CNN – Social Media/Technology

By Brian Fung, CNN Facebook-parent Meta plans to sell off Giphy, an online search tool for animated images, after the UK government said it would force the tech giant to unwind its acquisition of the service. It’s the first time regulators have successfully broken up a part of the technology giant since Meta’s economic dominance

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business When Google unveiled its new Pixel 7 smartphone lineup earlier this month, the devices looked largely the same as the year prior. But there was at least one subtle change: the colors. Whereas the Pixel 6 had come in sorta seafoam (a light blue) and kinda coral (a pale

By Brian Fung, CNN Business Kanye West is acquiring Parler, the alternative social media platform favored by many conservatives. Parler’s parent company announced the deal on Monday morning, saying West had made “a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again.” The acquisition

By Catherine Thorbecke and Chris Isidore, CNN Business Apple workers in Oklahoma City have voted to form the second-ever labor union at one of the company’s US stores, in the latest sign that organizing efforts are gaining traction inside and outside the tech and retail industries. In a preliminary tally by the National Labor Relations

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Apple workers in Oklahoma City are set to vote this week on whether to form the second-ever labor union at one of the tech giant’s US stores. The Apple store workers in Oklahoma are seeking to gain representation with the Communication Workers of America union. Voting is set to take

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business While seemingly every social media app is copying TikTok, TikTok now appears to be copying Amazon’s playbook. TikTok appears to be looking to create a new logistics and warehousing network in the United States to support its e-commerce efforts, according to several job openings recently posted to its hiring site

By Clare Duffy and Brian Fung, CNN Business Spam and fake accounts are more prevalent on Twitter than on comparable social platforms, according to a data analysis firm hired by Elon Musk as part of his legal battle with Twitter. The claim by Cyabra — in the company’s first public interview since conducting a study

By Rhea Mogul, CNN As tensions between China and Taiwan simmer at their highest point in decades, officials in both places have clashed in recent days over an unsolicited idea from billionaire Elon Musk. The world’s richest man suggested in an interview that hostilities between the two could be resolved if Taipei handed some control

By Jennifer Korn Binance, which describes itself as the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, is the latest company to be impacted by a major theft this year. A Binance-linked blockchain was involved in a $570 million hack late Thursday, a company spokesperson confirmed to CNN Business on Friday. Binance temporarily suspended its blockchain network,

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Lawyers for Elon Musk and Twitter have agreed to postpone the Tesla CEO’s deposition in the court fight over their $44 billion acquisition agreement, a source familiar with the negotiations told CNN. The decision comes as the two sides renew negotiations to complete the deal. Musk’s deposition had been set

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Nearly three months after Elon Musk told Twitter he wanted out of his $44 billion agreement to buy the social media company, the Tesla CEO now once again wants to move forward with the deal. The reversal, if finalized, not only has the potential to create upheaval for Twitter employees

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Elon Musk appears to be closer to completing his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter than at any point since he first said the deal was “on hold” nearly five months ago. But it’s not a done deal yet. Musk earlier this week sent a letter to Twitter proposing to move

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business The White House on Tuesday released a set of guidelines it hopes will spur companies to make and deploy artificial intelligence more responsibly and limit AI-based surveillance, despite the fact that there are few US laws compelling them to do so. The guidelines, which have been in the works for

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Micron on Tuesday said it would invest up to $100 billion over the next two decades to build a massive semiconductor factory in upstate New York. The move comes in the wake of US government efforts to boost domestic chip production. The Idaho-based firm said it plans to build the

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Elon Musk on Monday sent a letter to Twitter proposing to follow through with his deal to buy the company at the originally agreed upon price of $54.20 per share, according to a securities filing on Tuesday. In the letter, Musk said he would proceed with the acquisition on the

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business When Parag Agrawal took over as Twitter’s CEO last November following co-founder Jack Dorsey’s surprise resignation from the role, he was little known outside the company. Ten months later, Agrawal has featured prominently in a whistleblower disclosure, been rebuked by name in a Congressional hearing and fielded criticism from the

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of failed blood testing startup Theranos who was convicted of fraud earlier this year, may not be sentenced until next year after the judge in the case decided to allow a hearing later this month to address defense concerns about a key witness’s testimony. During a

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business Dream, a YouTube star with more than 30 million subscribers, has finally revealed his face after hiding behind a smiley-face mask for years. “My name is Clay, maybe you’ve heard of me, maybe not,” he posted in a YouTube video Sunday night. “Maybe you clicked on this video out of

By Jay Croft, CNN Texas-based commercial rocket company Firefly launched a rocket into space Friday morning, about a year after a previous attempt ended in an explosion. The company announced “100% Mission success” on Twitter. The Alpha rocket launched at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. It was originally set

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Anyone watching the first episode of “Ring Nation” this week would have seen short clips of a man finding out his wife was pregnant with triplets, an uninvited iguana showing up at someone’s front door and an unsuspecting teenage boy being chased down by a crane in his driveway. “Ring

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Days before publicly announcing his investment in Twitter, Elon Musk texted with Jack Dorsey. The former Twitter CEO suggested he no longer believed in the company he founded, according to new court filings in the legal battle between Musk and Twitter. Musk had begun quietly building up a large stake

