CNN – Social Media/Technology

By Diksha Madhok, CNN Business More than two decades ago, India began its transformation into a global IT powerhouse, ushering in an era of wealth and job creation never before seen in the country. Now, Asia’s third largest economy is ready for the next big frontier in tech: Coming up with a new generation of

By Michelle Toh, CNN Business Chinese regulators have summoned companies to demand they play down profits and further clamp down on how minors can play video games, just days after children in the country were banned from access during the week. State-run news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday that authorities had called in firms, including industry

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Elizabeth Holmes and the US government faced off in a San Jose federal courtroom in the long-awaited criminal trial of the founder and former CEO of Theranos. In opening arguments Wednesday, the government sought to convince jurors that the Stanford University dropout intended to mislead investors, patients, and doctors

By Jessie Yeung, CNN Business Police in China have released a former Alibaba employee accused of sexually assaulting a co-worker after prosecutors found that his act of “forcible indecency” did not constitute a crime. The decision has reignited public debate about a case that rocked the country’s tech industry and led to a reckoning within

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Ford on Tuesday announced that it has hired Doug Field away from Apple as it looks to bolster its self-driving and electric vehicle ambitions. Field will become Ford’s chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer, and will oversee efforts including vehicle controls, enterprise connectivity and driver assistance technology, the automaker

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and former CEO of failed biotech startup Theranos, went from being hailed as the next Steve Jobs to facing up to 20 years in prison over federal fraud charges. How did Holmes get here? A Stanford University dropout, Holmes — inspired by her own fear

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business Apple will likely reveal its latest lineup of iPhones next week. The company sent out press invitations on Tuesday for a virtual event — with the tagline “California Streaming” — that will take place on Tuesday, September 14, at its Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino, California. Apple is expected

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Hours after the Supreme Court refused to block a Texas law prohibiting most abortions on Wednesday night, a small group of leaders at rideshare company Lyft convened to discuss how the company would respond. “Our President and CEO, John Zimmer and Logan Green, reached out and said, ‘What can we

By Charles Riley, CNN Business K-pop fans are the latest casualty of China’s crackdown on celebrity culture. Weibo, China’s heavily censored version of Twitter, announced Sunday it has suspended 21 fan accounts dedicated to various K-pop artists due to “irrational star-chasing behavior.” The accounts, which have been suspended for 30 days, are dedicated to members

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business A 100-foot-tall rocket burst into flames mid-air after launching from California Thursday evening, dashing the hopes of a Texas-based startup to put a rocket into Earth’s orbit on its first-ever launch attempt. The rocket, which launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base north of Los Angeles on Thursday, appeared to have

By Clare Duffy and Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business Apple made headlines — and not the good kind — last month when it announced a test of a new tool aimed at combating child exploitation. Critics quickly decried the feature’s potential privacy implications, and now Apple is taking a long pit stop before moving forward

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business A group of researchers has developed a new material they say is as soft as cotton but as strong as Kevlar and as conductive as many metals. It can be worn and washed like normal clothing and could eventually turn athletic apparel into smart “wearables.” The so-called “carbon nanotube threads”

By Charles Riley, CNN Business Bumble and the CEO of rival dating platform Match Group are creating relief funds for people affected by a Texas law that bans abortion from as early as six weeks into pregnancy. And in doing so they kicked off a corporate reaction to the legislation that other companies, including Lyft

By Michelle Toh, CNN Business Alibaba is pouring 100 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) into China’s drive to achieve “common prosperity,” marking the latest big pledge from a Chinese company to support President Xi Jinping’s campaign. The tech giant announced Friday that it would spend the staggering sum by 2025 with an eye on five priorities:

By Laura He, CNN Business China will set up a new stock exchange in Beijing, giving the nation’s capital and political center more influence in the world of business and finance. President Xi Jinping announced the Beijing-based exchange at an international trade fair on Thursday, saying that he wanted to create a venue for “service-oriented”

By Scottie Andrew, CNN Fed up with torrents of racist and transphobic hate from viewers, a trio of Twitch users decided to take a day off from the streaming platform. Their absence, they hoped, would compel Twitch to do more to support streamers of color and those from marginalized groups. Twitch users RekItRaven, LuciaEverblack and

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business A jury of seven men and five women has been selected for the long-awaited criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO and founder of Theranos. The twelve jurors and five alternates were sworn in Thursday. The jury appeared to be diverse, both ethnically and in terms of age.

