Apple’s privacy change affects social media platforms, Facebook loses a record number of daily users, and Tesla recalls cars due to a seatbelt flaw.
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That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Friday, February 4, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Meta shares saw a major decline this week following a gloomy fourth-quarter report and news that the social networking giant is struggling to contain the damage from Apple’s iOS privacy changes called App Tracking Transparency. But Meta wasn’t the only social media company that is suffering from Apple’s privacy changes. Shares of Twitter, Snap, and Pinterest fell in early day trading yesterday. Snap saw an especially sharp decline losing nearly 20 per cent of its share value. Twitter was down more than 7 per cent, and Pinterest fell 8 per cent. Apple introduced App Tracking Transparency in April 2021.The feature allows users to choose if they want their apps to track their activity across the web via an ID for advertisers.
And in more Facebook news, apart from a massive stock decline, the company also reported its first-ever quarterly decline of daily users globally. The stock drop, which instantly wiped out roughly $200 billion in market value, shows that Facebook’s Meta rebrand was not enough to distract investors from the problems in its social platform, reported The Verge. The Facebook app lost one million daily users in North America, where it makes the most money through advertising. The article says that the drop in user count could be attributed to Facebook’s increasing lack of relevance with young people.
Tesla has issued a recall for over 800,000 cars due to a flaw in seat belt chime functionality. All Model 3 and Model Y cars, as well as 2021 and newer Model S and Model X cars, have a “software error” that stops the chime from sounding on startup if the chime was interrupted and the seat belt wasn’t fastened. This problem could occur just by closing the door after leaving the vehicle, a TechCrunch article reports. South Korean testers first uncovered the problem during the first week of January. Tesla decided to recall the cars on January 25. The automaker plans to fix the seat belt chime bug by releasing an over-the-air update in early February. There are no reports of injuries, and the visual seat belt alert still appears properly
With the 2022 Winter Olympics kicking off today, Twitter Canada has added a few new features for Canadians to celebrate. Canadians will be seeing live Olympic action and #Beijing2022 event highlights on Twitter from CBC and their official CBC Olympics Twitter account. Twitter users can watch the opening and closing ceremonies on the app as well as Ice Dancing, Men’s snowboard halfpipe and the Gold medal Women’s hockey game. Team Canada emojis are also making a comeback as well as a custom #Beijing2022 Twitter topic for the latest Olympic news and conversations.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, if you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Tom Li.