Schools in several major cities in Canada have initiated legal actions against social media corporations, including Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, alleging that these platforms hurt children’s mental health and educational progress.

On Wednesday, school districts from Toronto, Ottawa, and Peel Region launched individual lawsuits, collectively seeking damages amounting to approximately $4.5 billion.

The legal actions against Meta, TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd., and Snapchat parent Snap Inc. allege that these firms intentionally target children with products designed to be addictive. This, in turn, leads to disturbances in classroom settings and increases the susceptibility of children to sexual abuse and exploitation.

The Toronto District School Board said in a complaint filed in Ontario’s Superior Court: “Endemic social media use is causing an unprecedented youth mental health crisis within the Plaintiff’s schools and amongst its student population.

“Students’ social media use is causing significantly increased rates of anxiety, depression, social media addiction, body dysmorphia, anorexia, low self-esteem, disordered eating, suicidal ideation, pervasive loneliness, self-harm, and suicide,” it continued.

It claimed that the companies “capitalized on their knowledge that the developing child brain is particularly vulnerable and prone to manipulation” by these social media products.

Only this week (March 26), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law to effectively ban young children from social media. Under the new legislation to be introduced on 1 January 2025, Florida will prohibit children aged 13 and under from having access to social media, whilst 14 and 15-year-olds will require parental consent to be online.

The ongoing issue with social media

In January, social media executives testified at a US Senate hearing aimed at addressing online child exploitation. The CEOs of Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord and X, formerly known as Twitter, shared their stance amid growing concerns and questions about how platforms are considering their impact on children.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg surprisingly turned to parents of victims on the Senate floor and apologized. “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,” Zuckerberg said while parents displayed photographs of their children, who died after suffering from sexual exploitation or harassment through social media platforms.

Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap Inc., expressed similar sentiments to parents whose children obtained illegal drugs via Snapchat. In late 2023, parents of over 60 teenagers sued Snap, accusing it of enabling their children to purchase drugs that led to overdoses.

In October 2023, a massive lawsuit filed by 33 states accused Meta of knowingly designing its platforms to be addictive and harmful to children’s mental health. The claims originate from internal research leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021, revealing that 13.5% of teenage girls reported Instagram worsens suicidal thoughts, and 17% stated it aggravates eating disorders.

Featured image: Canva

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Newly unsealed documents from a federal court in California are accusing Meta of snooping on Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon users through their covert ‘Project Ghostbusters.’

The court released the documents on Tuesday (Mar. 26) from a class action lawsuit between consumers and Meta, revealing further insight into the technology conglomerate.

According to TechCrunch, the secret Facebook initiative was launched in 2016 and aimed to intercept and decrypt the encrypted network traffic between Snapchat’s app users and its servers.

It’s reported that the parent company of Facebook then extensively analyzed the network traffic patterns to gain an advantage over its competitors. It’s said this was able to be carried out through the VPN-like service Onavo that the Meta-based company acquired in 2013.

Onavo was eventually shut down just some years later in 2019 due to an investigation that revealed that Facebook had been secretly paying teenagers to use the software so the company could access all of their web activity.

Court documents suggest the technique was later used for the video-sharing website YouTube and online shopping site Amazon.

Facebook wanted ‘reliable analytics’ for Snapchat

Within the documents, it’s reported that emails discussing the project were also leaked. On June 9, 2016, Mark Zuckerberg is believed to have sent an email saying: “When someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer is usually that because their traffic is encrypted we have no analytics about them.”

“Given how quickly they’re growing, it seems important to figure out a new way to get reliable analytics about them. Perhaps we need to do panels or write custom software. You should figure out how to do this.”

The Onavo team is then thought to have taken on the project which allowed them “to read what would otherwise be encrypted traffic so we can measure in-app usage.”

Not all of the Facebook team was in favor of the project, including the then-head of infrastructure engineering Jay Parikh and then-head of security engineering Pedro Canahuati.

An email is included in the court documents from Canahuati who wrote: “I can’t think of a good argument for why this is okay. No security person is ever comfortable with this, no matter what consent we get from the general public.

