As David Carr recently reported, Facebook is hoping to host publishers’ pages on its own serves so they would load more quickly for mobile users. Ryan Chittum, for one, thinks publishers would be wise to avoid such a scenario. “This is a deal that publishers, who are already too dependent on the social network, should turn down flat,” the veteran newsman writes in Columbia Journalism Review. “It’s hard to do a better job of servicing readers when you don’t know how to service them, much less when your readers don’t have control over their experience.” 

Show’s over, as they say. Yes, live streaming platform Twitch is now insisting that users from dress "appropriately." As Twitch’s newly revised Rules of Conduct section states: “Wearing no clothing or sexually suggestive clothing -- including lingerie, swimsuits, pasties, and undergarments -- is prohibited, as well as any full nude torsos, which applies to both male and female broadcasters.” Asks PCGamer: “Is this tightening of the terms merely an inevitable outcome of Twitch’s recent acquisition by mega-conglomerate Amazon?” 

Facebook is trying to help publishers get more traction on users’ News Feeds, particularly on mobile devices. “One possibility [is] for publishers to simply send pages to Facebook that would live inside the social network’s mobile app and be hosted by its servers,” David Carr reports in The New York Times. “That way, they would load quickly with ads that Facebook sells.” Yet, “that kind of wholesale transfer of content sends a cold, dark chill down the collective spine of publishers.” 

How do social networks protect users and advertisers from the ugly side of user-generated content? Do they have some magic algorithm? Hardly. Rather, as Wired reports, they employ a “massive labor force” to handle “content moderation,” i.e., the removal of offensive material. The stakes couldn’t be higher. “Companies like Facebook and Twitter rely on an army of workers employed to soak up the worst of humanity in order to protect the rest of us … and there are legions of them.” One expert puts the number at “well over 100,000.” 

At least in the UK, social media use is contributing to a rise on defamation cases. Citing new research from Thomson Reuters, The Guardian reports that a 23% rise in the number of reported cases over the past year -- up from 70 to 86. “In the last year alone the number of cases relating to new media, such as internet-only news services, social media, text messages and online review sites, has more than quadrupled,” The Guardian writes.

Google is taking some features from Songza -- the music-discovery service it bought earlier this year -- and adding them to its Google Play Music subscription service. “Google Play Music users now will be prompted to pick a radio station based on mood, activity or time of day -- a ‘concierge’ music feature that anticipates what they’re doing at any given time,” Variety reports. “The feature is designed to compete with other streaming-music services like Spotify, Pandora and Apple’s iTunes Radio.”

Adding a programming element to the mix, users of Vine’s iOS app can now follow channels from “Animals” to “Art” to “Comedy.” Meanwhile, with iOS 8 share extension support, users are also now able post videos directly from their Camera Rolls, and other third-party video apps. “With the new share extension, you can post Vines from other video recording and editing apps without having to open the Vine app,” The Next Web reports.

Gadget-aggregation site Product Hunt is starting to look a lot like a social network, TechCrunch reports. “New profiles offer a variety of information about the poster, including a bio, Twitter handle, and tabs for products they’ve upvoted, submitted, made themselves and more,” it writes of the Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup. “The change will likely encourage more active participation from community members who may have otherwise lurked on the site.”

A unique corporate benefit even by Silicon Valley’s standards, Apple and Facebook are both paying for employees to freeze their eggs. “Facebook recently began covering egg freezing, and Apple will start in January,” NBC News reports. “The firms appear to be the first major employers to offer this coverage for non-medical reasons.” According to egg-freezing advocate Brigitte Adams: “Having a high-powered career and children is still a very hard thing to do.” 

Brainly -- a Polish start-up that built a “social learning network” for students -- has raised a $9 million to accelerate its US expansion. “Brainly now spans 35 countries throughout Europe, South America, and Asia, and is doing 30 million visitors per month, with a total of 8 million questions answered,” TechCrunch reports. Catching the attention of U.S. venture capitalists, this latest round was led by General Catalyst Partners.