Social Media

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …