Ten of the biggest platforms will have to block children from December 10 or face fines of up to AUSD 49.5 million (USD 33 million) under the new law. While the movie has drawn criticism from tech biggies and free speech advocates, it has been welcomed by parents and child advocates.

Meanwhile, Australian teenagers have taken to social media for the last time to farewell their followers, while mourning the loss of the platforms that shaped much of their lives before the ban, the world’s first such one, took effect on December 10. In the hours leading up to the ban’s midnight start, a flurry of goodbye messages came from teenagers, as well as adults, on platforms including TikTok, Instagram and Reddit.

“I’ll miss you guys,” posted Melbourne creator Josh Partington, known for making comedy sketches about Australian life for more than 75,000 TikTok followers.

Young Australians, who have grown up using social media, faced the prospect of losing access to their favourite apps with sadness, humour and disbelief.

“I’m going to miss you so much, and especially the funny content. See you in a few years, but I don’t know if my account will still be standing,” one TikTok user wrote to their followers.

“Goodbye, see you on the other side,” another user said.

On Reddit, users posted their goodbye notes to subreddits such as r/teenagers.

“As an autistic 13-year-old, I am devastated. My playlist of 1,400+ songs on YouTube will be deleted and Reddit too, I have zero friends … I will be completely alone for the next three years until I am 16,” one popular post said.

PM Albanese is facing backlash as well, as he lost 6,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram since December 9. While one person commented, “Just wait until we’re able to vote” on Albanese’s TikTok account, not all teenagers were against the ban.

“Ngl (not going to lie), social media ban is probably for the best of us. All we do is sit behind a screen for hours,” a TikTok user said.

The post Australia enforces world’s first under-16 social media ban appeared first on International Finance.

Steve Huffman made the above observation while stating that the ongoing blackout of thousands of subreddits would eventually pass.

So what is going on in the social media company?

Knowing The Crisis In Detail

Reddit is community-driven, where people create forums called subreddits. Here, you can open your accounts with pseudo names and posts, and share engaging stuff like memes. These subreddits have categories like economy and politics, where suitable content can be posted. Based on audience engagement, Reddit’s front page shows the most popular posts from each default subreddits.

As per Finshots, there are over 130,000 such active communities, along with more than 400 million monthly active users.

Journalist Christine Lagorio-Chafkin, during an interview with the business journal ‘Knowledge at Wharton’, said that over 50,000 words are typed into Reddit forums every minute. The award-winning scribe also suggested that Reddit can very much be the information goldmine for generative AI tools like ChatGPT, with the chatbot getting most of its information from the subreddits’ conversations.

Coming back to the crisis, the blackout mentioned by Steve Huffman has seen over 7,000 subreddits, setting themselves private to protest Reddit’s API pricing changes.

Developers of third-party apps wouldn’t be able to afford Reddit’s updated API pricing. The developers for Apollo for Reddit and others announced the shutdown of their apps on June 30.

While some subreddits went private from June 12th to June 14th, some are planning not to become public until things change.

Let’s Talk About The Bone Of Contention

Reddit API policy changes will see its content being used to train artificial intelligence tools, and this content will be put under a paywall from now on.

Be it ChatGPT or Google Bard, generative AI tools are using Reddit sources to train their Large Language Models to provide credible responses to human prompts. While Reddit’s API will help tech companies to access and package useful data easily, the content aggregation company is now using the opportunity as a moneymaking one.

Reddit’s API, available since 2008, used to be open for developers to do activities like building moderation tools for subreddits, creating Reddit browsing clients, and making the content site a user-friendly one.

While the Steve Huffman-led venture will keep the API free for those building moderation tools or creating educational and research environments on Reddit, the company’s new terms will be applied for developers using the APIs in ways that require “broader usage rights”. Also, the new policy won’t grant automatic licenses for anyone needing to modify user content.

Training AI language models will now require interested parties “to enter into a separate agreement with Reddit.”

The ‘Data API Terms’ have also empowered the company to enforce limits on how many API requests can be made. The charges required for making the API requests will also be high for clients (developers), since the latter generally use OAuth tokens for Reddit user authentications.

