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Snapchat launches ‘instant’ tool for creating vertical ads
Snapchat is hoping to attract new advertisers (and make advertising easier for the ones already on the platform) with the launch of a new tool called Instant Create.
Some of these potential advertisers may not be used to creating ads in the smartphone-friendly vertical format that Snapchat has popularized, so Instant Create is to designed to make the process as simple as possible.
Executives at parent organization Snap discussed the tool during last...
Brittany Kaiser dumps more evidence of Brexit’s democratic trainwreck
A UK parliamentary committee has published new evidence fleshing out how membership data was passed from UKIP, a pro-Brexit political party, to Leave.EU, a Brexit supporting campaign active in the 2016 EU referendum — via the disgraced and now defunct data company, Cambridge Analytica.
In evidence sessions last year, during the DCMS committee’s enquiry into online disinformation, it was told by both the former CEO of Cambridge Analytica, and the...
A guide to Virtual Beings and how they impact our world
Money from big tech companies and top VC firms is flowing into the nascent “virtual beings” space. Mixing the opportunities presented by conversational AI, generative adversarial networks, photorealistic graphics, and creative development of fictional characters, “virtual beings” envisions a near-future where characters (with personalities) that look and/or sound exactly like humans are part of our day-to-day interactions.
Last week in San Francisco,...
Facebook and YouTube’s moderation failure is an opportunity to deplatform the platforms
Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have failed their task of monitoring and moderating the content that appears on their sites; what’s more, they failed to do so well before they knew it was a problem. But their incidental cultivation of fringe views is an opportunity to recast their role as the services they should be rather than the platforms they have tried so hard to become.
The struggles of these juggernauts should be a spur to innovation elsewhere:...
Europe’s top court sharpens guidance for sites using leaky social plug-ins
Europe’s top court has made a ruling that could affect scores of websites that embed the Facebook ‘Like’ button and receive visitors from the region.
The ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU states such sites are jointly responsible for the initial data processing — and must either obtain informed consent from site visitors prior to data being transferred to Facebook, or be able to demonstrate a legitimate interest legal basis for processing...
The Great Hack tells us data corrupts
This week professor David Carroll, whose dogged search for answers to how his personal data was misused plays a focal role in The Great Hack: Netflix’s documentary tackling the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal, quipped that perhaps a follow up would be more punitive for the company than the $5BN FTC fine released the same day.
The documentary — which we previewed ahead of its general release Wednesday — does an impressive job of...
Twitter Q2 beats on sales of $841M and EPS of $0.20, new metric of mDAUs up to 139M
Two days after Facebook reported growing numbers (even amid its regulatory turmoil), its social media counterpart Twitter today announced its Q2 results. The company made $841 million in overall revenues, up 18% on a year ago; with EPS and net income respectively at $1.43 and $1.1 billion, a huge bump due to a “significant income tax benefit” related to the establishment of a deferred tax asset for corporate structuring for certain geographies,...
Muzmatch adds $7M to swipe right on Muslim majority markets
Muzmatch, a matchmaking app for Muslims, has just swiped a $7 million Series A on the back of continued momentum for its community sensitive approach to soulmate searching for people of the Islamic faith.
It now has more than 1.5M users of its apps, across 210 countries, swiping, matching and chatting online as they try to find ‘the one’.
The funding, which Muzmatch says will help fuel growth in key international markets, is jointly led by US hedge...
Facebook ignored staff warnings about “sketchy” Cambridge Analytica in September 2015
Facebook employees tried to alert the company about the activity of Cambridge Analytica as early as September 2015, per the SEC’s complaint against the company which was published yesterday.
This chimes with a court filing that emerged earlier this year — which also suggested Facebook knew of concerns about the controversial data company earlier than it had publicly said, including in repeat testimony to a UK parliamentary committee last year.
Facebook...
Daily Crunch: Facebook will pay $5B fine
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.
1. Facebook settles with FTC: $5 billion and new privacy guarantees
Although in line with what was reported before the official announcement, the FTC notes this is the largest fine for any company violating consumer privacy.
In addition to the payment, Facebook...
