Social Media

TikTok removed 11,887,516 videos that violated guidelines in nine African countries in Q2 2024, with Egypt and Nigeria at the top to improve user safety.

Meta is testing facial recognition to detect scam ads using celebrity images on Facebook and Instagram, enhancing fraud prevention. The tool will also help users recover hacked accounts through video selfies.

WhatsApp is rolling out new features this month, including an image verification tool to combat misinformation, improved chat widgets for iOS users, more chat theme colours, and an easier way to create call links in chats.

Meta has launched teen accounts with built-in protections on Instagram, with a global rollout scheduled for January and expansion to other platforms in 2025.

Nigerian telegram groups with over 250,000 members share illegally gotten nude content to the highest bidder. However, a new Telegram moderation policy could crack down on such groups.

Meta Platforms has introduced two new tools, allowing content creators to earn from in-stream and Facebook ads on reels a few months after it rolled out the same features in Nigeria and Ghana.

Meta removes approximately 63,000 Nigerian Facebook accounts linked to Yahoo Boys in a crackdown on financial sextortion scams. The tech giant also takes down 7,200 other resources, including 1,300 accounts, 200 pages, and 5,700 groups.

Content creators in Nigeria and Ghana can now earn ad revenue on Meta platforms, including Instagram and Facebook. Before this move, they were ineligible for monetisation unless their page was managed from an eligible country.

X (formerly Twitter) plans to charge new users for basic functions, including posting and replying, to combat the increase in spam bots on the platform.

Ahead of the May election in South Africa, Meta has rolled out an anti-hate speech and disinformation campaign that will be broadcast on local and national radio stations in addition to its platforms.

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has shut down LetsChat, an instant messaging app launched in 2021, due to its inability to engage users and provide an alternative to WhatsApp and Telegram.

Meta is working directly with South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and other tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to combat election misinformation in South Africa.

Meta will allow Nigerian and Kenyan content creators to monetise their content on Instagram and Facebook starting in June 2024.

Meta recently announced that it would discontinue the Facebook Groups API, posing challenges for digital marketers and companies that provide social media post scheduling and automation as a service.

X, formerly Twitter, has launched audio and video features for Android users. Anyone can receive calls, but only verified users can initiate them.

TikTok has expanded its Add to Music App feature to 19 countries, including South Africa, following its successful launch in the United States and United Kingdom in November 2023.

Kenya’s President William Ruto has announced that Facebook and Instagram content creators can monetise their audience. This news comes a year after Meta announced that over 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa would start earning from Facebook Reels.

Following a petition to ban TikTok in Kenya, the short-form video platform has committed to working with the Kenyan government to review and monitor content on the app. It also plans to set up a regional office in Nairobi.