Tag: Twitter

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter finally adds support for Android’s system dark mode toggle

I have been waiting for this to happen since 2019.

Twitter has finally, finally added support for Android’s system dark mode. That means I don’t have to manually switch between the app’s built-in light, ‘dim’ and dark options anymore. This is truly a ✨blessed✨ day.

For a bit of context, back in 2019, Apple and Google added official dark modes to their respective operating systems. These dark modes were, effectively, just a toggle that changed user interface (UI) elements from light colours (like bright white) to dark colours (like grey, dark blue or black). Both companies hyped up the toggle as a significant new feature, despite embarrassingly few apps supporting the toggle at launch.

That includes Twitter, which long had a built-in dark mode option but didn’t actually support the new toggles. What’s worse, users could also set the system dark mode to turn on and off automatically (such as at preset times or have it follow sunset/sunrise in their area). Apps that didn’t support the system toggle also didn’t support the automated transition.

Twitter users with iPhones didn’t have to worry about this particular problem for long. 9to5Mac reported that Twitter rolled out support for the iOS 13 system dark mode toggle on September 17th, 2019. (I think it may have come to Canadian Twitter users later, because I wrote on the 25th of that month that Twitter still didn’t support the dark mode toggle). Twitter’s support was a new ‘Use device settings’ toggle that told the app to follow iOS.

Android users, however, just started to get that toggle on October 14th, 2021. Not everyone has it yet, however, but it appears to be rolling out quickly.

How to make Twitter for Android follow your device theme

To access it, open Twitter on your Android phone, tap your profile picture in the top-left corner, then tap the lightbulb icon in the bottom-left corner. A menu will slide up from the bottom of the screen with options to turn dark mode ‘Off,’ ‘On,’ or ‘Use device settings.’ Twitter users can still select the ‘Dim’ blue or ‘Lights out’ black dark theme. The option to have Twitter follow sunset/sunrise is gone, which is fine by me since it didn’t work on any phone that tried it on.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Twitter could do a lot more to improve usability and accessibility on its platform. As ecstatic as I am about support for system dark mode, Twitter has glaring accessibility issues that have only gotten worse with the platform’s recent changes to the font and other elements. And don’t get me started on the widespread harassment and other problems.

But, at least now Twitter will match my phone theme.

Source: Lifehacker

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter web users can now ‘soft block’ unwanted followers

Last month, Twitter announced that it is testing out a feature that will allow you to quietly remove users from your follow list without having to block them.

The feature, known as ‘Soft Block,’ is now live for all Twitter Web users.

To soft block a follower, go to your profile and head to the ‘followers’ section. Find the person you want to cull and click the three-dot menu next to the follower’s name. Click on ‘Remove this follower,’ and you’re good to go. It’s worth noting that the followers you unfollow will not be notified of the change.

Previously, a blocked Twitter user would notice that they had been banned from interacting with someone’s tweets, which might lead to angry retaliation on other platforms or on the same platform via burner or secondary accounts. The new feature aims to offer users greater control over their experience on the micro-blogging platform and will help in reducing abuse and harassment.

In addition, Twitter recently began beta testing its in-development ‘Safety Mode’ auto-block setting, which, when activated, automatically slaps users engaging in harassing behaviours with a seven-day temporary ban.

Image credit: @TwitterSafety

Source: @TwitterSafety

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Mobile Syrup

Video quality on Twitter is getting a crisp update

Videos in your Twitter feed should now look a lot less crunchy, according to a recent tweet from the microblogging platform’s support account.

The tweet claims that videos uploaded to Twitter “will appear less pixelated,” thanks to a new update aimed at improving video quality.

According to reporting by The Verge, the improvement in question involved axing a “pre-processing step” that “split videos into smaller chunks” in the upload process.

Apparently, this step sometimes reduced the quality of the final posted video.

This announcement is the latest in a slew of new features and updates from Twitter this month.