Reddit is also planning for an Initial Public Offering in 2023. With generative AI being the talk of the town in 2023, analysts believe that the venture wants to build its financial health around its user-generated content, which will be used for training for LLMs.

Users and moderators here use third-party apps like ‘Apollo’ or ‘Rif is fun’ to access Reddit, as these tools reportedly provide better user experiences.

These apps were built using Reddit’s APIs. If they need to show Reddit’s content now on their portals, they will have to pay for it. Apollo has said the API fees alone would amount to a staggering yearly amount of USD 20 million, something which is not feasible for them.

This development has now riled up Reddit’s users. The community members and moderators are now showing solidarity with these third-party apps by taking the subreddits ‘dark’ or private.

The article titled ‘Is Reddit digging its own grave?’ by Finshots remarks, “Apparently, third-party Reddit apps don’t display advertisements. That means if most of Reddit’s users actually prefer these non-native apps, Reddit can’t go to advertisers and claim a higher user number. It will have to discount this. And advertisers will pay less.”

“So the only way to change that is to kill these third-party apps and get people on board the Reddit app. Then it can bombard them with ads and get advertisers to pay more as well,” the article stated further.

Reddit Sticking By Its Plans

“So the vast majority of the uses of the API — not [third-party apps like Apollo for Reddit] — the other 98% of them, make tools, bots, enhancements to Reddit. That’s what the API is for. It was never designed to support third-party apps. Let it exist. I should take the blame for that because I was the guy arguing for that for a long time,” CEO Steve Huffman told The Verge on the API issue.

The Reddit boss thinks that these third-party apps have made their own business models at the expense of his company. However, Apollo’s statement against the new API pricing suggests otherwise.

Reddit has now informed the subreddits moderators that it has plans to replace ‘resistant moderation teams’ to keep its spaces “open and accessible to users.”

A comment shared by r/Apple moderator @aaronp613 shows the social media platform citing its ‘Moderator Code of Conduct’ and warning its detractors that it has a duty to keep communities “relied upon by thousands or even millions of users” operational.

“Mods who do not agree to reopen subreddits that have gone private will be removed,” the company stated, while CEO Steve Huffman stated that the 48-hour blackouts hardly caused “any significant revenue impact so far”.

The Final Verdict

Reddit’s goal is to become a public company, by getting listed on the stock markets. The content aggregation company is eyeing a USD 15 billion valuation. So, the new API policy is part of Steve Huffman’s bigger monetisation goals.

However, analysts believe that these plans may end up killing Reddit, as the third-party apps, which Steve Huffman accused of building their ‘own businesses at the expense of Reddit’, have actually been the company’s support system.

Experts now fear a scenario where community members will start ditching the platform and in the worst case, may end up joining an alternative one (if it pops up).

The post IF Insights: Has Reddit pressed the ‘self-destruct button’ with its API pricing? appeared first on International Finance.

Due to a drop in capacity, the 1TB and 2TB SSDs would no longer be fully functional. Several users have already reported this without necessarily filling the whole disc.

While the M.2 solid-state drives are reporting rapid degradation, some users have been sending their 990 Pros back to Samsung. And for the older 980 Pro, Samsung is reportedly recommending owners update to the latest firmware.

“Stands behind the quality of its SSDs, including the new NVMe M.2 SSD 990 PRO,” the company said in a statement. However, it admitted that it was aware of some examples of health decline and pledged to look into them.

The issue was first reported by Neowin writer Robbie Khan, whose recently released 990 Pro 2TB module dropped to 94% health status at just over 4TB of written data. Robbie Khan also posted the findings on Reddit, which was met with owners voicing similar issues.

As per the reports from ‘The Verge’, Robbie Khan decided to file a ticket with Samsung to get this resolved. Details sent to the company included the health and read/write values of the drive using CrystalDiskInfo (a program that can read the SMART data embedded in most hard disks). The drive was sent to Samsung RMA but was subsequently returned by the company which also claimed about finding no defects.

After the Neowin article came out, Samsung RMA offered to replace and test the SSD, but it was already returned to the store. Other owners are experiencing similar cases, including ExtremeTech writer Ryan Whitwam, whose 1TB Samsung 990 Pro dropped to 93% health at just over 2TB of written data.

