Social Media

Salt Lake City’s ABC affiliate reports: The State of Utah is accusing TikTok of allowing “virtual strip clubs” on its platform, leading to the sexual exploitation of minors, according to a new lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed on Monday by the Utah Division of Consumer Protection, accuses TikTok’s live-streaming feature called TikTok LIVE of letting adults give virtual currency to young …

TechCrunch reports: The internet has been home to all kinds of content for a long time, so it was no surprise to anyone when people started tweeting porn at each other. X (formerly Twitter) has long had many active NSFW (not safe for work) communities, and though the social network unofficially allowed people to post adult content, its rules have …

Reuters reports: Within hours of joining TikTok, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had attracted over 2 million followers on the short video social media platform that he tried to ban as president on national security grounds. Trump posted a launch video on his account, which has the address @realdonaldtrump, on Saturday night. The video, which has more than 34 million …

Reuters reports: TikTok is working on a clone of its recommendation algorithm for its 170 million U.S. users that may result in a version that operates independently of its Chinese parent and be more palatable to American lawmakers who want to ban it, according to sources with direct knowledge of the efforts. The work on splitting the source code ordered …

Reuters reports: Fake accounts posting about the U.S. presidential election are proliferating on the social media platform X, according to a social media analysis company’s report shared with Reuters exclusively ahead of its release on Friday. Analysts from Israeli tech company Cyabra, which uses a subset of artificial intelligence called machine learning to identify fake accounts, found that 15% of …

The Hill reports: TikTok is restricting state-affiliated media accounts, broadening the platform’s efforts to foster “authenticity” and limit their influence heading into elections later this year. The social media platform announced Thursday that accounts “that attempt to reach communities outside their home country on current global events and affairs” will not pop up in the personalized feeds of users. TikTok …

Bloomberg News reports: Steven Mnuchin, the former US Treasury Secretary, said he’s still interested in buying TikTok’s US operation from its Chinese owner, and believes the social media app’s critical video recommendation technology could be replicated. “I’ve actually spoken to a lot of tech companies on working about rebuilding this,” Mnuchin said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “I …

The Wall Street Journal reports: TikTok said it filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging the constitutionality of a new law that requires a sale or ban of the popular social-media app, setting up a court showdown over national security and free speech in the age of global information wars. The suit, filed directly with a federal appeals court in Washington, …

The Independent reports: On Saturday, Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox – who failed to submit the right paperwork to run for mayor and then failed to get elected in the London-wide assembly vote – penned a tweet in which he fumed that a number of elected individuals are all Muslim (even when some of them aren’t). Fox appears to have …

Ars Technica reports: “Join Your Local Militia or III% Patriot Group,” a post urged the more than 650 members of a Facebook group called the Free American Army. Accompanied by the logo for the Three Percenters militia network and an image of a man in tactical gear holding a long rifle, the post continues: “Now more than ever. Support the …

Fox News-owned site OutKick reports: Anti-Israel, Pro-Palestine protests have thrown college campuses into chaos over the past few weeks, with absurd, embarrassing demonstrations especially common at Columbia University and UCLA. But X and Tesla’s Elon Musk has an idea of how to reward the protestors intent on flying the Palestinian, or any other country’s flag, instead of the American flag: …

CNN Business reports: Truth Social’s average number of daily active US users on iOS and Android dropped by 19% year over year in April to about 113,000, according to data shared exclusively with CNN from Similarweb, a data intelligence company. The Similarweb data, which captures the first 29 days of April, showed that the average number of users dipped 4% …

Right wing outlet Just The News reports: X owner Elon Musk on Thursday announced that he would reinstate the account of far-right “groyper” leader Nick Fuentes, who was banned from the platform prior to Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Musk made the pledge in response to a request from the “GoyaBeanGroyper” account asking for Fuentes’s return. “Groypers” are supporters of Fuentes …

Reuters reports: Meta’s Facebook and Instagram have failed to tackle deceptive advertising and disinformation in the run-up to European Parliament elections, the European Commission said on Tuesday as it opened an investigation into suspected breaches of EU online content rules. The move by EU tech regulators came amid concerns about Russia, China and Iran as potential sources of disinformation, but …

NBC News reports: The Supreme Court on Monday turned away tech billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s attempt to challenge the terms of an agreement he reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission that required a lawyer to review some of his social media posts. The justices rejected Musk’s appeal of a ruling by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit …

NBC News reports: TikTok CEO Shou Chew said Wednesday that the company would go to court to try to remain online in the United States. In a video posted on the app, Chew denounced a potential ban signed into law by President Joe Biden. The law has a built-in delay of nine months, giving TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, a …

Reuters reports: An Australian senator said on Wednesday that police feared Elon Musk’s decision to ignore a regulator order and leave footage on his social media platform X of a Sydney bishop being stabbed might encourage people to join terrorist groups. An Australian court has upheld a regulator order for the billionaire to take down posts containing footage of the …

The Verge reports: A bill that would force China-based company ByteDance to sell TikTok — or else face a US ban of the platform — is all but certain to become law after the Senate passed a foreign aid package including the measure. It now heads to President Joe Biden, who already committed to signing the TikTok legislation. Once signed …

The Insider reports: The House advanced legislation on Saturday that could lead to a TikTok ban in the United States. The bill forces TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to secure American ownership in about a year or face a domestic ban. Earlier versions of the legislation gave ByteDance just six months to find a new owner. To fast-track the bipartisan legislation, …

The Verge reports: Post News, a Twitter alternative that emerged in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover, is shutting down. Noam Bardin, the platform’s founder and former CEO of Waze, writes that Post News “is not growing fast enough to become a real business or a significant platform.” The Andreessen Horowitz-backed platform launched in a closed beta in November 2022, …