CNN – Social Media/Technology

By Hilary Whiteman, CNN Cyber criminals in Russia are behind a ransomware attack on one of Australia’s largest private health insurers that’s seen sensitive personal data published to the dark web, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said Friday. In a short press conference, AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw told reporters investigators know the identity of the

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Video by John General, CNN Business In 2019, Air Company made a splash when it launched vodka derived from recaptured carbon, in an effort to reduce the amount of the harmful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Today, the Brooklyn-based startup has begun using the same process to make fuel for

By Brian Fung, CNN Twitter appears to be battling a wave of celebrity and corporate impersonators on its platform who have quickly gamed the company’s new paid verification system, hours after its launch. CNN has confirmed multiple verified Twitter accounts have been suspended by the platform after other users posted screenshots showing misleading content from

By Brian Fung, CNN A new verification mark intended to better identify prominent Twitter accounts has instead become the latest source of chaos at the company under new owner Elon Musk. Just hours after the feature’s debut, Musk abruptly said Wednesday he had “killed” a new, gray verification badge designed to label government accounts, major

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told company executives that major layoffs at the tech giant will begin on Wednesday morning, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday afternoon. Meta declined to comment to CNN on the report, which said Zuckerberg told the executives at Facebook’s parent company that he is accountable for

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business If you’ve heard the word “mastodon” a lot since Elon Musk took over Twitter in late October, here’s why: The extinct mammal is also the name of a relatively small, formerly little-known social network that has skyrocketed in popularity, as many Twitter users try it out as an alternative for

By Diksha Madhok, Irene Nasser, Arnaud Siad and CNN’s Beijing Bureau One of Apple’s largest suppliers is trying to strike a delicate balance in China. Foxconn has to comply with some of the harshest Covid rules in the world while ensuring that Apple’s shipments are not severely disrupted just before the key holiday season begins.

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Facebook-parent Meta is planning the first significant layoffs in its history as the company grapples with a shrinking business and fears of a looming recession, according to the Wall Street Journal. The job cuts are expected to impact thousands of workers and could begin as early as this week, the

By Jennifer Korn and Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Business Twitter is delaying the rollout of account verifications for its paid Twitter Blue subscription plan until after the midterm elections, a source with knowledge of the decision confirmed to CNN. The decision to push back the new feature comes one day after the platform launched an updated

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business In the week since Elon Musk took over Twitter, the number of people signing up for a small social network called Mastodon has surged. You may not have heard of Mastodon, which has been around since 2016, but now it’s growing rapidly. Some are fleeing Twitter for it or at

By Clare Duffy and Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Elon Musk said Friday that Twitter has seen a “massive drop in revenue,” as a growing number of advertisers pause spending on the platform in the wake of his $44 billion acquisition. “Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though

By Donie O’Sullivan and Clare Duffy, CNN Twitter on Friday laid off thousands of employees in departments across the company, in a severe round of cost cutting that could potentially upend how one of the world’s most influential platforms operates one week after it was acquired by billionaire Elon Musk. Numerous Twitter employees began posting

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business In 2009, after Twitter was sued by then-St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa for being impersonated on the platform, the young company introduced a new feature: a blue and white check mark. The check indicated that Twitter had verified the accounts of artists, athletes, government officials and agencies and

By Diksha Madhok, Michelle Toh and CNN’s Beijing bureau Foxconn, one of Apple’s largest suppliers, is wrestling with major disruption at its biggest iPhone assembly factory in China, as anxious workers reportedly flee the locked-down facility, according to social media videos. The Taiwanese company is racing to control a Covid outbreak at its campus in

By Chris Isidore and Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN General Motors is pausing its advertising on Twitter now that the social media platform is owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the company said in a statement Friday. The nation’s largest automaker said that it is making the change while it evaluates “Twitter’s new direction.” It said it

By Chris Isidore, CNN Business The three top Twitter executives whom Elon Musk fired Thursday will walk out the door with about $187 million of Musk’s money. Former CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal and former Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde were ousted after Musk took control of the company late Thursday, according to

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Apple beat Wall Street analysts’ sales and income expectations for the quarter ended in September, despite an otherwise bruising earnings season for tech companies and worries that demand for the newest iPhones might have been weaker-than-expected. The tech giant posted sales of just over $90 billion during its fiscal fourth

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Elon Musk attempted to reassure Twitter’s advertisers about the future of the platform in an open letter Thursday, a day before his $44 billion takeover of the company is expected to be completed. In a letter posted to Twitter, Musk said he doesn’t want the platform to become a “free-for-all-hellscape

By Michelle Toh and Gawon Bae, CNN Business Samsung has appointed Jay Y. Lee, its longtime de facto leader, as executive chairman. The move was announced Thursday, making official who would continue to head up South Korea’s most valuable and well-known company. Lee had previously held the title of vice chairman. Samsung’s board, which approved

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Meta on Wednesday posted the second quarterly revenue decline in its history since going public and warned that it is making “significant changes” aimed at cutting costs ahead of 2023, as it confronts an economic downturn that is hitting its core online advertising business. For the three months ended in

By Donie O’Sullivan and Clare Duffy, CNN Business Elon Musk plans to visit Twitter’s San Francisco office this week ahead of the expected close of his deal to buy the company, Twitter Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Berland told staff in an email Wednesday. “As you’ll soon see or hear, Elon is in the SF office

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business In recent months, bots have been top of mind for many who track the social media industry, thanks to Elon Musk’s attempt to use the prevalence of fake and spam accounts to get out of his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. But bots aren’t just a challenge for Twitter.