In September 2021 alone, the social media platform has introduced the following changes so far:

September 1st: Twitter debuts ‘Super Follows’, a paid subscription service for users who want to monetize their tweets via a paywall
September 1st: Twitter opens beta-testing for auto-block setting called ‘Safety Mode’
September 2nd: Twitter teases an in-development privacy setting that lets you hide old tweets
September 7th: Twitter starts testing full-screen ‘edge-to-edge’ display on iOS
September 8th: Twitter lets users cull their Followers list with new ‘Remove this follower’ button
September 8th: Twitter launches out moderated invite-only groups called ‘Communities’
September 9th: Twitter rolls out out emoji reactions for Turkish users only
September 10th: Twitter tests bot-identifying labels
September 23rd: Twitter introduces an upcoming trigger warning feature called ‘Heads Up’
September 23rd: Twitter expands its ‘Tips’ payment options to include Bitcoin, teases forthcoming NFT authentication

Source: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter says it’s working on a trigger warning feature

Twitter announced it will be introducing trigger warnings to the platform through an upcoming feature called ‘Heads Up.’

According to a press briefing, ‘Heads Up’ will warn users when they’re about to join “heated” conversations.

While details on exactly how ‘Heads Up’ will function are scarce, as its still in development, Twitter described its thinking behind the new feature as “sometimes you want to know who’s in the room and what’s the vibe, before you jump in.”

How those “vibes” will be determined by the company remains to be seen, but how users will be flagged can be seen in the image above provided by Twitter.

‘Heads Up’ will be the latest in a string of features rolled out by Twitter in recent months designed to auto-moderate content and give users more control over who can engage with their tweets and how.

This includes adding labels to distinguish between bot-run and human-run accounts, a Safety Mode setting that auto-blocks accounts engaging in harassment, a button that lets users manually remove followers from your account, and an in-the-works privacy setting that hides old tweets.

Image source: Twitter

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Mobile Syrup

You can now ‘Tip’ using Bitcoin on Twitter, NFT ‘blue check’ in the works

Image source: Twitter press kit

Great news, crypto-enthusiasts: Twitter is expanding its “Tips” payment options to include Bitcoin, and is working on a new authentication system so users can show off their NFTs.

In a press release, the social media platform announced that as part of the global roll-out of its tipping feature, it was also expanding the list of third-party payment services users could tip through.

Notably, this list now includes Strike, a free application that lets people send and receive Bitcoin.

Twitter also teased an in-development NFT authentication system, which would let users connect crypto-wallets to Twitter accounts to track and display their NFTs.

Authenticated users would receive a visual symbol on their profile, which the company says could potentially be a badge — similar to Twitter’s iconic blue checkmark — or even a different avatar shape.

Twitter’s turn toward cryptocurrency is both unsurprising — given CEO Jack Dorsey’s personal investments and very public fascination with the stuff — and a stark reversal of its previous stance, such as its 2017 decision to ban cryptocurrency ads on the platform.

First announced in May 2021, the ‘Tips’ feature was previously only made available to English-language Twitter users.

However, despite today’s global roll-out, tipping is still only available on iOS, with Android compatibility reportedly coming soon.

‘Tips’ is one of several strategies from Twitter that aims to, in its own words, “turn followers into fans, and fans into funds.”

The funds are meant to support the platform’s “creators,” who Twitter defines as “people who are driving conversations and want to make a living on social media.”

Other recently announced monetization features include ‘Super Follows‘ and ‘Ticketed Spaces‘.

Image credit: Twitter

Source: Twitter

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter’s ‘Super Follows’ is making less-than-super profits

Twitter’s new paid subscription feature, where users can ‘Super Follow’ someone to gain access to exclusive paywalled tweets, has kicked off with a whimper rather than a bang, according to data from two different app analytics platforms.

TechCrunch reports that in the two weeks since launching ‘Super Follows’ at the beginning of September, Twitter only made around $600 in Canada and $6,000 in the United States, according to Sensor Tower.

Another analytics service, called Appfigures, claims that Twitter made $12,400 in the U.S. in the first half of September.

