Technologies

Instagram CEO testifies before Congress for the first time: 5 takeaways

US lawmakers expressed their distrust in the company even as the executive tried to assure them the company was committed to keeping young users safe.

Near the end of a more than two-hour congressional hearing, Sen. Marsha Blackburn gave Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri a chance to speak directly to parents whose children have been harmed by the platform.

«We’re not talking to people that have ever had any kind of response from Instagram and you have broken these children’s lives and you have broken these parents’ hearts,» Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, told Mosseri on Wednesday.

«To any parent who’s lost a child or even had a child hurt themselves, I can’t begin to imagine what that would be like for one of my three boys. As the head of Instagram, it’s my responsibility to do all I can to keep people safe. I’ve been committed to that for years. I’m going to continue to do so,» Mosseri responded.

US lawmakers weren’t satisfied with Mosseri’s reply. The executive was testifying during a Senate hearing, titled «Protecting Kids Online: Instagram and Reforms for Young Users,» that focused on what Instagram, which is owned by Meta, knows about the impact of its service on young people. Mosseri’s testimony comes at an uncomfortable moment for Instagram and Facebook, which rebranded itself as Meta. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager turned whistleblower, leaked a trove of internal research to Congress and the US Securities and Exchange Commission before leaving the company in May.

Lawmakers still don’t trust Instagram to self-regulate

Lawmakers kicked off the hearing by expressing their frustration that not much has changed to safeguard children online. In September, Antigone Davis, who runs Facebook’s global safety operations, appeared before the same subcommittee. The Senate panel also held a hearing in October about online child safety with executives from Snapchat, TikTok and Google-owned YouTube.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said his office created a fake Instagram account on a Monday for a teenager and the user was still shown recommendations for eating disorder content. The example was one of several anecdotes lawmakers brought up to illustrate how enforcement of Instagram’s rules falls short.

«The resounding bipartisan message from this committee is legislation is coming. We can’t rely on trust anymore. We can’t rely on self policing. It’s what parents and our children are demanding,» he said.

Ahead of the hearing, Instagram also announced new tools, including a feature that reminds people to take a break from the platform, to demonstrate that the company is serious about the mental health of its users.

Blumenthal said the new safety tools Instagram released «fall way short of what we need» — and should have been released earlier.

Instagram pushes for the creation of an industry body

Mosseri told US lawmakers that keeping young people safe online is «not just about one company.» One idea he pushed during the hearing is the creation of an industry body to determine best practices for protecting young people online such as how to verify a user’s age and to build parental controls.

Citing a survey from Forrester, Mosseri also noted it appears that more teens are using short-form video app TikTok and Google-owned YouTube more than Instagram.

Companies like Instagram «should have to adhere to these standards» to earn protections under Section 230, a federal law that shields online platforms from liability for user-generated content, he said.

Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and other lawmakers didn’t appear to support that idea.

«Your idea of regulation is an industry group creating standards that your company follows. That’s self regulation, that status quo and that just won’t cut it,» Markey said.

Instagram Kids isn’t permanently off the table

In September, Instagram said it was pausing the development of a version of the photo-sharing app for children under 13-years-old known as Instagram Kids. Instagram says the project is meant to give parents more control over the social media usage of kids between the ages of 10 to 12 years old who may already be on the app.

But the project raised concerns from child advocacy groups who say kids aren’t developmentally equipped to deal with the social comparison and mental health risks that come with being on Instagram.

During the hearing, Blumenthal asked if Mosseri would commit to permanently pause Instagram Kids. Mosseri said what he could commit to is that no child between the ages of 10 to 12 if the company ever managed to build Instagram Kids would have access to the «without their explicit parental consent.»

Teen accounts created on the web don’t default to private

Instagram said in July that users under the age of 16, or 18 in some countries, will have their accounts set to private by default.

Blackburn, though, pointed out her staff created a fake Instagram account for a 15-year-old girl but it defaulted as public not private.

«While Instagram is touting all these safety measures, they aren’t even making sure the safety measures are in effect,» she said.

Mosseri said accounts for teenagers created on a mobile device do default to private but that’s not the case when accounts are created on the web.

«We will correct that quickly,» he said.

Instagram could bring back the chronological feed next year

Mosseri said during the hearing he thinks users should have more control over their experience on Instagram, including the ability to view their feed chronologically. The company got rid of the chronological feed in 2016 and shows posts that users are more likely to be interested in based on activity such as what users «liked.»

Instagram is working on a way to pick the people users want to see at the top of their feed and a chronological version of Instagram.

«I wish I had a specific month to tell you right now, but right now we’re targeting the first quarter of next year,» Mosseri said.

Technologies

Google Upgrades Maps Features With More Gemini and Faster Photo Uploads

Google Maps strengthens its crowdsourcing efforts for its 500 million contributors.

