Social

Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) is blocking links to Signal.me, a URL shortener used by the private messaging app Signal that allows users to send out a link that’s used to contact them directly through the service. The blocks, which impact direct messages, public posts, and profile pages, were first spotted by the blog Disruptionist. 

YouTube Shorts is integrating with Google DeepMind’s latest video model, Veo 2, allowing creators to generate AI video clips for their posts. Veo 2 is Google’s response to Sora, OpenAI’s text-to-video generator. YouTube, owned by Google, already allowed creators to generate AI backgrounds for their Shorts with a text prompt through a feature called Dream

Welcome back to Week in Review. This week we’re looking at OpenAI canceling the release of o3; TikTok returning to U.S. app stores nearly a month after it was removed; more complications in Elon Musk’s bid to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion; and more! Let’s do it. OpenAI effectively canceled the release of o3, which

After users noticed a new button on Instagram to downvote or dislike comments, the company confirmed that it is testing a way for users to signal that they either didn’t like the comment or don’t think it’s relevant. The feature will appear across both Feed posts and Reels. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a

Mastodon, the decentralized alternative to X, is going to adopt a controversial feature from the platform formerly known as Twitter: quote posts. The company on Friday shared the progress it’s making on the implementation of the feature, which has divided users over its potential to be used for online abuse and bullying. Critics have long

A new startup is addressing the need for an all-in-one toolset built for people who want to grow, manage, and track their Bluesky presence and following. The subscription service BlueSkyHunter, which launched Friday, introduces an online dashboard that combines access to analytics and other tools to schedule posts and automate DMs (direct messages), alongside other

Staying on the right side of the European Union’s online rulebook when it comes to the slippery topic of disinformation is set to get easier for platforms that commit to the bloc’s long-standing Code of Practice on Disinformation. You know, the voluntary Code that Elon Musk pulled X (formerly Twitter) out of back in 2023.

Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth has choice words for Meta employees frustrated with the tech giant’s latest policies: they are free to quit, Business Insider reported. The report cites an internal chat where an employee criticized Meta for cutting DEI programs and allegedly silencing internal dissent, among other issues. Bosworth responded that any staffer who thinks

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said the online forum site plans to launch an upgraded search experience in 2025 designed to help users navigate the social network and be able to answer “subjective hard, [and] interesting questions.” The company plans to achieve this by integrating Reddit Answers — a feature that allows visitors to ask questions

Elon Musk’s X has agreed to pay President Donald Trump $10 million to settle a lawsuit from the days when the company was still called Twitter and owned by Jack Dorsey, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources. The lawsuit took issue with Twitter’s decision to ban Trump after January 6, when Trump’s supporters

Since 2022, blogging site Tumblr has been teasing its plans to integrate with the fediverse — the open social web powered by the protocol ActivityPub also used by Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard, and others. Now, the Automattic-owned blogging platform is sharing more information about when and how that integration could actually happen. As it turns out,

E-commerce startups built around food continue to gobble up funding as investors look for sticky consumer concepts that can scale without breaking the bank. On Wednesday, Germany’s Lanch — which taps social media and influencers to develop popular food brands alongside retail networks for distributing them — closed funding of €26 million ($27 million) to

In this episode of the StrictlyVC Download, Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia joins Connie Loizos and Alex Gove to talk about the challenges of running a public company and his decision to step back into leadership after over five years away from the role. He also discusses why now is the right time for a product

Google has removed events such as Black History Month and Pride Month from being listed on the calendar by default.  Other events that were removed from the default calendar include Jewish Heritage, Indigenous People Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Hispanic Heritage Month.  Google spokesperson Madison Cushman Veld confirmed the changes to TechCrunch, saying that in

With TikTok’s fate in the U.S. uncertain — its ban in the country has been paused, but only temporarily, thanks to an executive order from President Donald Trump — the ByteDance-owned company is now encouraging Android device owners to sideload its video app onto their phones and tablets. The company announced in a Friday X