“The general public just doesn’t know how this stuff works…”

These documents come amidst numerous legal challenges against Meta. Just this month, the U.S. appeals court rejected Meta’s bid to halt a privacy investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.

Featured Image: Photo by Grant S on Unsplash

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Reddit enjoyed a jump in the price of its shares on Tuesday (26 March) in the continuation of a strong launch of options on the stock.

An 11% increase and a current price of $67.5 looks set to add more than $1 billion to the market value of the social media platform, whilst it is also on track to double the $34 IPO price.

Reddit is a San Francisco-based site that combines elements of social media, message boards, and news aggregation. It was founded in June 2005 by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, who sold the platform to Condé Nast the following year. Huffman left the company in 2009 before returning as CEO in 2015.

The company is seeking a valuation of up to $6.4 billion in its flotation on the New York Stock Exchange.

Reaction to the Reddit stock price boom

Jeremy Goldman, a senior director of client briefings at Emarketer, formerly Insider Intelligence, spoke on the early trading and returns on the new stock.

“More bullish investors have bought options in Reddit, which is part of its early stock market success in its first full week of trading,” he said. 

Goldman added, “From my estimates, about 90,000 options have changed hands, possibly more.”

The options launch enticed significant bets on the stock on Monday, closing up around 30% and crowning Reddit as the top percentage gainer on the NYSE. 

If the current trajectory remains, the company is well-poised to smash through its $6.4b target and also the $10 billion valuation Reddit received in a 2021 private fundraising round. 

Lo Toney, founding managing partner of Plexo Capital and Reddit shareholder told CNBC that Reddit’s debut was “a positive sign not only for the company, but I think also the tech industry and what it might mean for future IPOs.”

“One thing we know with certainty is that there (was) a lot of investor appetite during the roadshow for Reddit, and we see that it’s continuing to hold up well.”

Toney added, “Clearly the market is signaling there’s an appetite for more companies to come to the public markets.”

Featured image: Generated by Ideogram

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With the ban looming, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is trying to diversify by promoting its other social media platform named Lemon8.

According to the New York Post, the company is paying influencers to suggest the other app via TikTok.

Often described as being similar to Pinterest, Lemon8 allows users to share photos and look for inspiration from others. It’s said to be very similar to the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu.

A content creator spoke exclusively to The Post saying she was offered $200 for a brand deal where she was asked to upload ‘a video that promotes Lemon8 on TikTok.’

While she didn’t take ByteDance up on the offer, other influencers are starting to speak out about the Pinterest-like platform. It’s unclear whether there’s been a move to the app organically or if these creators have been paid to post.

In March of last year, Lemon8 was in the top 10 most downloaded apps. Just a month later the app’s daily active users almost halved from 11,930 to 6,360. The current statistics have not yet been publicized.

This all comes after ongoing debate around the ban of video app TikTok, with the US House of Representatives having passed a bill on March 13 that calls for the Chinese developer to divest from the company or be banned from US app stores.

Reactions to ByteDance’s other app Lemon8 aren’t too favorable

There seems to be some confusion around the app by TikTok users as people say they’re not sure what Lemon8 actually does. In one video by user Audreygentilee she asks her audience ‘wtf is lemon8.’

@audreygentilee

im so serious what is it #lemon8

♬ original sound – audreygentile

Some social media fans don’t seem to be too convinced as yet, with one person responding to that video saying “I wanted to get it at first bc it looks cool but idek what it is and now I’ve seen it too much I will never get it.”

Another said, “i downloaded it to see as well, and there was like a list you had to do to sign up it was so confusing so i just stopped and never got an account good luck if you find out lmk.”

Featured image: Via Apple App Store

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WhatsApp is upping its game and focusing on its media sharing capabilities within the app, as updates are being tested for users.

The first to be improved is shared images which have notoriously seen a reduction in quality when sent to another user.

On Monday (Mar. 25) WhatsApp news site WABetaInfo found a new update that is being rolled out through the Google Play Beta Program which addresses this issue.

The feature focuses solely on media upload quality, with users soon able to have the option of choosing a higher grade of quality when sending over photos. This is available to some beta testers but will be accessible to more users over the coming days as part of version 2.24.7.17.

