Facebook launches 'Friends' feed in Canada, ditching algorithm

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Facebook is rolling out a new "Friends" tab in Canada and the US, offering users a break from algorithmically curated content. The dedicated feed will exclusively display posts, stories, reels, and birthdays from your Facebook friends.

The move aims to recapture Facebook's original focus on connecting with friends, as stated in a company blog post: "the magic of friends has fallen away" amidst the platform's evolution.

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Meta ditches fact-checkers, embraces Community Notes

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced a significant shift in the company's content moderation approach, emphasizing free speech and reducing censorship. This includes abandoning its fact-checking program and transitioning to a Community Notes model, similar to X (formerly Twitter), across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Zuckerberg argues that complex moderation systems often lead to unintended censorship, impacting millions of users. By empowering the community to assess and provide context for potentially misleading information through Community Notes, Meta aims to improve accuracy and reduce reliance on internal fact-checkers. While Community Notes have shown promise on other platforms, concerns remain about their effectiveness in preventing misinformation spread.

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Tinder's Year in Swipe Report reveals trends and most active day of the year

The first Sunday of the year is apparently is the most active for Tinder users. According to the popular dating app, 'Dating Sunday' has 10% more matches and 20% more messages sent compared to the rest of the year. Perhaps singles are kickstarting their year with fresh intentions and perspectives on dating?

According to Tinder’s Year in Swipe®report, 2025 is all about embracing clarity, connection, and spontaneity with trends like Loud Looking, Kiss-met, and Nano-ships. Loud Looking empowers singles to confidently state their desires, Kiss-met celebrates those magical, spontaneous moments, and Nano-ships highlight the significance of even the smallest romantic connections.

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Threads introduces advanced search filters

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Meta is trying to keep its Threads competition at bay with a new update for its search option. It's not quite as comprehensive as what you'll see on X but it at least allows you to narrow your queries by keywords, language, exact phrases, hashtags, excluded words, and more. As Tech Crunch pointed out, it brings the social site more on par with Bluesky's search options. But the Bluesky app doesn't show all the filtering options yet.

Before this update, Threads would only show a keyword or keywords and filter these through "Top" or posts with the most engagements, and "Recent" or the latest posts. This new search feature is going to be rolled out to users in the coming weeks.

SOURCE | VIA