A Twitter user claimed that the individual’s 2TB 990 Pro is down to only 64% health with just over 2TB of written data.

One moderator on Samsung’s community page did, however, hint that a fix is coming soon. But, unfortunately, the company hasn’t made an official statement or released any further information about the 990-Pro problem.

AlwinS responded to a user who claimed their health had declined over two months, “The development department coworkers have already noticed the behaviour. We are looking into the suspicious activity and will let you know if we find anything. We’re sorry if using the Samsung 990 PRO causes you any discomfort.”

DavidB, another forum administrator, says that a possible problem has been found because Samsung’s experts made the error happen “under certain conditions of use.”

DavidB added, “Samsung is anticipated to release a software upgrade in February to address the issue.”

Even though many people are disappointed that such a well-known brand let them down, the turnaround time for this specific issue is expected to be around a month from notification to patch.

News of SSD failure comes at a time when Samsung witnesses an almost 69 drop in quarterly operating profits as its memory chip business took a hit due to falling prices stemming from oversupply and falling demand.

The post Amid drop in profits, now Samsung faces SSD embarrassment appeared first on International Finance.

The reputation of people in their communities is measured by Reddit Community Points. They are displayed next to usernames in subreddits, making the most significant contributors to the community stand out from the rest of them. It should be highlighted that since Community Points are on the Arbitrum Nova blockchain, users can carry their online reputation along with them.

Niraj Sheth, Staff Software Engineer at Reddit, said, “We’re always working to empower communities and introduce new ways to use Reddit, and decentralized, self-sustaining blockchain technology allows us to do that. By working with FTX, we’re able to do this at scale.”

Due to the FTX Pay integration with Reddit, users may now buy Ether cryptocurrency via Reddit apps that are compatible with it. They can then use Ether to pay the blockchain network fees for their Community Points transactions on-chain.

Users will be able to create Special Memberships in your community that members can buy with Community Points. Special Memberships provides access to a variety of features, including badges, which let you customise your presence on the subreddit with achievement, style, and loyalty badges. You can even add a highlighted colour to your username. In addition, users will be able to run weighted polls, add animated Emojis, and embed GIFs to make key decisions in your community.

Reddit wrote in a blog post, “Unlike regular polls, these polls give a larger voice to people who have contributed more to the community. The more Community Points someone has earned, the more weight their vote carries.”

Additionally, you can pay someone a tip for posting or creating a comment. Any Redditor with a crypto Vault can also receive Community Points.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said, “We’re excited to partner with Reddit to continue their work to empower online communities to harness the power of blockchain.”

The post Cryptocurrency users rejoice as Reddit makes big announcement appeared first on International Finance.

The proposal came in after the US President Donald Trump ensured ‘extreme vetting’ for foreigners who want to enter the US. Like Trump, administrators have stated that the proposal is an attempt to pin possible terrorists. The proposal is now in the hands of the Office of Management and Budget to decide if it will it go further to become a law.

If the proposal passes, around 14.7mn people a year from countries like India, China and Mexico would be affected by the proposal.  However, citizens from countries like the UK, Canada, France and Germany that have visa-free travel to the US won’t be affected by the proposal.

Along with their social media profiles, the people, who are affected by the proposal, have to also disclose their telephone numbers, email addresses and travel history that they have been using for the last five years. To further ensure a safe entry, the applicants will have to showcase their history of deportation (if any) and also notify if any of their relatives have some recorded terrorist activity.

“Maintaining robust screening standards for visa applicants is a dynamic practice that must adapt to emerging threats,” the US state department said in a statement, quoted by the New York Times.

“We already request limited contact information, travel history, family member information, and previous addresses from all visa applicants. Collecting this additional information from visa applicants will strengthen our process for vetting these applicants and confirming their identity.”

Project As this proposal has the power of invading people’s privacy and freedom of speech, it has given rise to a lot of criticisms. Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security in the US, said: “People will now have to wonder if what they say online will be misconstrued or misunderstood by a government official.”

“We’re also concerned about how the Trump administration defines the vague and over-broad term ‘terrorist activities’ because it is inherently political and can be used to discriminate against immigrants who have done nothing wrong.”

The post The US to review social media platforms of visa applicants appeared first on International Finance.