July 2026
The July 2026 release sharpens moderation accuracy and brings a cleaner, more reliable commenting experience across conversations. In Live Q&A, there are new hosting capabilities and shareable links for your live conversations. There is also a major wave of iOS and Android SDK updates and a broad set of reliability, accessibility, and visual fixes across polls and notifications.
Moderation
Improvements have been made to how content is reviewed, removed, and restricted.
- Fixed: Resolved a case where automated moderation rejections could be dropped, leaving a small amount of content under-moderated.
- Fixed: Moderators had briefly stopped seeing banned and ghost-banned indicators on some users. These now display correctly again.
- Improved: The “Political Hostility” moderation category is now labelled “Political Speech.”
- Improved: Posts and reply-to text in Live Q&A now show updated placeholder wording when an author has been banned or removed under a GDPR request.
Live Q&A & Events
New hosting capabilities and shareable links are available for your live conversations.
- New: Invite a guest to co-host a Live Q&A with host permissions. Guests can be invited via email with a link even if they don’t already have an account, and their access can be revoked once the event wraps up.
- New: Questions and answers can now be deep-linked and opened in a focused state, so a shared link takes readers directly to the right post.
- Fixed: Resolved an issue that could stop Live Q&A announcements from appearing.
- Improved: When staff, a moderator, or an admin removes a parent question, or it’s hidden through moderation, a ban, or a GDPR deletion, the entire thread beneath it is now hidden too.
- Improved: Live Q&A visual polish. The “Load more” button now spans the full width, spacing on the remove-answer confirmation was tightened, and post corners now match the answer container.
Polls & Engagement
Reliable, steadier engagement widgets are now available on your pages.
- Fixed: Resolved a case where the Engagement Starter could remain on its loading placeholder in a fresh container.
- Fixed: Corrected the hover appearance on poll options.
Comments & Conversations
Experience a cleaner, more reliable commenting experience across comments and conversations.
- Fixed: Resolved a condition where user avatars and display names could fail to load.
- Fixed: Owner/author and trusted-user badges had stopped appearing on some users’ posts after a behind-the-scenes change; these now show correctly again.
- Fixed: Resolved real-time behaviour where new comments could show as a phantom count or reset the list’s position.
- Fixed: Resolved a case where widgets could fail to appear on pages whose article metadata links were relative or malformed.
- Improved: There are now more accessible link previews that meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards.
- Fixed: The comments sort menu now focuses the currently selected option when opened, improving keyboard and screen-reader use.
- Improved: Text areas no longer grow without limit, and comment borders no longer cause a slight layout shift.
Notifications & Email
There is now improved notification linking and more accurate unread activity.
- New: Live Q&A notifications now take you straight to the specific post they’re about.
- Fixed: Resolved a case where the last unread mention or reply could be cleared unexpectedly.
Mobile SDKs
Ten iOS releases and nine Android releases in July brought shareable links to posts, clearer moderation feedback, more accurate notifications, and a smoother Live Q&A experience to both apps.
- New: Share a link straight to a post. Readers on iOS and Android can now copy a link to a specific comment, question, or answer, and anyone opening that link lands right on the post, highlighted and ready to read.
- New: Jump from a profile to the story. Tapping a comment in someone’s profile now takes you to the article it was posted on, and comment counts update the moment you post instead of waiting for a refresh.
- New: Clearer moderation feedback. When someone’s post is removed for a violation, they now see a clear notice explaining its status. Moderation decisions apply across web and apps in real time, people can remove their own flagged posts, and trending conversations gain a dedicated advertising placement.
- New: Live Q&A built for modern app toolkits. On iOS, Live Q&A can now be dropped into apps built with Apple’s SwiftUI toolkit, with automatic light and dark theming, and pop-ups and menus in embedded Live Q&A now display full-screen as expected.
- Improved: Your post is right where you can see it. After you post in a Live Q&A, the list scrolls to your new post automatically, and your publication’s custom styling and theming stay applied throughout.
- Improved: Removed content is handled more gracefully. Deleted, hidden, and moderated posts across Live Q&A and comments now display with clear placeholder labels like “reply deactivated” and “Content deactivated,” while the original remains visible to the author and your moderators.
- Improved: A smoother, more accessible Live Q&A. Removing a question or answer now asks for confirmation first, moderators can unmute a previously muted user, hosts can be added or swapped mid-event on Android, and the whole experience gained a round of screen-reader accessibility improvements.
- Fixed: Notifications you can trust. Removed replies no longer linger in the notification list or inflate the unread badge; grouped notifications are marked read in full, and the unread badge stays accurate.