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Six months after the grassroots Amazon Labor Union scored a historic victory by becoming the first to unionize one of the tech giant’s US facilities, it now appears to be grappling with setbacks and delays. Workers at a California Amazon facility withdrew their petition late last week to unionize with

By Jennifer Korn, CNN Business Amazon is rolling out a new option for customers to pay with Venmo. Starting Tuesday, select customers will see an option at checkout to pay for orders on Amazon.com and via the mobile app using the popular PayPal-owned payment service rather than using their credit cards. The option will be

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business After Rebecca Kasten Higgins lost her husband in a car accident a few days before their 20th anniversary in 2018, she kept her relationship status as “married” on Facebook for three years. Then she started dating someone. “When I first changed my status from ‘widowed’ to ‘in a relationship,’

By Brian Fung, CNN The Federal Trade Commission is seeking tough new restrictions against Drizly, the alcoholic beverage delivery platform, after what US regulators allege were repeated security failures that compromised the data of 2.5 million people. The proposed order against Drizly, if finalized, would force the company to beef up its cybersecurity and limit

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Apple on Monday raised the price of its music and video streaming services, in the latest example of streaming products getting more expensive in recent months. An Apple Music subscription for individuals will now cost $10.99 per month, up from $9.99, and a family plan supporting up to five people

By Brian Fung, CNN A landmark law requiring Apple and other electronics makers to adopt USB-C as a universal charging standard in the European Union has cleared its final procedural hurdle, after EU member states voted to approve the legislation on Monday. The new law, which is targeted at smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, portable speakers

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business The clock is ticking for Elon Musk to complete his deal to buy Twitter. The billionaire Tesla CEO has until 5 p.m. ET on Friday to close his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter or face a trial that was previously delayed to allow both parties to close the deal. The

By Alexandra Peers/ CNN Business It’s weird when wrestling superstar Randy Orton, Netflix’s romance “Bridgerton,” TikTok, a tattoo artist, Instagram, NFTs and Andy Warhol’s portrait of Prince all show up in the same law school textbook. A series of hot-button lawsuits have linked all those unlikely creators and platforms in litigation that goes as high

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business Apple’s industrial design chief who most recently oversaw the design of products including the iPhone, Apple Watch and Mac computers is leaving the company. Evans Hankey was one of two people promoted to oversee the design team after the departure of Apple’s longtime product designer, Jony Ive, in June

By Jennifer Korn Facebook and TikTok failed to block advertisements with “blatant” misinformation about when and how to vote in the US midterms, as well as about the integrity of the voting process, according to a new report from human rights watchdog Global Witness and the Cybersecurity for Democracy Team (C4D) at New York University.

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Snap’s bad year continues. Snap on Thursday reported revenue of $1.13 billion for the three months ending in September, a slight 6% increase from the year prior and less than Wall Street had expected, as the company confronts tightening advertiser budgets in an uncertain economy. In a letter to investors,

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business After months of layoffs, hiring freezes and other cost-cutting measures, big tech companies are set to provide the most detailed look yet at just how bad things have gotten for their businesses amid fears of a looming recession. Snapchat’s parent company, which tanked much of the tech sector in May

By Brian Fung, CNN GIFs — those short, animated images that were a staple of internet memes and culture in the 1990s and 2000s — may be going out of fashion now as social media users have largely moved on to emojis and video. But a long-running legal battle over who can control access to

By Eric Cheung and Will Ripley, CNN Business Many Asian countries introduced tougher Covid-19 restrictions than in other continents, a reality that has caused concerns about elevated levels of stress, anxiety and isolation. Now, a number of young entrepreneurs are leveraging technology to provide greater access to mental healthcare there. In July, Singapore-based Intellect raised

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Uber is launching an in-house advertising division and rolling out its own form of targeted digital ads as it seeks to develop new revenue sources. The ridehailing giant announced the launch of its “enterprise-wide” advertising unit on Wednesday, saying it will be helmed by Amazon advertising veteran Mark Grether. Uber

By Catherine Thorbecke, CNN Business Amazon workers in upstate New York have voted against forming a union, dealing another blow to a grassroots labor group attempting to organize several of the tech giant’s US warehouses. In total, 406 workers at the Amazon facility near Albany voted against unionizing and 206 voted for it, according to