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With tech companies wise to many of the tactics that Russia’s now-infamous troll farms used to seed disinformation during the 2016 election, those campaigns are getting creative. According to a pair of reports out from Facebook and Twitter, a disinformation campaign run by individuals with links to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) is back and

TikTok, the popular social media app owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, has been under a national security investigation by U.S. lawmakers who have raised concerns about the company’s access to U.S. user data and whether it was censoring content at the behest of the Chinese government. Today, TikTok tries to combat these concerns with

After a week in which it looked like activist investor Elliott Management might try to force out Jack Dorsey as CEO of Twitter to help boost the social platform’s flagging growth, it looks like we have a truce of sorts between the two. Today, Twitter announced has received a $1 billion investment from Silver Lake,

Facebook is continuing to open up access to a data porting tool it launched in Ireland in December. The tool lets users of its network transfer photos and videos they have stored on its servers directly to another photo storage service, such as Google Photos, via encrypted transfer. A Facebook spokesman confirmed to TechCrunch that

Twitter today updated its Developer Policy to clarify rules around data usage, including in academic research, as well as its position on bots, among other things. The policy has also been entirely rewritten in an effort to simplify the language used and make it more conversational, Twitter says. The new policy has been shortened from

Google VP Vint Cerf has voiced support for a single set of standards for Internet platforms to apply around political advertising. Speaking to the UK parliament’s Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee today, the long time Googler — who has been chief Internet evangelist at the tech giant since 2005 — was asked about the targeting

The tradition of sitting through a barrage of ads in exchange for being entertained began with radio, flourished with the arrival of television and followed the mass migration online. As the massive $35 billion in advertising revenue captured by YouTube and Instagram in the last quarter indicated, online advertising around social media, influencers and streamers

On Monday, Facebook announced the addition of two new names to its board of directors, Nancy Killefer and Tracey T. Travis. Killefer brings potentially valuable government insight to Facebook, as she served in the U.S. Department of the Treasury during the Obama administration. With last year’s departure of former Clinton administration chief of staff Erskine

Australia’s privacy watchdog is suing Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica data breach — which, back in 2018, became a global scandal that wiped billions off the tech giant’s share price yet only led to Facebook picking up a $5BN FTC fine. Should Australia prevail in its suit against the tech giant the monetary penalty could

On Friday, Facebook announced that it would further attempt to limit coronavirus-related chaos on its platform by banning commerce listings and advertisements for medical face masks. “We’re monitoring COVID19 closely and will make necessary updates to our policies if we see people trying to exploit this public health emergency,” Facebook Director of Product Management Rob

Twitter’s CEO defends himself from activist investors, Google takes additional coronavirus precautions and a fizzy drink maker raises $30 million. Here’s your Daily Crunch for March 6, 2020. 1. Twitter CEO’s weak argument why investors shouldn’t fire him Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey spoke yesterday at a Morgan Stanley conference, where he delivered remarks (also shared

Reddit, a discussion website and home to thousands of communities, announced this week a new partnership with mental health service Crisis Text Line. The company offers a mental health text line offering live, 24/7 support for people in crisis, including those considering suicide or engaging in self-harm. With this partnership, Reddit users will be able

Twitter tries out its own version of the popular Stories format, a court orders Otto’s founder to pay a big fine to Google and electric skateboard company Boosted makes cuts. Here’s your Daily Crunch for March 5, 2020. 1. Twitter starts testing its own version of Stories, called ‘Fleets,’ which disappear after 24 hours Twitter

Last year, Twitter expanded its rules around hate speech to include dehumanizing speech against religious groups. Today, Twitter says it’s expanding its rule to also include language that dehumanizes people on the basis of their age, disability, or disease. The latter, of course, is a timely addition given that the spread of the novel coronavirus

Twitter is testing its own version of Stories. The company announced today it will begin to trial a new sharing format called “Fleets,” starting in Brazil, which will let users post ephemeral content to its social network for the first time. Unlike Tweets, Twitter’s new Fleets can’t receive Likes, Replies or Retweets. And they’ll disappear

