Author: April Cowels

Elon Musk’s X is still banned in Brazil, even after the country withdrew $3.3 million from both X’s and SpaceX-affiliated Starlink’s bank accounts in order to pay off fines. These fines are a result of Musk’s non-compliance with Brazil’s Supreme Court, as the X owner feuds with Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes over content on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. SEE ALSO: Bluesky adds videos to the platform to take on Elon Musk’s X News spread on social media on Friday that Musk’s companies had paid the $3.3 million fine and, as a result, the Brazilian court had ordered that the “blockage” on Starlink and X be lifted. The initial reports caused some confusion among social media users as only Brazil’s blockage of Starlink’s and X’s bank accounts had been lifted. According to Bloomberg, the nationwide ban on X the social media platform, remains.In addition, Musk’s companies did not actively pay the fine. On Wednesday, Brazil’s court ordered that these funds be transferred in order to satisfy the demand for fines.Last month, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered that X the platform be banned in the country. This came after Musk refused to remove accounts that Moraes’ deemed to be breaking the country’s laws. As a result of this request, Musk pulled X representatives out of the country and refused to appoint a new legal representative, one of Moraes’ requirements.X still banned after Brazil takes $3.3 million fine from Musk companies

Bluesky has launched the one major feature that was missing from the platform, keeping it from being a total replacement for Elon Musk’s X for social media users.On Wednesday, Bluesky announced that it has finally added native video to the site. Bluesky users can now upload videos directly to the platform to embed in their posts.”Bluesky now has video!” the platform’s official account posted. “Update your app to version 1.91 or refresh on desktop! We’ve begun gradually rolling out the ability to post video. Thanks for your patience!” Bluesky now has video! Update your app to version 1.91 or refresh on desktop! We’ve begun gradually rolling out the ability to post video. Thanks for your patience! Estamos gradualmente implementando a capacidade de postar vídeos. Obrigado pela sua paciência![image or embed]— Bluesky (@bsky.app) September 11, 2024 at 1:11 PM Bluesky had promised that the long-requested feature was on the way in an update last month. On Tuesday, the official Bluesky account warned users that they might see video posts show up on their feed as they tested native video and put the “final touches” on the feature.Just one day later, Bluesky’s video feature is now live across the platform for all users.Bluesky’s video feature detailsAs a brand new feature, there are some limitations to video uploads on Bluesky as further detailed in a post by the company. According to Bluesky, each video can be up to 60 seconds long, and posts can only contain one video. Users can currently upload 25 videos…Bluesky adds videos to the platform to take on Elon Musk's X

Dateline: Austin, 9th September 2024.Paying for a drink in the coffee shop around the corner from where I live in England is quite straightforward. The terminal displays £3.50 or whatever and I tap my Lego on the terminal and walk off after the beep. It takes about, I don’t know, a second. It just doesn’t work like that in America.(Yes, I pay by Lego, of course. Here is a video.)ShareThe Payment ExperienceThe last time I bought something in America (yesterday), the payment experience was very different. The goods were $3.50 or whatever and the terminal displayed $3.50 plus sales tax and then I had to press the button to say that I didn’t want to give a tip and then I had to press a button to say that I didn’t want to donate to charity and then I had to look around the terminal try and figure out where the contactless bit of it was and then I tapped and waited for the beep and walked off.(Note that it’s not the principle of charity that bothers me, it’s the annoying experiences. In McDonald’s I always order using the self-service kiosks which are easy to use and quick and when you go to check out there they ask you if you want to round up and donate to charity and there I always press “yes” because it just doesn’t seem to interrupt the experience in the same way that selecting an amount does at a POS does, whereas at my…Contactless Friction

