CNN – Social Media/Technology

By Brian Fung, CNN US farmers will have the right to repair tractors and other agricultural equipment from John Deere without having to use the manufacturer’s own parts and facilities, under an agreement the company signed Sunday with farm industry representatives. The agreement marks a major victory for farmer and consumer advocacy groups, who have

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Shortly before Thanksgiving, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy confirmed rumors that layoffs had begun in multiple departments at the e-commerce giant and said it would review staffing needs into the new year. On Wednesday, Jassy provided a sobering update on that review: Amazon is cutting more than 18,000 jobs, nearly double the

By Samantha Murphy Kelly and Jennifer Korn, CNN A long list of companies once again showed off an assortment of cutting edge technology and oddball gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week. There were new twists on foldable devices, cars that changed colors and smart ovens that live streamed dinners. There

By Clare Duffy, CNN In a normal year at this time, a typical LinkedIn feed might be full of posts about year-end reflections on leadership and professional goals and suggested lifehacks for the year ahead — possibly with a few posts from CMOs offering tips on brand strategy, for good measure. Those posts are still

By Laura He, CNN Chinese tech giants are witnessing a dream start to the year. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index — a popular index tracking Chinese firms listed in the United States — soared 13% in the first two trading days of 2023, marking its best start to a year on record, according to

By Jennifer Korn, CNN Hang onto your baby bonnets: Self-driving technology is coming to strollers. Canadian-based baby gear startup Gluxkind was showing off its Ella AI Powered Smart Stroller at this year’s CES, the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas that offers some of the most cutting edge — and out-there — new technologies. The

By Laura He, CNN Tesla’s China chief has reportedly been given a big promotion. Tom Zhu has been handed Tesla’s US assembly plants and sales operations in North America and Europe as additional responsibilities, leaving just the Berlin Gigafactory outside his remit, according to media reports on Tuesday. The reports have intensified speculation that China-born

By Jennifer Korn and Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Developers at a Microsoft-owned gaming studio voted on Tuesday to form the first ever US union at the tech giant, in a milestone moment both for the company and the video game industry. Some 300 quality assurance workers at Microsoft’s ZeniMax Studios voted to unionize with the Communications

By Brian Fung, CNN A commercial landlord is suing Twitter for breach of contract after the company allegedly failed to pay rent for one of its offices in San Francisco. The lawsuit concerns Twitter’s office space at 650 California Street, not its main headquarters on Market Street. But it comes after media reports last month

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN On the first trading day of 2022, Apple hit a new milestone for the tech industry: the iPhone maker became the first publicly traded company to hit a $3 trillion market cap, with Microsoft and Google not far behind. As eye-popping as that valuation was, there were headlines speculating about how

By Clare Duffy, CNN Facebook parent company Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a longstanding class action lawsuit accusing it of allowing Cambridge Analytica and other third parties to access private user information and misleading users about its privacy practices. The proposed settlement would end the legal battle that began four years

By Clare Duffy, CNN Additional Twitter employees were terminated Thursday as part of ongoing, rolling layoffs under new owner Elon Musk, including from the public policy and media and entertainment teams, according to tweets from affected employees. As part of Thursday’s layoffs, the members of Twitter’s public policy team who had remained following last month’s

By Clare Duffy, CNN TikTok parent company ByteDance has fired four employees who improperly accessed the personal data of two journalists on the platform, TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter confirmed to CNN Thursday. TikTok user data from the two journalists, who worked for the Financial Times and BuzzFeed, was accessed while ByteDance employees were investigating potential

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business A small but growing number of universities are now blocking access to TikTok on school-owned devices or WiFi networks, in the latest sign of a widening crackdown on the popular short-form video app. The University of Oklahoma and Auburn University in Alabama have each said they will restrict student

By Brian Fung, CNN In a matter of days, the United States is expected to ban federal employees from downloading or using TikTok on government-issued phones or tablets, marking the country’s broadest crackdown on the short-form video app to date. The looming ban is the result of a bill that’s moved through Congress in the

By Tom Page, CNN Business Fashion’s ephemeral nature might seem an odd bedfellow for the blockchain, an online ledger that’s designed to be permanent. But the industry is finding ways to harness it and other digital tools to reduce waste and push fashion into the future. Italian company Lablaco is working with fashion houses and

By Clare Duffy, CNN Twitter has been hit with allegations from 100 former employees affected by mass layoffs at the company, including that it unfairly laid off more women than men, terminated employees who were actively on medical or parental leave and reneged on promises related to severance pay. The allegations were included as part

By Brian Fung, CNN Twitter owner Elon Musk confirmed Tuesday evening he will step down as the company’s CEO, but only when he identifies a successor, directly addressing for the first time a Twitter poll he created this week in which millions of users voted for his ouster. In a tweet, Musk said he would

