The DoJ's Green v Blue Message Bubble War, Facebook's Poke Makes a Comeback

Millennial: Pretend Adulting, Real Talk

• Welcome to #Millennial, the home of pretend adulting and REAL tech talk!
• With a heavy tech focus this week, we look at Meta's sneaky inclusion of a new content filter, the US Department of Justice's lawsuit against Apple, and the most horrifying revelation of all: the Facebook poke is having a resurgence.
• We're all fans of Apple products and have no plans to ditch our iPhones anytime soon, but we can definitely see how Apple makes switching to another smartphone brand difficult. The DOJ says this amounts to harming the competitive process and costing consumers more money.
• At this point, Smartphones are a public utility and probably do need some regulation - but to what extent?
• "We 'discovered' a revolutionary secure texting technology that no one has ever thought of integrating into iPhone (until we were legally forced)."
• Facebook "poke" usage is reportedly up by 13x after Meta increased the feature's prominence. Let your inner child cringe at the memories of flirt poking and creepy posting. Let. it. consume. you.
• What even IS poking? It's flirting, right?
• We visit our own poke pages and find some very stale pokes we left on read for 17 years. Sorry!
• This week's recommendations are a grab bag: 'Quiet On Set' (available on Max, Hulu, and Amazon Prime) (Pam), Balatro (Andrew), and the glow deep serum by Beauty of Joseon (Laura).

And in this week's installment of After Dark, available on Patreon and Apple Podcasts:

• Are you a millennial who still cuts up the plastic rings that hold six packs together to save the turtles? This installment on compulsory habits instilled during childhood is for you!
• Close the fridge, turn off the water, and cut the lights: YOU'RE WASTING SO MUCH ENERGY, IT'S JUST FLOOOWWING OUT!
• Did D.A.R.E actually work on us as a generation? Probably with most things except weed.

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