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed late Wednesday it is investigating Richard Branson’s flight to space, saying the rocket-powered plane operated by his company, Virgin Galactic, veered off course during its descent. The FAA’s statement came not long after the New Yorker’s Nicholas Schmidle reported that warning lights had shown up

By Michelle Toh, CNN Business Two of China’s leading tech companies are setting up labor unions for their staff as the industry comes under intense political pressure to rethink how it treats its workers. Chinese ride-hailing company Didi (DIDI) announced on an internal forum last month that it had established a union for its workers,

By Jill Disis, CNN Business Apple will allow companies such as Spotify and Netflix to direct customers to their own websites to make payments, allowing them to more easily avoid fees levied by the App Store. The iPhone maker’s latest concession in a long-standing fight with app developers was announced Wednesday in response to an

By Michelle Toh, CNN Business Hong Kong has reclaimed its status as the host of a marquee Asian tech conference it lost last year, as organizers cite the city’s success in battling the coronavirus pandemic. Rise, an annual tech conference whose recent speakers have included executives from Uber, Alibaba and Stripe, said Thursday that it

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business After days of controversy over its decision not to crack down on misinformation about Covid-19, Reddit is somewhat backtracking, taking action against dozens of its groups known as “subreddits.” The social media site on Wednesday banned one prominent subreddit called r/NoNewNormal, which described itself as hosting a “[skeptical] discussion of

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Twitter is stepping up its efforts to help users experiencing harassment protect themselves. The social media company on Wednesday announced the test of a new feature called “Safety Mode,” which aims to help users prevent being overwhelmed by harmful tweets and unwanted replies and mentions. The feature will temporarily block

By Matt McFarland, CNN Business The $1 trillion infrastructure bill appears set to give passenger and freight rail $66 billion, an infusion that will likely expand where service is offered but does little to increase the speed of train travel in the US. Amtrak has proposed spending its share of the infrastructure funding on more

By Michelle Toh and Jake Kwon, CNN Business Google and Apple will have to allow app developers to use alternative payment systems under legislation just passed by South Korea that could set the stage for similar action in other countries. The amended Telecommunications Business Act was approved by the country’s National Assembly on Tuesday, with

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Jury selection began Tuesday in a San Jose federal courtroom for the long-awaited trial of Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO and founder of Theranos. The day kicked off what is likely to be a months-long affair under intense media scrutiny. Central to questioning of potential jurors was the concern

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Google has yet again postponed a full return to the office, announcing that its employees can continue to work remotely until next year. The decision follows similar ones already made by the company’s tech industry peers like Facebook and Amazon. Google workers around the world will not be required to

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business Microsoft is rolling out its newest operating system, Windows 11, earlier than expected for some PC users. Starting October 5, the company will begin a “phased and measured” approach to the free upgrades, in which newer devices will be given priority over older equipment. Microsoft had previously said it expected

By CNN staff, CNN Business China has barred online gamers under the age of 18 from playing on weekdays and limited their play to just three hours most weekends, marking a significant escalation of restrictions on the country’s massive gaming industry. Starting this week, minors will be allowed only an hour of play time between

By Masoud Popalzai and Rob Picheta, CNN Four days after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, 20-year-old YouTuber Najma Sadeqi sat on her bed and recorded a final video to tens of thousands of followers. Usually, her posts would show her cooking or exploring Kabul alongside her friends, in bright clothes and with cheerful music playing

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business As some US cities start requiring proof of vaccination to enter restaurants, events and workplaces, smartphone makers such as Apple, Samsung and Google are rolling out ways to make it easy for users to show their Covid-19 vaccine status with just a tap. It could be Big Tech’s shot

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder and former CEO of Theranos, is set to go to trial this week, more than three years after being indicted on multiple federal fraud and conspiracy charges over allegations she knowingly misrepresented the capabilities of her company’s proprietary blood testing technology. For a time,

By Michelle Toh and Jake Kwon, CNN Business Google and Apple are catching heat for their app store and payments practices in Asia Pacific. Less than a week after Apple said it would allow App Store developers to promote alternative payment methods to their users, South Korea is poised to end restrictions that critics say

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Days after taking control of Afghanistan earlier this month, the Taliban used its first press conference to take a swipe at Facebook in response to a question about freedom of speech. “This question should be asked to those people who are claiming to be promoters of freedom of speech, who

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder and former CEO of Theranos whose criminal trial is set to begin in a matter of days, is likely to defend herself by claiming she was the victim of a decade-long abusive relationship with her ex-boyfriend, also a former Theranos executive, court documents reveal.