For context, the ‘Super Follows’ subscription tiers are $2.99 USD (about $3.77 CAD), $4.99 (roughly $6.29 CAD), and $9.99 USD (approximately $12.59 CAD) per month.

While only a small group of U.S.-based creators are currently allowed to set up ‘Super Follows’ subscriptions on their account, any iOS user in Canada or the U.S. can pay to subscribe to those accounts.

Given Twitter has millions of active users in both countries, these initial reported profit numbers seem a little low.

Twitter officially released Super Follows on September 1st, after teasing the new feature at an Analyst Day event on February 25th.

Image credit: Twitter

Source: TechCrunch

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Mobile Syrup

Election 2021: Same old prime minister, same old memes

Canada’s 44th federal election is officially over and now the real work begins: it’s time to review the memes.

Before we get to the good internet jokes, on the off-chance you’ve turned to MobileSyrup to find out who won the election — in which case, as a tech website, we’re flattered if a bit confused? — here’s the short version of the results:

The Liberals led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remain in power with another minority government, the New Democratic Party and Bloc Québécois gained a handful of new seats, the Conservatives lost a few, and the leaders of both the Green Party and the People’s Party of Canada failed to win in their own ridings for the second election in a row.

In short, the balance of political power in the country is largely the same, but at least we’ll always have the memes.

So, as we contemplate the surreal quality of our own democracy and an election where nothing much changed, here are some of the best tweets from the 2021 federal election:

The campaign kicked off with a yowl, as Gustave, Sheldon and Mousse pawed and scratched for voters’ attentions in the Plateau Mont-Royal riding of Montreal.

Among the many promises made along the campaign trail, the Liberal Party of Canada decided to introduce their affordable housing plan (cool!) with the meme-able statement that “Young people aren’t asking for a free house.” To which a number of young people immediately replied, I mean, yeah, if you’re offering?

After a controversial question in the English language debate spurred Quebec Premier François Legault to open up a National Assembly meeting by defining the word “woke” (Listen, I know, Quebec politics is a lot), Québec Solidaire parliamentary leader and the original #qcpoli meme king Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois posted this very well-seasoned rebuttal on Twitter.

In the final days leading up to the election, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton took to Twitter to endorse Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada — which prompted U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders to step forward and throw his support behind Jagmeet Singh and the NDP.

Speaking of the U.S., as polls closed across the country and results started rolling in, so did the Jeb Bush memes which continue to be more enduring than Jeb’s actual short-lived run for U.S presidential candidacy.

2021 saw the triumphant return of Canada’s favourite trusted source for election night coverage and updates: the Domino’s Pizza Tracker™.

As the results poured in and news outlets quickly began predicting –yet another — Liberal minority government, something about the whole situation felt…oddly familiar.

Finally, after a 36-day campaign that ground parliament to a halt, all so that our elected officials could drop their pencils, leaving vital legislation addressing climate change and Canada’s socio-economic recovery half-finished on the table, to fly across the country in the midst of a global pandemic with super-contagious airborne transmission, to then return with very little changed in terms of leadership at both the national and local levels, one tweet perfectly summed up the whole situation.

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Mobile Syrup

Twitter users in Turkey can now react to Tweets using emojis

Twitter is currently testing out Facebook-style emoji reactions for users in Turkey for a limited time.

As spotted by TechCrunch, users in the region will be able to respond to tweets using 😂, 🤔, 👏, 😢 and ❤.

While the new reactions are currently only available to users in Turkey, Twitter says that it could expand the test feature to other places.

This new feature comes after Twitter surveyed users in March about how they’d respond if the site adopted a Facebook-like approach to interacting with tweets, as well as which emojis they’d want to use the most.

According to Twitter, the ‘tears of laughter’ face emoji is the most used emoji in Tweets. Some users stated that negative feelings such as irritation and rage (😡) after reading tweets are common, but Twitter has not included those emojis in its experiment for the time being. “Our goal is always to support healthy public conversation and we want to see how our current set of emoji will impact conversations,” the company said in its press release.

