CNBC reports: A leader of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said he has asked Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores over China-related data security concerns. The wildly popular short video app is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, which faced U.S. scrutiny under President Donald Trump. Brendan Carr, one of the FCC’s commissioners, shared via Twitter a …
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Today Online reports: A Russian court on Tuesday (April 26) hit Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta and video platform TikTok with fines for refusing to take down LBGT content. In separate hearings, a Moscow court ordered Meta to pay four million rubles (S$74,000) and TikTok 2 million rubles for failing to delete content with LGBT “propaganda”, news agency Interfax …
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The Washington Post reports: Facebook parent company Meta is paying one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to orchestrate a nationwide campaign seeking to turn the public against TikTok. The campaign includes placing op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets, promoting dubious stories about alleged TikTok trends that actually originated on Facebook, and …
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CNN Business reports: American Express is the latest credit card company to announce it is ending its operations in Russia as its invasion into Ukraine escalates. Late on Sunday, the company said in a statement that globally issued American Express cards will no longer work in Russia, and cards issued in Russia won’t work outside the country. American Express also …
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The Kansas City Star reports: A teacher was caught making racist remarks to an Asian couple in California, a TikTok video shows. Now she has been fired from her job at a Christian school in Temecula, the school said. And her husband, a city worker for Coronado, has been placed on leave, according to a statement from the Coronado city …
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NBC News reports: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin clearly thought a tip line (read: snitch line) that would allow conservative parents to rat out educators accused of teaching critical race theory would go over well. In light of recent news, I have to agree. After Youngkin on Monday announced a new email address for parents to send in their complaints, zealous …
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The Daily Beast reports: Right-wing pundit and Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton has been banned from TikTok, the short video-sharing platform. He now joins the likes of fellow right-wing activist Roger Stone, who was also banned last year. “This account was banned due to multiple Community Guidelines violations,” a notice reads on Fitton’s now blank user profile. “Well, the communists …
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Protocol reports: TikTok has dethroned Google as the most popular domain in 2021, according to Cloudflare’s 2021 Year in Review for internet traffic. In 2020, the video-sharing platform was ranked No. 7 while Google came in at No. 1. This year, TikTok came in first, followed by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple, in that order Read the full article. TikTok …
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The Verge reports: TikTok is changing its For You Page algorithm to prevent users from seeing too many similar videos that could be harmful when viewed in clusters, the company said today. The goal is to steer users away from clusters of videos that might “reinforce a negative personal experience,” listing extreme dieting, sadness, and breakup content as examples. Read …
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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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Politico reports: Federal officials warned law enforcement agencies this spring that domestic extremists had used TikTok in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 riots on the Capitol, including by promoting bringing guns to Washington that day, according to an internal government document — highlighting authorities’ growing concern over violent content on the video app. In the April 19 briefing reviewed …
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The Guardian reports: Pro-choice users on TikTok and Reddit have launched a guerrilla effort to thwart Texas’s extreme new abortion law, flooding an online tip website that encourages people to report violators of the law with false reports, Shrek memes, and porn. Though the site was launched a month ago, the fake reports came flooding in on the eve of …
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CNN reports: There’s a new TikTok star, and his name is Dr. Anthony Fauci. “Tell all of your TikTok buddies to get vaccinated,” Fauci said this week in a video posted on TikTok by Nia Sioux, the social media and former “Dance Moms” star. “I will, I’ll tell all my besties,” Sioux replied. In the latest push from the White …
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Michigan Live reports: A 27-year-old Ann Arbor woman who teaches social media followers how to do sex acts and fetishes had to call firefighters for help after a sex stunt went wrong Tuesday, June 9. Being stuck was the sexual fetish the woman was trying to demonstrate on social media, but this time she couldn’t get unstuck on her own. …
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The Verge reports: President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday revoking the Trump-era bans on TikTok and WeChat. In place of the Trump order, Biden will direct the commerce secretary to investigate apps with ties to foreign adversaries that may pose a risk to American data privacy or national security. The order takes the place of a series of …
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The Daily Beast reports: A team of cybersecurity researchers who analyzed TikTok’s code found no evidence of “overtly malicious behavior”—and determined the app collects about as much user data as Facebook. Citizen Lab cautioned that there may still be security issues that didn’t crop up during the analysis, but they remain unaware of any “immediate security issues with TikTok.” The …
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The Wall Street Journal reports: A U.S. plan to force the sale of TikTok’s American operations to a group including Oracle Corp.and Walmart Inc. has been shelved indefinitely, people familiar with the situation said, as President Biden undertakes a broad review of his predecessor’s efforts to address potential security risks from Chinese tech companies. The TikTok deal—which had been driven …
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Bloomberg News reports: A deadline set by the Trump administration for the forced sale of TikTok’s U.S. assets came and went Friday without a final deal. While the deadline has been extended multiple times, TikTok isn’t expected to receive a new one, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the decision isn’t yet public. TikTok is still …
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The Verge reports: TikTok got another reprieve from the Trump administration’s attempted ban today, as a federal judge in Pennsylvania blocked the government from moving ahead with restrictions that would have effectively shut down the app next month. The judge granted a preliminary injunction against a series of bans by the US Commerce Department that were set to go into …
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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 …
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