Today, let’s talk about a couple little things that could turn into a big thing.
In January 2019, Mike Isaac reported a noteworthy development about Facebook at the New York Times. In the months to come, he said, Facebook would unify the technical infrastructure powering Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. To the user, these changes would be invisible. But to Facebook itself, there were clear strategic imperatives to merge the apps. Among them: the move came just as the US government was beginning to consider an effort to break the company up.
In the nearly two years since, the government’s effort has accelerated. On September 15th, the Wall Street Journal reported that an antitrust case against the company could come by the end of the year. But Facebook’s effort to puree its family of apps into a single software smoothie on the back end has picked up as well. And there have been two significant developments on that front this week.
One, Facebook is now testing a unified “accounts center” that shows you which of its apps you’re logged into. As Ashley Carman points out at The Verge, this will allow you to add a credit card in one place and be able to use it wherever you use Facebook apps:
The new hub serves two purposes. One, it’ll benefit prolific posters, like brands and influencers who want to post the same content across their social profiles. They can now do so automatically and within Facebook. Second, saving payment information makes it easier for people to shop on Facebook and Instagram. Adding a credit card to either service is a small hurdle, but still, it’s a barrier to buying a product. With Facebook Pay syncing, people can get straight to buying regardless of the platform on which they see the ad.
Two, and of arguably greater interest, the company announced today a test of cross-platform messaging between Facebook and Instagram. Here’s James Vincent at The Verge:
Facebook has taken its biggest step yet in integrating its various messaging platforms, allowing select users on Messenger and Instagram to message one another app to app. In addition to the launch of cross-platform messaging, Instagram is also getting a major overhaul of its DM system, which will be expanded with features taken from Messenger.
New Instagram messaging tools include vanishing messages, selfie stickers, custom emoji, chat colors, new ways to block unwanted messages, and the introduction of Messenger’s Watch Together feature, which lets you watch videos with friends during a video call.
Everywhere you look, Facebook and Instagram are becoming just a little bit more the same. (Another Verge headline, from early September: “New test lets some people view Instagram stories directly through Facebook.” And none of it can be said to be a surprise: we have known about it since January of last year.
At that time, I suggested that one benefit of this approach would be to make a potential break-up of the company more difficult. “If the Federal Trade Commission ever planned to compel Facebook to spin out WhatsApp and Instagram,” I wrote, “you can imagine the company explaining that there was no longer such a thing as ‘WhatsApp’ or ‘Instagram.’ Going forward, those names will refer only to their respective graphical user interfaces. Behind the curtain, there is only Facebook.”
Shira Ovide picks up this thread in her newsletter today. “What’s happening now shows the difficulty of checking the power of superstar companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon,” she writes. “By the time the impact of small changes they make becomes obvious, it might be too late to do anything about it.”
Of course, if you approach the question of unifying Facebook’s apps from the standpoint of a user, rather than a regulator, there’s plenty to like here. A lot of people use both Facebook and Instagram, and if you send a lot of messages in Instagram, you might enjoy having a bunch of Messenger features at your disposal.
“What we’re trying to do is figure out how we can offer the most compelling service we can, that creates the most value for people, because we see it as core to our reason to exist,” Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told me in a Messenger video chat last week.
Leaning on Messenger allows Instagram to add a variety of what the company calls “finally” features to Instagram’s direct messages — letting you reply to individual messages rather than only the most recent one for example, or letting you forward messages. They’re called “finally” features because they seem obvious to outsiders, and are usually described that way in headlines when they appear. And because Facebook owns multiple messaging apps, it can just build them once and deploy them everywhere, with minor modifications, rather than endlessly duplicate that work.
Of course, monopolistic practices are often useful and convenient. It was useful and convenient for Microsoft to bundle a browser with Windows — it was just also illegal, according to the government at the time. And so added convenience won’t be enough to throw the Federal Trade Commission off the case, and may in fact actually ratchet up the pressure on Facebook.
Mosseri offered two responses to competition concerns. The first, and possibly more mundane, is simple operating efficiency. It’s cheaper to build something once than to build it twice. “Especially on the Instagram side, which is a smaller team, we are constantly looking for leverage,” Mosseri said, “and how can we get something that we want done by leveraging people or technology somewhere else in the company.”
The second reason he offered is that that Facebook does not have a dominant position among messaging apps in many countries, including the United States. The moves announced this week are necessary to help Facebook compete in the messaging market, he said. Framed this way, Facebook’s moves aren’t about consolidating control over social networks — they’re about trying to gain ground against even larger tech companies.
“We are playing from behind in an area that is core to our mission,” Mosseri said. “And so it would be crazy not to do everything we can to make the the messaging services we offer as compelling as possible. It would just be silly not to bring over features that we know people love in one experience to the other experience.”
Instagram is at a competitive disadvantage to iMessage given that it’s part of iOS, Mosseri said.
“iMessage is installed by default, it has notifications on by default, and I’m sure Apple will continue to invest in it,” he said. “Because it’s super strategically important — it makes it way more difficult to switch to Android, right? Because no one wants to be the green bubble guy, and all your group chats break.”
