Twitter flags Republican leader’s video as ‘manipulated’ for altering disabled activist’s words

Twitter flagged an inflammatory video by House Republican Whip Steve Scalise on Sunday for altering footage of a conversation between progressive activist Ady Barkan and Joe Biden. The video is now labeled as “manipulated media” in a tweet from Scalise, though remains online. The inflammatory video pulls in out-of-context quotes from a number of Democrats and activists, but appears to have crossed a line by altering Barkan’s words from a portion...

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Facebook partially documents its content recommendation system

Algorithmic recommendation systems on social media sites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, have shouldered much of the blame for the spread of misinformation, propaganda, hate speech, conspiracy theories and other harmful content. Facebook, in particular, has come under fire in recent days for allowing QAnon conspiracy groups to thrive on its platform and for helping militia groups to scale membership. Today, Facebook is attempting to combat claims...

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TikTok’s rivals in India struggle to cash in on its ban

For years, India has served as the largest open battleground for Silicon Valley and Chinese firms searching for their next billion users. With more than 400 million WhatsApp users, India is already the largest market for the Facebook-owned service. The social juggernaut’s big blue app also reaches more than 300 million users in the country. Google is estimated to reach just as many users in India, with YouTube closely rivaling WhatsApp for the most...

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Facebook tests linking your FB account to your news subscriptions

Facebook is testing out a new feature that could help news publishers create a better experience for paying subscribers on the social network. The idea is that when Facebook identifies a subscriber from one of its publisher partners, that subscriber will be invited to link their news account to their Facebook account. Once they’re linked, if they encounter a paywalled article on Facebook, they’ll be able to read it without hitting the paywall or...

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Daily Crunch: TikTok’s CEO resigns

Turmoil continues at TikTok, Salesforce lays off 1,000 people and Warby Parker is now valued at $3 billion. This is your Daily Crunch for August 27, 2020. The big story: TikTok’s CEO resigns Kevin Mayer, the former Disney executive who joined TikTok as CEO just over 100 days ago, announced yesterday that he’s resigning. While Mayer was likely brought on to reassure U.S. legislators about the app’s Chinese owners, it seems he wasn’t expecting this...

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Facebook sues developers who violated terms to collect user data, sell fake ‘likes’

Facebook announced today it’s suing multiple developers in the U.S. and, for the first time, in the U.K., for violations of its policies. In the U.K., both Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland are suing MobiBurn, parent company OakSmart Technologies and its founder Fatih Haltas, in the High Court of Justice for failing to comply with Facebook’s audit request, after security researchers flagged the company’s technology for collecting data from Facebook...

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Facebook isn’t happy about Apple’s upcoming ad tracking restrictions

Apple’s upcoming operating system iOS 14 (currently in public beta) could have a big impact on publishers who work with Facebook’s  ad network — at least, according to Facebook. The company published a couple of blog posts yesterday outlining the potential impact of a major privacy change that Apple announced at WWDC — namely, the fact that Apple will explicitly ask users whether they want to opt-in before sharing the IDFA identifier with app...

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Facebook removes ‘Kenosha Guard’ militia account after shooter kills two at protest

Facebook has removed a local self-declared militia’s page and a related event following the events that unfolded last night in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Two people were killed and another was wounded when a man believed to be 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse allegedly began firing on a group protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man shot in the back while walking away from officers and approaching his car. Rittenhouse was arrested Wednesday...

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Instagram Guides may soon allow creators to recommended places, products and more

Instagram is working to expand its recently launched “Guides” feature which initially debuted with a specific focus on wellness content. The feature, which launched in May, has allowed select organizations and experts to share resources related to managing your mental health — including things like handling anxiety or grief amid the COVID-19 pandemic, for example. A handful of creators first gained access to the feature, and have since posted their...

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Twitter experiments with adding a ‘Quotes’ count to tweets

Twitter wants to make it easier to see the conversations taking place around a tweet. This May, the company rolled out a change to its user interface that allowed users who clicked on the “Retweets” metric beneath a tweet to view both those Retweets with comments and those without all on one screen. But a new feature may soon make those retweets where discussions are happening even more visible to the end user. Twitter confirmed it’s experimenting...

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Facebook updates Messenger Rooms as Zoom sits at top of the App Store

Messenger Rooms, Facebook’s social Zoom competitor, is today rolling out new features aimed at making Rooms easier to both create and discover, as well as those for further personalizing your Rooms experience. The changes follow Messenger’s recent slight dip from the top of the U.S. App Store charts, where typically it ranks in the top 10. Last week, the app got as low as No. 15, according to data from mobile data and analytics firm App Annie. The...

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Max Schrems on the EU court ruling that could cut Facebook in two

Last month’s ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), ripping up the EU-US Privacy Shield and sewing doubt over alternative mechanisms, has put a cat among the pigeons of international data transfers. For Facebook the impact could fall like a cleaving sword as its business is front and center following the so-called Schrems II judgement. Eponymous privacy campaigner Max Schrems’ underlying complaint targeted the tech giant’s use...

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Facebook News to expand internationally to the U.K., Germany, France, India and Brazil

Facebook News, the social network’s dedicated news section launched to U.S. audiences in June, is soon expanding to international markets. The company announced today it plans to accelerate its plans to bring the product to non-U.S. markets, including the U.K., Germany, France, India and Brazil, within the time frame of six months to a year. As in the U.S., Facebook says it’s committed to paying news publishers in the new markets for the content...

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