By Lauren del Valle, CNN In emotional testimony on Thursday, Robbie Parker, the parent of a Sandy Hook shooting victim, recounted the violent threats and harassment he and his family have suffered in the years since conspiracy theorist Alex Jones called him a crisis actor. The day after their six-year-old daughter, Emilie, was murdered in

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Google plans to shut down its cloud gaming service Stadia in January, a little more than three years after it launched, citing lackluster demand from customers. Phil Harrison, the vice president and general manager of Stadia, said in a blog post Thursday that the consumer gaming service “hasn’t gained the

By Jennifer Korn, CNN Business Google on Wednesday said it has begun rolling out an option for users to request excluding search results featuring their phone numbers and other sensitive personal information, potentially adding an extra layer of protection for private data online. The new feature, called “Results about you,” helps streamline the process for

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Amazon is temporarily pausing operations at some of its facilities as Hurricane Ian barrels towards Florida, the company confirmed to CNN on Wednesday. The storm, just shy of Category 5 strength, is expected to make landfall in southwestern Florida on Wednesday afternoon. It is already delivering ruinous winds and rain

By Brian Fung, CNN Apple has removed VKontakte, a top Russian social media platform, from its app store, according to the app’s developer. Apple’s decision also affects other iOS apps produced by VKontakte’s parent, the technology giant VK, according to a blog post Tuesday by the company. “Now some VK applications are blocked by Apple,

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business It began by mailing out DVDs, then evolved to become a production and streaming powerhouse. Now Netflix appears to be making its next big bet on the future of gaming. The streaming giant is building its first in-house video game studio in Helsinki, Finland, as it expands its empire over

By Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Facebook parent company Meta announced Tuesday it had detected and shut down two separate networks of fake accounts engaged in covert influence operations run from China and Russia. The Chinese network was small and received barely any attention, but it did include some accounts that posed as Americans on both sides

By Brian Fung, Clare Duffy and Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Business Billionaire Elon Musk and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal did not sit for depositions Monday as part of an ongoing merger lawsuit despite earlier scheduling notices filed in a Delaware court, marking another twist in a closely watched case about the future of one of the

By Brian Fung, CNN The UK said Monday it could impose a multimillion-dollar fine on TikTok after the government found the short-form video platform may have violated children’s privacy. The potential fine of £27 million, or about $29 million, follows an investigation by the UK’s data privacy regulator, which found that over the course of

By Diksha Madhok, CNN Business Apple has started making its new iPhone 14 in India, as the technology giant looks to diversify its supply chain away from China. While the company manufactures the bulk of its products in China, it has decided to start producing its latest devices in India much earlier than with previous

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business When Iranian authorities pulled the plug on the internet in 2019 amid anti-government protests, the international community struggled to track the civilian carnage that followed. The people of Iran had taken to the streets to demonstrate after fuel prices surged as much as 300% overnight. The New York Times reported

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Kittyhawk, the electric air taxi startup backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, announced Wednesday that it plans to “wind down” operations. “We have made the decision to wind down Kittyhawk. We’re still working on the details of what’s next,” the company wrote in a brief statement shared on its LinkedIn

By Brian Fung, CNN Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy must testify in an ongoing Federal Trade Commission probe into whether the company misled people into subscribing to Amazon Prime and other services, the agency said Wednesday. The decision follows earlier Amazon claims that FTC staff were harassing the two men and imposing

By Brian Fung, CNN Business Florida has asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether states may force social media companies to host content they would rather remove — setting up a potential landmark battle over digital speech rights and content moderation that could reshape the country’s relationship with the First Amendment. In a petition

By Brian Fung, CNN The Federal Trade Commission is taking a closer look at Amazon’s proposed acquisition of iRobot, the company that produces the Roomba series of automated vacuum cleaners, according to a financial disclosure on Tuesday. On Monday, the FTC requested more information from both companies about the $1.7 billion deal, according to an

By Jennifer Korn, CNN Business Hackers have stolen around $160 million worth of cryptocurrency from crypto market maker Wintermute, the company said Tuesday. The incident marks the latest in a growing list of large crypto thefts this year. The hack is said to have targeted Wintermute’s decentralized finance (DeFi) operations, according to a series of

By Brian Fung and Clare Duffy, CNN Business Twitter’s lawyers are set to question Elon Musk in a deposition that could last up to three day starting Sept. 26 as part of ongoing litigation over their $44 billion acquisition deal, according to a court filing Tuesday. The company’s lawyers will also depose Musk lieutenant Jared

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business Regulators have spent years trying to make big tech companies pay for the ways they harvest and, at times, abuse users’ data. One state, meanwhile, is literally making them pay up — and pay out directly to consumers. Illinois is one of just a few states in the United States

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Rockstar Games confirmed on Monday that hackers had leaked some unreleased footage from its next iteration of the wildly popular “Grand Theft Auto” franchise. The video gaming community was rocked by the emergence online of some screenshots and game-play videos purportedly from the highly-anticipated next installment of “Grand Theft Auto,”