Social media is evolving, and Facebook Inc. is one company “updating” its app properties, akin to the pace of e-commerce with “privacy-focused” shopping, payment and communication updates intended for the benefit of brands, retailers, influencers and — everyone else.
In recent news, Facebook-owned Instagram announced the deployment of new app testing in Canada last week, which will “make like counts private for a group of users in Canada,” whereby only the author can see the number of likes they received on a post, according to an Instagram spokesperson. Privacy scandals loom in mind as the announcement of a “major evolution,” to which Facebook’s infamous cofounder and chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg, spoke of at the F8 developer conference in San Francisco; it’s all tailored to “make communities as central as friends,” as previously reported in WWD.
Ask a Digital Native
Screenshot from LIM college student, Yanik Harrell, reveals a reprioritization on Instagram account bios.
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“If it is not on Instagram, then did it really happen?,” said Yanik Harrell, a college student at LIM College in New York City. As a Gen Zer, Harrell attributes her generation’s use of social media as a “creative outlet” and “source of entertainment,” fueled by accessibility. Fantasizing an
