Social Media

The Daily Beast reports: YouTube unleashed massive confusion and satisfied apparently no one with its handling of Steven Crowder’s homophobic campaign against a gay journalist on Wednesday. The company will “demonetize” Crowder, a far-right performer, for harassing Vox reporter Carlos Maza. The announcement was a partial reversal from Tuesday, when YouTube said it would not take action against Crowder. After …

Vox reports: YouTube is finally banning content that promotes white supremacist views on its video platform. But it will still permit videos it classifies as “borderline,” which isn’t clearly defined, as well as a host of other problematic content. The Google-owned platform said on Wednesday that it’s updating its hate speech policy to prohibit “videos alleging that a group is …

NBC News reports: The effort by a Russian internet deception factory to manipulate American public opinion during the 2016 election was better planned and executed — and also more lucrative — than previously understood, according to a new analysis of nearly 10 million tweets by a leading cybersecurity firm. The operation by the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency amounted to …

The Washington Post reports: Carlos Maza, a video producer for the news site Vox, said the harassment began about two years ago. Steven Crowder [screenshot above], a right-wing commentator and comedian, had begun to call out Maza’s sexuality and his race — Maza is gay and Latino — in some of his videos on YouTube. And last week, Maza said, …

Vice News reports: Twitter is conducting in-house research to better understand how white nationalists and supremacists use the platform. The company is trying to decide, in part, whether white supremacists should be banned from the site or should be allowed to stay on the platform so their views can be debated by others, a Twitter executive told Motherboard. Vijaya Gadde, …

Politico reports: They’ve been banned from Facebook, purged from Twitter and blocked from Instagram. Some of them have been barred from setting foot on the continent of Australia. But you can still find them all on the fledgling social media network Parler. Parler has carved out a niche among these banned right-wing influencers — like Gavin McInnes, Laura Loomer and …

The Daily Beast reports: Twitter has permanently banned prominent anti-Trump brothers Brian and Ed Krassenstein, alleging that two of the biggest stars of #Resistance Twitter had broken the site’s rules about operating fake accounts and purchasing fake interactions with their accounts. “The Twitter Rules apply to everyone,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement. “Operating multiple fake accounts and purchasing …

New Scientist reports: Instagram is cracking down on misinformation about vaccinations by blocking hashtags that include verifiably false information about the subject. Phase one of the crackdown involved removing hashtags promoting overt medical misinformation about vaccines — such as #VaccinesCauseAutism or #VaccinesCauseAIDS, both of which have been debunked by leading public health organizations. Now, Instagram says it is looking to …

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes writes in a NYT op-ed: Mark’s influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government. He controls three core communications platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — that billions of people use every day. Facebook’s board works more like an advisory committee than an overseer, because Mark controls around …

The Verge reports: Verizon is seeking a buyer for Tumblr, the blogging platform it acquired along with other Yahoo assets in 2017. The Wall Street Journal reports that Verizon has approached other companies in recent weeks that could be potential new homes for Tumblr. The platform hosts 465.4 million blogs and 172 billion posts, according to its about page. The …

The Washington Post reports: Facebook said on Thursday it has permanently banned several far-right figures and organizations including Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Infowars host Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Laura Loomer, for being “dangerous,” a sign that the social network is more aggressively enforcing its hate speech policies under pressure from civil rights groups. Facebook had removed the …

The New York Times reports: Mark Zuckerberg declared last month that he planned to shift Facebook away from being a public town square and to private communications. Now the chief executive is rolling out the first in a series of changes to achieve that. On Tuesday at its annual developer conference, Facebook unveiled a redesign of its mobile app and …

The Washington Post reports: Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey phoned Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar on Tuesday and stood by the company’s decision to permit a tweet from President Trump that later resulted in a flood of death threats targeting the congresswoman. The previously unreported call focused on an incendiary video that Trump shared on April 12, which depicts Omar discussing …

CBS News reports: Facebook said it could face a fine of up to $5 billion as the result of an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. The agency has been investigating Facebook for possible privacy violations, but has not announced any findings yet. The company set aside $3 billion in its quarterly earnings report Wednesday as a contingency against the …

Mashable reports: Twitter is stepping up its fight against misinformation and voter manipulation. In a blog post, Twitter announced a new reporting feature for tweets that attempt to spread false information about the electoral process. The new feature appears as a default option when a user elects to report a tweet. When reporting a tweet, a user can simply select …

CNBC reports: President Donald Trump met with Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey at the White House on Tuesday, press secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed after the meeting had ended. Shortly thereafter, Trump tweeted, “Lots of subjects discussed regarding their platform, and the world of social media in general. Look forward to keeping an open dialogue!” The upbeat tone of Trump’s …

The Washington Post reports: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose mastery of social media has helped drive the national conversation and shed light on the inner workings of congressional power, has given up on the most popular social network in the world. In an interview Sunday with the Yahoo News podcast “Skullduggery,” the New York Democrat said she stopped using her Facebook …

Recode reports: Enough people use Twitter to get their information that politicians have to be there, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says. But on the latest episode of Recode Decode, she said the way President Trump uses Twitter has “cheapened the presidency.” “He’s just being a freak, I mean, he’s just terrible,” Pelosi told Recode’s Kara Swisher. “There’s more …

Variety reports: Bob Iger didn’t mince words while being honored Thursday by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Upon receiving the Humanitarian Award at the organization’s National Tribute Dinner from Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Walt Disney Co. chairman and CEO delivered a scathing critique of social media and the current state of political discourse. “Hitler would have loved social media,” Iger said. “It’s …

CNN reports: Twitter is considering labeling tweets that violate its rules but should remain on the platform because they’re in the public interest. Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal, policy and trust made the announcement during an on-stage interview with the Washington Post on Wednesday. The social media company is trying to find a way of maintaining its standards while …