Social Media

CNN Business reports: Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has signed a sweeping bill imposing a minimum age limit for social media usage. But even as Sanders signed the bill into law on Wednesday afternoon, the legislation appeared to contain vast loopholes and exemptions benefiting companies that lobbied on the bill. The Social Media Safety Act is aimed at giving parents …

NPR reports: NPR will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform. In explaining its decision, NPR cited Twitter’s decision to first label the network “state-affiliated media,” the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China and other autocratic countries. The …

Agence France-Presse reports: Three top Twitter executives who were sacked by Elon Musk last year when he took over the social media company filed suit on Monday, seeking to be reimbursed for costs of litigation, investigations and congressional inquiries related to their former jobs. Ex-CEO Parag Agrawal, along with the company’s former chief legal and financial officers, claim in the …

Politico reports:  Twitter has failed to disclose some political ads running on its site since early March, according to a review of its activity by POLITICO. The lack of disclosure casts doubt on all of the political advertising data released by the platform and makes it hard to assess which groups are using Twitter to fundraise or sway voters ahead …

The Daily Beast reports: Twitter CEO Elon Musk has apparently gone to new lengths in his childish joke to have his multibillion-dollar social media company renamed “Titter.” Last week, images were posted on social media showing the sign on the company’s San Francisco office with the “w” covered up. On Sunday night, Musk said he was forced to uncover the …

First was this report from The Verge: This week, Twitter began restricting the promotion of links to Substack newsletters, a move that seems to fly in the face of owner Elon Musk’s vocal support of free speech on the platform. The change is a huge problem for Substack writers, who have found Twitter to be one of the best places …

NPR reports: Twitter CEO Elon Musk said the platform’s recent labeling of NPR as “state-affiliated media” might not have been accurate during a series of email exchanges that provided a glimpse into the billionaire’s thought process on decisions that reverberate far beyond the social network. Regardless, as of late Thursday, the designation remained. In one email exchange, Musk appeared to …

Forbes reports: Twitter added a warning to NPR’s Twitter account on Tuesday, declaring it as “state-affiliated media,” a label that’s typically been reserved for foreign media outlets that represent the official views of the government, like Russia’s RT and China’s Xinhua. In fact, several people on Twitter pointed out that the social media company specifically said that news outlets like …

From the Right Side Broadcasting Network: Just one day before RSBN was set to cover President Trump’s arraignment in Manhattan, YouTube has resumed its censorship practices and suspended RSBN’s channel, blocking our ability to livestream for seven days. On Monday, RSBN received a notice from YouTube informing us that due to content violating their “elections misinformation” policies, the platform has …

Tech Crunch reports: Today Twitter users are noticing that an image of a dog has been added to a place of prominence. You can see it for yourself on Twitter.com, where you will be greeted with a pup. The particular dog image — a Shiba Inu — corresponds with the logo of the dogecoin blockchain and cryptocurrency. Normally the swapping …

Mediaite reports: Elon Musk has made his first big blue check takedown, and his target is one of the most esteemed newspapers in the world. Twitter previously announced that on Saturday, it would begin “winding down” its “legacy verified program” by removing badges they deemed “legacy verified checkmarks.” The New York Times, which has 54.9 million followers on the social …

Axios reports: The White House will not pay to have its staff’s official Twitter profiles continue to be verified, according to guidance issued to staffers via an email obtained by Axios. Official White House staffers rely on their verified accounts to inform the public on behalf of the administration. Verification, combined with the designated Twitter profiles, helped to ensure the …

Bloomberg News reports: In the weeks after Elon Musk acquired Twitter Inc., hundreds of advertisers paused spending on the platform, wary of the changes the mercurial billionaire might bring to the social media platform. Months later, many still haven’t returned, despite efforts by Twitter’s sales team to woo them back with steep discounts and new safety tools. From September to …

Sen. Rand Paul writes for the Louisville Courier-Journal: Congressional Republicans have come up with a national strategy to permanently lose elections for a generation: Ban a social media app called TikTok that 94 million, primarily young Americans, use. The banning TikTok strategy also comes while the GOP simultaneously complains of liberal U.S. social media companies canceling and censoring conservatives. So, …

Mashable reports: Researcher Travis Brown, who has been tracking Twitter Blue subscriptions since January, recently revealed around half of all users subscribed to Twitter Blue have less than 1,000 followers. That’s approximately 220,132 paying subscribers. Furthermore, 78,059 paying Twitter Blue subscribers have less than 100 users following their account. That’s 17.6 percent of all Twitter Blue subscribers. There are 2,270 …

The Insider reports: Twitter is secretly boosting the accounts of 35 VIP users over others, per a new report from Platformer. Managing Editor Zoë Schiffer cited internal documents from Twitter which listed 35 VIP users, who all have their posts monitored and promoted for greater visibility. Schiffer published 14 out of the 35 names on the list, which included NBA …

Reuters reports: Some parts of Twitter Inc’s source code have been leaked and the social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk is seeking information on the person responsible, a legal filing showed. According to the filing, “various excerpts” of Twitter’s source code, which is used to run the company online, were posted on Github, a Microsoft-owned platform for sharing …

Vice News reports: In the space of a couple of hours, and with the help of a single TikTok video, a group of three friends were able to hijack Truth Social and get the hashtag #DeSantis2024 to the top of the trending section on the site owned by former President Donald Trump. Then, the social network went offline. With Trump’s …

Reuters reports:  House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Sunday lawmakers will move forward with legislation to address national security worries about TikTok, alleging China’s government had access to the short video app’s user data. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared before a U.S. House Committee for about five hours on Thursday, and lawmakers from both parties grilled him …

The Wrap reports: Elon Musk told employees on March 25 that the company is now valued at $20 billion valuation, according to a senior reporter at The Verge. That’s less than half of the $44 billion he paid for the social networking platform in October 2022. With the Musk-mandated return of several formerly banned users, a rise in antisemitic and …