Tag Archives: internet

Gaming Platform Sues Banned User For Terror Threat

Polygon reports: The Roblox Corporation is suing controversial Roblox content creator Benjamin Robert Simon, better known online as Ruben Sim, for leading a “cybermob” that they say terrorizes the Roblox platform and its developers. Roblox lawyers filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a California court, alleging that Simon “commits and encourages unlawful acts designed to injure Roblox and its users.” Roblox …

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Comcast/Xfinity Outages Reported Nationwide [VIDEO]

USA Today reports: Xfinity customers from California to New Jersey are experiencing extensive outages affecting their internet and cable. According to Down Detector, there are over 52,000 reports of outages as of Tuesday morning. KPIX 5 reported widespread outages across the San Francisco area Monday night. The outage led to the Marin County Sheriff to tweet for people to not …

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PayPal In Talks To Acquire Pinterest In $45 Billion Deal

Market Watch reports: PayPal Holdings Inc.’s quest to become a “super-app” may be kicking into a new gear following reports that the company has held acquisition talks with Pinterest Inc. The financial-technology company has been expanding beyond payments and into other areas of financial services and commerce, driven by a revamp of its app to emphasize features like crypto purchasing …

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National Retailers Launch “As Seen On TikTok” Sections

The Associated Press reports: TikTok, an app best known for dancing videos with 1 billion users worldwide, has also become a shopping phenomenon. National chains, hoping to get TikTok’s mostly young users into its stores, are setting up TikTok sections, reminiscent of “As Seen On TV” stores that sold products hawked on infomercials. At Barnes & Noble, tables display signs …

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Facebook And Instagram See Widespread Outage

The Verge reports: Just as Facebook’s Antigone Davis was live on CNBC defending the company’s policies and its handling of research data suggesting Instagram is harmful to teens, its network of services suddenly went offline. On Twitter, Facebook communications exec Andy Stone says, “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get …

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Russian Troll Farms Target Western Comments Sections

The BBC reports: A major operation to influence public opinion saw comments posted on Western media articles in support of Russian interests, according to new research. Cardiff University’s Crime and Security Research Institute found 32 prominent media websites across 16 countries were targeted including Mail Online, the Express and the Times. The comments were fed back into Russian-language media outlets …

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OnlyFans Reverses Decision To Ban Explicit Content

Yahoo Finance reports: OnlyFans’ upcoming ban on sexually explicit material appears to be over before it even began. The company said it had “suspended” its planned October 1st change after having “secured assurances” needed to support its existing creator base. The exact situation isn’t clear (we’ve asked for comment), but it appears adults-only content is safe for now. A more …

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OnlyFans To Prohibit All “Sexually Explicit” Content

Bloomberg News reports: OnlyFans is getting out of the pornography business. The company will prohibit users from posting any sexually explicit conduct, starting in October. Creators will still be allowed to post nude photos and videos, provided they’re consistent with OnlyFans’ policy, the company said Thursday. The changes are needed because of mounting pressure from banking partners and payment providers, …

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Scammers Will Get You Banned By Instagram For $60

Vice News reports: Scammers are abusing Instagram’s protections against suicide, self-harm, and impersonation to purposefully target and ban Instagram accounts at will, with some people even advertising professionalized ban-as-a-service offerings so anyone can harass or censor others. It appears that in some cases, the same scammers who offer ban-as-a-service also offer or are at least connected to services to restore …

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Porn Seen On News Sites Due To Defunct Domain Buy

Vice News reports: As pointed out by Twitter user @dox_gay, hardcore porn is now embedded on the pages of the Huffington Post, New York magazine, The Washington Post, and a host of other websites. This is because a porn site called 5 Star Porn HD bought the domain for Vidme, a brief YouTube competitor founded in 2014 and shuttered in …

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TN Teen Gets Five Years In Fatal Swatting Incident

Vice News reports: In April 2020, Mark Herring’s heart stopped beating when armed police surrounded his house, responding to a bogus call of an alleged murder. The swatting incident—where people call in fake threats to the police so officers respond to someone’s address, potentially harming them—was all for the purpose of a scammer trying to gain control of Herring’s Twitter …

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Twitter Tests Upvotes And Downvotes On Tweets

The Verge reports: Twitter is working on new upvote and downvote reactions for tweets to accompany the usual options to retweet and reply. Twitter confirmed it was testing the feature for a small group of users on iOS, and it’s already been spotted according to multiple tweets from users that are part of the test group. Twitter writes that iOS …

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Uber Expands Grocery Deliveries To Major Markets

The Verge reports: Uber has more than doubled the number of cities where it delivers groceries, marking the first major expansion of the new service since its launch last year. The company’s on-demand and scheduled grocery delivery is now available in 400 cities, including key markets like New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. Uber’s grocery delivery service got …

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Facebook To Pay $1B To Content Creators Thru 2022

The Verge reports: Facebook plans to pay out $1 billion to creators over the next year and a half as part of an effort to court content makers to its many services. The money will be awarded to creators who use Facebook products in different ways: on Facebook, creators can get a cash bonus for running ads on their videos …

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Right Wing Sites See Plummeting Traffic Post-Trump

Axios reports: Outlets most dependent on controversy to stir up resentments have struggled to find a foothold in the Biden era, according to an Axios analysis of publishers’ readership and engagement trends. By the numbers: Web traffic, social media engagement and app user sessions suggest that while the entire news industry is experiencing a slump, right-wing outlets are seeing some …

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Facebook To Update Its Policies On Satirical Content

The Verge reports: Following a recommendation from its Oversight Board, Facebook says it will update its community standards to be clearer about how it handles satirical content, the company said in a blog post. “We’ll add information to the Community Standards that makes it clear where we consider satire as part of our assessment of context-specific decisions,” according to the …

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Airlines And Banks See Web Outage In Network Failure

CNN Business reports: Airlines, banks, stock exchanges and trading platforms suffered website outages early Thursday after a key piece of internet infrastructure failed, sparking the second major interruption of the past 10 days. The outages come just over a week after countless websites and apps around the world went down for about an hour when Fastly, another major content delivery …

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Yesterday’s Web Outage Blamed On “Software Bug”

The Associated Press reports: Fastly, the company hit by a major outage that caused many of the world’s top websites to go offline briefly this week, blamed the problem on a software bug that was triggered when a customer changed a setting. The issue lead caused outages for a number of highly-trafficked websites including The New York Times, Bloomberg News, …

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Cloud Provider Outage Takes Down Large Swath Of Web

CNN Business reports: Countless websites and apps around the world went down Tuesday after Fastly, a major content delivery network, reported a widespread failure. Fastly supports news sites and apps like CNN, the Guardian, the New York Times and many others. It also provides content delivery for Twitch, Pinterest, HBO Max, Hulu, Reddit, Spotify and other services. Other major internet …

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Twitter Begins Rollout Of $3/Month Subscription Plan

The Verge reports: Twitter has officially announced Twitter Blue, a paid subscription service that offers access to new features like undoing tweets and viewing threads in an easier to digest “Reader Mode.” Starting Thursday, it will roll out first in Canada and Australia, where the subscription will cost $3.49 CAD or $4.49 AUD per month, respectively. A new undo send …

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