Tech Boys

The pressure is mounting on social media companies to enforce their rules and protect children on the platforms. Australia recently instituted a ban on children under the age of 16 from social media platforms. Gaming platforms like Roblox are now using facial recognition technology to prevent kids from interacting with adults in chats. And now TikTok, the social media platform well known for its popularity with young people, will be rolling out its own age verification system in Europe to detect underage users on its site, according to a Reuters report. TikTok's age-detection system analyzes a user's profile information, published videos, and behavioral signs to estimate if a user is under the age of 13. Per TikTok policy, users must be at least 13 to sign up for the platform. Once the age detect system flags an account, the user will be reviewed by specialist moderators. User accounts will not be banned automatically. TikTok told Reuters the age-detection system will b...

Google has filed its appeal to the Department of Justice’s antitrust case that ended with a federal judge ruling that the company was maintaining a monopoly with its search business. While the company goes through the appeals process, it’s also asking that implementation of the remedies from the case, which include a requirement that Google share search data with its competitors, also be paused. “As we have long said, the Court’s August 2024 ruling ignored the reality that people use Google because they want to, not because they’re forced to,” Google said in a statement. “The decision failed to account for the rapid pace of innovation and intense competition we face from established players and well-funded start-ups. And it discounted compelling testimony from browser makers like Apple and Mozilla who said they choose to feature Google because it provides the highest quality search experience for their consumers.” The company says that the requirement that it “provide syndication ...

Elon Musk's X may still be permitting the posting of Grok-generated, sexualized images of real people, despite the company’s recent announcement that such content had been banned, according to reporting by The Guardian . The British newspaper reported that its journalists were able to generate and upload videos depicting real women being undressed into bikinis, using images of fully clothed individuals. SEE ALSO: Grok ban: The nations considering blocking AI chatbot over nonconsensual sexual content In its reporting, The Guardian wrote : "The Guardian was able to create short videos of people stripping to bikinis from photographs of fully clothed, real women. It was also possible to post this adult content on to X’s public platform without any sign of it being moderated, meaning the clip could be viewed within seconds by anyone with an account." According to the newspaper, the sexualized images were created using the standalone Grok app and then successfull...

After testing the feature in a limited beta , Bluesky is making its "Live Now" badge for streamers available for everyone on the social network to try. Live Now is included as part of Bluesky's v1.114 update, alongside "cashtags," a separate type of hashtag for collecting conversations about publicly-traded companies. Bluesky first started testing its Live Now badge in May 2025 with a limited group of accounts, including the official NBA account. The feature lets Twitch streamers with Bluesky profiles append a Live Now badge to their profile picture that links directly to their livestream. Live Now badges are limited to Twitch links for now, but Bluesky says "support for other streaming platforms may follow" as it learns from the beta. Linking to other social platforms shouldn't be a radical concept, but since Bluesky's competitor X has tried to prevent users from posting links in the past, the company has made it a point of trying to do the...

As part of a new agreement, films from Sony Pictures Entertainment will stream on Netflix first, the companies announced via a joint statement . The new deal expands on the exclusive rights Netflix had to Sony films in the US, and means the service will be the first place people will be able to stream upcoming projects like the live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda , and a quartet of biopics about The Beatles . Sony's films will stream worldwide on Netflix in what's called "Pay-1," the first window of availability after a movie's theatrical and VOD releases. As part of the deal, Netflix is also licensing an undisclosed number of films and television shows from the Sony Pictures back catalog to help fill out its library. Netflix says the new arrangement "will roll out gradually" as licensing rights become available throughout the year, with full availability happening sometime in 2029. Neither company shared how long this new setup will last, bu...

It's 2016 all over again on Instagram. Well...if only. There's been a bubbling nostalgia for 2016 for the past few weeks. Chance Townsend wrote here at Mashable about Gen Z growing especially nostalgic for 2016 as the last good year. Sure, it might not have felt that great at the time, but for Gen Z, it was their last great summer. I'd argue that, in many ways, we've been living in late 2016 for a decade now — the political atmosphere , how social media became real life, crisis after crisis. But, anyway, the internet has now exploded into a full-blown nostalgia bomb for 2016. It's an extension of the trend we spotted on TikTok earlier this month, paired with folks who want to show how much they've grown over the last 10 years. Yes, as if it were 2016, we're bringing back the humblebrag and self-deprecating-but-not-really posts. As with most trends, it's migrated from the kids on TikTok to the normies and celebs on Instagram, who're mostly u...

A major telecommunications outage is unfolding, with a surge of reports pointing to widespread service disruptions across AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. In particular, many Verizon customers are reporting that their phones have gone into SOS mode, though they should still be able to make 911 calls via satellite. According to Downdetector , user error reports started to spike around 11:55 a.m. ET on Wednesday. ( Disclosure: Downdetector and Mashable are both owned by Ziff Davis. ) While some users on AT&T and T-Mobile networks have also reported issues, Verizon customers appear to be bearing the brunt of the disruption. On X, "Verizon" quickly began trending as users attempted to figure out what was happening. With the outage still developing, details remain limited. So far, Verizon is the only carrier to publicly acknowledge the issue. In a post on X, the company said : “We are aware of an issue impacting wireless voice and data services for some customers. Our engi...

More than 1,000 Meta employees — the ones who brought you the metaverse — are now looking for work. The company behind Facebook and Instagram laid off more than 1,000 employees from its Virtual Reality (VR)-focused division, Reality Labs. As first reported by Bloomberg , this means the closure of VR game development studios like Sanzaru, Twisted Pixel, and Armature. The news was delivered via an internal memo from Andrew Bosworth, Meta's CEO. Bosworth said Meta will refocus its metaverse efforts on other products in the future, such as wearables. That means you can expect more products like the Ray-Ban Display smart glasses, with AI and Augmented Reality (AR) — and fewer like the VR Meta Quest 3 . SEE ALSO: Meta delays Ray-Ban smart glasses international rollout, citing high demand Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the metaverse way back in the pandemic year of 2021. His big bet was that we would all use VR headsets to hang out and do work meetings remotely in vi...

Several of Meta's VR studios have been affected by the company's metaverse-focused layoffs. The company has shuttered three of its VR studios, including Armature, Sanzaru and Twisted Pixel. VR fitness app Supernatural will no longer be updated with fresh content. Employees at Twisted Pixel, which released Marvel's Deadpool VR in November, and Sanzaru, known for Asgard's Wrath , posted on social media about the closures . Bloomberg reported that Armature, which brought Resident Evil 4 to Quest back in 2021 has also closed and that the popular VR fitness app Supernatural will no longer be updated with fresh content, though the current version will continue to be supported.  A spokesperson for Meta confirmed the closures. "We said last month that we were shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward Wearables," the spokesperson said in a statement to Engadget. "This is part of that effort, and we plan to reinvest the savings to support the ...