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Facebook Extends its Shops Feature to WhatsApp and Marketplace
23 Jun, 2021 / 08:57 am / Reeny Joseph

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Facebook Inc is expanding its "Shops" feature to its messaging app WhatsApp in several countries and to Facebook Marketplace in the United States, the company said as it announced changes to its commerce tools, APA reports quoting Reuters.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said it would also introduce personalized ads in its Shops service based on users' shopping behaviour. The Social media giant, which launched Shops last year as a way for people to find and buy products on Facebook and Instagram as part of its push into ecommerce, said it has more than 300 million monthly Shops visitors and about 1.2 million monthly active Shops.

Zuckerberg said during Facebook's last earnings release that e-commerce is one of the company's three key areas of focus, along with working on augmented and virtual reality and helping content creators earn money on Facebook's platforms.

The company said it would in the coming months test an artificial intelligence tool called 'visual search' so users shopping on its photo-sharing site Instagram can click on items and find similar products in Shops. Users will be able to use this search from content on the app or on photos on their own camera rolls, Zuckerberg said.

Facebook is also working on ways using augmented reality that shoppers can try on items, including from ads, Zuckerberg said, speaking in a live audio room on Facebook.

Facebook had already said in a blog post that it will update its community standards to be clearer about how it handles satirical content. “We’ll add information to the Community Standards that makes it clear where we consider satire as part of our assessment of context-specific decisions,” according to the post. “This change will allow teams to consider satire when assessing potential Hate Speech violations.”

The Oversight Board had earlier pointed out in its recommendation that while Facebook has said it will make exceptions for satire, it doesn’t specify how or what qualifies as satire in its guidelines. Facebook said in its post that in addition to making its guidelines around satire clearer, it would “initiate a review of identical content with parallel context,” and may take further action.