Of course, take this argument a little further and you could ask why Instagram should continue to exist at all. Is its long term-future simply as an alternate interface for Facebook?
“In areas where consolidating practices create more value for people we’re going to do that,” Mosseri said, citing the creation of a centralized platform integrity team for the whole company as an example. “But there are other areas where we’re gonna differentiate. Instagram is really focused on this idea of emerging culture. … And so we’re going to be more focused on things like Reels, and creator tools, and creative tools. Stories, relative to [the core] feed, will be a higher priority. So there’ll be a lot of differences.”
For his part, Mosseri said the moves are borne out of necessity.
“That’s really the primary reason — we’re trying to compete,” he said. “And I think that’s good. You want companies trying to come up with more compelling offerings, because they’re competing with each other, and then let people have choice.”
If the government does attempt to force a breakup of Facebook, consumers might someday have even more choice. But after this week’s moves, any such action would seem to be much more difficult. And I do believe that’s by design.
This goes further than “managerial class wants to remind plebs who’s in power.” Note the citations of Facebook and Google walkouts, written in such a way to assume that these aforementioned employee revolts were the cause of discontent and subsequent lack of productivity within each company. How about systemic cultural racism within companies dampening work energy? Dismay at poorly behaved executives getting payouts while normal employees get nothing? Blatant dual-class approach to management? Armstrong falls victim to a classic managerial class practice of misaligning cause and effect: seeing the symptom and assuming it’s the problem.
Governing
⭐ Tuesday’s Debate Made Clear the Gravest Threat to the Election: The President Himself. The headline to David E. Sanger’s analysis in the New York Times really says it all, but I think it’s important for us all to grapple with. Donald Trump is not a problem that platforms can solve, but they do need to have a plan for him. Multiple plans, really. Sanger writes:
Everything Mr. Trump said in his face-off with Joseph Biden Jr. he had already delivered in recent weeks, in tweets and rallies with his faithful. But he had never before put it all together in front of such a large audience as he did Tuesday night.
The Justice Department has also been investigating Google’s “search advertising,” the ads that appear under a search box if a person looks up a consumer item like “dishwasher.” Google controls the sale of the space under these searches, as well as the tools to make those ad sales.[…]
Regarding search, Google has said users have access to other information sources, like Twitter for news and Amazon for products. In advertising, it says it competes with a large array of companies, including Oracle and Verizon.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who penned the controversial blog outlining why the exchange will mainly focus on its crypto mission versus social activism, said that it would provide employees with a package to leave the firm if they don’t “feel comfortable with the new direction,” according to an internal company email reviewed by The Block.
In the blog post released Sunday, Armstrong explained why the firm should be “laser focused” on its mission to build an open financial system while focusing “minimally” on broader societal issues and political causes. The message was met with a cacophony of both support and opposition from the crypto world and beyond. Some praised the former Airbnb engineer for attempting to cultivate an ideologically inclusive environment. Others argued that the tone of the piece was cold and out of touch.
The federal government is ordering the dissolution of TikTok’s Canadian business after a national security review of the Chinese company behind the social media platform, but stopped short of ordering people to stay off the app.
Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced the government’s “wind up” demand Wednesday, saying it is meant to address “risks” related to ByteDance Ltd.’s establishment of TikTok Technology Canada Inc.
“The decision was based on the information and evidence collected over the course of the review and on the advice of Canada’s security and intelligence community and other government partners,” he said in a statement.
The announcement added that the government is not blocking Canadians’ access to the TikTok application or their ability to create content.
However, it urged people to “adopt good cybersecurity practices and assess the possible risks of using social media platforms and applications, including how their information is likely to be protected, managed, used and shared by foreign actors, as well as to be aware of which country’s laws apply.”
Champagne’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment seeking details about what evidence led to the government’s dissolution demand, how long ByteDance has to comply and why the app is not being banned.
A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement that the shutdown of its Canadian offices will mean the loss of hundreds of well-paying local jobs.
“We will challenge this order in court,” the spokesperson said.
“The TikTok platform will remain available for creators to find an audience, explore new interests and for businesses to thrive.”
The federal Liberals ordered a national security review of TikTok in September 2023, but it was not public knowledge until The Canadian Press reported in March that it was investigating the company.
At the time, it said the review was based on the expansion of a business, which it said constituted the establishment of a new Canadian entity. It declined to provide any further details about what expansion it was reviewing.
A government database showed a notification of new business from TikTok in June 2023. It said Network Sense Ventures Ltd. in Toronto and Vancouver would engage in “marketing, advertising, and content/creator development activities in relation to the use of the TikTok app in Canada.”
Even before the review, ByteDance and TikTok were lightning rod for privacy and safety concerns because Chinese national security laws compel organizations in the country to assist with intelligence gathering.
Such concerns led the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a bill in March designed to ban TikTok unless its China-based owner sells its stake in the business.
Champagne’s office has maintained Canada’s review was not related to the U.S. bill, which has yet to pass.
