Social Media

YouTube And Facebook Demonetize Russian Outlets

Reuters reports: YouTube on Saturday barred Russian state-owned media outlet RT and other Russian channels from receiving money for advertisements that run with their videos, similar to a move by Facebook, after the invasion of Ukraine. Citing “extraordinary circumstances,” YouTube said in a statement that it was “pausing a number of channels’ ability to monetize on YouTube, including several Russian …

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Truth Social Crashes Immediately Upon Launching

The Insider reports: Donald Trump’s new social media app Truth Social encountered technical difficulties shortly after launching to the public on Sunday evening, according to its official website. At 11:24 p.m. ET on Sunday, an update was posted on Truth Social’s website saying an issue was under investigation. At 7:15 a.m. ET on Monday, the status page on the website …

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Truth Social To Launch In Apple’s App Store Tomorrow

Reuters reports: Donald Trump’s new social media venture, Truth Social, appears set to launch in Apple’s App Store on Monday, according to posts from an executive on a test version viewed by Reuters, potentially marking the return of the former president to social media on the U.S. Presidents Day holiday. In a series of posts late on Friday, a verified …

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Trump’s Twitter Knockoff Begins Beta Testing

Reuters reports: Details about former U.S. President Donald Trump’s new social media app are trickling out as about 500 beta testers have begun using an early version of “Truth Social,” two sources told Reuters. The testing of Truth Social comes a year after Trump was banned from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. TMTG remains shrouded in secrecy and is regarded with …

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Texas AG Sues Meta Over Use Of Facial Recognition

The Texas Tribune reports: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., saying the technology conglomerate infringed on the state’s privacy protections by using facial recognition technology on its users without their consent. Paxton filed the suit, which he said could result in hundreds of billions of dollars in civil penalties, in state court in …

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Foreign Troll Farms Behind US Trucker Facebook Groups

NBC News reports: There is growing momentum in the U.S. anti-vaccination community to conduct rallies similar to Canada’s “Freedom Convoy” that has paralyzed Ottawa, Ontario, and the effort is receiving a boost from a familiar source: overseas content mills. Some Facebook groups that have promoted American “trucker convoys” similar to demonstrations that have clogged roads in Ottawa are being run …

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Twitter Goes Down For Many Users Around The World

Variety reports: Twitter was experiencing significant problems with its site and apps Friday, according to user reports. According to DownDetector.com, user reports that Twitter was having technical issues began to spike at 12:13 p.m. ET. Problems that users reported on other social platforms included that their tweets weren’t loading (with the error message, “Something went wrong. Try reloading) or they …

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Parler Announces “Special Arrangement” With Melania

The Hill reports: Parler announced on Wednesday that it is engaging in a social media “special arrangement” with former first lady Melania Trump where she will share “exclusive communications” on the social media network. Parler said that Trump would share “exclusive communications on Parler,” noting it is already powering her blockchain technology and non-fungible token (NFT) platform, MelaniaTrump.com. In a …

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Rumble Offers Joe Rogan $100M To Leave Spotify

“Dear Joe, We stand with you, your guests, and your legion of fans in desire for real conversation. So we’d like to offer you 100 million reasons to make the world a better place. How about you bring all your shows to Rumble, both old and new, with no censorship, for 100 million bucks over four years? This is our …

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Meta Threatens To Leave Europe Over Privacy Laws

Mashable reports: Buried in Meta’s dense annual report for the Securities and Exchange Commission, filed Thursday, is a surprisingly stark sentence laying out a scenario in which The Company Formerly Known as Facebook might have to entirely stop operating Instagram and Facebook in Europe. Yep, no Instagram, no Facebook, for all Europeans. At issue are European data regulations that prevent …

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GETTR Fires Top Staffers Amid Financial Problems

The right wing Washington Examiner reports: Social media upstart GETTR fired over a dozen staff members late last year, including two key executives and its entire IT and cybersecurity teams, amid rapid growth and what former employees said were funding problems. The layoffs came even as interest in the company, founded by Jason Miller, a spokesman for former President Donald …

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Twitter Bans Bot Account That Spoils Wordle Games

The Verge reports: Twitter has banned @wordlinator, a bot that replied to people’s Wordle posts with rude messages that include spoilers for the next day’s game. The account’s spoilers appeared to be accurate (the key is easily accessible in the game’s code, so it’s not necessarily a surprise), which could end up ruining the game for anyone who sees them. …

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Trump Platform To Feature “Family-Friendly” Censors

Fox Business reports: When TRUTH Social launches later this quarter, the Trump Media & Technology Group social media platform will already have stringent content moderation practices in place to ensure it is a “family-friendly” online community, company CEO Devin Nunes told Fox Business. Those involved in the final stages of the platform’s development told Fox Business that they anticipate that …

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Gab CEO Blames Trump’s Vax “Shilling” For Traffic Woes

The Washington Post reports: A Washington Post analysis of audience data for 47 prominent right-wing influencers who flocked last year to alternative social networks Gab and Gettr, the video-streaming site Rumble and the chat service Telegram found that their followings surged immediately after President Donald Trump was banned on the mainstream sites. But those audiences have barely grown in the …

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Riot Panel Subpoenas Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Google

CNBC reports: The House select committee investigating the deadly Capitol riot has subpoenaed social media giants Twitter, Reddit and the parent companies of Facebook and Google, the panel’s chairman said Thursday. The bipartisan committee had asked for a trove of records last summer from those and other social companies, but said it received “inadequate responses” from some of the largest …

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“Free Speech” Platform Bans Pundit Over N-Word

NBC News reports: GETTR, the pro-Trump social media platform set up to promote free speech, has banned a right-wing pundit for using the N-word in his profile. The platform told The Daily Beast that Jon Miller, a former Blaze TV host, was barred from the platform after using the word. “Jon Miller was suspended from GETTR because he used the …

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TikTok Bans Cultist Judicial Watch Head Tom Fitton

The Daily Beast reports: Right-wing pundit and Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton has been banned from TikTok, the short video-sharing platform. He now joins the likes of fellow right-wing activist Roger Stone, who was also banned last year. “This account was banned due to multiple Community Guidelines violations,” a notice reads on Fitton’s now blank user profile. “Well, the communists …

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TikTok Dethrones Google For Highest Traffic In 2021

Protocol reports: TikTok has dethroned Google as the most popular domain in 2021, according to Cloudflare’s 2021 Year in Review for internet traffic. In 2020, the video-sharing platform was ranked No. 7 while Google came in at No. 1. This year, TikTok came in first, followed by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple, in that order Read the full article. TikTok …

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“Free Speech” Platform Bans White Nationalist Leader

The Daily Beast reports: Jason Miller’s right-wing “free speech” social media alternative Gettr “suspended” the account of white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes on Monday. “My official Gettr account has been permanently suspended,” Fuentes wrote on Telegram, a messaging platform beloved by the far-right. “Nice free speech platform.” The Unite the Right attendee’s Gettr page currently displays an “account suspended” notice. The …

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TikTok Alters Algorithm To Prevent “Content Holes”

The Verge reports: TikTok is changing its For You Page algorithm to prevent users from seeing too many similar videos that could be harmful when viewed in clusters, the company said today. The goal is to steer users away from clusters of videos that might “reinforce a negative personal experience,” listing extreme dieting, sadness, and breakup content as examples. Read …

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