Social Media

Passive social media use linked to loneliness

Passive consumption of social media seems to reinforce feelings of disconnection, according to a JRC policy brief which examines the relationship between social media use and loneliness. Social media has…

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Facebook, Insta to test monthly subscription service

Meta Platforms on Sunday announced that it is testing a monthly subscription service, called Meta Verified, which will let users verify their accounts using a government ID and get a…

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Musk to take stand for third day in trial over Tesla funding tweet

Elon Musk, Tesla Inc's chief executive, will take the stand on Tuesday morning in San Francisco a day after telling a jury that he had financial support in 2018 to…

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UPDATE – WhatsApp outage: some users have connection restored

BENGALURU, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Popular messaging app WhatsApp was slowly coming back online by 0900 GMT on Tuesday, with some users inn a number of countries, including Malta were saying they…

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Google, Facebook, Twitter to tackle deepfakes or risk EU fines

Alphabet Inc unit Google, Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc and other tech companies will have to take measures to counter deepfakes and fake accounts on their platforms or risk hefty fines…

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Elon Musk becomes Twitter’s biggest shareholder with $2.9 billion stock purchase

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has purchased a huge $3 billion stake in Twitter. 'The Guardian' reports that Musk had indicated interest in building his own social media platform just last week. According to filings made…

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TikTok tests age-rated content restrictions

TikTok is working on ways to rate and restrict content by age in order to prevent adult content from reaching teenage users of its short video app, the company said…

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Meta warns Europe it might shut down Facebook, Instagram if no data agreement is reached

Meta Platforms Inc, the company behind social media giants Facebook and Instagram, warned it would consider shutting down the two platforms from the European continent, if it is unable to…

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Instagram, ahead of U.S. Senate hearing, tightens teen protection measures

Instagram said on Tuesday it will be stricter about the types of content it recommends to teens in the photo-sharing app and will nudge them toward different areas if they dwell…

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Russia says Facebook outage shows why it needs internet sovereignty

Russian social networks reported a spike in activity during Monday's global Facebook outage which Moscow officials said showed that Russia was right to develop its own sovereign internet platforms and social networks. Russia has sought…

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Facebook outage leaves players twiddling their thumbs

Tottenham Hotspur's Lucas Moura joked that Monday's near six-hour social media outage meant he finally had a chance to connect with his wife, while Everton's Richarlison saw a fresh opening…

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Facebook blames “faulty configuration change” for nearly six-hour outage

Facebook Inc blamed a "faulty configuration change" for a nearly six-hour outage on Monday that prevented the company's 3.5 billion users from accessing its social media and messaging services such as…

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Closed Facebook groups offer respite for stressed-out women. But running them involves yet more unseen labour

By Catherine Archer - Senior Lecturer in Strategic Communication; social media researcher, Murdoch UniversityAmy Johnson - Lecturer, CQ University AustraliaLeah Williams Veazey - Postdoctoral Research Officer, University of Sydney Would…

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Taliban’s Afghanistan takeover presents fresh challenge for social media companies

The Taliban's rapid takeover of Afghanistan poses a new challenge for big U.S. tech companies on handling content created by a group considered to be terrorists by some world governments. Social media giant…

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Twitter sees jump in govt demands to remove content of journalists, news outlets

Twitter Inc saw a surge in demands over the course of last year from governments around the world to take down content posted by journalists and news outlets, data to be…

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Pressure on Facebook to cancel plans for Instagram for younger kids

A group of 40 state attorneys general on Monday urged Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to abandon plans to launch a version of Instagram for children under the age of 13. "Use…

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WhatsApp adds voice and video calling feature to desktop version

Facebook Inc's WhatsApp has introduced a voice and video calling feature on its desktop version, the company said on Thursday. The company said users will be able to use desktop…

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Facebook to restore Australian news pages after tweaks to media laws

Facebook will restore Australian news pages after Canberra offered amendments to a proposed law designed to force tech giants to pay for media content displayed on their platforms, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on…

