The Daily Crunch 11/15/16

Twitter tries to make itself a better place, while Facebook and Google scramble to quash news scams. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for November 15, 2016. And if you've been holding off on that book upgrade purchase, Apple has a surprise for you.

1. Twitter takes more steps to stop harassment

Twitter is trying to clean up its act, and a new feature allows users to mute notifications of tweets that include certain words. So you can silence the endless haranguing of stuff like "cuck" and "SJW" for instance, if you happen to have run afoul of some of the more vitriolic and aggressive groups on the old bird-based social network.

The new tools come with updates to its abuse policy which finally allow bystanders to report abuse. Before you actually had to be the victim or target before you could actually report, which is not really the right way to go about it.

2. Google and Facebook ban fake news sites from profiting directly

Google and Facebook are trying to deal with criticism that they're promoting fake news over factual content. They've both said they're banning news sites from using their own ad networks, for instance. This isn't necessarily going to cut the issue out, however – there are other ways to gain from spreading this stuff, and these publishers aren't necessarily dependent on first-party ad networks anyway.

3. Tinder opens up gender identity options

Tinder has finally made it possible for users to identify themselves with gender identities beyond the basic male and female options it has offered since it started. The company first said it intended to do this three years ago, though, so what took so long? CEO Sean Rad said that "it's not a race" when speaking with TC's Megan Rose Dickey, and said instead they were looking to get the "complex issue" right. In the end they made it possible for a user to specify any gender identity they want, and be included in search results for other users targeting either men, women or both, though so they basically just opened it up as much as possible – which probably shouldn't have required three years to figure out but hey.

4. Microsoft's on board for Musk's AI research

Microsoft has signed up for OpenAI, the Elon Musk-backed non-profit research group looking to help with the development of AI in a way that leaves us as humans advantaged but not overtaken by robot overlords. It's probably a good thing that tech co's are collaborating on this.

5. Pokemon is back and better than ever

The latest Pokemon game brings the biggest changes the franchise has seen in years, if not ever. It's good stuff though, and makes for better play without the most annoying parts of previous games.

6. WhatsApp is now offering video calling for all

It's kind of one of those things you just assume the platform already has, but WhatsApp actually didn't offer video calling for everyone until today. Other messaging apps have had the feature for a while now, so it's basically table stakes, but it's still nice to see it arrive.

7. Apple made a book

Apple has a new coffee table book. Okay.