CNN – Social Media/Technology

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Facebook-parent Meta on Monday said it would soon offer more transparency and information to researchers about how political and social ads are targeted to users on the platform, months before the US midterm elections. Starting later this month, Meta will provide “detailed targeting information for social issue, electoral or political

By Brian Fung, CNN Business Washington, DC, Attorney General Karl Racine sued Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, accusing the Facebook co-founder of misleading the public on the company’s handling of privacy and personal data in connection with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The suit, filed in DC superior court, represents Racine’s latest attempt to hold Zuckerberg personally

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business After Jason Moore, from Portland, Oregon, saw headlines from national news sources on Google News about the Buffalo shooting at a local supermarket on Saturday afternoon, he did a quick search for the incident on Wikipedia. When no results appeared, he drafted a single sentence: “On May 14, 2022,

By Rob McLean and Jackie Wattles, CNN Elon Musk denied allegations that he sexually harassed a SpaceX flight attendant in 2016 in a series of late-night tweets. “I have a challenge to this liar who claims their friend saw me ‘exposed’ — describe just one thing, anything at all (scars, tattoos, …) that isn’t known

By Brian Fung, CNN Business Google, Facebook’s parent Meta, and Amazon could have to spin off chunks of their advertising businesses under Congress’s latest bill targeting Big Tech, according to the US senators behind the proposal. The bill introduced Thursday by Sens. Mike Lee, Amy Klobuchar, Ted Cruz and Richard Blumenthal zeroes in on the

By Brian Fung and Ariane de Vogue, CNN The Supreme Court should allow a sweeping Texas law to remain in effect that restricts the ability of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to moderate their platforms, according to the state’s attorney general. In a filing to the Court on Wednesday, Texas argued that its law, HB 20,

By Clare Duffy and Sara O’Brien, CNN Business The mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, has put a spotlight on 4chan, a largely unmoderated site that has been the breeding ground for several tragedies and controversies over the years and appears to have played a role in inspiring Saturday’s attack. Despite the role it may

By Laura He, CNN Business China is trying once again to lift the spirits of its huge tech industry after a bruising regulatory offensive that has weakened some of its biggest businesses at a time of stalling economic growth. In a rare public display of support for the private sector, Vice Premier Liu He said

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Apple notified corporate employees that it is delaying a requirement for most staffers to be in the office at least three days a week amid an increase in Covid-19 cases in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the company is based. In a message to staffers obtained by CNN

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Twitch, the livestreaming giant popular among video gamers, has been thrust into the national spotlight after the suspect in the Buffalo grocery store mass shooting tried to broadcast the attack on the platform. Twitch removed the livestream less than two minutes after the violence began on Saturday, a spokesperson for

By Clare Duffy and Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Business In the wake of Saturday’s mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, Big Tech platforms scrambled to stop the spread of a video of the attack filmed by the suspect and a document allegedly also produced by him where he outlines his beliefs. Major social media platforms have

By Rishi Iyengar and Allison Morrow, CNN Business Elon Musk escalated a public feud with Twitter’s CEO early Tuesday, saying his acquisition of the social media company “cannot move forward” until he sees more information about the prevalence of spam accounts. Without citing a source, Musk claimed in a tweet that Twitter is “20% fake/spam

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business TikTok posts about actor Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, have turned a stay-at-home mom based in Scotland into an accidental influencer. Or, perhaps more aptly, a DeppTok influencer. Sophie Doggett, whose TikTok was previously populated by videos on everyday things such as herself or

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Two prominent lobbying groups representing the tech industry’s biggest companies are asking the US Supreme Court to step in and block a Texas law that lets the state’s residents sue large social media platforms for alleged censorship, two days after a federal appeals court allowed the law to take effect.

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business SpaceX has been on a tear in 2022, notching 18 rocket launches and two astronaut splashdowns in just the first 130 days of the year — an unprecedented pace for the company and the commercial launch industry. The latest is scheduled for Friday evening with the launch of 53 of

By David Goldman, Chris Isidore and Clare Duffy, CNN Elon Musk said he is putting his bid to acquire Twitter on hold, weeks after agreeing to take the company private in a $44 billion deal. “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,”

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Twitter is halting hiring and parting ways with two senior leaders as it awaits a pending acquisition by Elon Musk. The company is pausing most hiring and backfills, except for “business critical” roles, and pulling back on other non-labor costs, Twitter spokesperson Catherine Hill said in a statement to CNN

By Brian Fung, CNN A federal appeals court will allow Texas’s new social media law to take effect after striking down a preliminary injunction by a lower court, according to a judicial order in the case. The Texas law, known as HB 20, allows private parties to sue tech platforms over allegations of censorship. The

By Rishi Iyengar and Rachel Metz, CNN Business Google on Wednesday unveiled an expanded lineup of hardware products in the latest sign it remains committed to moving beyond its core advertising business and competing with the likes of Apple. At its first in-person developer conference in three years, Google announced three new smartphones and its

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business SpinLaunch, an ambitious startup that hopes to spin, rather than launch, satellites into orbit, released dizzying footage of a test flight that the company conducted out of New Mexico. The test flight last month, which marked the company’s eighth since October 2021, was the first to include an on-board camera.

