The first month of spring has arrived – finally
After several months of gray skies and a bone-chilling cold, we are more than ready to feel a little spring. We are also ready to see what spring brings in terms of digital news – so let’s look:
Elon Musk introduces the latest version of his AI model, there is skepticism about Meta’s switch to Community Notes – and will Instagram take on TikTok?
Go into depth with this and more news in the March edition of Xtracts, your digital news overview.
1. Elon Musk presents Grok 3
In mid-February, Elon Musk presented his new chatbot, which – of course – is based on artificial intelligence. It goes by the name Grok 3. It’s funny – at first it was Musk who wanted to slow down AI, but now he has entered the race himself. Determined to create the best AI chatbot on the market.
According to Musk, it is not like other chatbots, as it is maximally truth-seeking and will not hesitate to enter conversations about certain topics. However, that claim was challenged quite quickly when Grok 3 for a period blocked sources that demonstrate that Musk and Trump are spreading misinformation – a mistake that has now been fixed.
The chatbot is still so new that the rollout is underway. Therefore, it is not yet available everywhere.
2. LinkedIn plans a connections only feed
LinkedIn is currently testing a new feed on the platform. A “My Network” feed. What distinguishes this feed from the algorithm-driven one as we know is that it will only contain updates from your connections.
The feed you know today will still be the one you encounter every time you open the platform – it will remain the default. You will find the My Network feed in the form of a tab that you can switch to.
This type of feed goes against the trend seen on many other social media, where there is a strong focus on algorithm-based “for you” feeds. These have been shown to drive high engagement.
However, studies on LinkedIn show a slightly different trend than on other social media: users are more likely to interact with posts from people they know – especially current and former colleagues. A My Network feed is therefore also an attempt to increase engagement
Source: Social Media Today
3. Apple and Meta fix unfortunate bugs
Both Apple and Meta have been in a pickle recently.
Let’s start with Apple. They had to fix a bug that caused the voice dictation function to write the word ‘Trump’ when the word ‘racist’ was used.
Several users had noticed that when the word ‘racist’ was said, ‘Trump’ was written, after which the word was changed back to ‘racist’. Apple acknowledges the error and says that sometimes it happens that the voice dictation writes the wrong words before correcting to the intended word. Why exactly ‘racist’ and ‘Trump’ they do not comment on.
And then there is Meta. They had to apologize for an error that led to violent video recommendations on Instagram Reels. Several users encountered graphic and violent content among their recommended videos – several of them marked as sensitive content. Meta acknowledged the error and quickly corrected it. None of these videos should have been recommended to users.
4. Will Instagram challenge TikTok?
The idea of a separate app with only reels has flourished in the office at Instagram. Of course, with the intention of competing against TikTok and taking over the app’s place if it is banned in the US as well as Europe.
For this to become a reality, the company would be willing to potentially sacrifice Instagram as we know it today. Because without reels, would users use the app? If a separate app were to be launched, it would have to rely on Instagram being as integrated into users’ everyday lives as Facebook, and hope that habit will keep them using the app.
That’s probably a bit too much of a gamble, and there’s therefore not much chance of such an app becoming a reality. More realistically, it’s probable that they will add new features to Reels in line with those we see on TikTok – with Reels still part of Instagram, of course.
Source: Social Media Today
5. Meta and community notes – will it work?
It’s no secret that many are skeptical of Meta’s imminent switch from third-party fact-checkers to Community Notes, and how it will work. Meta has now tried to shed more light on the latter.
Community Notes will allow users to comment on the validity of the information presented in a post. You have 500 characters for the text, and then you must add a reference link. To sign up as a Community Note contributor, there are several requirements that must be met – including being a resident of the United States.
So, what’s the catch? Well, you see: a Community Note will only become available to others if contributors from both political pages can agree. This also means that a large portion of all notes made on political posts never get displayed – Democrats and Republicans are not exactly known for getting along.
So, there could be some problems getting the system to work in practice when Meta rolls out the system over the coming months. Even X has admitted that their version of Community Notes doesn’t always work properly.
Source: Social Media Today and Meta
