Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
After users’ backlash over Instagram’s “evolving” into TikTok, its CEO Adam Mosseri responded to users’ concerns in a video he posted on Twitter. It didn’t take long for Dan Toomey to make a parody video, and I just had to share it.
In the video, Dan pretends to give an announcement about Instagram’s latest changes. But unlike Mosseri, Dan is saying what I believe we’re all thinking – and he does it in a truly hilarious manner.
I think it’s clear to all of us that Meta is trying its best to look as much as possible like TikTok. Reels, auto-generated captions, and expanded search are only some of the features Meta copied for Instagram and Facebook. But now, the company has taken an extra step to look more like its biggest competitor. And this time, it’s wearing seven-league boots.
Meta is changing Instagram’s video preview (again) to look more like that on TikTok. And Facebook’s reportedly changing the entire algorithm to compete with the Chinese platform.
I think we can all agree that it’s easy to lose a track of time when scrolling through TikTok or Instagram. But in the latest attempt to seem like they care about wellbeing, TikTok has introduced some new features that will help you stop scrolling before you lose the entire afternoon staring at the screen.
From now on, TikTok will have additional time control features. Among the existing options, there are now a screen time dashboard and a “well-being guide” for teen users. Both are aimed to help people manage how much time they spend scrolling, and there are also prompts to take a break if you overdo it.
There are some very daft suggestions and tutorials on TikTok. As I discovered when I tried a few of the photography hacks, there are several that it goes without saying that you just shouldn’t try. This one might take the cake though. After watching a video of a ‘hack’ where a photographer appears to deliberately scratch his lens with a rock to create a ‘cool effect’, one viewer actually copied it and fully destroyed her camera lens.
Photographer and TikToker Illumitatiana posted a video of her using a rock to scratch the front of her Canon 50mm f/1.8 in response to a viral video made by Andres Videography where he appeared to do the same to his lens.
Ever since TikTok became a giant in the social media world, Instagram has been trying hard to be more like it. So it’s probably not a surprise that Meta has introduced a new set of Reels options that remind us of features we’ll also find on TikTok.
If Instagram’s recent incentive had you to get off TikTok and post Reels instead, TikTok now has a counteroffer. Its new program, TikTok Pulse, is created to share ad revenue with creators. And we’re speaking of a fair split: 50 percent of earnings will go to the platform, and the creators will get to keep the other 50 percent.
Could this be the latest death knell for Instagram for still photographers? The social media giant Meta is reportedly testing a new feature of Instagram that makes users’ feeds full screen, in a bid to compete more directly with rival TikTok.
Its desire is to “bring video more front and centre” on the platform, however, in doing so, it makes video even more of a central feature over that of its traditional still photos-based format.
You know those TikTok reposts you see all over Instagram? Well, it looks like the latest tweaks in Instagram’s algorithm is going to push them further down and reduce their reach.
Other than product tags announced a few days ago, Instagram has introduced a few more changes. One of them is “ranking on originality,” which should push original content rather than reposts from other social networks. Or as I see it – reposts from TikTok that Instagram’s flooded with.
A female TikTok influencer from Egypt, Haneen Hossam, recently had her content on the platform send her to jail. The only thing she did was what influencers generally do – she invited and taught other users to monetize their social media activity. For this, the young woman was charged with “human trafficking” and sentenced to three years in prison.
Two more former TikTok employees are suing the company over alleged psychological trauma. According to a lawsuit recently filed in federal court, the two content moderators were exposed to disturbing content on a daily basis, all in order to remove it from TikTok before it reaches the public.
As a result of this stressful job, both moderators suffered psychological consequences. However, they claim that TikTok failed to adequately support them and their mental health, so they’ve decided to file a lawsuit against the former employer.
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