Apple retail employees at Apple’s flagship store are looking to unionize, Instagram is serving pro-eating disorder content, and WhatsApp’s big feature update is stirring mixed feelings.
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That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Monday, April 18, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Apple employees at the Grand Central Terminal retail store are now collecting signatures to form a union. The store, located close to one of the busiest commuter hubs in Manhattan, is Apple’s flagship location. The workers looking to unionize call themselves the Fruit Stand Workers United, a satire play on the Apple logo. The union organizers told the Washington Post that Apple has spent months telling them that a union is a bad idea. Through unionizing, Apple employees seek pay rates that keep up with the rampant inflation. If the attempt is successful, the flagship store would be the first Apple store to unionize.
Source: Washington Post
A new report by the children’s advocacy group Fairplay has revealed that Instagram is serving pro-eating disorder content to its users, including children. The report alleged that children as young as nine years old are being served content that promotes unhealthy, restrictive diets. This type of content promotes harmful weight loss and induces body image issues in teens and young adults. The new finding adds to the laundry list of damaging effects social media has on mental health. And while new laws are being created to hold tech companies accountable for children’s well-being, the damage has already been done to much of the current generation.
Source: Global News
WhatsApp is getting a big overhaul with a ton of new features, including a new Community chat. A WhatsApp Community chat greatly expands the sizes of chats and allows a single admin to manage multiple sub-channels, similar to Slack and Microsoft Teams. Along with Community, WhatsApp will also receive voice messages, stories, and payment functions. Many users are unhappy with these additions, however, as WhatsApp has been a communication tool free of cluttering features. Users were worried that adding extra bells and whistles would just turn it into Messenger, another chat service Meta owns.
Source: Daily Star
Now for something a bit different. A crypto investor lost a fortune when he tried to sell the NFT of the first tweet sent by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Sina Estavi bought the NFT for $2.9 million in 2021 hoping to flip it for $48 million. Contrary to his expectations, the NFT only saw a top bid of $6,800. With such a low bid, Estavi is now deciding whether he should sell the token at all. According to The Guardian, Estavi compared the tweet to the Mona Lisa in terms of value.
Source: The Guardian
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, catch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. 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.
