Instagram is looking to channel the anger of its users by introducing a new feature that allows them to report various problems with the app by shaking their phones.
“Have you ever used Instagram and it wasn’t working like it was supposed to? It was just really getting you… really just pissing you off?” Instagram’s head Adam Mosseri asked his followers in a clip uploaded to Twitter on Wednesday.
Well, precisely for infuriating situations like that, the platform has developed a feature it’s calling “rage shake,” he announced.
Shaking your phone will, from now on, cause a special form to pop up on screen, allowing you to instantly report issues such as photos not uploading or audio not playing.
The form is also the perfect place to let out “all the emotions and feels you’ve got going on,” Mosseri insisted, assuring Instagrammers that these reports would be promptly dealt with.
Thanks to their feedback, Instagram will be able to optimize its bug-fixing process, he said. The option, which he described as a “hidden gem,” is so far available only in the US, on both iOS and Android.
The Instagram boss gently shook his own cellphone in the clip to demonstrate the feature in action. However, it’s likely upset users may well end up rage-shaking with a good deal more passion, which could increase the risk of a gadget being damaged, or their owner or even a passerby being struck should the phone fly out of their hand.
Mosseri also didn’t advise the public what to do with their rage over media revelations about alleged shady practices by Instagram and the platform’s owner, Facebook.
Among the trove of papers recently leaked by former Facebook employee Frances Haugen was an internal study from 2020 reporting that Instagram was causing many of its young users, particularly teen girls, to suffer mental health issues and suicidal thoughts. However, the platform kept operating in the same manner despite this finding, with changes being promised only after the study made headlines this September.
France shouldn’t remain silent on Julian Assange, leftist leader Jean-Luc Melenchon has said, after the imprisoned WikiLeaks co-founder’s father suggested that Paris could offer asylum to his son.
The life of Assange – who is being held in solitary confinement at London’s Belmarsh maximum security prison while a British court considers an extradition request by the US – is under threat, Melenchon wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
“For years, we’ve been calling for France to accept him,” the head of the leftist La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party said, insisting that “France shouldn’t remain silent.”
The statement by Melenchon, who won 19.6% of the ballot in the first round of the French presidential election in 2017, follows a visit by Assange’s father, John Shipton, to the Whistleblower Meeting in Paris on Monday.
During the event, Shipton told Sputnik news agency that it would be “an honorable thing” for the French government to grant his son asylum.
“I feel that France hasn’t attacked Julian over the last 12 years and consequently France is free to act in return for the information that WikiLeaks and Julian brought to France,” he said, referring to the website’s revelations of the US intelligence agencies spying on French presidents and hacking into local banks.
🔴 John #Shipton : «La France n’a pas attaqué #Julian pendant les dernières années difficiles, donc la France est libre d’agir en échange des informations que #WikiLeaks et Julian ont apportées à la France. Ce serait honorable pour la #France d’offrir [l’asile] à Julian #Assange» pic.twitter.com/ceZ7qTARua
Several dozen French lawmakers have also recently called upon Paris to take Assange in, with the Australian-born publisher’s legal team saying last year that their client was hoping to find asylum on French soil.
Assange could face up to 175 years behind bars if he’s extradited to the US, where he’s wanted on espionage charges over the release by WikiLeaks of classified documents on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and others.
He was placed in Belmarsh in April 2019 over breach of bail, after being holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years.
The publisher had been fleeing an arrest warrant issued over sexual assault allegations which he has always denied, and which failed to result in any actual charges due to lack of evidence.
Assange’s supporters insist that he has actually been persecuted over his legitimate journalistic activities and revealing the truth to the public.
The UK High Court is expected to rule on the appeal by the US against a lower court decision to bar the WikiLeaks co-founder’s extradition to America due to the 50-year-old’s poor health condition and risk of suicide.
Assange’s team will then be able to challenge the ruling in the Supreme Court if it’s not favorable.
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French President Emmanuel Macron has dismissed the possibility of locking down unvaccinated people in France, claiming the move would not be necessary because of the success of the Covid-19 ‘health pass’.
Speaking to La Voix du Nord newspaper in an interview published on Thursday, Macron said there was no need for France to follow Austria’s lead by locking down its unvaccinated citizens.
“Those countries locking down the non-vaccinated are those which have not put in place the [health] pass. Therefore, this step is not necessary in France,” Macron claimed.
The president’s health pass, which was the target of much criticism when it was introduced, requires people to provide proof of vaccination or a recent negative test before undertaking certain normal activities.
The ‘Pass Sanitaire’ is required if citizens wish to go to restaurants, cafes, cultural venues, or cinemas. It’s also required to take long-distance trains, among other activities.
Austria has led the way by starting a partial lockdown of the unvaccinated amid a surge in Covid-19 cases. The Czech Republic will follow suit next week, while Germany decided on Thursday to introduce similar measures in areas where Covid incident rates exceed the threshold.
Earlier in November, Macron made the continued use of the Covid health pass for over 65s dependent on getting a booster jab.
Some 20,366 new infections were registered in the last 24-hour recording period. Case numbers have risen steeply in recent weeks.
