Social Media

Wired reports: Starting today, Bluesky is rolling out a new verification system, complete with the familiar blue check marks popularized by Twitter. The social platform, which has experienced rapid growth since it opened to the public in early 2024, formerly relied on an unconventional self-verification system where users could “authenticate” themselves by including custom domains in their web handles. Now …

Axios reports: The Federal Trade Commission and Meta will square off in a long-awaited antitrust trial on Monday over the tech giant’s past acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram. The trial will be a major test of the FTC’s ability to take on tech behemoths for allegedly breaking antitrust law and comes as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg tries to cozy up …

The New York Post reports: Connecticut cops arrested a 22-year-old influencer this week for a risky and reckless motorcycle ride — at 192 mph — he took last year across two of the Nutmeg State’s busiest highways. Showboating YouTuber Brice Bennett would likely have gotten away with his death-defying joyride, had he not shared the frightening footage with his 220,000 …

The New York Times reports: Amazon has put in a last-minute bid to acquire all of TikTok, the popular video app, as it approaches an April deadline to be separated from its Chinese owner or face a ban in the United States, according to three people familiar with the bid. The bid came via an offer letter addressed to Vice …

Florida Politics reports: On Monday afternoon, the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee will hold a hearing to discuss Senate Bill 1438, introduced by Sen. Erin Grall [photo]. This bill requires app stores and operating systems to obtain parental consent before minors can download apps on their devices. Utah became the first state to pass such legislation in February. The Utah …

The New York Times reports: Meta won a legal victory on Wednesday against a former employee who published an explosive, tell-all memoir, as an arbitrator temporarily prohibited the author from promoting or further distributing copies. Sarah Wynn-Williams last week released “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism,” a book that describes a series of incendiary allegations …

The New York Times reports: The social media platform X, formerly Twitter, was experiencing intermittent outages on Monday, mostly on its app, according to Downdetector, which tracks reports of problems from users on websites. The first outages on X, which Elon Musk bought for $44 billion in 2022, were reported before 6 a.m. Eastern time, after which the site and …

The Washington Post reports: After years of working to undermine mainstream outlets and neutralize critical reporting, Trump’s allies are now pushing a parallel information universe of social media feeds and right-wing firebrands to sell the country on his expansionist approach to presidential power. The White House’s rapid-response account posted 207 times to X on Tuesday, the day of Trump’s speech …

Mac Rumors reports: Apple this month started advertising on X for the first time in more than a year. The company had stopped advertising on the social media platform in November 2023 following controversial remarks made by its owner Elon Musk. Apple is one of many major brands that have paused advertising on X at least once, with others including …

Axios reports: President Trump voluntarily dismissed his legal battle with X regarding the social media platform’s permanent suspension of the president’s account following the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. X, which Elon Musk primarily owns but was then the publicly-traded Twitter, banned Trump for what it described at the time as a “risk of further incitement of violence.” Each …

Politico Europe reports: A German court handed Elon Musk’s X a legal defeat, ruling that the platform must immediately provide researchers with access to data on politically related content ahead of the country’s Feb. 23 election. The court decision, seen by POLITICO, was issued Thursday and marks one of the first major judicial tests of the European Union’s Digital Services …

The New York Times reports: In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with Meta employees on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, defended recent changes he had made to loosening restrictions on online speech and ending diversity initiatives, and doubled down on embracing President Trump’s new administration. “I want to be clear, after the last several years, we now have an …

The Wall Street Journal reports: President Trump has signed settlement papers that are expected to require Meta Platforms to pay roughly $25 million to resolve a 2021 lawsuit Trump brought after the company suspended his accounts following the attacks on the U.S. Capitol that year, according to people familiar with the agreement. Of that, $22 million will go to a …

Reuters reports: TikTok users who once saw the app as a haven for free speech say they see signs of censorship after the platform, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, was revived by an executive order from President Donald Trump.  Content creator Pat Loller, 36, said a satirical video he created in response to billionaire Elon Musk’s hand gesture at …

NPR reports: The Trump administration is working on a plan to save TikTok that involves tapping software company Oracle and a group of outside investors to effectively take control of the app’s global operations, according to two people with direct knowledge of the talks. Under the deal now being negotiated by the White House, TikTok’s China-based owner ByteDance would retain …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Banks are getting ready to sell billions of dollars in debt borrowed by Elon Musk’s X, bringing Wall Street a step closer to exiting the nerve-racking deal that financed the social-media company’s buyout. Morgan Stanley bankers have reached out to investors ahead of a planned sale next week of up to $3 billion of debt …

The New York Times reports: Instagram and Facebook have recently blurred, blocked or removed posts from two abortion pill providers. Instagram also suspended the accounts of several abortion pill providers and hid the providers from appearing in search and recommendations. The actions ramped up in the last two weeks, and were especially noticeable in the last two days, abortion pill …

Just in from Sen. Tom Cotton: Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Senator Pete Ricketts (R-Nebraska) issued the following statement in response to the news that Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft were among the U.S. companies to remove TikTok from their app stores in accordance with the bipartisan law passed by Congress. “We …

NBC News reports: TikTok said Sunday that it would be restoring service to U.S. users after blocking it the evening before. In a statement, TikTok said its video platform was coming back online after President-elect Donald Trump provided assurances necessary to the company’s service providers. Just hours before the move from TikTok, Trump posted to Truth Social calling for the …

CBS News reports: TikTok voluntarily shut down service in the U.S. just hours before a Sunday deadline. Users in the U.S. who opened the app late Saturday night were greeted with a message with the headline, “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.” “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” the message reads. “Unfortunately, that means you can’t …