Social Media & Big Tech news and discussions

[wjfox]

US TikTok ban would be 'devastating', UK firms warn

25 April 2024

A TikTok ban in the US could have a "potentially devastating" impact on some UK businesses, online traders are warning.

President Biden has signed into law a bill that gives TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, nine months to sell its stake in the app or it will be blocked in the US. TikTok has said it will challenge this in court.

Some 1.5 million UK businesses operate on the app, according to TikTok.

Isobel Perl, founder of Perl Cosmetics in London, is worried about the possible impact of a ban as a quarter of her sales now come from the US.

Ms Perl founded her skincare and accessories business after losing her job during the pandemic and uses apps such as TikTok to drive traffic to her website.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3gl5qly48qo

[Time_Traveller]

Tech firms face tougher online age checks - Ofcom

8 May 2024, 00:18 BST

Ofcom has warned social media sites they could be banned for under-18s if they fail to comply with new online safety rules.

The media regulator has published draft codes of practice which require tech firms to have more robust age-checking measures, and to reformulate their algorithms to steer children away from material they should not see.

But parents of children who died after exposure to harmful online content have described Ofcom's new rules as "insufficient" - one told the BBC change was happening "at a snail's pace."

In statements, Meta and Snapchat said they had extra protections for under-18s, and offered parental tools to control what children can see on their platforms.

Other firms have not responded to a BBC request for comment.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czrx13jj9p3o

[Time_Traveller]

Facebook and Instagram suspected to be 'too addictive'

16 May 2024, 12:09 BST

The European Union is investigating Facebook and Instagram over whether they are so addictive that they are having "negative effects" on the "physical and mental health" of children.

It will also scrutinise if have done enough to check whether users are old enough to use them, and how content is recommended to children.

A number of big tech firms are now under investigation for potential breaches of the EU's tough new Digital Services Act (DSA), and could be fined up to 6% of annual global turnover.

Meta, which owns both platforms, says it has "spent a decade developing more than 50 tools and policies" to protect children.

"This is a challenge the whole industry is facing, and we look forward to sharing details of our work with the European Commission," it said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv2d2j8y38lo

[Powers]

^^^ Missing the trunk and the whole elephant.

[caltrek]

Trump’s Social Media Company Just Keeps Losing Money
by Russ Choma
May 21, 2024

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) Donald Trump’s Truth Social stock might be doing better these days, but the company is still struggling to make money. In the first three months of 2024, it pulled in just $770,000 in advertising revenue. To put that in some context, Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, earned more revenue in just three minutes, on its way to making $36.4 billion in revenue over three months.

Truth Social posted those dismal revenue numbers in a public stock filing on Monday, but as anemic as the revenue numbers are, they aren’t even an improvement from last year. Despite all of Trump’s bluster and the publicity from finally going public, the platform actually saw it’s ad revenues drop from the same period last year, when the company reportedly earned a not-much-better $1.1 million in ad revenue.

The new filing also revealed that the company, which went public in March, lost about $13.1 million from first quarter operations, a dramatic uptick from last year’s $3.6 million. And that’s just the cost of doing business—when the company factored in the cost of going public and distributing shares to people who were owed pieces of the venture, it actually lost $327.6 million in the first three months of the year. It still has about $274 million in cash to play with, but none of this is a good sign for the company’s future.

The company’s current stock price would indicate a value of nearly $6 billion, of which Trump personally controls about $4 billion. That valuation seems hard to square with the company’s revenues, which currently amount to less than the sales at an average Chick-Fil-A franchise. On Monday, following the release of its new financial data, the stock price fell by roughly 9 percent by mid-afternoon.

The long-term outlook for the share price is particularly important for Trump, who cannot cash his shares out until September—six months from the stock going public—and so the value of his stake in the company is entirely theoretical, at least for now.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... g-money/

[firestar464]

Study shows relatively low number of superspreaders responsible for large portion of misinformation on Twitter

https://phys.org/news/2024-05-superspre ... ation.html

[caltrek]

PR Professionals Abandon X for LinkedIn
by Eleanor Hawkins
June 6, 2024

Introduction:

(Axios) LinkedIn has toppled X (formerly Twitter) as the most useful social media platform for public relations professionals, according to Muck Rack's latest State of PR report.

Why it matters: Twitter historically served as a key resource for both journalists and communication professionals, but the usability of the platform has been questioned since Elon Musk took over in 2022.

By the numbers: Muck Rack surveyed 1,116 public relations professionals from April 4 to May 10, 2024, and found that most viewed LinkedIn as the social media platform they valued most — more than X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok combined.

• 61% planned to increase their LinkedIn use, while only 15% planned to focus more on X and 11% on Facebook.

Zoom in: X previously was the second most used platform for pitching reporters — behind email — per the report.

• Now only 10% of PR professionals report using X for outreach, below even phone calls and text messages.

Read more here: https://www.axios.com/2024/06/06/pr-li ... muckrack

[firestar464]

They should try Reddit; it's been given a boost thanks to Google's shitty algorithm

[Powers]

They should try Reddit; it's been given a boost thanks to Google's shitty algorithm

[firestar464]

What we do — and don’t — know about how misinformation spreads online

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01618-z

[wjfox]

[Time_Traveller]

Not a big surprise under Musk.

[wjfox]

[firestar464]

More on that by Breakingnews.ie

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/har ... 58968.html

[wjfox]

Elon Musk shares fake news about England rioters being sent to Falklands

Thu 8 Aug 2024 14.03 BST

Elon Musk shared a fake Telegraph article claiming Keir Starmer was considering sending far-right rioters to “emergency detainment camps” in the Falklands.

