Social Media

Reuters reports: An Alabama man was arrested on Thursday over criminal charges that he hacked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account earlier this year, in an action that caused bitcoin’s value to spike, federal prosecutors announced. In January, a hacker posted false news about a widely anticipated announcement the SEC was expected to make about bitcoin, shocking the …

Ars Technica reports: Former Twitter executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, are urging a court to open discovery in a dispute over severance and other benefits they allege they were wrongfully denied after Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022. According to the former executives, they’ve been blocked for seven months from accessing key documents proving they’re owed roughly $200 …

Bloomberg News reports: Brazil’s Supreme Court authorized the return of X after Elon Musk complied with its demands, including taking down some user accounts and appointing a legal representative for the platform in the country. The company has met “all the requirements necessary for the immediate return of activities” in Brazil, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes wrote in an …

Reuters reports: TikTok faces new lawsuits filed by 13 U.S. states and the District of Columbia on Tuesday, accusing the popular social media platform of harming and failing to protect young people. The lawsuits filed separately in New York, California, the District of Columbia and 11 other states, expand Chinese-owned TikTok’s legal fight with U.S. regulators, and seek new financial …

Law & Crime reports: Months after Elon Musk’s X Corp. urged the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to find that special counsel Jack Smith unlawfully forced Twitter to hand over evidence of Trump’s “private communications” without the former president’s knowledge of the Jan. 6 probe-related action, the high court on Monday refused to take up the case and offered …

Matt Binder reports at Disruptionist: X owner Elon Musk has once again hijacked a rare coveted username from its original user. This time, however, the takeover wasn’t for the good of X the company, it was so Musk could promote Donald Trump for president. On Saturday, Musk began promoting his pro-Trump Super PAC, called America PAC, using a brand new …

Gizmodo reports: Gizmodo submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FTC for consumer complaints about Truth Social filed in the past two years. The complaints to the federal agency include some stories from people who say they got signed up for mailing lists they never wanted to be on in the first place. But the complaints about …

NBC News reports: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has surpassed Jeff Bezos as the world’s second richest person, reports CNBC. Zuckerberg’s net worth reached $206.2 billion on Thursday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, topping the $205.1 billion net worth of the former Amazon CEO and president. The Facebook co-founder now trails Tesla chief Elon Musk by roughly $50 billion, the …

Axios reports: Elon Musk plans to attend former President Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, the billionaire announced in a post on X late Thursday. Trump’s return to the scene of the first assassination attempt against his life had already raised concerns among local officials, per Axios Philadelphia’s Isaac Avilucea. Representatives for Musk and Trump did not immediately respond …

Austin’s NBC affiliate reports: On Thursday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced he had filed a lawsuit against the social media company TikTok. The lawsuit claimed the platform was operating “in a manner that puts the online safety and privacy of Texas children at risk and violates the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act.” Paxton’s lawsuit seeks civil …

Mediaite reports: Elon Musk’s friendship with Sean “Diddy” Combs resurfaced on Wednesday after the billionaire questioned “how many people in music & entertainment knew about” Combs’ alleged serial sex abuse. In their new book Character Limit, authors Kate Conger and Ryan Mac alleged that Musk boasted about his friendship with Combs to Revolt CEO Detavio Samuels after Samuels expressed concern …

TechCrunch reports: Elon Musk’s X is now worth less than a quarter of its $44 billion purchase price, according to a new estimate from investor Fidelity. his 78.7% markdown implies that Fidelity is currently valuing X at about $9.4 billion overall. (TechCrunch’s assessment assumes that Fidelity’s investment in X was made at a $44 billion valuation. The acquisition was financed …

Ars Technica reports: Officials in Ireland have fined Meta $101 million for storing hundreds of millions of user passwords in plaintext and making them broadly available to company employees. Meta disclosed the lapse in early 2019. The company said that apps for connecting to various Meta-owned social networks had logged user passwords in plaintext and stored them in a database …

The Verge reports: X will now make your posts visible to users you’ve blocked. In a reply on Monday, X owner Elon Musk said the “block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public post.” Currently, X displays a “You’re blocked” message when trying to view the profile of a person who’s blocked you. In …

The New York Times reports: After defying court orders in Brazil for three weeks, Mr. Musk’s social network, X, has capitulated. In a court filing on Friday night, the company’s lawyers said that X had complied with orders from Brazil’s Supreme Court in the hopes that the court would lift a block on its site. The decision was a surprise …

Reuters reports: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Friday it intends to seek sanctions against Elon Musk after he failed to appear for scheduled testimony for the regulator’s probe into his $44 billion takeover of Twitter. In a court filing, the SEC said the sanctions motion would seek an order to show case for why Musk should not be …

CNBC Tech reports: Elon Musk’s X faces steep daily fines in Brazil for allegedly evading a ban on the service there, according to a statement from the country’s supreme court on Thursday. The fines, imposed by Brazil’s supreme court (Supremo Tribuno Federal or STF) amount to $5 million in Brazilian reals, about $920,000, a day. The court said it would …

Bloomberg News reports: Musk may have poked the bear one too many times. On Sunday, shortly after the second assassination attempt on Trump, Musk responded to his 198 million followers: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.” FOIA Files sent Freedom of Information Act requests to the Secret Service’s Protective Intelligence and Assessment Division, Office of Protective Operations …

The Daily Beast reports: The Tesla boss on Wednesday reshared a post alleging that ABC News had “falsely claimed the Springfield City Manager refuted Trump’s debate statement” about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio. The person speaking in the post’s video, however, was not the city manager. Several hours later, Musk also shared a map projecting a sweeping electoral college …

Radio Free Europe reports: A trove of leaked records from a Russian disinformation campaign reveals how Moscow sought to discredit Ukraine and Western governments that support it while also trying to boost support for far-right political parties in the European Union. The campaign included a diverse mix of memes, falsified videos and government documents, and a network of websites impersonating …