Social Media

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 …

We’ll stand by for Steve King’s page to be deleted. Motherboard reports: In a major policy shift for the world’s biggest social media network, Facebook banned white nationalism and white separatism on its platform Tuesday. Facebook will also begin directing users who try to post content associated with those ideologies to a nonprofit that helps people leave hate groups, Motherboard …

USA Today reports: If you’ve been personally blocked by @realDonaldTrump on Twitter, congratulations: It means you managed to draw the direct attention and ire of the president of the United States. Justice Department attorney Jennifer Utrecht revealed Tuesday that while members of the White House staff sometimes help President Donald Trump craft his tweets, when he blocks someone, it’s totally …

The Associated Press reports: Facebook left millions of user passwords readable by its employees for years, the company acknowledged Thursday after a security researcher exposed the lapse. By storing passwords in readable plain text, Facebook violated fundamental computer-security practices. Those call for organizations and websites to save passwords in a scrambled form that makes it almost impossible to recover the …

Yahoo News reports: A lawsuit by Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, aimed at Twitter and some of its users for alleged defamation and negligence, has led to a huge spike in followers for one of the parody accounts he targeted. Now, late night host Stephen Colbert has taken it a step further by creating another parody account aimed at the Republican …

The Streisand Effect is in full force: One of the parody Twitter accounts singled out by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) has gained viral attention and tens of thousands of new followers since Nunes announced his lawsuit on Monday. The account “Devin Nunes’ cow” (@DevinCow), which, like Twitter itself, is being sued by Nunes for defamation, has amassed nearly 150,000 followers …

Via press release: The ACLU, along with our client Communications Workers of America, and other civil rights groups, announced a historic settlement agreement with Facebook that will result in major changes to Facebook’s advertising platform. Advertisers will no longer be able to exclude users from learning about opportunities for housing, employment, or credit based on gender, age, or other protected …

Devin Nunes surely approves. The Moscow Times reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a controversial set of bills that make it a crime to “disrespect” the state and spread “fake news” online, Russian media reported on Monday. The bills amending existing information laws overwhelmingly passed both chambers of Russian parliament in less than two months. Observers and some lawmakers …

The New York Times reports: Stung by obscene and pointed criticism, Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican from California, has sued Twitter and three users for defamation, claiming the users smeared him and the platform allowed it to happen because of a political agenda. The complaint, filed in Virginia on Monday, seeks $250 million in damages. In making his case, Mr. …

Axios reports: Facebook wants to deliver more local news, but there aren’t enough local news outlets across the U.S. to do so, according to research the platform released Monday morning in conjunction with four academic researchers. Facebook and rival Google have shouldered blame for creating local news deserts by upending the business models of small, local newspapers. Now, the tech …

From an op-ed published last night by Junior: Even as Big Tech companies work to exclude us from the town square of the 21st century, they’ve been able to rely on misguided conservatives to carry water for them with irrelevant pedantry about whether the First Amendment applies in cases of social media censorship. Left unchecked, Big Tech and liberal activists …

The Daily Beast reports: Reddit took down two of its most notorious subreddits on Friday, apparently because their users were sharing footage of the New Zealand mosque shootings. Visitors to two subreddits known for sharing video and pictures of people being killed or injured—R/WatchPeopleDie and R/Gore—were met with a message saying the forums had been “banned from Reddit.” Reddit didn’t …

CNN reports: Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are struggling to halt the spread of horrific footage that appears to show a massacre at a mosque in New Zealand as it was taking place. Dozens of people were killed Friday in shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch. “New Zealand Police alerted us to a video on Facebook shortly after …