Social Media

The Daily Beast reports: Right Wing Watch has been permanently suspended from YouTube, the organization announced on Twitter on Monday. According to screenshots posted by RWW, the Google-owned video platform informed the group that their official YouTube channel would be permanently removed from the site due to numerous violations of its community guidelines. Right Wing Watch senior fellow Kyle Mantyla …

The Verge reports: Facebook’s Clubhouse competitor, Live Audio Rooms, is making its way stateside. The company announced today that some US-based public figures, as well as certain groups, can start hosting rooms through the main Facebook iOS app. (People can join, however, from both iOS and Android.) Anyone can be invited up as a speaker with up to 50 people …

The Verge reports: Following a recommendation from its Oversight Board, Facebook says it will update its community standards to be clearer about how it handles satirical content, the company said in a blog post. “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 …

The Associated Press reports: A seven-month investigation by the Associated Press and the Oxford Internet Institute, a department at Oxford University, found that China’s rise on Twitter has been powered by an army of fake accounts that have retweeted Chinese diplomats and state media tens of thousands of times, covertly amplifying propaganda that can reach hundreds of millions of people …

Axios reports: YouTube will stop accepting ads for its masthead ad unit from certain verticals, including alcohol sales, gambling, prescription drugs, and election and political ads, Axios has learned. YouTube’s masthead, a highly visible rectangle across the top of the homepage, is often the platform’s most expensive and sought-after ad unit. Beginning Monday, ads that feature any gambling-related content offline …

The Guardian reports: A digital marketing firm closely linked to the pro-Trump youth group Turning Point USA was responsible for a series of deceptive Facebook ads promoting Green party candidates during the 2018 US midterm elections, the Guardian can reveal. In an apparent attempt to split the Democratic vote in a number of close races, the ads purported to come …

Michigan Live reports: A 27-year-old Ann Arbor woman who teaches social media followers how to do sex acts and fetishes had to call firefighters for help after a sex stunt went wrong Tuesday, June 9. Being stuck was the sexual fetish the woman was trying to demonstrate on social media, but this time she couldn’t get unstuck on her own. …

The Verge reports: President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday revoking the Trump-era bans on TikTok and WeChat. In place of the Trump order, Biden will direct the commerce secretary to investigate apps with ties to foreign adversaries that may pose a risk to American data privacy or national security. The order takes the place of a series of …

Politico reports: While the majority of Americans have heard about former President Donald Trump’s Facebook suspension, just over half support the platform’s two-year ban, according to a new POLITICO/ Morning Consult poll released Monday. 71 percent of voters have heard “a lot” or “some” about Trump’s suspension from the social media platform, while 51 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat …

The BBC reports: American author Naomi Wolf has been suspended from Twitter after spreading vaccine misinformation. Dr Wolf, well known for her acclaimed third-wave feminist book The Beauty Myth, posted a wide-range of unfounded theories about vaccines. One tweet claimed that vaccines were a “software platform that can receive uploads.” She also compared Dr Anthony Fauci, the top Covid adviser …

CNN reports: The Nigerian government has ordered federal prosecutors to arrest and prosecute users of the Twitter app, after a ban on the social media company took effect on Friday. Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, issued the directive Saturday in a statement signed on his behalf by his spokesman, Dr. Umar Jibrilu Gwandu. Nigeria’s Ministry of …

The Washington Post reports: Facebook said Friday that it plans to suspend Trump for two years following his comments in the wake of the Capitol insurrection on January 6th, and will only reinstate him” if the risk to public safety has receded.” Since the 2016 election, the company has applied a test to political speech that weighs the newsworthiness of …

The Verge reports: Facebook plans to end its controversial policy that mostly shields politicians from the content moderation rules that apply to other users, a sharp reversal that could have global ramifications for how elected officials use the social network. The change, which Facebook is set to announce as soon as Friday, comes after the Oversight Board — an independent …

The Verge reports: Twitter has officially announced Twitter Blue, a paid subscription service that offers access to new features like undoing tweets and viewing threads in an easier to digest “Reader Mode.” Starting Thursday, it will roll out first in Canada and Australia, where the subscription will cost $3.49 CAD or $4.49 AUD per month, respectively. A new undo send …

Click Orlando reports: Two technology organizations have joined together to sue Florida over the legislation targeting social media companies Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law this week. NetChoice, a nonprofit, along with the Computer and Communications Industry Association filed suit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee. Under the new law that takes …

The Washington Post reports: As the U.S. reopens a debate into the origins of the novel coronavirus, Facebook reversed course Thursday and said that it would no longer remove posts that claim the virus is man-made. The decision is notable because it shows, once again, how social media giants struggle to strike the right balance between protecting the public from …

From Facebook’s corporate blog: Today, we’re launching new ways to inform people if they’re interacting with content that’s been rated by a fact-checker as well as taking stronger action against people who repeatedly share misinformation on Facebook. Whether it’s false or misleading content about COVID-19 and vaccines, climate change, elections or other topics, we’re making sure fewer people see misinformation …

Playbook reports: Twitter removed a tweet from ’80s pop singer Richard Marx for violating its rules after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said it encouraged violence against him. (The tweet came days before someone sent a suspicious package with white powder to the senator’s home in Kentucky.) But that hasn’t stopped Marx from spreading the message in his original tweet — …

The BBC reports: India’s government has instructed social media companies to remove any content that refers to the “Indian variant” of Covid-19. The IT ministry said the World Health Organization (WHO) listed the variant as B.1.617 and any reference to “Indian” was false. Geographical terms have been used to describe a number of other variants, including the UK and Brazil. …

The Washington Post reports: When social media network Parler came back to life on Apple’s App Store Monday, it was designed to be a less offensive version than what users are able to see elsewhere. Posts that are labeled “hate” by Parler’s new artificial intelligence moderation system won’t be visible on iPhones. There’s a different standard for people who look …