Twitter has deleted an estimated 10,000 automated accounts that were posting messages and discouraging people from taking part in US mid-term elections. Most of the accounts were posing as Democrats, the social media company said. They were taken down in late September and early October. Twitter was alerted to the accounts by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Twitter trusts that the system of now-deleted accounts was kept running from the US.

Private messages from hacked Facebook accounts for sale

Hackers seem to have bargained and published private messages from at least 81,000 Facebook users’ accounts. The perpetrators had details from a total of 120 million accounts, which they were attempting to sell, although there are reasons to be sceptical about that figure. Facebook has mentioned that their security had not been imperilled, the data had probably been obtained through malicious browser extensions. Facebook added that it had taken steps to prevent further accounts being affected. The hackers offered to sell access for 10 cents, per account. However, their advert has since been taken offline.

Instagram rolls out new option

Instagram has added a new option to share IGTV content via Stories. IGTV hasn't taken off the way Instagram would have hoped, but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that they have a plan to grow the option. That plan likely involves utilising Facebook’s massive scale, with options like this, enabling easier sharing of IGTV content, and thus, organic promotion through its existing channels. It's hard to see exactly where IGTV fits. It's not a lean-back video platform like YouTube or Facebook Watch, and it's more than the short clips’ feature that Instagram has. But there is a demand for a middle ground offering between these two. Right now, this feature has been rolled out as a test option. There is still no conformity to make this feature a permanent option for Instagram.