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Bluesky seems to have a bold new strategy to entice potential new users: posting on Threads. The rival social media service joined Threads amid a surge in complaints from users who are increasingly frustrated with Metas policies. While complaints about Metas policies arent a new topic, theyve gained new prominence over the last week amid complaints about the surge in engagement bait on the platform, as well as Threads sometimes inexplicable content moderation decisions. Meta exec Adam Mosseri, who runs the Threads app, has said the company is looking into both issues. But in the meantime, theres been an increase in discussions about Bluesky, the decentralized service that has a very different philosophy when it comes to algorithms and moderation. On Wednesday, Bluesky created an account on Threads, and promptly began pitching itself as an alternative platform for those frustrated with Meta. The strategy seems to be having an effect. Bluesky has been a trending topic on Threads for two days in a row and, at the time of this writing Bluesky vs Meta moderation was trending on the platform. We're not like the other girls... we're not owned by a billionaire, Bluesky wrote in a post Thursday. Your social experience should be yours to customize, not bent to the whims of whoever the owner of the platform is. While not the first time Bluesky has lightly trolled a rival (see its X post from earlier this week), the company is seizing on genuine frustration among Threads users. Besides the complaints about blatant engagement bait in their feeds, users have been questioning Metas seemingly aggressive moderation tactics on Threads. The company already throttles political content on the app, has taken a heavy handed approach to moderation of the service, according to many users. A number of people have reported having posts actioned by Meta for using the word cracker or saltines, as The Verge points out. Social media consultant Matt Navarra shared that he was penalized for sharing a BBC article about the viral goodbye Meta AI hoax on his Threads account. Bluesky, on the other hand, has taken a much more flexible approach to content moderation. It puts most decisions in the hands of users, who are able to decide what kind of content they want to see or not, and allows users to run their own moderation services. We're always doing baseline moderation, meaning that we are providing you with a default moderated experience when you come in [to Bluesky], Bluesky CEO jay Graber told Engadget earlier this year. And then on top of that, you can customize things. Whether the new attention on Bluesky will result in a significant number of departures to the service is so far unclear. Bluesky currently has about 10.8 million users, according to a dashboard tracking its growth, And while its not clear how many new people arrived in the last couple days, it suggests theres been a bit of a surge over the past month as Bluesky previously grew to about 8.8 million users immediately following the shutdown of X in Brazil last month.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/bluesky-is-having-a-moment-on-threads-222404971.html?src=rss
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Another breach of a huge financial institution has leaked the personal information of thousands of customers to the public. TechCrunch reported that an unidentified hacker obtained 77,009 customers personal data from the asset management firm Fidelity Investments. A filing by Maines attorney general posted yesterday revealed that the unidentified third party obtained the information in mid-August using two phony customer accounts. Its not yet known how these accounts were used to access customer data. Fidelity said in a letter to its customers that it discovered the breach on August 19. The letter also said that the unidentified party did not access customers Fidelity accounts but after Fidelity completed its review, it confirmed that customers personal data had been breached. The New Hampshire attorney generals office filed a second data breach notice yesterday revealing another data security incident of Fidelity Investments customer data. The notice says the unauthorized third party obtained access to an internal database that houses images of documents pertaining to Fidelity customers by submitting fake requests for access also on August 19. The second data breach did not provide unwanted access to any customer accounts or funds and the leaked information only related to a small subset of Fidelitys customers. If you believe your data has been obtained by unwanted parties or is part of a data leak, the Federal Trade Commission recommends putting a freeze and fraud alerts on your credit reports and personal bank and credit card accounts. You can also report any identity theft incidents at IdentityTheft.gov or by calling 1-877-438-4338.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/data-breach-of-fidelity-leaks-77000-customers-personal-data-214248985.html?src=rss
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It's an experience many of us know all too well: open up a food blogger's recipe only to scroll past a mountain of content you don't care about to actually reach the ingredients and method. Google is trialing a feature that could eliminate this step, even though it's the result of the company's own policies. The Verge noticed a new button on the thumbnails for select recipes called Quick View. This button brings up the complete recipe without leaving the search results page. In their testing, a search for "chocolate chip cookie recipe" revealed this Quick View button for the site Preppy Kitchen. "Were always experimenting with different ways to connect our users with high-quality and helpful information," Google rep Brianna Duff told Engadget about these Quick View recipes. "We have partnered with a limited number of creators to begin to explore new recipe experiences on Search that are both helpful for users and drive value to the web ecosystem. We dont have anything to announce right now." While Google does have agreements inked with the participating bloggers, the company declined to reveal any further details about the scope of this testing. It's quite a catch-22 Google has created when it comes to recipes online. Home cooks may find this Quick View feature appealing since so many food blogs front-load their posts with photos and personal stories before actually sharing the recipe. But it was Google's own rules that pushed bloggers toward that approach in the first place, with longer posts generally indexing higher up in search results and thus getting more traffic. (And no offense to the food bloggers of the world, but the only chocolate chip cookie recipe you need is the one on the back of the chocolate chip bag.) While this recipe feature is just an early trial, Google has been rolling out other tools aimed at keeping users on its own webpages and platforms. The AI Overviews in search are one of the latest (and occasionally surreal) ways the company is changing the rules of engagement for web content.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/google-tests-feature-to-show-full-recipes-in-search-results-212257585.html?src=rss
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