By Brian Fung, CNN Business Twitter acknowledged on Friday that a new policy it unveiled this week to protect users from harassment is being abused by malicious actors — days after journalists, left-wing activists and self-described “sedition hunters” reported their accounts had been locked for sharing publicly available images of anti-maskers, anti-vaccine protesters and suspected
Continue ReadingCNN By Clare Duffy, CNN Business The independent board that oversees Facebook parent company, Meta, is once again urging the social media giant to be more transparent about its content moderation decisions. The Facebook Oversight Board on Thursday released two rulings overturning Meta’s decisions to remove user posts from its platforms, saying the content did
Continue ReadingBy Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Business Facebook has sold ads promoting anti-vaccine messages, comparing the US government’s response to Covid-19 to Nazi Germany, casting doubt on the result of the 2020 election, and even pushing political violence. The ads have been run by merchandise companies that have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Facebook over
Continue ReadingBy Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued to block US chipmaker Nvidia’s proposed $40 billion takeover of UK chip design firm Arm, saying it would stifle competition and give the combined company too much control over chip technology and designs. The lawsuit threatens to scuttle the world’s biggest ever semiconductor
Continue ReadingBy Rachel Metz, CNN Business Like many other Spotify users, I opened the music streaming app on Wednesday and received a cheerful message: “Your 2021 Wrapped is here,” it read, imploring me to explore the top songs, artists, and podcasts I listened to “in a year that was far from normal.” I cringed while tapping
Continue ReadingBy Jennifer Korn Like many gamers in recent weeks, Nicole DeSantis, 33, from outside Philadelphia, combed through social media sites trying to find insider information on where to get a PlayStation 5 this holiday season. Stemming from the global chip shortage, video game consoles this year are particularly hard to come by. After successfully scoring
Continue ReadingCNN, POOL By Jennifer Korn Like many gamers in recent weeks, Nicole DeSantis, 33, from outside Philadelphia, combed through social media sites trying to find insider information on where to get a PlayStation 5 this holiday season. Stemming from the global chip shortage, video game consoles this year are particularly hard to come by. After
Continue ReadingBy Diksha Madhok, CNN Business Uber wants to make booking a ride in India as easy as sending a WhatsApp message. The San Francisco-based company has partnered with Meta to launch a ride booking ability via its WhatsApp service in India, the two tech firms said in a statement on Thursday. The integration — the
Continue ReadingBy Sean Lyngaas, CNN The Los Angeles chapter of Planned Parenthood suffered a ransomware attack in October that compromised the personal information of about 400,000 patients, the health care provider said Wednesday. The unidentified perpetrator stole documents from the Planned Parenthood affiliate that contained sensitive data on some patients such as their insurance information, their
Continue ReadingBy Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Days after Jack Dorsey resigned as CEO of Twitter, his other company is changing its name. Square, the digital payments company Dorsey co-founded and remains at the helm of, announced on Wednesday that it is rebranding as “Block.” Block will represent the corporate parent of Square, which will remain the
Continue ReadingCNN, CNNBUSINESS By Brian Fung, CNN Individual users, not tech platforms, shoulder the responsibility for the spread of misinformation online, according to Andrew Bosworth, a top exec at Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook. In an interview over the weekend with Axios on HBO, Bosworth said it is not up to Meta to stifle
Continue ReadingCNN, CNN BUSINESS By Rishi Iyengar and Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business The high-profile criminal fraud trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes will officially resume in 2022. The jury of eight men and four women concluded their deliberations for the year on Wednesday, capping off their second week with the case without reaching a verdict.
Continue ReadingBy Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business When Elizabeth Holmes got wind that then-Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou was working on a damning expose that would publish in October 2015 about her blood testing startup Theranos, she went straight to the top in an effort to get the story killed. Holmes, who is on trial
Continue ReadingBy Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Business Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, says it has evidence the Belarusian KGB used fake accounts to pose as journalists and activists to stoke tensions about the crisis at the border between Belarus and Poland. “These fictitious personas posted criticism of Poland in English, Polish, and Kurdish, including pictures
Continue ReadingBy Walé Azeez, CNN Business Google will ban political advertising on its platforms in the Philippines as the country prepares for elections in May. The company said on Wednesday that it will stop ads running “during an election campaign period or a silence period” in the run-up to the vote. Google considers election ads as
Continue ReadingCNN By Walé Azeez, CNN Business Google will ban political advertising on its platforms in the Philippines as the country prepares for elections in May. The company said on Wednesday that it will stop ads running “during an election campaign period or a silence period” in the run-up to the vote. Google considers election ads
Continue ReadingBy Brian Fung, CNN Business Facebook will no longer limit users from searching for or praising Kyle Rittenhouse, following a court’s acquittal of all charges facing the teenager at the center of a deadly shooting in Kenosha, Wisc., last August. Though Facebook will continue to remove posts that glorify the deaths involved in the Kenosha
Continue ReadingBy Sana Noor Haq, CNN Business Twitter has updated its privacy policy so that it can remove images of people that have been posted without their consent, the company said in a blog post Tuesday. Under its current policy, the social media giant prohibits the publication of people’s private information, including addresses, phone numbers, identity
Continue ReadingBy Jennifer Korn, CNN Business David Marcus, the executive in charge of the troubled cryptocurrency project at Meta Platforms — the company formerly known as Facebook — announced Tuesday he will step down at the end of the year to pursue other projects. Marcus, who previously was the president of PayPal, joined Facebook seven years
Continue ReadingBy Brian Fung, CNN Business Parag Agrawal isn’t a household name, but he could soon become one as he takes the lead at one of the world’s most influential social media companies. On Monday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced he was stepping down and named Agrawal, the company’s chief technology officer, as his replacement. Agrawal
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