Social Media

YouTube Blocks Channel For Russia’s Parliament

Reuters reports: YouTube has blocked Duma TV which broadcasts from Russia’s lower house of parliament, drawing an angry response from officials who said the world’s most popular streaming service could face restrictions in response. On Saturday, a message on YouTube said the Duma channel had been “terminated for a violation of YouTube’s Terms of Service”. YouTube, owned by Alphabet, has …

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Elon Musk To Hold Town Hall With Twitter Employees

The Washington Post reports: Twitter plans to host Elon Musk for a question-and-answer session with employees after a week of internal outcries over his appointment to the social network’s board of directors, according to company messages obtained by The Washington Post. The announcement from Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal of the highly unusual internal AMA — which stands for “ask …

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Twitter Experiments With “Unmentioning” Feature

The Verge reports: Twitter is experimenting with an “unmentioning” feature that will allow users to remove themselves from conversations. It’s limited to some users and only on the web version for now but looks like a very useful way to clean up your mentions. “We’re experimenting with Unmentioning—a way to help you protect your peace and remove yourself from conversations,” …

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Nunes: Truth Social Is Beating “Ghost Town” Twitter

The Daily Beast reports: Truth Social CEO and ex-congressman Devin Nunes stumbled with wild speculation and ridiculous claims during a Fox Business Network grilling on Thursday morning, all while bad news and ridicule of the Trump-owned social-media platform continue to pile up. “It’s clear that Twitter is kind of a ghost town,” Nunes declared. “There’s not very much activity over …

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Facebook Removes Thousands Of Ukraine War Scams

Axios reports: Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Facebook says it has removed “tens of thousands of accounts, Pages and Groups” around the world for spreading misleading content about the conflict to build audiences and bring in cash. Spammers switched user names repeatedly to trick people into following them. They would then push their followings to other websites …

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Twitter To Launch Long-Requested “Edit Button”

Elon Musk will surely take credit for this: It’s a feature that Twitter users have been requesting for so long that it’s become a meme, but now the mythical “edit button” is actually becoming a reality. Twitter has announced that it’s working to allow users to edit their tweets after posting them. The idea is that you’ll be able to …

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Twitter Appoints Elon Musk To Board Of Directors

CNBC reports: Elon Musk will join Twitter’s board of directors after taking a 9.2% stake in the social media company, according to a release filed with the SEC. “Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board,” CEO Parag Agrawal said in a tweet. Musk’s purchase comes after …

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#ETTD: Trump Ready To Clean House At Truth Social

Politico reports: Three top executives quit Truth Social, including chief technology officer, Josh Adams and Billy Boozer, the head of the company’s product development, and chief legal officer, Lori Heyer-Bednar, according to two people familiar with the matter. Reuters first reported the departures of Adams and Boozer. Trump has been upset with the state of his social media venture, Truth …

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Top Tech Execs Resign From Trump’s Truth Social

Reuters reports: Josh Adams and Billy Boozer – the company’s chiefs of technology and product development – joined the venture last year and quickly became central players in its bid to build a social-media empire, backed by Trump’s powerful brand, to counter what many conservatives deride as “cancel culture” censorship from the left. Less than a year later, both have …

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Elon Musk Becomes Twitter’s Largest Shareholder

CNBC reports: Outspoken Tesla CEO Elon Musk purchased a giant stake in Twitter that makes him the largest outside shareholder in the social media stock, not long after criticizing the company for failing to uphold the tenets of free speech. Musk owns 73,486,938 shares of Twitter, which represents a 9.2% passive stake in the company, according to the Securities and …

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Facebook Paid GOP Firm To Plant Anti-TikTok Articles

The Washington Post reports: Facebook parent company Meta is paying one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to orchestrate a nationwide campaign seeking to turn the public against TikTok. The campaign includes placing op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets, promoting dubious stories about alleged TikTok trends that actually originated on Facebook, and …

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Truth Social Craters In New Signups And Traffic

The Wrap reports: Former president Donald Trump’s Truth Social app is seeing a 93% drop in signups and similarly steep decline in traffic after a rocky rollout last month fraught with technical issues and an extensive waiting list for new signups to actually use the service. After going live on President’s Day, the Twitter-lookalike app saw installs decline by more …

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Elon Musk Floats Launching Competitor To Twitter

The Daily Beast reports: Elon Musk said late Saturday that he is giving “serious thought” to creating a new social media platform. His comments, made on Twitter, came after the Tesla CEO sparked speculation with a Twitter thread taking aim at the social media giant. “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to …

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FB Locks Out Users Who Didn’t Enable “Protect” Mode

The Verge reports: Early in March, Facebook users got a mysterious, spam-like email titled “Your account requires advanced security from Facebook Protect” and telling them that they were required to turn on the Facebook Protect feature by a certain date, or they would be locked out of their account. It actually wasn’t spam. In fact, it was real. The first …

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Russia Declares Meta Guilty Of “Extremist Activity”

Reuters reports: A Moscow court on Monday found Meta Platforms Inc guilty of “extremist activity”, but said its decision would not affect the WhatsApp messenger service, focusing its ire on the company’s already banned Facebook and Instagram social networks. Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court upheld a lawsuit filed by Russian state prosecutors on banning the activities of Meta on Russian territory, …

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Russian Influencers Sob As Instagram Gets Blocked

The Washington Post reports: The tears were flowing Sunday among Russia’s airbrushed Instagram influencers, who begged their followers in farewell posts to join them on alternative social media platforms, as Russian authorities prepared to shut down the U.S.-owned social network at midnight. Russia’s communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, officially banned Instagram on Friday and gave Russian users a 48-hour grace period to …

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YouTube Blocks Kremlin Media Channels Worldwide

Axios reports: YouTube on Friday announced that it is blocking access worldwide to channels associated with Russian state-funded media. “This change is effective immediately, and we expect our systems to take time to ramp up,” YouTube wrote in a statement. “Our Community Guidelines prohibit content denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events. We are now removing content about Russia’s invasion …

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New Yorkers’ #1 “Unusual Fear” Is Being Phoneless

The New York Post reports: Even more than dark subways or stale bagels, New Yorkers fear being phoneless. Nomophobia, the fear of being without your mobile phone, is the No. 1 “unusual fear” in New York, according to a new report citing Google search metrics. Hyper-connected New Yorkers “see their phones as an extension of themselves,” said Kent State University …

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Russia Blocks Facebook In Retaliation For Page Bans

Buzzfeed News reports: Facebook on Friday was blocked in Russia amid President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing military invasion of Ukraine. In a statement issued on Friday, Roskomnadzor, the country’s communications regulator, explained the decision was made to block access to the Facebook network after at least 26 cases of “discrimination against Russian media and information resources” since October 2020. The agency …

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YouTube Geoblocks Russian Channels Across Europe

TechCrunch reports: Google has just announced that YouTube will geoblock the Kremlin-affiliated media outlets Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik in Europe, following pressure from regional lawmakers to choke off Russian war propaganda. YouTube hosts thousands of videos by the two Russian state-affiliated media firms and RT’s own channel marketing claims it’s “the most watched news network on YouTube.” Yesterday Facebook, …

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