Social Media

ABC News reports: Parler, the controversial conservative social media app, was denied re-entry to Apple Inc.’s App Store recently after it was kicked off the platform in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, documents show. On Wednesday, Parler LLC cut its three remaining iOS developers, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company eliminated seven workers …

Reuters reports: Russia said on Wednesday it was slowing down the speed of Twitter in retaliation for its alleged failure to remove banned content, and threatened a total block if the U.S. platform did not comply with its deletion demands. The move, which escalates a growing stand-off between Moscow and U.S. social media firms, comes weeks after Russian authorities accused …

Politico reports: Twitter on Monday filed a complaint in U.S. District Court against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, seeking to stop the state’s investigation into its content moderation practices. The social media giant said in its filing that the investigation requested by Paxton was an abuse of his power and a retaliatory action over Twitter’s decision to permanently suspend Donald …

Mediaite reports: “I just got suspended by Twitter, so I’m part of the censored group because I did a tweet saying that having illegal immigrants come in without any controls is a public health issue in the time of Covid,” said Gingrich. “So I just want to report, I’m part of the same effort by Twitter to censor the country …

The Texas Tribune reports: Decrying “a dangerous movement” to “silence conservative ideas [and] religious beliefs,” Gov. Greg Abbott touted a bill Friday that aims to crack down on the perceived censorship of conservative voices by social media companies. “They are controlling the flow of information — and sometimes denying the flow of information,” the Republican governor said at a press …

Reuters reports: Twitter Inc is testing an “undo send” function that would give users a short time to withdraw a tweet before it is posted, the company confirmed on Friday. App researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who discovers unannounced social media features by looking at the sites’ code, tweeted an animation showing a tweet with a spelling error where an ‘undo’ …

Dallas’s NBC News affiliate reports: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and State Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) are set to discuss a bill that aims to “help prohibit social media companies from censoring Texans based on the viewpoints they express,” the governor’s office says. According to the Texas Legislature, Senate Bill 12 would give Texans a way to get back online if …

From Right Side Broadcasting: RSBN has been suspended from YouTube for two weeks, with live streaming and the ability to upload new videos revoked.  According to YouTube, this is due to our video of President Trump’s speech at CPAC, which violated their policies on election misinformation. YouTube has also removed the video from their platform, which at last check was …

Politico reports: YouTube will reinstate former President Donald Trump’s channel once the “elevated risk of violence” has passed, the Google-owned video sharing site’s CEO said Thursday. “We will lift the suspension of the Donald Trump channel when we determine the risk of violence has decreased,” Susan Wojcicki said at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council. “We will turn the …

I thought it was weird that we never heard about Trump having an account on Gab: Former President Donald Trump’s verified Gab account was among those that were compromised (though the account’s description says it’s “reserved” for Trump, and Torba has stated that Trump himself doesn’t use it). When I got my hands on the Gab data, the first thing …

NPR reports: The power struggle that led to conservative social media site Parler abruptly firing its founder and CEO John Matze last month became so acrimonious that when Matze was sacked, he was also involuntarily stripped of his entire stake in the company, according to people familiar with Matze’s exit. Matze became locked in a dispute with Rebekah Mercer, the …

Mashable reports: Instagram is introducing a new feature today that will allow users to run joint live streams with three other people, letting you broadcast the group video chat for the world to see. Called Live Rooms, the feature ups the number of accounts that can join an IG Live from two to four. So it’s kind of like Zoom, …

The Washington Post reports: “Cool it with the vaccine selfies for a while,” read the headline of a Boston Globe opinion column. “Go ahead, share your vaccine selfie,” the Atlantic’s Brit Trogen wrote. Posting a vaccine selfie when many are still not on the priority lists is boastful and could end up inflaming people’s fear of missing out (otherwise identified …

Wired reports: DDoSecrets cofounder Emma Best says that the hacked data includes not only all of Gab’s public posts and profiles—with the exception of any photos or videos uploaded to the site—but also private group and private individual account posts and messages, as well as user passwords and group passwords. “It contains pretty much everything on Gab, including user data …

The Associated Press reports: A federal judge on Friday approved a $650 million settlement of a privacy lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly using photo face-tagging and other biometric data without the permission of its users. U.S. District Judge James Donato approved the deal in a class-action lawsuit that was filed in Illlinois in 2015. Nearly 1.6 million Facebook users in …

CBS News reports: Facebook announced Thursday it has blocked Australians from viewing and sharing news on the platform because of proposed laws in the country to make digital giants pay for journalism. Australian publishers can continue to publish news content on Facebook, but links and posts can’t be viewed or shared by Australian audiences, the U.S.-based company said in a …

Just in via press release: Parler was built to offer a social media platform that protects free speech and values privacy and civil discourse. When Parler was taken offline in January by those who desire to silence tens of millions of Americans, our team came together, determined to keep our promise to our highly engaged community that we would return …

CNN Business reports: Twitter permanently banned an account on Thursday belonging to Project Veritas, a conservative group founded by controversial activist James O’Keefe. The decision followed what a Twitter spokesperson described to CNN Business as repeated violations of the platform’s policies prohibiting sharing — or threats of sharing — other people’s private information without consent. Twitter declined to say what …

CNN Business reports: Instagram on Wednesday took down the account of controversial anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “We removed this account for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines,” a spokesperson for Facebook, which owns Instagram, said in a statement. Kennedy, the son of late former US Attorney General, US Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, …

The Daily Beast reports: Donald Trump will never be allowed to return to Twitter—even if he decides to run for president again in 2024, and wins. The social-media company’s CFO Ned Segal appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Wednesday morning, and was asked whether Trump could ever turn to the platform in the scenario that he returns to the White …