Social Media

Via email from Gab CEO Andrew Torba: Over the weekend Pavel Durov the CEO of Telegram, a chat messaging app, was arrested. Durov’s detention at Bourget airport in France on August 24, 2024, marks a significant escalation in the ongoing battle between governments and tech platforms over content moderation and free speech. His arrest follows just weeks after one million …

Reuters reports: Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg said senior officials in the Biden administration had pressured his social media company to censor COVID-19 content during the pandemic, adding that he would push back if this were to happen again. In a letter dated Aug. 26, Zuckerberg told the judiciary committee of the U.S. House of Representatives that he regretted not …

CNN reports: Pavel Durov is a lot of things to a lot of people. Programming prodigy. Billionaire entrepreneur. Kremlin stooge. Free-speech fighter. Biological father to at least 100 kids. Durov, the elusive founder of Telegram who was detained in France over the weekend, cuts the figure of a mysterious, globe-trotting tech bro with Mark Zuckerberg’s prodigiousness, Jack Dorsey’s bizarre lifestyle …

Reuters reports: Pavel Durov, the Russian-French billionaire founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday evening, TF1 TV and BFM TV said, citing unidentified sources. Durov was travelling aboard his private jet, TF1 said on its website, adding he had been targeted by an arrest warrant in France as part of …

Mother Jones reports: Lawyers representing Elon Musk and X, previously known as Twitter, have quietly begun sending subpoenas to a host of public interest groups, Mother Jones has learned. Most of the targeted organizations have signed open letters to X’s advertisers expressing concerns about the platform’s direction under Musk’s leadership. The groups include the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the …

The Wall Street Journal reports: The $13 billion that Elon Musk borrowed to buy Twitter has turned into the worst merger-finance deal for banks since the 2008-09 financial crisis. The seven banks involved in the deal, including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, lent the money to the billionaire’s holding company to take the social-media platform, now named X, private …

Reuters reports: Media platform X said on Saturday it would close its operations in Brazil “effective immediately” due to what it called “censorship orders” by Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes. X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, claims Moraes secretly threatened one of the company’s legal representatives in the South American country with arrest if it did not comply with legal …

ABC News reports: Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has shut down CrowdTangle, a tool widely used by researchers, watchdog organizations and journalists to monitor social media posts, notably to track how misinformation spreads on the company’s platforms. Wednesday’s shutdown, which Meta announced earlier this year, has been protested by researchers and nonprofits. In May, dozens of groups, including the …

Variety reports: J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk have both been named in a criminal complaint filed to French authorities over alleged “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” against Algerian boxer and newly crowned Olympic champion Imane Khelif. Nabil Boudi, the Paris-based attorney of Khelif, confirmed to Variety that both figures were mentioned in the body of the complaint, posted to the …

Reuters reports: EU industry chief Thierry Breton told billionaire Elon Musk in a letter on Monday he must comply with EU law ahead of Musk’s interview with U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on social media platform X. The interview, scheduled for 8PM Eastern Time, will also be accessible to users in the EU, Breton wrote, adding: “In this context, I …

Agence France-Presse reports: Social platform X said Friday it would work European regulators after agreeing to suspended its heavily criticized use of European users’ personal data to train its artificial intelligence chatbot Grok. After Elon Musk’s social platform began using personal data in public posts made by European users Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the DPC, launched a court case arguing …

The Guardian reports: President Nicolás Maduro said he had ordered a 10-day block on access to X in Venezuela, accusing the owner, Elon Musk, of using the social network to promote hatred after the country’s disputed presidential election. Associated Press (AP) journalists in Caracas found that by Thursday night posts had stopped loading on X on two private telephone services …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit Friday against TikTok and parent company ByteDance for failing to protect children’s privacy on the social media app. The government said TikTok violated a law that prohibits collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under 13 without parental consent. The DOJ said TikTok knowingly permitted children …

Reuters reports: Former CNN anchor Don Lemon sued Elon Musk on Thursday, saying that the billionaire entrepreneur refused to pay him after a partnership with the X social media platform got shelved. The lawsuit was filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco, a legal filing showed. X canceled its partnership with Lemon in March after he said Musk would …

Newsweek reports: Newsweek observed that the White Dudes for Harris X account had been suspended after the group held a star-studded virtual call on Monday night that raised more than $4 million. The automated message when the account was suspended read: “X suspends accounts which violate the X rules.” Mike Nellis, who is involved in the organization, shared an update …

CNBC reports: Vice President Kamala Harris debuted an official TikTok account on Thursday, underscoring the social broadcasting app’s importance to the 2024 presidential campaign as a way to reach voters. In her first short TikTok video, Harris described why she joined the popular app, saying that she’s “heard that recently I’ve been on the For You Page, so I thought …

Bloomberg News reports: Meta Platforms Inc. removed 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria linked to scammers who were using its social media services to blackmail targets after soliciting intimate photos, the company said Wednesday. Meta, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp, added that it had deleted thousands of additional Facebook accounts, pages and groups that were sharing scripts on how to …

NBC News reports: Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., is pushing for the House Judiciary Committee to investigate whether Elon Musk’s X improperly prevented users from following an official presidential campaign account for Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday. Nadler, the ranking Democrat on the committee, sent a letter to chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Monday morning saying that “numerous users” …

Mashable reports: Over the weekend, Elon Musk made his support for Donald Trump official by publicly endorsing the former-president. Now, it appears that Musk’s social media platform X is also displaying support for Trump. This is, however, apparently paid promotion. “This is a commercially available product,” an X representative told Mashable in an email. For example, when an X user …

Bloomberg reports: Mark Zuckerberg said that former President Donald Trump’s immediate reaction after being shot was “badass” and inspiring, and helps explain his appeal to voters. “Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my …