Twitter is also hoping that the new feature and the positive emojis would increase happy sentiments on the platform, which is otherwise notorious for toxicity.

Twitter users in Turkey can now use the new feature to express how they feel via emojis on the Twitter app on iOS and Android smartphones and on the web.

Twitter has been going hard with updates and test experiments in the last few weeks, including the ability to hide old Tweets, edge-to-edge media on your feed, themed discussion groups called ‘Communities,’ removing followers without blocking them, a new Safety Mode and pay-to-view content with new ‘Super Follows’ feature.

Image credit: @TwitterTurkiye

Source: @TwitterTurkiye

Categories
Potins

Kanye West: I didn’t ‘diss’ Taylor Swift

Kanye West insists he didn’t ”diss” Taylor Swift in his new track ‘Famous’.

In the song, which he previewed at his Yeezy fashion show yesterday (02.11.16), he rapped about having sex with the 26-year-old singer and said he made ”that bitch famous” but he now claims he never meant to upset Taylor with it.

In a series of tweets, he wrote: ”I did not diss Taylor Swift and I’ve never dissed her … First thing is I’m an artist and as an artist I will express how I feel with no censorship … 2nd thin I asked my wife for her blessings and she was cool with it …

”3rd thing I called Taylor and had a hour long convo with her about the line and she thought it was funny and gave her blessings … 4th Bitch is an endearing term in hip hop like the word n***a (sic)”

The 38-year-old rapper went on to claim it was actually Taylor’s idea to include that line in the song and blasted the public for ”demonising real artists”.

He continued: ”5th thing I’m not even gone take credit for the idea… it’s actually something Taylor came up with … She was having dinner with one of our friends who’s name I will keep out of this and she told him … I can’t be mad at Kanye because he made me famous! #FACTS …

”6th Stop trying to demonize real artist Stop trying to compromise art … That’s why music is so f***ing watered down right now. I miss that DMX feeling … 7th I miss that feeling so that’s what I want to help restore … 8th They want to control us with money and perception and mute the culture but you can see at Madison Square Garden that you can stop us … 9th It felt like a seen from The Warriors. ALL GODS ALL GODS ALL GODS in the buildin … not just the famous people there but the kids, the moms the dads, the families that came to share this moment with us (sic)”

However, in a previous statement, Taylor’s representative insists the phone call Kanye made was about the ‘Blank Space’ hitmaker promoting the track on her social media accounts.

They said: ”Kanye did not call for approval, but to ask Taylor to release his single ‘Famous’ on her Twitter account. She declined and cautioned him about releasing a song with such a strong misogynistic message. Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyric, ‘I made that bitch famous.”’

Categories
Potins

Jessie J ‘dumps boyfriend’

Jessie J has dumped her boyfriend.

The 27-year-old singer reportedly split up with R&B star Luke James, 31, who she has been dating for almost a year, amid fears he wasn’t as committed to the relationship as her and just wanted to raise his profile.

A source told The Sun newspaper: ”Jessie fell hard for Luke, but over the summer she started having doubts.”

Luke has already stopped following Jessie on Twitter and in the early hours of Thursday (15.10.15) morning, Jessie posted a motivational message on Twitter.

She wrote: ”You got this girl. You are stronger than you think x.”

Earlier this month, Luke posted a cryptic message on the site which read: ”Love is all you need ,when it’s real.”

Jessie and Luke’s split comes as a surprise to many as just a few months ago the ‘Bang Bang’ hitmaker was talking about her desire to start a family.

Asked what else she would like to do with her life, she said: ”Have a baby – not today! But that’s something that I hope that I’m blessed with in my life.”

And Jessie had not been shy about sharing her feelings for Luke on social media.

She previously posted pictures of them together on Instagram and wrote: ”It’s crazy how your priorities change as you get older and everything you watch in films that you never really understood start making complete sense. With age comes understanding.

”It’s one of life’s most exquisite feelings to find someone who loves you, like really loves you and accepts you and gets you!!! This man is a light in my life… @wolfjames is one of a kind.”