Tag Archives: social media

Politico reports: The presidential @POTUS Twitter handle will automatically transfer to President-elect Joe Biden the moment he’s sworn in at noon on Inauguration Day — whether or not President Donald Trump has conceded, the company confirmed to POLITICO on Friday. Same goes for @whitehouse, @VP, @FLOTUS, and a handful other official accounts associated with the presidency. “Twitter is actively preparing …

The Washington Post reports: State and federal investigators are preparing to bring antitrust charges against Facebook that will challenge the tech giant’s acquisition of two rivals, Instagram and WhatsApp, alleging that the deals helped create an anti-competitive social networking juggernaut that has left users with few quality alternatives. The charges form a critical part of what could be a wide-ranging …

Variety reports: YouTube will not produce its annual YouTube Rewind celebratory recap video this year — with the video giant saying it doesn’t feel appropriate, given the chaos of 2020. YouTube announced the decision to scrap Rewind in a statement on Twitter. “Since 2010, we’ve ended the year with Rewind: a look back at the year’s most impactful creators, videos …

Deadline reports: With many conservatives and Donald Trump backers in a lather over heightened scrutiny of Facebook and Twitter posts during election season, social media startup Parler is emerging as a fast-growing alternative. The Henderson, NV-based company, founded in 2018 by computer programmers John Matze and Jared Thomson, says its membership swelled to about 8 million from 4.5 million in …

Bloomberg News reports: As U.S. president, Donald Trump receives special treatment from Twitter Inc. when he violates the company’s rules around offensive or misleading content. That exemption will end in January if he loses the presidency. The social network treats transgressions from world leaders differently than those from regular users, and often leaves up tweets that violate its content policies, …

Buzzfeed News reports: As votes are being tallied across the country to determine the next US president, internal Facebook data shows that the company has seen a significant increase in what it calls “violence and incitement trends.” In a post to a group on Facebook’s internal message board, one employee alerted their colleagues to a nearly 45% increase in the …

This is surely a doomed effort but nobody will be surprised if Twitter does ban Trump shortly after he leaves office. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the watchdog group Common Cause issued a joint request Thursday for Twitter to temporarily suspend President Trump’s account over the spread of disinformation about the election. The groups sent a …

Axios reports: Twitter on Monday provided more details about its policies around tweets that declare election results, and named the seven outlets it will lean on to help it determine whether a race is officially called. Driving the news: The list includes ABC News, AP, CNN, CBS News, Decision Desk HQ, Fox News and NBC News — all outlets that …

Reuters reports: Facebook Inc’s Instagram said today it was making changes to its image sharing platform for U.S. users to prevent the spread of misinformation around the Nov. 3 presidential election. For users in the United States, Instagram temporarily removed the “Recent” tab from hashtag pages starting Thursday, it said in a statement on Twitter. “We’re doing this to reduce …

Via press release from hate group leader Tony Perkins: The Left is actively seeking to silence the biblical worldview through growing censorship of religious freedom and those who hold to the truth of God’s Word. In July, the who’s who of Big Tech testified before Congress again due to the mess they’re making of free speech. The men behind Apple, …

NBC News reports: Twitter said Monday it would begin placing messages at the top of users’ feeds to pre-emptively debunk false information about voting by mail and election results, an escalation of the tech company’s battle against misinformation. Twitter is calling the messages a “pre-bunk,” something it says it has never done, because the debunking is not a reaction to …

The Washington Post reports: State and federal investigators are expected to file antitrust charges against Facebook as soon as November, according to four people familiar with the matter, embarking on a massive legal challenge against the tech giant and its perceived ironclad grip over social media. The timing reflects a frenzy of recent activity on the part of the Federal …

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump’s Twitter account was hacked last week, after a Dutch researcher correctly guessed the president’s password: “maga2020!”, Dutch media reported. Victor Gevers, a security expert, had access to Trump’s direct messages, could post tweets in his name and change his profile, De Volkskrant newspaper reported. Gevers – who previously managed to log into Trump’s account in …

The Verge reports: Twitter is temporarily changing how you retweet ahead of the November 3rd US presidential election, to help prevent abuse and the spread of misinformation. Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to retweet. But until at least the end of election week, it won’t be quite as easy as usual to retweet something to all of your followers. …

NPR reports: TikTok is toughening its stance against the QAnon conspiracy theory, expanding its ban to all content or accounts that promote videos advancing baseless ideas from the far-right online movement. The action hardens the video-sharing app’s previous enforcement against QAnon that targeted specific hashtags on the app that QAnon supporters have used to spread unfounded theories. Now, users that …

Fox News reports: Conservative activist Charlie Kirk blasted Twitter after the social media giant blocked the Turning Point USA founder for “violating rules against posting misleading information about voting.” “I’m kind of in a hostage situation with Twitter,” Kirk said Sunday on Fox News’ “The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton.” “I do not have access to my Twitter account because …

CNBC reports: Twitter’s website was down Thursday afternoon, with users who tried to visit the service greeted by an error message. A note on the company’s status website showed that Twitter was investigating an irregularity with its application Programming Interface, or API. “We are currently investigating this issue,” the status website read. “More updates to come.” The company’s mobile app …

Media Matters reports: Despite Facebook’s policy against manipulated media in ads, President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign ran thousands of Facebook ads in the last three months that feature manipulated photos of Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Over 2,500 ads feature images in which Biden’s coloring and facial features have been edited to make him appear older, while more than a thousand …

The Hill reports: Some Republican lawmakers lashed out at Twitter and Facebook on Wednesday over the platforms’ decisions to limit the spread of a New York Post story about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. The GOP lawmakers characterized the moves as censorship and renewed their allegations that social media platforms have an anti-conservative bias. Sen. Josh Hawley …

The Washington Post reports: An account featuring the image of a Black police officer, President Trump and the words “VOTE REPUBLICAN” had a brief but spectacular run on Twitter. In six days after it became active last week, it tweeted just eight times but garnered 24,000 followers, with its most popular tweet being liked 75,000 times. Then, on Sunday, the …