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TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

Chinese-owned short video-sharing app TikTok was hit with multiple complaints from EU consumer groups on Tuesday for allegedly violating the bloc's consumer laws and for failing to protect children from hidden advertising…

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Twitter to add more labels identifying world leader and government accounts

Twitter Inc said it will next week add labels to identify more state-affiliated accounts, including world leaders’ personal accounts, to give users more context for geopolitical conversations on the platform.…

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U.N. chief worried by power of social media companies

NEW YORK, Jan 28 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday he is "particularly worried" about the power of social media companies and that a regulatory framework should…

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Twitter says White House Twitter accounts will be transferred to Biden admin

Twitter Inc on Thursday said it will transfer institutional White House Twitter accounts to Biden administration when the U.S. President-elect swears in on January 20. Twitter said it will facilitate…

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Facebook warns on changes to messaging services in Europe

Facebook announced that starting today, the data privacy and security protections in the 2002 Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive (ePrivacy Directive) will apply to more communications services across the EU. The laws…

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Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules

Facebook Inc will shift all its users in the United Kingdom into user agreements with the corporate headquarters in California, moving them out of their current relationship with Facebook's Irish…

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YouTube to add link on COVID-19 vaccines to combat misinformation

Alphabet Inc's YouTube announced it is adding a link to provide information on the development of COVID-19 vaccines to the coronavirus panel on its site, expanding its efforts to combat…

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Facebook launches dating service in Europe

Facebook Inc said it is launching its dating service in 32 European countries after the rollout was delayed earlier this year due to regulatory concerns. The social media company had…

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Major Twitter outage affects users around the world

Twitter Inc said its social networking site was down for many users due to "some trouble" with its internal systems. People in countries including the US and UK were unable…

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Facebook shuts NZ party’s page before polls over COVID-19 misinformation

Facebook shut down the page of a fringe New Zealand political party on Thursday, days before a general election, for sharing what the company called misinformation about the novel coronavirus…

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YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

Alphabet Inc's YouTube announced it would remove videos from YouTube containing misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, expanding its current rules against falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the pandemic. The video platform…

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Abuse and harassment drives girls off social media

Online abuse and harassment are driving girls to quit social media platforms, according to a new global poll. The study said more than 58% of girls had experienced some form of…

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Advertisers agree deal with social media on steps to curb harmful content

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have agreed with big advertisers on first steps to curb harmful content online, following boycotts of social media platforms that advertisers had accused of tolerating hate…

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Facebook, Google, Twitter urged by EU to do more against fake news

Two years after agreeing to a self-regulatory code of practice to tackle disinformation, Facebook, Alphabet's Google, Twitter and other tech rivals must try harder to be more effective, the European…

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Twitter confirms account of India PM Modi’s personal website hacked

Twitter confirmed on Thursday that an account of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personal website was hacked with a series of tweets asking its followers to donate to a relief…

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TikTok’s journey from global sensation to Trump target

TikTok decision to file a lawsuit on Monday against President Donald Trump's executive order prohibiting transactions with the popular short video app and its Chinese parent ByteDance is the latest…

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Facebook, Twitter pull Trump posts over coronavirus misinformation

Facebook Inc on Wednesday took down a post by U.S. President Donald Trump, which the company said violated its rules against sharing misinformation about the coronavirus. The post contained a…

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Turkey approves social media law critics say will silence dissent

Turkey adopted a new social media law on Wednesday that critics say will create a "chilling effect" on dissenting voices who have resorted to Twitter and other online platforms as…

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Twitter says about 130 accounts targeted in cyber attack

Twitter Inc said late on Thursday that hackers targeted about 130 accounts during the cyber attack this week, an incident in which profiles of many prominent personalities and organizations were…

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Twitter to drop the terms ‘master’, ‘slave’ and ‘blacklist’