Elon Musk’s X is still banned in Brazil. In addition, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has said that any user who attempts to access the former Twitter via VPN faces thousands of dollars per day in fines.So, Brazilian posters need a new place to, well, post. And it appears many Brazilian X users have found a new online social media platform in the form of X competitor Bluesky.Last week, just 5 days after Brazil banned Musk’s X in the country for failing to appoint a legal representative, Bluesky announced that it had 2.6 million new users join the platform over the previous few days alone.Bluesky shared that 85 percent of those millions of new user signups were Brazilian. What a week! In the last few days, Bluesky has grown by more than 2.6 million users, over 85% of which are Brazilian. Welcome, we are so excited to have you here! Here are answers to some common questions about Bluesky:[image or embed]— Bluesky (@bsky.app) Sep 4, 2024 at 1:26 PM On Friday, Bluesky announced they hit 3 million new users that morning.That brings Bluesky’s total user base to 9 million, with 50 percent of those users joining the platform just in the past week. this morning we crossed THREE MILLION new users! that brings our total size to over 9 million people. welcome everyone! we’re so glad you’re here 🫶 (and yes, video is coming soon)[image or embed]— Bluesky (@bsky.app) Sep 6, 2024 at 6:14 PM Bluesky’s user base grows…Brazilian users flock to Bluesky after Elon Musk's X banned

A guy — we’ll call him David but that’s not his real name — just sent me a picture of his cat with a couple of small kittens by its side over Instagram DMs. “My cat gave birth a couple of weeks ago and had kittens,” he tells me in a reply to one of my stories, a picture of my dog. It would be fair for you to think I know this person, but I don’t. It’s just some guy who replies to absolutely everything I post, both publicly and privately, even though he never gets a response. Above his cat, who is admittedly very cute, I can see the trail of unanswered messages spanning months, maybe even a year, behind this one. I wonder if I should reply to him. He’s sent me so many messages, some of them detailed, and I’ve never replied beyond a sympathetic double-tap like here and an awkward “cheers mate!” there. Perhaps I should give him an actual response. But then I wonder if I should block him instead, because replying to everything a stranger does when you’re not getting anything back is honestly a bit weird. Having a reply guy is pretty stressful. If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase, it’s like it sounds. A guy who replies. A guy who replies all the time. The reply guy is usually a man, and a woman seems to be the usual target, and they’re a confusing phenomenon. What do the reply guys want? Are they flirting, trying to…What should you do with your reply guy?

Dateline: Woking, 3rd September 2024.You’re probably heard about The Missing Cryptoqueen. It was one of the best podcasts of all time, a BBC series that explored the story of Dr Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian-born German entrepreneur who founded a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme known as OneCoin, which The Times has described as “one of the biggest scams in history”.ShareOneScamIgnatova co-founded OneCoin in 2014, marketing it as a cryptocurrency despite it having no actual underlying “crypto” technology such as a blockchain. The scheme was promoted as a high-return investment opportunity, where profits were mainly supposed to come from new participants buying into the system rather than any legitimate business or mining activities (ie, a Ponzi scheme).She and her associates claimed that OneCoin would be the “Bitcoin killer” and conducted lavish promotional events worldwide to attract investors. They managed to raise billions of dollars globally. The scheme promised users big returns and encouraged them to sell the currency to others in order to make a profit. However, the currency had no real value and could not be used to buy anything. Moreover, the promised OneCoin exchange that would allow users to convert their digital “coins” into traditional currency never materialised.In 2017, authorities began catching on to the scam, leading to various international investigations. Dr Ignatova herself disappeared from the public eye at that time, leading to her being dubbed the “Missing Cryptoqueen”. She remains on the run and in 2019 she was charged in absentia by U.S. authorities for wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering….Regina Non Vocavit

Elon Musk really wants X to compete with YouTube. Musk personally intervened to encourage MrBeast, YouTube’s biggest star, to start posting full videos on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Earlier this year, X CEO Linda Yaccarino claimed that X was becoming a “video first” platform.Now, X is taking another step in its moving image pivot: A dedicated smart TV app just for viewing videos posted on the platform.”Beta version of X TV is out,” Musk posted on X on Monday night.X TV: Musk’s pivot to videoThe first public release of the X app for TV is now available — and users can install it via the smart TV versions of Google Play, Amazon’s app store, and LG’s app store. The X TV app has not yet been released for Apple TV nor the Apple App Store for tvOS.According to the X TV app details, users will be able to browse video uploaded to X, as well as access livestream video on the platform. Users must sign in to their X account to use the TV app.Previously, the only way to watch X’s video content on television was to cast videos through a secondary device like an iPhone or Android smartphone.Elon Musk wants X to be a lot of things. From a social media service to a banking app, Musk and company have been persistent in its goal to make the platform formerly known as Twitter, an “everything” app. Unlike financial services, X users do currently post videos, so X…Elon Musk's X / Twitter has a new TV app dedicated to watching videos