In a bid to boost its subscription service and attract more paying users, Snapchat is rolling out additional features for Snapchat+ subscribers, including allowing Snapchat+ subscribers to create AI-generated stickers in chats. The social media company is also adding the option to send self-destructing Snaps. Snapchat+ subscribers in the U.S. can now create and send

Consumer demand for alternatives to Big Tech’s social apps is heating up. Alternative social networks like Bluesky and Mastodon are gaining traction with people looking to leave X, while others are building ban-proof TikTok alternatives on open protocols. Similarly, many independent developers are also working on open, decentralized alternatives to Instagram, Meta’s flagship photo-sharing app

Welcome back to Week in Review. This week we’re diving into Google quietly removing its pledge to not build AI weapons for surveillance; how Elon Musk and DOGE are facilitating the biggest breach of U.S. government data; researchers who were able to re-create a premium “reasoning” model for $50; and more! Let’s get into it.

President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the company formerly known as Twitter appears to be over. Trump sued the social media platform for banning him in the aftermath of January 6, 2021, when Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. While a federal judge dismissed the suit in 2022, the then-former president’s lawyers continued to appeal. Soon

Elon Musk recently said he is “not chomping at the bit to acquire TikTok.” Musk made those remarks during an interview at the WELT Economic Summit on January 28. A video of the interview was published today. The interview came after President Donald Trump delayed a law requiring parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok or

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and the chief executive of the California Community Foundation, Miguel Santana, are launching a program focused on helping residents in Altadena and Pacific Palisades rebuild on their own terms after last month’s wildfires. The California Community Foundation, Snap, Spiegel, and Snap CTO Bobby Murphy are committing $10 million in funding to staff

Under European Union law, X is one of a handful of major social media platforms that has a duty to facilitate public interest researchers’ access to support the study of systemic risks — such as to elections and other democratic processes. But the Elon Musk-owned company formerly known as Twitter has been blocking civil society

Social network Bluesky will soon give its users more control over who can reply to their posts. Confirmed by Bluesky developer Paul Frazee, Bluesky will add a new “followers only” setting that users can configure to limit replies. In addition, he says, Bluesky will create a way for users to set their default reply settings.

Meta is launching a new program in partnership with UNESCO to collect speech recordings and transcriptions the company said will help the development of future openly available AI. The program, the Language Technology Partner Program, is seeking collaborators who can contribute more than 10 hours of speech recordings with transcriptions, large amounts of written text,

One of Meta’s earliest employees is suing the company for sexual harassment, sex discrimination, and retaliation, according to a lawsuit filed this week in the state of Washington. Kelly Stonelake, who spent 15 years at the company and rose to the rank of director, alleges in the lawsuit she faced a cycle of gender-based discrimination

Mark Zuckerberg’s charity has told its employees it will remain committed to DEI even as Meta eliminates its DEI programs, The Guardian reports.  Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), founded and co-led by Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, reassured its employees after many began expressing concerns about recent changes at Meta as the company scales back

Google will no longer have diversity hiring targets and will review its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, according to an email sent to employees seen by The Wall Street Journal.  Google now joins other tech companies rolling back DEI practices, especially as DEI practices come under fire from conservative groups. Amazon and Meta have also

Meta’s Threads is doubling down on support for custom feeds as it faces challenges from the growing social network Bluesky, now with over 30 million users, which also offers custom feeds as one of its key features. On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that users can now set their custom feeds to be public

During Snap’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, CEO Evan Spiegel said that the uncertainty surrounding TikTok’s future has positively affected its business. “We’re not trying to draw too many conclusions from some of the engagement lift we saw when [TikTok] went dark for that brief period of time. I would say that the overall environment

Snap has unveiled an AI text-to-image research model for mobile devices that will power some of Snapchat’s features in the coming months. The company said on Tuesday that the model can produce high-resolution images in around 1.4 seconds on an iPhone 16 Pro Max.  The new diffusion model runs entirely on the device, which reduces