Google announced three new features for Maps on Tuesday that should streamline sharing your experiences. Despite being a strong maps application itself, Google relies on everyday users to contribute their reviews, photos and videos so others doing research can make more informed decisions about places they plan to visit. With the new updates to Google Maps, you can access your photos faster to contribute to information about places you’ve been. You can also choose to have Google’s AI model, Gemini, caption your photos and more quickly check the contributions you’ve made in the past.

New photo and video recommendations

It’s not hard to share photos or videos for a location on Google Maps, but the app will now offer photo and video suggestions from your saved images — if you give it permission to do so. The new feature will appear on the Contribute tab at the bottom of the maps app. When scrolling through the view, you’ll see photo and video recommendations or the option to upload other photos.

How the specific photo and video recommendations are determined isn’t clear, but the new feature will likely use a photo’s geolocation if that setting is enabled in your camera’s settings.

A Google representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

This feature is now available globally on Android and will expand to iOS in the coming months.

Gemini will auto-caption your photos

Google’s giving your photos some Gemini power by automatically analyzing and captioning them once you’ve selected them to share. This could be helpful in situations where you have selected several photos you don’t care to caption.

If you don’t like what Gemini comes up with, you can edit or remove the caption completely before publishing your photos to Maps.

Gemini captions are available in English on iOS and will expand to other languages globally and Android in the future.

New ways to view your contributions

You can now show off your prior contributions to Google’s Local Guide community program.

When you contribute, you gain points, and the more you contribute, the more you can level up as a Local Guide. All your points and badges are now prominently displayed on your profile. Google’s also adding gold profiles for high-level contributors, so you know you’re reading reviews from experienced users.

The new contributor updates are rolling out now on Android, iOS and desktop.

Technologies

This New Health-Tracking Pet Collar Is Like a Smartwatch for Dogs and Cats

Tractive announces two new smart collars armed with GPS tracking, AI-powered health monitoring and other tech tools.

Our pets can’t speak up and tell us how they’re feeling, or why and where they are hiding. Tractive, an Austria- and Seattle-based tech company that creates GPS tracking devices for pets, announced on Wednesday two new smart collars that, according to the press release, «will redefine pet care for millions of families.»

Is your pet stressed, breathing unusually or scratching too much? Much like the basic health-tracking features you can find on a smartwatch, the collars — the Cat 6 Mini ($79) and Dog 6 XL ($89) — are designed to track this behavior and communicate the issues to help maintain your dog or cat’s quality of life.

«Pets can’t tell us when something is wrong, but their bodies can,» Michael Hurnaus, CEO and founder of Tractive, said in a statement. «With cutting-edge sensors on every tracker, learnings from millions of pets and AI-powered insights, we’re turning one of the world’s largest pet data platforms into clear, simple information so pet parents can act sooner and care even better.»

When it comes to tracking collars, dogs have usually been the target pet audience for such devices. Tractive’s new Cat 6 Mini collar aims to provide the same service for your feline friend. You can use it to monitor your cat’s respiratory rate and resting heart rate and identify any health concerns early. It’s expected to ship on May 31.

The Dog 6 XL collar, an upgrade from the company’s previous dog wearable, is designed for dogs weighing over 55 pounds. It’s more durable for outdoor use and offers up to four weeks of battery life between charges. It comes equipped with a scratch-monitoring system that flags unusual scratching behavior caused by allergies, skin irritants and other stressors.

You can also use the app to access your pet’s travels and mark safe zones regarding walks, entries and exits. An AI-powered health hub displays your pet’s overall health stats and also acts as a GPS tracker in case your dog or cat goes missing.

How would a veterinarian interact with the data collected on the device?

A Tractive representative told CNET, «In our experience, veterinarians are most interested in baseline resting heart and respiratory rate, so it’s less about monitoring these vitals in real time during recovery from anesthesia/acute care and more about understanding if the baseline is changing day to day to identify the onset of new conditions or manage existing ones.»

Even though the collars use a SIM card and require a strong cellular connection to work properly, they can capture activity, sleep and health data while offline. However, without connectivity, the devices «ultimately will not provide any utility,» the representative confirmed.

You’ll need to download the accompanying app and select a separate subscription plan at an added cost. The one-year plan costs $120, the two-year plan costs $168, and the five-year plan costs $300.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for April 9 #767

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for April 9, No. 767.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle could be tough, unless you’re an artist. Even then, some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: In the paint.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Hand me a brush.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

COME, PATS, SPAT, SLOE, MEAN, LEAN, MANE, RATE, PEER, LATE, RATER

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

FRESCO, PASTEL, ENAMEL, ACRYLIC, TEMPERA, WATERCOLOR

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is MEDIUM, the art term! To find it, start with the M that’s four letters down on the far-left vertical row, and travel straight across.