the top of the Chats tab, similar to how stories are displayed in Messenger and Instagram, WABetaInfo reports. Status updates, which disappear after 24 hours like stories, are currently displayed in a separate tab in the app.
As drone strikes hit the city, social media videos shared by influencers follow a script: nonchalance at the danger, followed by flattering videos and photos of UAE leaders. “I know who protects us,” the videos go.
TikTok trend or a coordinated influence campaign?
Our trust in online images and videos is being eroded by AI, misinformation, and video game clips.
