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TikTok introduces new way to refresh For You feed recommendations

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Popular short-video platform TikTok has announced a new feature that allows users to refresh their For You feed if they feel that their recommendations are no longer relevant.

“This new feature is part of TikTok’s ongoing efforts to ensure an enjoyable viewing experience for its users while also enabling self-expression,” a statement from the company said.

The For You feed is a feature that helps TikTok users discover a diversity of content, creators, communities, and products. However, there are times when people’s recommendations don’t feel relevant anymore, or provide enough variety.

To address this, TikTok is rolling out a way for users to refresh their For You feed recommendations, which allows them to view content as if they just signed up for TikTok. The recommendation system will then surface more content based on new interactions.

This feature adds to a number of content controls that TikTok users already have to shape their experience, including the ability to filter out videos that use specific hashtags or phrases from their For You feeds, and to skip future videos from a particular creator or that use a particular sound.

Enabling the refresh feature won’t override any settings users have already chosen to enable or impact accounts they’ve followed.

“TikTok is constantly working to provide an enjoyable viewing experience and takes multiple approaches to help safeguard its platform.”

“For instance, TikTok removes content that breaks its rules, makes inappropriate content ineligible for recommendation into For You feeds, minimizes recommendations of topics that could have a negative impact if viewed repeatedly, and filters out content with complex or mature themes from teen accounts.”

The statement mentioned that an inherent challenge of any recommendation system is ensuring the breadth of content surfaced to a viewer isn’t too narrow or too repetitive.

TikTok, according to the statement, is intently focused on this challenge and works to design a system that intersperses a variety of topics.

The system generally won’t serve two videos in a row made by the same creator or that use the same sound, and TikTok tries to avoid showing people something they’ve seen before.

TikTok understands that people express themselves in all sorts of ways on the platform — including when they’re feeling down or are going through a difficult life experience.

With this in mind, TikTok’s approach is to remove content that promotes or glorifies self-injury or other policies, while allowing recovery or educational content, with limits on how often such recovery or educational content is eligible for a recommendation, the statement said.

Over the last year, TikTok has implemented over 15 updates to improve its systems, along with expanding to support more languages. It’s trust and safety and product teams partner to drive this work, which is informed by academic literature and consultation with experts, such as the International Association for Suicide Prevention and the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital in the US. 

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Cybersecurity firm reports exposure of sensitive DeepSeek data on the internet.

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The New York-based cybersecurity firm Wiz has discovered a cache of sensitive data from the Chinese artificial intelligence business DeepSeek that was mistakenly exposed to the public internet.

In a blog post released on Wednesday, Wiz reported that examinations of DeepSeek’s infrastructure revealed that the company had inadvertently exposed over a million lines of unencrypted data. The materials were digital software keys and chat logs that seemingly documented prompts transmitted from consumers to the company’s complimentary AI assistant.

The chief technical officer of Wiz stated that DeepSeek promptly safeguarded the data following the notice from his organisation.

“It was removed in under an hour,” stated Ami Luttwak. “However, this was exceedingly easy to locate, leading us to believe we are not the sole discoverers.”

DeepSeek did not promptly respond to a request for comment.

DeepSeek’s rapid success after the introduction of its AI helper has exhilarated China and incited concern in America. The Chinese company’s evident capacity to rival OpenAI’s skills at a significantly reduced cost has raised concerns regarding the viability of the business models and profit margins of U.S. AI behemoths like Nvidia and Microsoft.

By Monday, it surpassed the U.S. competitor ChatGPT in downloads from Apple’s App Store, prompting a worldwide decline in technology stocks.

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WhatsApp launches bulk channel management functionality

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WhatsApp has initiated testing of a bulk channel administration feature on iOS for select beta users, enabling the simultaneous selection of many channels, hence enhancing the efficiency of managing following channels.

This essential update enables users to perform bulk activities, including muting many channels simultaneously, designating them as read, and altering notifications. If the chosen channels are muted, users will now have the option to activate notifications. Users can swiftly silence unmuted channels in one action.

Additionally, this feature enables users to unfollow many channels simultaneously, thereby optimizing the process of decluttering their channel list. This change is particularly beneficial for users that oversee numerous subscriptions, as reported by WABetaInfo.

Previously, users were required to manage each channel individually, rendering tasks such as muting or designating channels as read laborious and time-consuming.

The functionality provides enhanced flexibility and control over channel subscriptions, enabling users to efficiently manage notifications. The solution streamlines laborious operations for consumers who subscribe to numerous channels, hence enhancing their entire experience.

Accessibility
The bulk management feature is presently accessible exclusively to a limited number of beta testers who installed the latest WhatsApp beta for iOS using the TestFlight application. WhatsApp, owned by Meta, plans to expand the feature’s availability to a larger user base in the next weeks.

This update demonstrates WhatsApp’s dedication to enhancing user experience by offering a clear and efficient method for managing channels and notifications.

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Pakistani internet slowdown: ongoing submarine cable issue

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Even after two weeks, the global submarine cable AAA-1 problem that was discovered on January 2 near Qatar has not been fixed, causing sluggish internet connection in several Pakistani towns.

According to a representative for Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the issue has affected customers’ capacity to effectively access social media applications and browse the online. Even with initiatives to fix the problem, social networking sites still lag during busy times.

Internet traffic has been redirected via alternate channels to lessen the impact, and more capacity has been set up to stabilize the service.

The PTCL representative promised that “Internet service across the country is operating normally, and there will be no issues with web browsing,” noting that social media applications’ lag is common during

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