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 app began restricting access to users under 16 in compliance with Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age law. Though Snapchat says it will continue complying with the regulation, it argues that app store-level age verification is a better solution, helping to “ensure that young people encounter appropriate protections no matter where they go online.”
After suffering multiple issues last month, X is down again to kick off February. Downdetector and NetBlocks both confirmed the outage. Users are reporting that the most recent posts they’re able to see are from an hour ago.
Sorry to Zuck-dunk two days in a row, but it’s fair to say that when the Meta CEO predicts AI is the next big thing in social media, you should take it with a grain of salt.
Guillermo Esteves:
I definitely trust the visionary that brought us the Metaverse to tell me this is the future of social media.
Get the day’s best comment and more in my free newsletter, The Verge Daily.
A political comms professional breaks down Trump’s meme media strategy.
It follows Snap in reaching an agreement to resolve the first of several cases slated to go to trial this year about social media’s alleged harm to users, an attorney for the 19-year-old plaintiff confirmed. That leaves Meta and YouTube as defendants in the case going to jury selection today.
Despite claims floating around social media, the truth is a bit more complicated, not least by the fact that TikTok in the US is still largely down, about a day and a half after its data center power outage problems started.
While tweets from random users, the governor of California, and PopBase claimed TikTok US DMs now censor “Epstein,” testing it from our end showed that its messaging feature bans many innocuous single-word messages, like “test.” Using the convicted sex offender’s name in a sentence, however, goes through unbanned.
Similar to starter packs on Bluesky, Threads, and Mastodon, X’s take on the feature will provide you with lists of accounts to follow based on what they post about, such as sports, video games, food, and more. Starter packs will roll out to all users in “the coming weeks.”
It’s been a long, confusing, and at times tiresome saga, but according to Semafor, the Chinese and U.S. governments have given the green light for ByteDance to sell TikTok’s American arm. The target closing date set back in December was today, January 22nd, 2026.
Meta has bet big on AI everything, but also has Instagram boss Adam Mosseri out there warning creators about its impact. One commenter (and occasional Verge contributor!) sums up its position nicely:
David Imel:
Meta: “We’re going to shove our AI models into everything we make so you use them as much as possible”
Meta: “AI is making it hard to tell what’s real. This is going to be a challenge for us and for you! Be careful and vigilant and try not to die”
Get the day’s best comment and more in my free newsletter, The Verge Daily.
The settlement is happening “ahead of a landmark trial in a case that claims the social media giants engineered products to hook an entire generation of young users,” The New York Times reports. Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, who are also part of the case, haven’t yet settled. Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify.
[The New York Times]
Bridgy Fed, the open social web bridging tool, now lets users subscribe to fediverse domain blocklists to make it easier to mass block accounts. “When you add blocks or blocklists to your account on either side of the bridge, we maintain and sync those within Bridgy Fed,” according to a blog post.
[A New Social]
TikTok will roll out new age detection technology in Europe that uses profile information, posts, and “behavioral signals” to guess if a user is under 13, then flags suspected accounts for moderators to review, reports Reuters.
The solution is using Bluesky, of course. Naturally, a user with a blue check next to their name told Grok to put a bikini on the butterfly and the AI did — which seems like an even stronger advertisement for Bluesky than the one Bluesky itself posted.
That’s how many Australian social media accounts were removed in just the first few days after the country’s under-16 social media ban took effect in December, according to the Australian internet regulator. We already knew 550,000 of them were from Meta, but TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat and more were also covered by the ban.
[eSafety Commissioner]
With the launch, any user can start a community on “on nearly any topic,” according to TechCrunch. That would solve one of my biggest issues with the platform when I tested it last year. The public beta rollout is live now, Digg says.
Update: Digg posted about the beta.
[TechCrunch]
A political comms professional breaks down Trump’s meme media strategy.
Thanks to Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies, it’s much harder for high-skilled tech workers to apply for the American H-1B visa these days. But a new type of tech worker visa is on the rise: Onlyfans creators and influencers are increasingly applying for (and receiving) O-1 visas, which were once reserved for individuals with “extraordinary ability or achievement” in fields such as the arts, motion pictures, television, sciences, education, business, or athletics.
Following Australia’s social media ban for children under 16 taking effect last month, Meta says it has now removed almost 550,000 Instagram, Facebook, and Threads accounts that it believes were run by kids under that age threshold. Despite its compliance, Meta is still voicing opposition to the law.
Seems a lot of people got password reset requests from Instagram over the last few days, including several Verge staffers and members of their family. The email might look legit. It might even have that little blue checkmark in Gmail. But, it probably came from a scammer. Honestly, it’s best practice to never click links in emails anyway.
“Prediction markets” continue to appear everywhere, including CNN and CNBC, and Polymarket is shitposting about citizen journalism.
Meanwhile, The Athletic is the latest (following Awful Announcing and Front Office Sports) reporting on sports misinformation X accounts like “Emma Vance” and “Scott Hughes” have spread while sporting those site’s affiliate badges.
In June, the New York state legislature passed a bill requiring social media companies to display warnings about the potential mental health harms of using their products. Now the governor has officially signed the bill into law. The announcement of the signing says that:
To combat the mental health risks of using harmful features of social media platforms that prolong use, this legislation will require social media companies to display warning labels on their platforms when a young user initially uses the predatory feature and periodically thereafter, based on continued use.
[Governor Kathy Hochul]
