Tag Archives: social media

The Hill reports: Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, officially launched its paid “verified” subscription service for its social media platforms in the United States on Friday, similar to Twitter’s own service. Elon Musk created a paid subscription service for Twitter users in October. He tweaked the service a few times, but the current iteration of Twitter Blue …

Rolling Stone reports: Fighting to survive in the crowded ecosystem of far-right social media companies, the pro-Trump platform Gettr has in recent weeks held high-level deliberations on the oddest of business pivots: remaking the site to add an online clearinghouse for human sperm. But it’s not just any sperm. The proposal would see the company expand to include a marketplace …

NBC News reports: The Biden administration is threatening a potential ban on TikTok in the United States if the video sharing app’s Chinese owners refuse to sell their stakes in it, a source close to the company told NBC News on Thursday. The source, however, cautioned that the company did not see the administration’s move as a final order. Talks …

NewsNation reports: Elon Musk’s reduced Twitter safety oversight has allowed Mexican cartel members to flaunt their lifestyles online, post violent content and recruit new members, according to a new study. Several previously banned accounts of known cartel members are again open and active on Musk’s Twitter, according to a report published last week by the Alliance to Counter Crime Online …

Reuters reports: Meta Platforms Inc is exploring plans to launch a new social media app in its bid to displace Twitter as the world’s “digital town square”. Meta’s app will be based on a decentralized framework like Mastodon, a Twitter-like service that was launched in 2016 and now has about 2 million monthly active users. “We’re exploring a standalone decentralized …

Reuters reports: The European Union told Elon Musk to hire more human moderators and fact-checkers to review posts on Twitter, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing four people familiar with talks between Musk, Twitter executives and regulators in Brussels. The demand complicates Musk’s efforts to reorganize the loss-making business he acquired for $44 billion in October. He has slashed …

The Associated Press reports: Over the past 11 months, someone created thousands of fake, automated Twitter accounts — perhaps hundreds of thousands of them — to offer a stream of praise for Donald Trump. Besides posting adoring words about the former president, the fake accounts ridiculed Trump’s critics from both parties and attacked Nikki Haley. When it came to Ron …

CNN reports: Twitter’s website was inaccessible for many users on Monday while others reported issues seeing photos and clicking through links in the app, marking one of the most wide-ranging service disruptions to date under new owner Elon Musk. Some users who attempted to load Twitter.com or TweetDeck, a service that allows users to organize their Twitter feed into lists, …

The BBC reports: Twitter insiders have told the BBC that the company is no longer able to protect users from trolling, state-co-ordinated disinformation and child sexual exploitation, following lay-offs and changes under owner Elon Musk. Exclusive academic data plus testimony from Twitter users backs up their allegations, suggesting hate is thriving under Mr Musk’s leadership, with trolls emboldened, harassment intensifying …

Reuters reports: Twitter Inc reported a drop of about 40% year-over-year in both revenue and adjusted earnings for the month of December, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday citing people familiar with the matter. The report comes after several advertisers slashed their spending on the social-media platform after Elon Musk took charge of the company on Oct. 27, resulting …

The Verge reports: TikTok has announced a batch of new features intended to reduce screen time and improve the well-being of its younger users. In the coming weeks, a daily screen time limit of 60 minutes will be automatically applied to every TikTok user under 18 years old. Teens that hit this limit will be asked to enter a passcode …

The Verge reports: Twitter announced that it has “officially launched” a new Violent Speech policy that outlines its “zero-tolerance approach towards Violent Speech.” Its content is similar to Twitter’s previous violent threats policy, though it manages to be both more specific and more vague. Both policies ban you from threatening or glorifying violence in most scenarios (each version has carve-outs …

Pro Publica reports: Politicians haven’t stopped deleting some of their most cringeworthy tweets, but Politwoops, our project that has tracked and archived more than half a million deleted tweets from candidates and elected officials since 2012, is no longer able to track them. Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, the platform has disabled the function we used to track deletions …

The New York Times reports: Twitter laid off at least 200 of its employees on Saturday night, three people familiar with the matter said, or about 10 percent of the roughly 2,000 who were still working for the company. Elon Musk has steadily pared back its work force from about 7,500 employees as he has sought to reduce costs. The …

Reuters reports: Twitter said on Friday it will allow only paid subscribers to use text messages as a two-factor authentication (2FA) method to secure their accounts. After March 20, “only Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to use text messages as their two-factor authentication method,” the company tweeted. Two-factor authentication, meant to make accounts more secure, requires an account holder …

The Street reports: If there’s one thing Tesla CEO Elon Musk is known for, it’s jumping into the comments on Twitter specially when someone is criticizing him. In his latest social media appearance, Musk popped up after The Washington Post shared a story that insinuates that Musk’s changes to Twitter after his purchase of the social media platform in October …

Axios reports: Twitter on Wednesday updated its advertising policies to allow cannabis ads to run on its service in states where cannabis is legal, in accordance with federal guidelines. The policy represents the biggest step forward that any major tech company has made toward allowing cannabis advertising where it’s legal in the U.S. Twitter will only accept cannabis advertisers that …

Platformer reports: Biden’s tweet, in which he said he would be supporting his wife in rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles, generated nearly 29 million impressions. Musk, who also tweeted his support for the Eagles, generated a little more than 9.1 million impressions before deleting the tweet in apparent frustration. In the wake of those losses — the Eagles to the …

The Independent reports: Sitting together and chatting shortly after Rihanna’s halftime show were media mogul Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Fox empire – this year’s broadcaster of the Super Bowl – and Elon Musk, owner of Twitter, SpaceX and Tesla. As the fans waited for play to restart and the footage was broadcast, commentator Kevin Burkhardt – a Fox employee …

Platformer reports: On Tuesday, Musk gathered a group of engineers and advisors into a room at Twitter’s headquarters looking for answers. Why are his engagement numbers tanking? “This is ridiculous,” he said, according to multiple sources. “I have more than 100 million followers, and I’m only getting tens of thousands of impressions.” One of the company’s two remaining principal engineers …