By Reuters Boeing Co. is feuding with Aerojet Rocketdyne, a key supplier for its Starliner spacecraft, as the U.S. aerospace giant races to test launch the uncrewed astronaut capsule and mend its reputation in the space sector, people familiar with the matter said. The CST-100 Starliner is scheduled for a May 19 Florida launch atop

By Brian Fung and Clare Duffy, CNN Business Elon Musk said Tuesday that he would restore former President Donald Trump’s banned account on Twitter if his deal to acquire the company is completed. Musk’s remarks at Financial Times’ Future of the Car conference mark his first public acknowledgment of what had been widely expected since

By Brian Fung, CNN The dating-app company behind Tinder, OkCupid and Match.com sued Google on Monday, alleging that the technology giant runs an illegal monopoly in the Google Play Store and that its in-app payment policies, including its 30% cut of some in-app purchases, are anticompetitive. The suit by Match Group is the latest antitrust

By Brian Fung, CNN Elon Musk appeared to endorse a key European law regulating social media on Monday when he appeared in a video with Thierry Breton, a top EU commissioner and digital regulator. In the video, Breton said he met with Musk to explain the finer points of the Digital Services Act, a forthcoming

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business Clearview AI, a controversial facial-recognition software company, agreed on Monday that it will not sell its software to most companies in the United States — a decision that will largely restrict its use to law-enforcement agencies in the country. The agreement is part of a settlement of a lawsuit that

By Rishi Iyengar Since Elon Musk announced he was buying Twitter last month, the billionaire has sent out tweet after tweet outlining his plans for the platform, touching on everything from new features to security updates to monetization. But Musk’s overarching reason for committing billions of dollars to buy Twitter is to ensure the platform

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business Three NASA astronauts and a European astronaut splashed down aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule off the coast of Florida after midnight Friday morning, capping off their six-month mission during which they worked alongside Russian cosmonauts and hosted the first all-private crew to visit the orbiting outpost. The crew of

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Meta said Thursday it is cutting back on hiring. The move is one of several shifts the Facebook parent company is making following a period of slower-than-usual growth. “We regularly re-evaluate our talent pipeline according to our business needs and in light of the expense guidance given for this earnings

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Elon Musk has raised just over $7 billion in additional equity financing to help fund his purchase of Twitter. The new investors include Oracle founder Larry Ellison, cryptocurrency platform Binance and venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure Musk filed Wednesday. Musk last

By Brian Fung, CNN Bill Gates sounded a note of caution this week on Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, saying the Tesla CEO “actually could make it worse” despite a strong track record with his other business ventures. While Gates did not precisely define what he meant by “worse” in remarks at the

By Jennifer Korn and Clare Duffy, CNN Business Update: This story was originally published on May 6. It has been updated to reflect the Supreme Court’s final decision. The Supreme Court’s Friday ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade is almost certain to spark a wave of new state legislation taking aim at abortion rights, and

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business If you believe Mark Zuckerberg, the future is virtual. Last year, Meta plowed $10 billion into Facebook Reality Labs, the part of the company that develops virtual- and augmented-reality gadgets and software. The division is responsible for bringing to life the Facebook founder’s vision of a world where virtual reality

By Brian Fung, CNN New York City pension fund officials sued Activision Blizzard late last month in a bid to force the company to disclose records that may uncover whether CEO Bobby Kotick breached his fiduciary duty to investors, according to a newly released copy of the complaint. The complaint by the New York City

Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Elon Musk said Twitter might soon charge fees for certain users, as the billionaire continues to tease how he might change the platform as its new owner. Musk, who struck a roughly $44 billion deal to buy Twitter last week, said in a tweet the platform will “always be free for

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Airbnb is once again trying to stop people from using its platform to host unauthorized parties ahead of key summer holidays. The company said Wednesday it will be instituting “strict anti-party measures” for Memorial Day weekend for the first time and will reapply the same approach for July 4th

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business Two passengers that flew on one of Blue Origin’s supersonic flights to the edge of space have shared footage of the 10-minute journey captured behind the scenes or inside the capsule during flight, giving a rare glimpse into the full experience. Cameron Bess — who rode alongside their father, venture

By Brian Fung, CNN Business The Securities and Exchange Commission is vastly expanding its fight against cryptocurrency fraud by hiring more than a dozen new employees to combat cybercrime, the agency said Tuesday. The additional 20 positions will result in almost a doubling in size of the agency’s Cyber Unit, which is also being renamed

By Jennifer Korn and Jackie Wattles, CNN Business Rocket Lab, which aims to launch satellites into space quickly and cheaply, said it just used a helicopter to catch part of a rocket in mid-air. But the rocket was dropped into the ocean shortly after, ending up having to be fished out of the water. This

By Brian Fung, CNN Business The European Union is warning Apple about possible antitrust violations after an investigation into the iPhone maker’s dominance in mobile retail payments. The European Commission said Monday that it believes Apple has unfairly blocked competitors from using the wireless communications technology behind Apple Pay’s tap-to-pay capabilities. According to a statement

By Diksha Madhok, CNN Business India has seized more than $700 million from one of China’s biggest tech companies after accusing it of moving money out of the country illegally. In a statement on Friday, India’s Enforcement Directorate — the country’s main financial investigation agency — accused the Indian subsidiary of smartphone maker Xiaomi of

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Just two days after he announced he would buy Twitter, Elon Musk sent out a deluge of tweets about his plans for the social media platform. One stood out for its broad appeal. “Twitter DMs should have end to end encryption like Signal, so no one can spy on or

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Some Apple employees are pushing back on the tech giant’s return to office pilot program, which will soon require most of its corporate workers to be in the office at least three days per week. The employees, organizing under a newly-formed group known as Apple Together that advocates for

By Laura He, CNN Business Just three months ago, Apple became the top-selling smartphone brand in China for the first time in six years. Now it’s fallen back behind its Chinese rivals after suffering more than others from a first quarter slump in sales. Two research reports published this week showed Apple slipping to third