Canada’s review was carried out through the Investment Canada Act, which allows the government to investigate any foreign investment with potential to might harm national security.
While cabinet can make investors sell parts of the business or shares, Champagne has said the act doesn’t allow him to disclose details of the review.
Wednesday’s dissolution order was made in accordance with the act.
The federal government banned TikTok from its mobile devices in February 2023 following the launch of an investigation into the company by federal and provincial privacy commissioners.
— With files from Anja Karadeglija in Ottawa
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
LONDON (AP) — Most people have accumulated a pile of data — selfies, emails, videos and more — on their social media and digital accounts over their lifetimes. What happens to it when we die?
It’s wise to draft a will spelling out who inherits your physical assets after you’re gone, but don’t forget to take care of your digital estate too. Friends and family might treasure files and posts you’ve left behind, but they could get lost in digital purgatory after you pass away unless you take some simple steps.
Here’s how you can prepare your digital life for your survivors:
Apple
The iPhone maker lets you nominate a “ legacy contact ” who can access your Apple account’s data after you die. The company says it’s a secure way to give trusted people access to photos, files and messages. To set it up you’ll need an Apple device with a fairly recent operating system — iPhones and iPads need iOS or iPadOS 15.2 and MacBooks needs macOS Monterey 12.1.
For iPhones, go to settings, tap Sign-in & Security and then Legacy Contact. You can name one or more people, and they don’t need an Apple ID or device.
You’ll have to share an access key with your contact. It can be a digital version sent electronically, or you can print a copy or save it as a screenshot or PDF.
Take note that there are some types of files you won’t be able to pass on — including digital rights-protected music, movies and passwords stored in Apple’s password manager. Legacy contacts can only access a deceased user’s account for three years before Apple deletes the account.
Google
Google takes a different approach with its Inactive Account Manager, which allows you to share your data with someone if it notices that you’ve stopped using your account.
When setting it up, you need to decide how long Google should wait — from three to 18 months — before considering your account inactive. Once that time is up, Google can notify up to 10 people.
You can write a message informing them you’ve stopped using the account, and, optionally, include a link to download your data. You can choose what types of data they can access — including emails, photos, calendar entries and YouTube videos.
There’s also an option to automatically delete your account after three months of inactivity, so your contacts will have to download any data before that deadline.
Facebook and Instagram
Some social media platforms can preserve accounts for people who have died so that friends and family can honor their memories.
When users of Facebook or Instagram die, parent company Meta says it can memorialize the account if it gets a “valid request” from a friend or family member. Requests can be submitted through an online form.
The social media company strongly recommends Facebook users add a legacy contact to look after their memorial accounts. Legacy contacts can do things like respond to new friend requests and update pinned posts, but they can’t read private messages or remove or alter previous posts. You can only choose one person, who also has to have a Facebook account.
You can also ask Facebook or Instagram to delete a deceased user’s account if you’re a close family member or an executor. You’ll need to send in documents like a death certificate.
TikTok
The video-sharing platform says that if a user has died, people can submit a request to memorialize the account through the settings menu. Go to the Report a Problem section, then Account and profile, then Manage account, where you can report a deceased user.
Once an account has been memorialized, it will be labeled “Remembering.” No one will be able to log into the account, which prevents anyone from editing the profile or using the account to post new content or send messages.
X
It’s not possible to nominate a legacy contact on Elon Musk’s social media site. But family members or an authorized person can submit a request to deactivate a deceased user’s account.
Passwords
Besides the major online services, you’ll probably have dozens if not hundreds of other digital accounts that your survivors might need to access. You could just write all your login credentials down in a notebook and put it somewhere safe. But making a physical copy presents its own vulnerabilities. What if you lose track of it? What if someone finds it?
Instead, consider a password manager that has an emergency access feature. Password managers are digital vaults that you can use to store all your credentials. Some, like Keeper,Bitwarden and NordPass, allow users to nominate one or more trusted contacts who can access their keys in case of an emergency such as a death.
But there are a few catches: Those contacts also need to use the same password manager and you might have to pay for the service.
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Is there a tech challenge you need help figuring out? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your questions.
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s competition watchdog said Thursday it’s opening a formal investigation into Google’s partnership with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic.
The Competition and Markets Authority said it has “sufficient information” to launch an initial probe after it sought input earlier this year on whether the deal would stifle competition.
The CMA has until Dec. 19 to decide whether to approve the deal or escalate its investigation.
“Google is committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world,” the company said. “Anthropic is free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we don’t demand exclusive tech rights.”
San Francisco-based Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The company has focused on increasing the safety and reliability of AI models. Google reportedly agreed last year to make a multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic, which has a popular chatbot named Claude.
Anthropic said it’s cooperating with the regulator and will provide “the complete picture about Google’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”
“We are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others,” it said in a statement.
The U.K. regulator has been scrutinizing a raft of AI deals as investment money floods into the industry to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom. Last month it cleared Anthropic’s $4 billion deal with Amazon and it has also signed off on Microsoft’s deals with two other AI startups, Inflection and Mistral.
