Social Media

The New York Times reports: Meta on Monday said that it planned to bar Russian media outlets including RT, the state-owned television network that has come under scrutiny in the United States, from posting to its platforms, saying the outlets had carried out covert influence campaigns across social media sites to manipulate discourse online. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Secret Service said on Monday it was aware of a post by billionaire Elon Musk on the X social media platform musing about an absence of assassination attempts on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Musk wrote on Sunday: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” a post he ended with an …

ABC News reports: The White House on Monday decried a now-deleted post by Elon Musk on X as “irresponsible.” In the Sunday night post — which he made after the second apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump — Musk, who owns the platform, responded to a user who asked, “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?” In his …

Forbes reports: Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, reacted to an apparent assassination attempt against former President Donald Sunday by pointing out that no one was trying to kill either President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, in a post that drew strong condemnation on X. On Sunday night, Musk reshared a post asking why people want to …

Axios reports: Brazil’s top judge lifted restrictions on the bank accounts of Elon Musk’s Starlink and X on Friday after more than $3 million dollars in fines were transferred, multiple outlets reported. It’s the latest in the standoff over misinformation vs. freedom of speech between Musk and Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who the billionaire has accused of acting as a …

Salt Lake City’s Fox affiliate reports: A federal judge has blocked one of Utah’s new laws on youth social media access from going into effect. In an order issued late Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby agreed with NetChoice, a coalition of tech and social media companies, to halt Senate Bill 194 from being enforced. That law required age-verification …

The Associated Press reports: Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov promised to step up efforts to fight criminality on the messaging app, his first public comments since French authorities handed him preliminary charges for allegedly allowing the platform’s use for criminal activity. In a Telegram post late Thursday, Durov defended himself against the French judicial investigation, suggesting that he shouldn’t …

Reuters reports: A conservative party in Brazil is seeking to reverse a judge’s ban on Elon Musk’s X platform, potentially escalating the months-long feud over censorship and hate speech in South America’s largest country. Partido Novo’s challenge of the decision by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes barring the popular social media site will be taken up by another top …

Reuters reports: Elon Musk’s social media platform X won on Wednesday an appeal to partially block a California law requiring social media companies to publish their policies for combating disinformation, harassment, hate speech and extremism. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a lower court judge’s decision declining to pause enforcement of …

Politico reports: Hackers apparently breached the social media accounts of Lara and Tiffany Trump on Tuesday, distributing what the former president’s son said were two fake posts touting a family cryptocurrency venture. The posts on the social network X appeared to come from the accounts of Lara Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, and Tiffany, the younger of …

The Associated Press reports: A Brazilian Supreme Court panel on Monday unanimously upheld the decision of one of its justices to block billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X nationwide, according to the court’s website. The broader support among justices undermines the effort by Musk and his supporters to cast Justice Alexandre de Moraes as an authoritarian renegade who is …

The Washington Post reports: His and his partners’ overall stake has shed $24 billion in value — a vaporization of wealth that has little parallel outside the realm of economic or industry-specific crashes, or devastating corporate scandals. Among those shouldering the burden: Saudi and Qatari business leaders and royalty; Silicon Valley venture capital and tech investors; and Twitter co-founder and …

The Guardian reports: Millions of Brazilian X users found themselves unable to access the network on Saturday morning as internet providers and mobile phone companies began to enforce the ban. When the Guardian tried to access the network on its computer and mobile phone, it received a message reading: “Seems like you lost connectivity. We’ll keep retrying.” Large numbers of …

Law & Crime reports: In a 16-page ruling in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee who previously sided with Musk on discovery and who reportedly owns Tesla stock, wrote that a review of the “relevant case law” led him to the conclusion that Media Matters, its president Angelo …

The New York Times reports: Brazil blocked the social network X on Friday after its owner, Elon Musk, refused to comply with a Brazilian judge’s orders to suspend certain accounts, the biggest test yet of the billionaire’s efforts to transform the site into a digital town square where just about anything goes. Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice, …

CNBC reports: Elon Musk ramped up his online attacks on Brazilian Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes on Thursdayl. X Global Government Affairs issued a statement on Thursday evening ahead of an anticipated suspension of its platform in Brazil. Among other things, the company said X plans to publish all of de Moraes’ demands, which it believes to be illegal, …

Mediaite reports: Social media platform X slapped a “warning” on links to NPR’s follow-up reporting on the Trump campaign’s altercation in Arlington National Cemetery, stalling users who click on the story and suggesting the link is “unsafe” or “spam.” The warning appeared on links posted soon after the story was published by the article’s author, NPR journalist Stephen Fowler. The …

Axios reports: A Brazil Supreme Court judge warned Elon Musk Wednesday that he would have X suspended in Latin America’s largest nation if the billionaire didn’t name a legal representative for the platform in the country within 24 hours. Justice Alexandre de Moraes’ summons alerting Musk that X has until about 8pm local time Thursday (7pm ET) to comply with …

NBC News reports: Pavel Durov, the CEO and co-founder of the news and messaging app Telegram, has been charged in France with enabling various forms of criminality in the app, French prosecutors said Wednesday. One of the charges — complicity in administering an online platform permitting illicit transactions by an organized group — carries a maximum penalty of 10 years …

NBC News reports: Before Telegram’s CEO was arrested in France, the app had gained a reputation for ignoring advocacy groups fighting child exploitation. Three of those groups, the U.S.-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and the U.K.-based Internet Watch Foundation, all told NBC News that their outreach to Telegram about child …