By Jill Disis and CNN’s Beijing bureau, CNN Business China is putting companies that overwork their employees on notice. The country’s top court on Thursday issued a lengthy condemnation of what’s commonly known in China as “996,” the practice of working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week that is said to

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Apple is relaxing some restrictions on how iPhone app developers can communicate with customers outside its App Store, as part of a proposed settlement in a class action lawsuit. “Developers can use communications, such as email, to share information about payment methods outside of their iOS app” as long as

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Fortnite users have long had concerts to attend and movies to watch as they wander around the video game through their virtual avatars. Now, they have yet another option: reliving Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. The new virtual experience, which launched Thursday, is called “March

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business The rocket that flew Jeff Bezos to space last month just took another brief, suborbital jaunt to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, this time without people on board, as the company continues to test the vehicle and prepare to offer rides to other ultra-wealthy thrill seekers. It marked the

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business The next time you make a restaurant reservation through OpenTable, you may also be asked to prove you’re vaccinated against Covid-19 with an app from Clear. The online restaurant reservation service said this week that when a user makes a reservation through its iPhone or Android apps they’ll soon see

By Laura He, CNN Business One of China’s biggest tech firms has pledged to hand over its entire profit for the last quarter to rural development projects in the country as Beijing steps up the pressure for wealth redistribution. E-commerce firm Pinduoduo on Tuesday pledged to donate the $372 million it made in the three

By Brian Fung, CNN Business Dozens of major companies, state and federal agencies and other organizations that misconfigured a setting in their Microsoft software inadvertently exposed millions of people’s personal information to the public internet for months, according to security researchers. The data leak, which affected American Airlines, Maryland’s health department and New York’s Metropolitan

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business When Tim Cook took over as chief executive of Apple, it was a corporate transition unlike any other. He stepped out from the shadow of one of the best-known American CEOs and took the reins of one of the world’s biggest tech companies facing some uncertainty about how much more

By Charles Riley, CNN Business Airbnb has pledged to provide free housing for 20,000 Afghan refugees. CEO Brian Chesky said Tuesday that the program would begin immediately, and that Airbnb would pay for the stays. “The displacement and resettlement of Afghan refugees in the US and elsewhere is one of the biggest humanitarian crises of

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business After years of working to build their audiences on OnlyFans, a number of sex workers and adult content creators are now grappling with the sudden blow of potentially losing their incomes and access to the fans who have paid their bills. OnlyFans, a subscription-based website that enables creators to

By Brian Fung, CNN Business Thursday’s decision by the creator platform OnlyFans to soon stop hosting a wide swath of sexually explicit content is sending shockwaves through the internet. OnlyFans, a website with 130 million users and more than 2 million content creators, has become synonymous with pornography. For many, performing on the app is

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Gopuff, a startup that originally launched to offer hookah deliveries for college students and later food deliveries to help satisfy the munchies, is rapidly establishing itself as the future of the on-demand industry. The Philadelphia-based company has announced raising billions of dollars from investors to grow its on-demand delivery

By Steven Jiang and Jill Disis, CNN Business China has passed sweeping new rules about the collection and use of personal data as Beijing toughens its regulation of the country’s tech companies. The Personal Information Protection Law — which was approved Friday by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and which will take

By Matt McFarland, CNN Business Elon Musk said Thursday night at Tesla’s AI Day that the company is building a humanoid robot, and will probably have a prototype next year. “It’s basically going to start dealing with work that is boring, repetitive and dangerous,” Musk said of the Tesla robot. “What is the work that

By Rob McLean and Jill Disis, CNN Business OnlyFans is banning sexually explicit content starting in October, the company announced Thursday. “In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of the platform, and to continue to host an inclusive community of creators and fans, we must evolve our content guidelines,” the company said in a statement,

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, the two wealthiest people on this planet, both want to be center stage when NASA returns astronauts to the moon. But NASA only has enough money for one of them, and it went with Musk’s SpaceX. That means Bezos’ Blue Origin is mad. Both of

