Meta has quietly released a new standalone app for Facebook Groups, called “Forum.” The company seems to be positioning Forum as a platform that functions similarly to Reddit, describing the app as a “dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and communities you care about.”
https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/22/meta-quietly-launches-a-new-reddit-like-app-called-forum/
Facebook creators are getting a new tool to help them protect their work from being ripped off by others. On Monday, Meta introduced Facebook content protection, a mobile tool designed to detect when a creator’s original reels posted to Facebook are being used without their permission. If the creator is alerted that someone else is using their reels, they’ll also have the ability to block the reel’s visibility across both Facebook and Instagram or track the reel’s performance and optionally add attribution links to their work.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/17/meta-releases-a-new-tool-to-protect-reels-creators-from-having-their-work-stolen/
Meta on Wednesday unveiled a new pair of Ray-Ban branded smart glasses with a built-in display for apps, alerts, and directions on the right lens. The smart glasses are controlled by a wristband that picks up on subtle hand gestures, called Meta Neural Band, the same one it unveiled at last year’s Connect as part of its Orion demo.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/17/meta-unveils-new-smart-glasses-with-a-display-and-wristband-controller/
In a move reminiscent of Facebook’s early days, TikTok is launching a new feature that allows college students to find and connect with others on their campus. The feature, called Campus Verification, lets users add their college campus to their TikTok profile and browse a list of students at their school.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/19/tiktoks-latest-feature-lets-college-students-find-and-connect-with-classmates/
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Meta has acknowledged that all text and photos that adult Facebook and Instagram users have publicly published since 2007 have been fed into its artificial intelligence models.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/12/24242789/meta-training-ai-models-facebook-instagram-photo-post-data
Facebook is quickly being overrun by dubious, AI-generated junk — which is somehow attracting huge amounts of attention from its aging user base. Last week, screenshots of a Facebook post drawing in hundreds of likes and comments with pictures of a "shrimp Jesus" went viral on X-formerly-Twitter. Judging by the comments, the researchers found that "many users are unaware of the synthetic origin of the images, though a subset of users post comments or infographics alerting others."
https://futurism.com/facebook-ai-generated-images-viral
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Facebook’s News tab launched in 2019 with millions of dollars in content deals for publishers (a reported $10 million for the Wall Street Journal, $20 million for the New York Times, and $3 million for CNN), but in April it’s going away for good. Meta says it will “deprecate” Facebook News in the US and Australia in April 2024, it won’t enter new commercial deals for news, and it “will not offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future.”
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/29/24087220/facebook-news-tab-united-states-australia