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Category: Social media

Twitter threatens legal action against nonprofit that tracks hate speech

Twitter threatens legal action against nonprofit that tracks hate speech

The New York Times reports: Elon Musk has over the last year threatened legal action against tech competitors, employees and people who use Twitter, which he owns. Now he is also taking aim at an organization that studies hate speech and misinformation on social media. X Corp., the parent company of the social media company, sent a letter on July 20 to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that conducts research on social media, accusing the organization of…

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Twitter’s rebranding is a meaningless publicity stunt

Twitter’s rebranding is a meaningless publicity stunt

Scott Nover writes: Elon Musk, the mercurial owner of Twitter, announced overnight that he is changing the platform’s name and logo to “X.” In doing so, he’s throwing away the brand name, the bird logo, and maybe even the verb “tweet,” all of which breathe financial value into the company he has bought, stripped, and suffocated. The New York Times reports that Musk spent Monday projecting the letter x in the cafeteria and rechristening conference rooms with names like “s3xy”…

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RFK Jr. and his group are fans of a fringe streamer who claimed that ‘Hitler was a Rothschild’ who was ‘utterly set up’

RFK Jr. and his group are fans of a fringe streamer who claimed that ‘Hitler was a Rothschild’ who was ‘utterly set up’

Media Matters reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his organization Children’s Health Defense are fans and promoters of James Corbett, a Sandy Hook and 9/11 conspiracy theorist who has claimed that “Hitler was a Rothschild” and “Hitler and the Nazis were one hundred percent completely and utterly set up … by the international banking community and the international crony capitalists.” Kennedy has thanked Corbett for his supposedly “extraordinary work for keeping the public informed,” and Kennedy’s anti-vaccine group has featured…

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Far-right Twitter influencers first on Elon Musk’s monetization scheme

Far-right Twitter influencers first on Elon Musk’s monetization scheme

The Washington Post reports: On Thursday, Twitter announced that it would begin sharing ad revenue with content creators on its platform for the first time. But the offer won’t apply to all creators. The first beneficiaries appear to be high-profile far-right influencers who tweeted before the announcement how much they’ve earned as part of the program. Ian Miles Cheong, Benny Johnson and Ashley St. Clair all touted their earnings. “Wow. Elon Musk wasn’t kidding. Content monetization is real,” tweeted an…

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The two faces of TikTokers promoting Syrian tourism

The two faces of TikTokers promoting Syrian tourism

Jessica Roy writes: “Get ready with me to go clubbing with this bitch!” commands a recent TikTok posted by an Arab International University student named Patricia. In the clip, two college-aged girls in one’s childhood bedroom apply bronzer, chat and listen to music as they prepare to go out to a party. Both wear the uniform of a 20-something in 2023 — denim and a going-out top — and one sports a tattoo along the blade of her collarbone. The…

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Twitter Blue accounts fuel Ukraine war misinformation

Twitter Blue accounts fuel Ukraine war misinformation

BBC News reports: False and misleading posts about the Ukraine conflict continue to go viral on major social media platforms, as Russia’s invasion of the country extends beyond 500 days. Some of the most widely shared examples can be found on Twitter, posted by subscribers with a blue tick, who pay for their content to be promoted to other users. Many misleading posts have been shared online about the recent riots in France, but one viral post last week focused…

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How Twitter lost its place as the global town square

How Twitter lost its place as the global town square

The Washington Post reports: Alex Pearlman, a stand-up comedian in Philadelphia, woke up one morning in June and turned on the local news. A portion of Interstate 95 had collapsed. Pearlman thought it was the type of thing people should know about. Five years ago, he would have turned to Twitter to spread the news. But on that Sunday morning, he picked up his phone and made a TikTok — which quickly amassed more than 2 million views. A decade…

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Restricting the govt. from speaking to tech companies will spread disinformation and harm democracy

Restricting the govt. from speaking to tech companies will spread disinformation and harm democracy

Leah Litman and Laurence H. Tribe write: On July 4, federal Judge Terry A. Doughty in the Western District of Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction in Missouri v. Biden, a case that basically turns some elected Republicans’ fixation on social media censorship into legal reality. The impetus behind the case is the now thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that the government is somehow strong-arming Big Tech into censoring conservative speech and speakers in violation of the First Amendment. While there are, in theory, interesting questions about when…

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Inside the world of Russia’s pro-war agitators on Telegram

Inside the world of Russia’s pro-war agitators on Telegram

Alexey Kovalev writes: Late on May 11, the pro-war segment of Russian social media on the Telegram messaging service was abuzz with breaking news about the supposed commencement of the long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive. The reports were hysterical: Ukrainian armored columns are moving from Kharkiv toward the Russian border, proclaimed one. Ukrainians are using chemical weapons on Russian soldiers who are gasping for breath, said another. Some of these messages even made their way to Russia’s government-owned media, such as RT….

