7 controversial functions of social networks that gave the talk

7 fungsi kontroversial jejaring sosial yang memberi ceramah

Social networks are constantly changing, always providing updates that bring new functions or that reshape the look of the application. For better or for worse, new features can provoke controversies for privacy reasons and the news does not always fall in the favor of the public.

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Facial recognition on Facebook, implementation of the infamous Stories in various apps and the print alert are some of the controversial features of recent years. Check out the following list of seven cases of resources that made the most of social media.

1 of 7 Functions have been added and removed from social networks in recent years – Photo: Nicolly Vimercate / dnetc

Functions have been added and removed from social networks in recent years – Photo: Nicolly Vimercate / dnetc

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2 of 7 Twitter Fleets is the new microblog «Stories» – Photo: Rodrigo Fernandes / dnetc

Twitter Fleets is the new «Stories» of the microblog – Photo: Rodrigo Fernandes / dnetc

The feature of ephemeral publications that disappear after 24 hours has spread to other social networks besides Snapchat, the first social network to make the tool available. After the unsuccessful purchase of the social network by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, the stories feature started to be implemented in all the company’s social networks, such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger.

In addition, other software also started using stories on their platforms, such as Netflix and YouTube. Now, Twitter also embarks on the use of ephemeral publications, Fleets, which function like Instagram stories, and which can be answered by direct messages (DM), but cannot be retweeted.

2. Face recognition on Facebook

3 of 7 Function to disable facial recognition was enabled only in 2019 – Photo: Raquel Freire / dnetc

Function to disable facial recognition was enabled only in 2019 – Photo: Raquel Freire / dnetc

Facebook left the facial recognition feature enabled for years, which allowed the platform itself to tag users in photos automatically. However, the function proved to be controversial, as it did not allow users to disable it, but only to reject its markup in the photos.

For this reason, the facial recognition used by Facebook sparked debates about privacy, since the faces of users of the platform were «scanned» without their explicit authorization. The option to disable the function was only available in 2019, when Facebook started asking users for permission to use the facial recognition service.

In addition, the function also raises debates about prejudice, since technology verification training is done based on the faces of white men, which makes the facial recognition of white men overlap that of women and black people, according to information from the Vox website.

3. Twitter character limit

4 of 7 Twitter increased the platform’s character limit, but the change did not affect the way users write – Photo: Marvin Costa / dnetc

Twitter increased the platform’s character limit, but the change did not affect how users write – Photo: Marvin Costa / dnetc

In 2017, the company’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, announced via a tweet that the character limit on the platform would double from 140 to 280, since the 140 constraint was an «arbitrary choice based on the 160 character limit on SMS». At the time, the choice did not please many users, who believed that the social network was losing the proposal to be a short message network.

However, the change did not alter the use of the microblog, and had little impact on the size of the tweets, according to information from the TechCrunch website. According to the website, in 2018, a year after changing the maximum number of characters in the tweets, about 1% of them reached the maximum limit of 280 characters, and only 12% exceeded 140 characters.

4. Print warning on Snapchat

5 out of 7 Snapchat made sending notification for prints available, feature copied by Instagram – Photo: Carolina Ochsendorf / dnetc

Snapchat made sending notification for prints available, feature copied by Instagram – Photo: Carolina Ochsendorf / dnetc

Snapchat has a print alert function that shows users who takes a screenshot of their stories. The content, which is automatically deleted when 24 hours is complete, is often used for having this «self-destruct» action. For this reason, the platform started sending notifications of when users made prints and, in the stories, a green arrow next to the user indicates who took the screenshot.

Instagram even tested the same function for a while, and a «flash» symbol was displayed next to the name of the user who made the capture. However, this idea was abandoned, and the company only kept print notifications on photos and videos sent by private messages via direct.

6 of 7 The GIF function was made available in 2017 – Photo: Disclosure / Facebook

The GIF function was made available in 2017 – Photo: Disclosure / Facebook

With the policy of keeping the visuals clean, Facebook, since the beginning of the decade, stated that it did not intend to authorize «visual pollution on the site» with the publication of GIFs. Aiming for a «better user experience», quick animations were not welcome, which changed in 2017, when Facebook decided to implement a new «GIF» button in the comments, allowing users to use the fun animations.

6. The «last seen» and «online» in chats

7 of 7 WhatsApp warns when user is «online» – Photo: Anna Kellen Bull / dnetc

WhatsApp warns when user is «online» – Photo: Anna Kellen Bull / dnetc

There are debates about the invasion of user privacy through the «online» and «viewed» function of messaging applications such as Messenger, WhatsApp, Tinder and the Instagram direct. Messenger allows users to go offline to friends, but in contrast, it does not allow you to see which friends are online. It is worth mentioning that WhatsApp allows you to disable «last seen», but not «online».

One of the most famous messengers of the beginning of the decade, MSN, also had features like viewing messages but, unlike recent apps, it allowed users to change their status to «absent», «invisible» or «busy».

The order in which friends’ publications on social networks appear is still a mystery, since the criteria for their application and functioning is not clear. Social networks like Twitter and Facebook have changed their algorithm in recent years, changing the order of publications, which previously showed the most recent posts from friends. The change did not please many users, and the networks provided filters for those who preferred to see the latest publications, redeeming the chronological feed.

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Social networks that (almost) everyone has used

Social networks that (almost) everyone has used