At Facebook’s 2019 F8 developer conference, the company announced plans to introduce desktop apps for its popular communications app Messenger. Now, less than a year later, the Messenger Mac App is beginning to roll out. Though not yet available in the U.S., Messenger for Mac has popped up in the Mac App Store in several

For the first time in eight months, people in Kashmir can use WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and other social services without any fear or use of specialized software — though things are not back to normal yet. India said on Wednesday that it has temporarily lifted the ban on social media services and on the much

TikTok, the hugely popular social media app, found a lot of early traction by giving users a way to create funny lip-synced versions of clips from well-known songs and then share them with friends (its predecessor in the West was even called Musically). Now at long last, TikTok’s owner, China’s ByteDance, is doubling down on

Who fact-checks the fact-checkers? Did Trump call coronavirus the Democrat’s “new hoax”? Those the big questions emerging from a controversial “false” label applied to Politico and NBC News stories by right-wing publisher The Daily Caller. Its Check Your Fact division is a Facebook fact-checking partner, giving it the power to flag links on the social

Facebook -owned WhatsApp is finally giving users’ eyes a break by rolling out a dark mode setting to the messaging app — years after some other tech giants figured out how to offer a ‘dimmer pixels’ switch. The messaging giant says the feature is rolling out globally in the “coming days” to the latest version

Another major figure could soon join the list of a growing number of people who are done with social media: The leader of the world’s largest democracy. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted Monday evening that he was thinking about giving up on his Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts. Modi, whose 53 million followers

Throughout this series on the rise of multiverse virtual worlds, I have outlined the collision of gaming and social media into a new multiverse era of social media within virtual worlds due to technological and cultural changes. The result will be a healthier ecosystem of social media than what currently exists and the economic development

When Elliott Management, a New York investment firm with an activist approach, sets its sights on a company, it usually means it has been under-performing, and it sees a ton of unmet potential. News broke on Friday that the company had bought a substantial stake in Twitter and was seeking board seats. Sources have confirmed

Fictional portrayals of virtual worlds such as “Ready Player One” and “The Matrix” typically portray the physical and virtual worlds as distinct realms siloed from each other. Characters escape a dystopian, impoverished physical realm and enter a separate, utopian virtual realm in which they are wealthy and important. Our non-fictional future won’t have that dichotomy.

In part 5 of our virtual worlds series: why this new future will heal fractures caused by today’s social media Eric Peckham @epeckham / 9 hours The basis of the classic James Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies” is an evil media mogul who instigates war between the U.K. and China because it will be great

For technical and cultural reasons, the metaverse is about to go massively mainstream Eric Peckham @epeckham / 9 hours If virtual worlds are so enticing, why haven’t we already shifted to them as our online social hubs? The thought of virtual worlds for socializing evokes Second Life (launched in 2003), where users created unique avatars

Chat bots were central to Facebook Messenger’s strategy three years ago. Now they’re being hidden from view in the app along with games and businesses. Facebook Messenger is removing the Discover tab this week as it focuses on speed and simplicity instead of broad utility like China’s WeChat. The changes are part of a larger

It wasn’t a fad. Yolo became the country’s No. 1 app just a week after launch by letting teens ask for anonymous replies to questions they posted on Snapchat. But nine months later, Yolo is still in the top 100 iOS apps and has 10 million active users. Now it’s safeguarding the app from predators

Following web forums, web platforms and mobile apps, we are entering a new stage of social media — the multiverse era — where the virtual worlds of games expand to become mainstream hubs for social interaction and entertainment. In a seven-part Extra Crunch series, we will explore why that is the case and which challenges

Last November, Twitter rolled out its Hide Replies feature to all users worldwide. The feature, largely designed to lessen the power of online trolls to disrupt conversations, lets users decide which replies to their tweets are placed behind an extra click. Today, Twitter is making Hide Replies available to its developer community, allowing for the