THE NEWS WRAP: Twitter cracks down on violent trolls

Twitter has rolled out several updates aimed at combating online abuse.

 

The changes will see a broadening of the definition of violent behaviour, as well as giving the social media giant the power to suspend accounts for a specific period of time.

 

The company’s director of product management, Shreyas Doshi, said in a statement that users must feel safe on Twitter in order to really express themselves.

 

“We’ll be monitoring how these changes discourage abuse and how they help ensure the overall health of a platform that encourages everyone’s participation,” he says.

 

“And as the ultimate goal is to ensure that Twitter is a safe place for the widest possible range of perspectives, we will continue to evaluate and update our approach in this critical arena.”

Facebook revamps the newsfeed to prioritise updates from friends and family

Facebook is rolling out major changes to the news feed so that people will see more updates from their friends instead of all the other useless shit we are bombarded with while on the platform.

 

The company’s product manager Max Eulenstein and user experience researcher Lauren Scissors said in a joint statement the changes were implemented in order to show content that matters to users.

 

“This means we need to give you the right mix of updates from friends and public figures, publishers, businesses and community organisations you are connected to,” they said.

 

“This balance is different for everyone depending on what people are most interested in learning about every day. As more people and pages are sharing content, we need to keep improving News Feed to get this balance right.”

MyTime raises $US9.25 million in Series B funding

Online appointment booking startup MyTime has raised $US9.25 million in Series B funding in order to expand its sales and operations team.

 

The round was led by existing investors Upfront Ventures, as well as Khosla Ventures, Daher Capital, Accelerator Ventures and others.

 

Founder and chief executive of MyTime, Ethan Anderson, said in a statement the startup is helping small businesses save time and money by streamlining customer appointments.

 

“This new funding allows us to expand our focus from being the most popular consumer destination for finding and booking appointments online to providing our merchants with the tools they need to enable online booking and communication with their clients 24/7,” he said.

Overnight

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 85.34 points, falling 0.47% to 17,949.59. The Aussie dollar is currently trading at around 77 US cents.

 

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