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Twitter suspends the accounts of prominent Tesla and Elon Musk critic, PlainSite founder Aaron Greenspan

Twitter suspends the accounts of prominent Tesla and Elon Musk critic, PlainSite founder Aaron Greenspan

I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022 CNBC reports: Twitter suspended the accounts of PlainSite and its founder Aaron Greenspan, a prolific Tesla and Elon Musk critic, Tuesday afternoon. PlainSite is an online database that makes state and federal court filings and other public records available to users for free. The site also offers analytics features to paying subscribers, meant to help lawyers…

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Elon Musk is the most dangerous antisemite in America

Elon Musk is the most dangerous antisemite in America

Elad Nehorai writes: “I’m not trying to compare this s*** to Aum Shinrikyo or even Rwanda but I’m gonna be totally honest with you Elad, I’m scared scared this time.” I got this text from my friend Sarah Hightower, an independent researcher who specializes in the far right and online extremist movements. I had been spending a year warning people about Elon Musk’s increasingly overt antisemitism, but I wanted to know if she felt his most recent Twitter interaction was as alarming as I…

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Proud Boys too upset about Bud Light to care about Trump’s indictment

Proud Boys too upset about Bud Light to care about Trump’s indictment

Vice News reports: Just three years ago, Donald Trump was the Proud Boys’ North Star. The yellow-and-black clad far-right street-fighters were prepared to mobilize, get into brawls, risk criminal charges—even conspire to overthrow the government—all in his name. But ever since the latest batch of criminal charges against the former president dropped, this time under the Espionage Act in a federal court in Florida, the public response from the Proud Boys has so far been a resounding “meh.” Public-facing Telegram…

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Think Ukraine’s offensive has started? Wait for the heavy brigades

Think Ukraine’s offensive has started? Wait for the heavy brigades

Ben Hodges writes: The social media channels are alive with grainy footage of tanks and explosions in Southern and Eastern Ukraine. There are statements everywhere that Kyiv’s long-expected counteroffensive is underway, which is causing some excitement and trepidation. The offensive is incredibly important for Ukraine’s future. But when assessing what’s actually happening, it’s useful to understand some key facts. There is a big difference between starting an offensive, and the main attack or main effort of the operation. The offensive…

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Viral Pentagon explosion hoax took off from pro-Russian accounts

Viral Pentagon explosion hoax took off from pro-Russian accounts

The Washington Post reports: A viral hoax that briefly sent the stock market down last month apparently first gained traction on Twitter through a conspiracy-mongering, pro-Russian account. The picture that grabbed attention on the morning of May 22, captioned “Large Explosion Near the Pentagon,” was generated by artificial intelligence without much sophistication, experts said. But it is probably a harbinger of things to come, especially as generative AI gets better at producing images to meet the demands of anyone’s imagination….

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Twitter admits in court filing: Elon Musk is simply wrong about government interference at Twitter

Twitter admits in court filing: Elon Musk is simply wrong about government interference at Twitter

Mike Masnick writes: It is amazing the degree to which some people will engage in confirmation bias and believe absolute nonsense, even as the facts show the opposite is true. Over the past few months, we’ve gone through the various “Twitter Files” releases, and pointed out over and over again how the explanations people gave for them simply don’t match up with the underlying documents. To date, not a single document revealed has shown what people now falsely believe: that…

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Twitter’s U.S. advertising revenue plunges 59% as woes continue

Twitter’s U.S. advertising revenue plunges 59% as woes continue

The New York Times reports: Elon Musk recently said Twitter’s advertising business was on the upswing. “Almost all advertisers have come back,” he asserted, adding that the social media company could soon become profitable. But Twitter’s U.S. advertising revenue for the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May was $88 million, down 59 percent from a year earlier, according to an internal presentation obtained by The New York Times. The company has regularly fallen short of…

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