Brazil just gave Elon Musk’s X the boot.On Friday, Brazil’s top court ordered that Musk’s social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, be banned in the country. SEE ALSO: Elon Musk’s X is the ‘home of social media piracy,’ sports leagues say The move comes after Musk has feuded with Brazilian Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has previously ordered that X remove content that spread fake news and misinformation. Musk and company classified the judge’s requests as “censorship orders.”Musk himself has recently attacked the judge on X, calling Moraes an “evil dictator.” Tweet may have been deleted Earlier this month, X closed its operations in Brazil, alleging that the judge threatened X representative Rachel Nova Conceicao with arrest if the company did not comply with the content removal orders.While X the company exited Brazil, the platform still remained available and accessible to users in the country. On Wednesday, Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered X to appoint a legal representative in the country within 24 hours. Failing to do so, X shared a statement on Thursday night anticipating a potential ban.”Soon, we expect Judge Alexandre de Moraes will order X to be shut down in Brazil – simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents,” the statement reads.Losing its user base in Brazil will likely hurt X. The platform is popular in the country, with Brazilian users accounting for tens of millions of X’s monthly active user base.As the New York Times…Elon Musk's X is now banned in Brazil

Bluesky is finally about to add video.The decentralised social media platform flagged the coming update on Friday in a post. Bluesky first announced it would be adding video in May, along with DMs. Now might be a good time to announce that our next major app update will have video. 👀 More details soon!— Bluesky (@bsky.app) Aug 29, 2024 at 22:23 Bluesky didn’t specify exactly when the video feature will roll out or what it will look like, promising “more details soon,” but in May, the company said “it’s looking like the v1 of video integration on Bluesky will be 90-second clips that you can share on your posts.” SEE ALSO: 5 of the best — and worst — social media apps in 2024 (so far) Bluesky also announced some “anti-toxicity” features this week, including the ability to detach quote posts, hide replies, and the ability to filter your notifications to only receive updates from people you follow. Earlier this year, Bluesky added a “stackable approach” for content moderation, which lets users essentially run their own independent moderation services.In its most recent report, Bluesky says it’s sitting at 5.8 million users, offering an alternative for users on competitor X (formerly Twitter). The platform, which was invite-only for its launch, already had 3 million sign-ups before opening up to everyone in February. Meta-owned competitor Threads said at the beginning of August it crossed the 200 million user mark.Bluesky is finally adding video

Instagram is letting you add text directly on top of your photo posts, just like you can in Reels. So, if you want to blast the words direct order “Live Laugh Love” forever across your latest travel pics on your grid, your followers can’t do a thing to stop you. Announced by the company in a blog post on Wednesday, you can now add words and photo stickers directly to your posts, with new fonts available too (neva4get the hidden Papyrus). It’s like another layer you can add on top of your pictures, available in the editing phase of Instagram posts. SEE ALSO: Is Instagram going to ruin your grid with rectangles? To use the tool, select the photo(s) you want to post and then tap on the text button (the big and small Aa in the corner). Type in the genius words you’d like to add on top, and you can scroll through the different fonts, as you would when composing a Reel. You can also layer in more images by tapping the gallery button (the one that looks like a little picture) and move it around and resize it. The feature doesn’t yet have the ability to manage or lock layers (like Reels does) but that’s probably coming soon. And if you tap on the sticker, you can change the shape of it, again like Reels.The update comes after a number of additions to Instagram including testing rectangle grids, increasing carousel limits to 20, Myspace-like profile songs, multiple…Instagram now lets you add words on posts like Reels