Social media platform Twitter is dropping the terms "master", "slave" and "blacklist" in favour of more inclusive language. The terms are frequently used in programming codes which originated decades ago.…

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Advertisements for more than 400 brands including Coca-Cola to vanish from Facebook

Advertisements for more than 400 brands including Coca-Cola and Starbucks are due to vanish from Facebook on Wednesday, after the failure of last-ditch talks to stop a boycott over hate…

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Social media companies distrusted by most Americans on content decisions

Most Americans do not trust social media companies to make the right decisions about what should be allowed on their platforms, but trust the government even less to make…

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Facebook removes nearly 200 accounts tied to hate groups

Facebook has removed nearly 200 social media accounts linked to white supremacy groups that planned to encourage members to attend protests over police killings of black people — in some…

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Facebook to apply state media labels on Russian, Chinese outlets

Facebook Inc will start labelling Russian, Chinese and other state-controlled media organizations, and later this summer will block any ads from such outlets that target U.S. users, it announced. The…

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Confrontation between Trump and Twitter escalates

Twitter accused President Donald Trump on Friday of "glorifying violence", attaching a disclaimer to one of his tweets about unrest in Minneapolis that it said broke its rules. "...These THUGS…

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Trump signs executive order aimed at curtailing social media companies

Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at curbing protections for social media giants. The US president is engaged in a public feud with the companies, which he has…

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Trump to sign executive order on social media on Thursday

U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on social media companies on Thursday, White House officials said after Trump threatened to shut down websites he accused of stifling…

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Facebook, YouTube remove ‘Plandemic’ video with ‘unsubstantiated’ coronavirus claims

Facebook Inc and YouTube, the video service of Alphabet Inc’s Google, said that they were removing a video that made medically unsubstantiated claims relating to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The…

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Teens on Tik Tok social network could have screen time limited by their parents

TikTok will be implementing new safety features, which means a parent can link their account to their child's and control the content they see. The new family safety mode will…

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Coronavirus misinformation surges on social media

Misleading, unverified and clearly false information about the coronavirus has spread across social media platforms, with some accounts only a few days old reaching millions of views with a mix…

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Twitter takes down thousands of accounts linked to Saudi Arabia

Twitter has removed thousands of accounts linked to Saudi Arabia on the grounds they were violating the social media's platform manipulation policies, it said today. "Accounts were amplifying messages favorable to…

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Instagram posts about vaping banned for breaking advertising rules

British American Tobacco (BAT) is among four e-cigarette sellers banned from promoting their products on public Instagram pages after adverts appeared alongside pictures of well-known celebrities. BAT claimed its posts that…

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LinkedIn focuses on freelancers and SMEs as worldwide membership soars

LinkedIn has launched a new service aimed at freelancers and small businesses, seeking to capitalise on its burgeoning membership. The social media giant recently reached 660 million users worldwide. Co-founder…

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YouTube moves against ‘implied threats’

YouTube leadership on Wednesday unveiled updates it said would better "tackle harassment" on the global video hosting platform. "We remain committed to (…) ensuring that spirited debate and a vigorous…

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Twitter suspends account deletions after outcry

Twitter has said it will "pause" plans to disable inactive accounts following user backlash, a day after announcing plans for a huge cull of such accounts. The social network said…

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Twitter to remove inactive users

Twitter will begin deleting accounts that have been inactive for more than six months, unless they log in before an 11 December deadline. The cull will include users who stopped…

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Twitter to ban all political ads

Twitter will ban all political advertising on its platform beginning next month, Chief Executive Jack Dorsey announced on Wednesday. In a series of posts, Dorsey said politicians should earn their…

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Instagram extends self-harm ban to drawings and cartoons

Social media company Instagram has said it will remove images, drawings and memes showing methods of self-harm or suicide from its platform. The move follows the death of British 14-year-old…

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Social media linked to poor sleep among teens

Teens who use social media for three hours or more per day have problems falling asleep and then struggle to get up for school the next morning, experts say. Their…

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