Skip to main content

Facebook zooms in on visual content to help celebrate World Photo Day

World Photo Day
citalliance / 123RF
Today, August 19, marks World Photo Day, an event designed to help encourage photographs that inspire positive changes. To celebrate, Facebook is sharing data on all the ways photos have impacted the social media platform.

During the past year, New Year’s Eve was the date that brought the most photos to both Facebook and Messenger. So who’s sharing all those photos? According to Facebook, users from the U.S. are the most photo-happy, followed by Thailand, Egypt, India, Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, and Indonesia. Looking at only photos shared on Messenger, Brazil shares the most, followed by Algeria, Egypt, Vietnam, India, Mexico, the U.S., Thailand, Philippines, and Poland.

Recommended Videos

Now that Facebook’s mobile app has a built-in camera, the platform also collects data on what effects are used the most. The top augmented reality mask is the black fedora with sunglasses, while the tunnel zoom was the most-used style effect. For frames? Tulip took the title as the most-used option.

Inside Messenger, the most popular AR mask was the ever-stylish cat-on-top-of-head. Daisies took top effect, while the hearts have it for photo frames.

Facebook has recently started focusing on visual content, including both photo and video, through several updates to the app over the past year. In April, the social media platform added augmented reality camera capabilities in-app with just a quick swipe. The feature began as a tool for users to share photos featuring filters and effects, and recently expanded to include GIFs, Live, and direct sharing to Stories, another visual content option that launched earlier this year.

The traditional Facebook photo album also got a refresh this summer, gaining the ability to add text, locations and videos into the album along with the usual photos. Users can also choose which albums to feature on their profile.

As part of World Photo Day, Facebook is encouraging users to make the most of those shareable shots. The platform suggests exploring the latest new features, including Stories, Facebook Camera and the updated albums. Facebook is also encouraging World Photo Day fans to choose images to feature on their Facebook profile, as well as explore 360 photography.

Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened
An Instagram profile on an iPhone.

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.

Read more
Here’s how to delete your YouTube account on any device
How to delete your YouTube account

Wanting to get out of the YouTube business? If you want to delete your YouTube account, all you need to do is go to your YouTube Studio page, go to the Advanced Settings, and follow the section that will guide you to permanently delete your account. If you need help with these steps, or want to do so on a platform that isn't your computer, you can follow the steps below.

Note that the following steps will delete your YouTube channel, not your associated Google account.

Read more
How to download Instagram photos for free
Instagram app running on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5.

Instagram is amazing, and many of us use it as a record of our lives — uploading the best bits of our trips, adventures, and notable moments. But sometimes you can lose the original files of those moments, leaving the Instagram copy as the only available one . While you may be happy to leave it up there, it's a lot more convenient to have another version of it downloaded onto your phone or computer. While downloading directly from Instagram can be tricky, there are ways around it. Here are a few easy ways to download Instagram photos.

Read more