iOS apps that build their own social networks on the back of users’ address books may soon become a thing of the past.
In iOS 18, Apple is cracking down on the social apps that ask users’ permission to access their contacts — something social apps often do to connect users with their friends or make suggestions for who to follow.
To give users more control over the contacts an app can and cannot access, the permissions screen has two stages.
Before that, apps like Poparazzi and Clubhouse had demanded full address book access — a growth hack that helped them quickly expand their networks.
iOS 18 will let users decide which contacts an app can access.
Google on Thursday is issuing new guidance for developers building AI apps distributed through Google Play, in hopes of cutting down on inappropriate and otherwise prohibited content.
Schools across the U.S. are reporting problems with students passing around AI deepfake nudes of other students (and sometimes teachers) for bullying and harassment, alongside other sorts of inappropriate AI content.
Google says that its policies will help to keep out apps from Google Play that feature AI-generated content that can be inappropriate or harmful to users.
It points to its existing AI-Generated Content Policy as a place to check its requirements for app approval on Google Play.
The company is also publishing other resources and best practices, like its People + AI Guidebook, which aims to support developers building AI apps.
YouTube is updating its harassment and cyberbullying policies to clamp down on content that “realistically simulates” deceased minors or victims of deadly or violent events describing their death.
The policy change comes as some true crime content creators have been using AI to recreate the likeness of deceased or missing children.
In these disturbing instances, people are using AI to give these child victims of high profile cases a childlike “voice” to describe their deaths.
In recent months, content creators have used AI to narrate numerous high-profile cases including the abduction and death of British two-year-old James Bulger, as reported by the Washington Post.
TikTok’s policy allows it to take down realistic AI images that aren’t disclosed.
Days after freeing the (fictionalized) nipple, Twitch is backtracking on its “artistic nudity” policy that allowed streamers to show illustrated, animated or sculpted renderings of breasts, butts and genitals.
The announcement comes days after Twitch announced sweeping updates to its sexual content policy, which streamlined the platform’s community guidelines and allowed nudity in certain contexts, such as art streams.
Moderating “artistic nudity” or “non-sexual nudity” is trickier because the line between nudity and sexual content tends to be subjective.
The sites with the clearest guidelines either allow nudity and sexual content altogether, or don’t.
Conditional nudity policies that attempt to separate “good nudity,” like in art, from “bad nudity,” or sexual content, aren’t as progressive as they’re made out to be.
But things are now starting to shift again back to the open web, Mullenweg believes.
With Texts.com, he saw an opportunity to invest in another area where consumers are pushing for more openness: messaging.
As for Texts.com, Mullenweg saw the acquisition as a way to move into a third major market beyond publishing and commerce.
“I thought that we had a lot of ideas to build, and Automattic seemed like the right place,” Bagaria added.
Competitor Beeper recently made its iMessage-on-Android app Beeper Mini free as it does battle with Apple, which has been working to shut down its service.
The SEC’s charges against Bittrex come after the exchange was warned in February by the regulator that it needed to register with the SEC or face possible penalties. However, Bittrex…