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN A network of three hospitals in Brooklyn, New York, has had to work off paper charts for weeks following a cyberattack on its computer systems in late November, the hospital group’s chief executive told CNN Monday. The hack affected “clinical applications,” including “those used for imaging and other critical services,” but

By Brian Fung, CNN A Twitter poll created by Elon Musk asking whether he should “step down as head of Twitter” ended early Monday morning with most respondents voting in the affirmative. Musk had said he would abide by the results of the unscientific poll, which began Sunday evening and concluded with 57.5% voting yes,

By Brian Fung, CNN Twitter deleted its controversial new policy on Sunday evening that had banned links to certain other social media platforms, less than 24 hours after the policy’s initial introduction. The development comes shortly after company owner Elon Musk launched a Twitter poll asking users whether he should step down as head of

By David Goldman, CNN Twitter’s mercurial new boss may be out the door after less than two months on the job, if results of a Twitter poll go against him. Elon Musk tweeted a poll Sunday evening asking people to vote on whether he should step down as Twitter’s CEO. Musk said he would abide

By Brian Fung, CNN Twitter said Sunday it would ban links to other social media services and suspend accounts that try to direct users to alternative platforms, in an apparent attempt to stem user defections to competitors. But Twitter CEO Elon Musk later relented, loosening the policy and causing widespread confusion about what kind of

By Brian Fung, CNN Elon Musk’s Twitter sparked an international outcry on Thursday by suspending a number of journalists at major news organizations who cover him. But a different and possibly related move that Twitter took around the same time, against a fast-growing rival, could open the company up to regulatory scrutiny, some legal experts

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN In July 2020, the same month former President Donald Trump said he would ban TikTok in the United States, Callie Goodwin of Columbia, South Carolina, posted her first video on the app to promote the small business she had started out of her garage during the pandemic. Inspired by a neighbor

By Julia Horowitz and Brian Fung, CNN Elon Musk’s decision to suddenly ban prominent tech journalists from Twitter is fanning a fierce backlash from lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe, Germany’s foreign ministry tweeted its concern with the impact Musk’s moves could have on press freedom, while a senior EU official said

By Brian Fung, CNN Two technology industry groups asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to review a hotly debated Texas law restricting social media platforms’ ability to moderate content, potentially opening the door to a sweeping reinterpretation of First Amendment precedent. The challenged state law, known as HB 20, would allow for lawsuits against tech

By Brian Fung, CNN The Senate passed legislation Wednesday evening to ban TikTok from US government devices, in a move designed to limit perceived information-security risks stemming from the social media app. The vote by unanimous consent approved the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, a bill authored by Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley. The

By Eliza Mackintosh, CNN The son of an Ethiopian chemistry professor who was killed during unrest in the country last year has filed a lawsuit against Meta, Facebook’s parent company, alleging that the social media platform is fueling viral hate and violence, harming people across eastern and southern Africa. Abrham Meareg Amare claims in the

By Jennifer Korn With the implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX dominating the headlines, celebrities who hawked cryptocurrency are now finding themselves under fresh legal scrutiny. Tom Brady, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and baseball Hall-of-Famer David Ortiz are just some of the big names facing lawsuits from investors as the crypto world crumbles in the wake of

By Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Twitter on Wednesday permanently suspended an account that tracked the location of Elon Musk’s private jet, despite the social media company’s owner vowing last month he would leave the account up as part of his “commitment to free speech.” The @ElonJet account, which had amassed more than 500,000 followers, was removed

By Michelle Toh, CNN “World of Warcraft” fans in China will have to back up their playing history as the distributor of the hit game winds down its agreement with Blizzard Entertainment. In a letter to users on Tuesday, John Hight, general manager of Blizzard’s Warcraft franchise, said the team was “working hard to develop

By Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Twitter announced late Monday that it was disbanding its “Trust and Safety Council,” according to an email the company sent to the council’s members that was obtained by CNN. The company said in the email that it was “reevaluating how best to bring external insights into our product and policy development

By Clare Duffy, CNN A series of internal Twitter documents shared on the social media platform Monday offer a glimpse into internal debates among some of the company’s employees ahead of its decision to ban then-President Donald Trump following the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The documents — shared by journalist Bari

By Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Twitter’s former head of trust and safety has fled his home due to an escalation in threats resulting from Elon Musk’s campaign of criticism against him, a person familiar with the matter told CNN on Monday. Yoel Roth, who resigned from the social media company in November, has in recent weeks

By Hanna Ziady, CNN Microsoft is buying a 4% stake in the London Stock Exchange Group as part of a deal that will see the market operator spend at least $2.8 billion over 10 years on the software provider’s cloud services. The companies announced the partnership in a joint statement on Monday, touting the benefits

By Brian Fung, CNN The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, challenging one of the largest tech acquisitions in history. The administrative complaint filed Thursday by the FTC alleges that the blockbuster deal, which would make Microsoft the third-largest video game publisher in the world, would