By Brian Fung, CNN Business The Federal Trade Commission renewed its bid to break up Facebook on Thursday by filing an amended complaint in federal court alleging the tech giant has monopolized social media and harmed competition. The new complaint comes nearly two months after a federal judge tossed out the original complaint, arguing that

By Laura He, CNN Business China’s crackdown on private business has taken a new, more intrusive turn with government plans to dictate how live-stream shopping influencers speak and dress. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday outlined proposals for an “industry standard” for live-streamers who market products on online shopping platforms. The rules include details

By Oliver Darcy, CNN Business Facebook on Wednesday announced that it had taken action against the so-called “disinformation dozen,” one month after the White House singled out the twelve people and argued that they were responsible for a majority of coronavirus misinformation. In making the announcement, Monika Bickert, vice president of content policy at Facebook,

By Chris Isidore, CNN Business Tesla’s Autopilot feature could soon face its second federal probe of the month. The automaker’s driver-assist and traffic-aware cruise control features are already under investigation by federal safety regulators for their role in a series of crashes. On Wednesday Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Edward Markey of Massachusetts asked

By Brian Fung, CNN Business After years of accusations that it’s helped spread misinformation, Twitter is finally giving users an easy way to report misleading tweets. But don’t expect anything to happen right away because of it. Twitter users in some countries, including the United States, will now be able to report tweets to the

By Diksha Madhok, CNN Business It’s been two days since Kabul fell to the Taliban and social media giants are scrambling to figure out how to deal with the takeover of Afghanistan by the militants. On Tuesday, Facebook reiterated its ban on accounts praising, supporting, or representing the Taliban from its platforms, including WhatsApp and

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business In early August, Apple announced a major new program designed to help combat child exploitation and promote safety, issues the tech community has increasingly embraced. It was a presentation big on intent but light on the details. What followed — outraged tweets, critical headlines and an outcry for more

By Brian Fung, CNN Business T-Mobile confirmed on Monday that it has been hit by a data breach but declined to say whether any personal information from customers was accessed or how widespread the damage may be. The company’s acknowledgement of a breach comes after hackers told Vice that they were selling “full customer info”

By Brian Fung, CNN Business The ransomware attack that forced Colonial Pipeline, one of the largest fuel pipelines in the United States, to go offline this spring also compromised the personal information of nearly 6,000 individuals, a company spokesperson told CNN Business. The pipeline operator has begun sending data breach notification letters to the 5,810

By Matt McFarland, CNN Business Don’t expect any 200 mph trains that rival Europe and Asia’s best, or even cheaper fares. Transportation experts think the infrastructure bill could be the start of a turning point for the disadvantaged state of US rail travel. But the bill doesn’t change the fallout of Americans looking past rail

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Starting any business is full of challenges. Starting one in the middle of a global pandemic is on a whole other level. That reality didn’t stop serial entrepreneur Rami Essaid from starting Finmark last June, but it did force him to take a different approach. Essaid, who said he “believed

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Facebook is the latest tech company to delay its employees’ return to the office until next year as the Delta variant wreaks havoc on reopening plans around the country. “Data, not dates, is what drives our approach for returning to the office,” Facebook spokesperson Chloe Meyere said in a statement.

By Brian Fung, CNN Business The potential antitrust breakup of Facebook’s digital media empire could start with GIFs. Facebook could soon be required to spin off Giphy in response to concerns by UK regulators, and give up control of that company’s massive library of GIFs — the animated images used by millions to express emotions

By Manveena Suri, Diksha Madhok and Meenketan Jha, CNN Business India’s main opposition party is accusing Twitter of stifling freedom of speech after the company took action against hundreds of tweets that identified the family of a child who was allegedly raped and murdered. Twitter’s decision followed a call from India’s child protection agency to

By Brian Fung, CNN Business A new Senate bill targeting US app stores seeks to rein in the power of tech giants such as Apple and Google by banning restrictions on app developers. The proposed bipartisan legislation by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Amy Klobuchar and Marsha Blackburn would outlaw certain contractual obligations that app developers say

By Brian Fung, CNN Business Accenture, the global consulting firm, has been hit by the LockBit ransomware gang, according to the cybercriminal group’s website. Accenture’s encrypted files will be published by the group on the dark web on Wednesday unless the company pays the ransom, LockBit claimed, according to screenshots of the website reviewed by