Social Media

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 …

Agence France-Presse reports: Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s X platform is misleading users with its blue checkmarks for certified accounts, and is also violating EU content rules, Brussels said Friday, in a finding that could lead to hefty fines. EU regulators are unhappy with the blue badge system under Musk’s ownership since anyone can now obtain it with a premium subscription, …

NBC News reports: The Justice Department said Tuesday it had uncovered and dismantled a Russian propaganda network with nearly 1,000 accounts pushing pro-Russia posts on the social media platform X. The accounts on X posed as Americans, including a bitcoin investor in Minneapolis, but in reality they were masks for Russian operatives who had the approval and financial support of …

The Guardian reports: Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota who has been dogged by controversy since recounting how she chose to shoot dead a puppy and a goat, attracted new questions when it was noted that some of her official social media accounts appeared to have been deleted. On Monday, a link from Noem’s official website led to …

Reuters reports: Elon Musk wants to dismiss a lawsuit by former Twitter shareholders who said he waited too long in early 2022 to reveal his large ownership stake in the social media company, saying “all indications” show his delay was a mistake. In a late Wednesday night filing in Manhattan federal court, Musk called it implausible to believe he wanted …

Reuters reports: A federal judge on Monday blocked Mississippi from enforcing a new law that requires users of social media platforms to verify their ages and restricts access by minors to their sites if they lack parental consent, saying it was likely unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Halil Suleyman Ozerden in Gulfport, Mississippi, sided with tech industry trade group NetChoice in …

ABC News reports: European Union regulators accused social media company Meta Platforms on Monday of breaching the bloc’s new digital competition rulebook by forcing Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them. Meta began giving European users the option in November of paying for ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram as a way to …

Florida Politics reports: Florida’s Governor is taking to social media to decry social media censorship, after a SCOTUS ruling said Louisiana, Missouri and social media users lacked standing to sue over the federal government’s push for platforms to remove COVID misinformation at the height of the pandemic. “The Court majority has rubber-stamped a way for the federal government to censor …

CNN reports: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the White House and federal agencies such as the FBI may continue to urge social media platforms to take down content the government views as misinformation, handing the Biden administration a technical if important election-year victory. Of immediate significance, the decision means that the Department of Homeland Security may continue to flag …

Bloomberg News reports: A major plank of Elon Musk’s plan for expanding X into an “everything app” has been grafting a payments network onto its main social networking service. The details of this project have remained blurry, but dozens of documents the company has submitted to state regulators—which have not previously been made public—give a new view of the business. …

NBC News reports: YouTube has a pattern of recommending right-leaning and Christian videos, even to users who haven’t previously interacted with that kind of content, according to a recent study of the platform’s suggestions to users. Researchers created accounts and built mock user personas by searching for content, subscribing to channels and watching videos using those accounts. After having built …

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy writes: The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor. Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms, and the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer …

Mashable reports: X, formerly Twitter, has officially started hiding public “likes” on posts. X’s director of engineering Haofei Wang confirmed the news, saying in a post, “Public likes are incentivizing the wrong behavior. For example, many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be ‘edgy’ in fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their public image. You’ll be …

Florida Politics reports: Just days after the Trump campaign promoted its new account on TikTok, Rubio went back on the attack against the Chinese-connected social media platform. “Further evidence TikTok is a propaganda tool for pro-Hamas groups,” Rubio harrumphed on his official account on X, responding to a news article with the lurid headline, “TikTok Executives To Speak at Conference …