Musk deleted his post after about 30 minutes but a screenshot captured by Politics.co.uk suggests it had garnered nearly two million views before it was deleted.

In it, Musk shared the image posted by the co-leader of the far-right group Britain First, Ashlea Simon, which she captioned with, “we’re all being deported to the Falklands”.

The fake piece, purportedly written by a senior news reporter for the Telegraph and mocked up in the newspaper’s style, said camps in the Falklands “would be used to detain prisoners from the ongoing riots as the British prison system is already at capacity”.

The Telegraph said on Thursday it had never published the article in question. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Telegraph Media Group said: “This is a fabricated headline for an article that does not exist. We notified relevant platforms and requested that the post be taken down.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ands-camps

[Time_Traveller]

Elon Musk shares fake news about England rioters being sent to Falklands

Thu 8 Aug 2024 14.03 BST

Elon Musk shared a fake Telegraph article claiming Keir Starmer was considering sending far-right rioters to “emergency detainment camps” in the Falklands.

Musk deleted his post after about 30 minutes but a screenshot captured by Politics.co.uk suggests it had garnered nearly two million views before it was deleted.

In it, Musk shared the image posted by the co-leader of the far-right group Britain First, Ashlea Simon, which she captioned with, “we’re all being deported to the Falklands”.

The fake piece, purportedly written by a senior news reporter for the Telegraph and mocked up in the newspaper’s style, said camps in the Falklands “would be used to detain prisoners from the ongoing riots as the British prison system is already at capacity”.

The Telegraph said on Thursday it had never published the article in question. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Telegraph Media Group said: “This is a fabricated headline for an article that does not exist. We notified relevant platforms and requested that the post be taken down.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ands-camps

More on this: -

Online Safety Act not fit for purpose after far-right riots, says Sadiq Khan

Thu 8 Aug 2024 18.21 BST



Laws designed to counter misinformation are “not fit for purpose” and must be revisited after the spread of online falsehoods contributed to this month’s far-right riots, the mayor of London has said.

Sadiq Khan, one of the UK’s most senior Muslim politicians, said ministers should act “very, very quickly” to review the Online Safety Act after the violent unrest in England and Belfast over the past week. There have been calls to hasten the act’s implementation.

His comments came after the owner of X, Elon Musk, escalated his attacks on the Labour government, sharing a fake Telegraph article on his social media platform claiming Keir Starmer was considering sending far-right rioters to “emergency detainment camps” in the Falklands. The article was first posted by Ashlea Simon, a co-leader of the far-right group Britain First.

The post, which Musk deleted after 30 minutes, prompted a spokesperson for the European Commission to say its investigation into X could take its handling of harmful content related to the recent England riots into account.

Thousands of anti-racism protesters gathered across England on Wednesday, forming human shields to protect asylum centres, with the 100 far right-led rallies anticipated by police largely failing to materialise.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/artic ... sadiq-khan

[wjfox]

NHS trust boycotts Elon Musk’s X over hate speech and misinformation

1 day ago

An NHS hospital has quit the social media platform X over an increase in abuse, hate speech and misinformation after the far-right riots in England and Northern Ireland.

The former Twitter has come in for criticism over misinformation and hate speech fuelling disorder in many towns and cities, with nearly 500 people arrested so far.

After three children were fatally stabbed and eight others were injured in Southport, a fictitious identity of a Muslim asylum seeker was incorrectly identified as a suspect, leading to a wave of Islamophobia, including an attack on a mosque in the town.

The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH) posted on X: “Due to significant changes on this platform in recent months, X is no longer consistent with our Trust values. Therefore RNOH is closing its account. Please follow us on Facebook, Instagram & LinkedIn. Thanks to everyone who has followed & supported us for the last 13 years.”

Elon Musk, X’s activist owner, has himself taken to posting criticism of Sir Keir Starmer’s crackdown on hate speech and people inciting violence.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 93775.html

[Time_Traveller]

US authorities considering breaking up Google - reports

Wednesday 14 August 2024 11:34, UK



The US Department of Justice is considering breaking up Google, according to reports from Bloomberg, the New York Times and others.

Last week, a federal court in the US ruled the tech giant had broken antitrust law by spending billions on creating an illegal monopoly and becoming the world's default search engine.

The ruling is seen as the first big win for authorities taking on the dominance of Big Tech.

The Department of Justice's other options include forcing Alphabet's Google to share data with competitors and instating measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in AI products, the reports said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Breaking off the Android operating system, AdWords, Google's search ad program, or the Chrome web browser are all options being discussed, according to the reports.

https://news.sky.com/story/us-authoriti ... s-13196828

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Reportedly Arrested in France
by Sam Sabon
August 25, 2024

Introduction:

(Axios) French authorities arrested Pavel Durov, the CEO of encrypted messaging app Telegram, on Saturday night, according to multiple news reports.

Why it matters: The arrest appears tied to Telegram's looser content moderation policies, and the company's reported unwillingness to cooperate with law enforcement.

• The arrest has raised questions about what liability risks social media executives have over the content users share on their platforms.

State of play: Durov, who was born in Russia and has citizenship in France, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside of Paris shortly after landing on a private jet Saturday evening, according to Reuters.

• Agents from France's cybersecurity gendarmerie and anti-fraud units are leading the investigation, per Reuters.

What they're saying: The Russian Embassy in France said in a statement that it has asked French authorities for more details of Durov's arrest.

• Durov's lawyer Dmitry Agranovsky called the charges "absolutely ridiculous," according to Russian news media.

Read more here: https://www.axios.com/2024/08/25/teleg ... d-france