Social Media

Variety reports: The National Music Publishers Assn., acting on behalf of 17 major music publishers, is filing a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against Twitter for its failure to license and pay for the music widely available on its platform. The complaint seeks more than $250 million in damages for hundreds of thousands of noticed infringements of approximately 1,700 works. “Twitter …

The New York Times reports: Elon Musk recently said Twitter’s advertising business was on the upswing. “Almost all advertisers have come back,” he asserted, adding that the social media company could soon become profitable. But Twitter’s U.S. advertising revenue for the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May was $88 million, down 59 percent from a …

The Washington Post reports: Instagram on Sunday lifted its suspension against the account of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an outspoken anti-vaccine activist and nephew of the late president John F. Kennedy, who is running for president as a long shot Democratic challenger to President Biden. The platform removed Kennedy’s account in 2021 for “repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus …

Axios reports: In a reversal of its election integrity policy, YouTube will leave up content that says fraud, errors or glitches occurred in the 2020 presidential election and other U.S. elections, the company confirmed to Axios Friday. YouTube established the policy in December 2020. Now, the company said in a statement, leaving the policy in place may have the effect …

Mediaite reports: In yet another zag following shortly after a zig, Twitter owner Elon Musk urged “every parent” to watch the Daily Wire documentary What Is a Woman? the morning after his company suppressed it online. “Every parent should watch this,” argued Musk in a quote tweet of the film. “Our film has been posted for a couple of hours. …

Reuters reports: Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, told Reuters on Thursday that she has resigned from the social media company, which has faced criticism for lax protections against harmful content since billionaire Elon Musk acquired it in October. Irwin, who joined Twitter in June 2022, took over as head of the trust and safety team in November …

Elon Musk has haters on all sides these days: Conservatives are piling on Elon Musk after Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing revealed that Musk’s Twitter had threatened to “throttle” a documentary over instances of misgendering in it. According to Boreing, Twitter had agreed to platform and even promote Matt Walsh’s What Is a Woman? before discovering the controversial moments in …

The Hill reports: Twitter has been overwhelmingly not removing hate speech posted on the platform from verified Twitter Blue accounts, according to a report from a nonprofit that opposes the spread of hate and disinformation online. The Center for Countering Digital Hate said on Thursday that its researchers collected tweets promoting hatred from 100 Twitter Blue accounts and reported them …

Yahoo Finance reports: Twitter is now worth just one-third of what Elon Musk paid for the social-media platform, according to Fidelity, which recently marked down the value of its equity stake in the company. Musk has acknowledged he overpaid for Twitter, which he bought for $44 billion, including $33.5 billion in equity. More recently, he said Twitter is worth less …

TechCrunch reports: Twitter has withdrawn from the European Union’s Code of Practice on online disinformation, per the bloc’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton. In a tweet last night — which confirmed earlier reports of Twitter’s impending exit from the EU Code — Breton issued the social media platform with a blunt warning: Telling Twitter it cannot hide from incoming legal …

Platformer reports: At around 5PM PT on Wednesday, Elon Musk and David Sacks joined a call with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign manager, Generra Peck. Their task: to explain what the hell had just happened. Their high-profile event on Twitter Spaces, where DeSantis had just announced his run for president, had been plagued by technical glitches. The first audio livestream …

Euractiv reports: Twitter told the European Commission it is seriously considering withdrawing from the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation, a voluntary agreement that preludes upcoming binding rules, EU officials told EURACTIV. The announcement of Twitter’s withdrawal from the code would come as little surprise to those involved in the voluntary pledge. Since Elon Musk took over the tech company …

The Daily Beast reports: Elon Musk spent Wednesday evening defending his glitch-filled chat with 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, taking to Twitter to reply to some of the criticism hurled at the Twitter CEO after technical problems caused a more than 20-minute delay. “I call it ‘massive attention,’” Musk replied to MSNBC executive producer Kyle Griffin, who posted a list …

The Insider reports: A fake image of an explosion near the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., may have been created by artificial-intelligence tools. But that didn’t stop it from being spread by dozens of accounts on social media — and the stock market briefly dipped as the fake news spread. An image appearing to show a massive cloud of smoke near …

The Deep Dive reports: Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) filed a lawsuit in a Florida civil court against The Washington Post, allegedly claiming the media outfit defamed the company in one of its articles. The firm is seeking $3.78 billion in damages. The news firm allegedly “published an egregious hit piece that falsely accused TMTG of securities fraud and …

CNBC reports: Meta has been fined a record 1.2 billion euro ($1.3 billion) by European privacy regulators over the transfer of EU user data to the U.S. The decision links back to a case brought by Austrian privacy campaigner Max Schrems who argued that the framework for transferring EU citizen data to America did not protect Europeans from U.S. surveillance. …

The Associated Press reports: In an interview this week, Twitter owner Elon Musk said users making false claims of stolen elections “will be corrected” on the platform. Prompted by a CNBC reporter for extra assurance that would happen, Musk responded, “Oh yeah, 100%.” Yet many such claims have thrived on Twitter in the week since former President Donald Trump spent …

Reuters reports: Five TikTok users in Montana who create content posted on the short-video app filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to block the state’s new ban on the Chinese-owned platform. Montana Governor Greg Gianforte on Wednesday signed legislation to ban TikTok in the state, effective Jan. 1. The five users seek to block the law, which makes it …

Bloomberg News reports: The US Supreme Court left in place a broad liability shield for social media companies for content posted by users, insulating Twitter Inc., Facebook Inc. and Google LLC from claims that they provided assistance to Islamic State terrorists. Acting in a case involving Google, the court said it wouldn’t rule on efforts to limit the immunity internet …

The Associated Press reports: Montana became the first state in the U.S. to completely ban TikTok on Wednesday when the state’s Republican governor signed a measure that’s more sweeping than any other state’s attempts to curtail the social media app. The measure is expected to be challenged legally and will serve as a testing ground for the TikTok-free America that …