The Meta-owned company isn’t just leaving the multimedia upgrades there, as they’ve been turning its attention to videos too.

The latest iOS version that can be downloaded on the App Store is complete with a feature that has been under testing for some months now. Similar to video streaming platforms like Netflix and YouTube, you can now forward and rewind videos.

Double tapping on the right or left-hand side of the screen will move the video forward or backwards by 10 seconds.

The messaging company is reportedly working on other features too including filtering group chats, and sharing status updates and favorites.

WhatsApp developing AI features

With Meta as its parent company, it’s no surprise that the app is developing artificial intelligence (AI) features. Ask Meta AI is reportedly under development as part of version 2.24.7.14.

This would allow users to enter queries into the search bar, with WhatsApp enhancing the process by suggesting some prompts along the way.

When the command or question is submitted, Meta AI will answer and initiate a conversation. This should help people with common searches and obtain information quicker than having to exit the app and visit a browsing tool.

This hasn’t yet been tested, so will need to go through a beta testing program before it’s available to everyone. There isn’t a known date for this announcement or launch.

Featured image: Photo by Mourizal Zativa on Unsplash

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill into law to effectively ban young children from social media.

The restrictive measure for minors has been introduced as a response to the growing concerns over the negative influence of various apps on young people in the United States.

Under the new legislation to be introduced on 1 January 2025, Florida will prohibit children aged 13 and under from having access to social media, whilst 14 and 15-year-olds will require parental consent to be online.

Speaking on Monday (25 March), Governor DeSantis explained his administration is merely “trying to help parents navigate this very difficult terrain that we have now with raising kids.” 

Governor Ron DeSantis Signs HB3 to Protect Children from the Harms of Social Media https://t.co/9nylhaOIXI

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 25, 2024

Republican Speaker Paul Renner viewed this issue as a top legislative priority and he was delighted with the outcome, stating “A child in their brain development doesn’t have the ability to know that they’re being sucked into these addictive technologies and to see the harm and step away from it, and because of that we have to step in for them,” 

The bill comes at a time when another social media battle is capturing many headlines with the proposed ban on Chinese-owned TikTok in the United States after federal lawmakers gave their approval. 

There is a significant push underway to resist moves to curb the crackdown on TikTok and similar moves are in the offing to introduce a challenge in Florida.

Expected challenge against the social media legislation

Democratic Representative Anna Eskamani believes the new law “goes too far in taking away parents’ rights”, adding “Instead of banning social media access, it would be better to ensure improved parental oversight tools and improved access to data to stop bad actors — alongside major investments in Florida’s mental health systems and programs.”

Claims have also been made about restricting freedoms and preventing Americans from accessing information online. 

Khara Boender, a state policy director for the Computer & Communications Industry Association, said in a press release that she understands some of the rationale for online safety but expressed doubts on how effective the legislation will “meaningfully achieve those goals without infringing on the First Amendment rights of younger users,” with the anticipation of a robust legal challenge to follow.

Image credit: Photo by Ashley Satanosky on Unsplash

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Despite a litany of legal cases against him, former US President Donald Trump’s net worth is now greater than it has ever been and the businessman has earned a place as one of the 500 richest people on the planet.

What is Donald Trump’s net worth?

The incredible boost to Trump’s fortunes comes after the recently completed merger between Trump’s social media company Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) and the special purpose acquisition firm Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC). The deal, completed on Monday (Mar. 25) has seen the 77-year-old’s total wealth rise to $6.5bn according to Bloomberg.

Trump owns nearly 80 million shares of the company which operates Truth Social, or around 58%, of the combined entity which will begin trading under the ticker DJT on Tuesday.

At DWAC’s closing price of $49.95 on Monday, Trump’s 58% stake is currently valued at approximately $3.9 billion on paper. This massive increase from just $22.5 million based on the last disclosure forms accounts for the bulk of the $4 billion spike in his net worth over the past few days.

The timing of the merger and the skyrocketing value of his personal fortune could not be better for Trump, who is facing a huge civil fraud penalty. Initially ordered to pay $464 million for a bond to avoid asset seizures, a New York appeals court dramatically lowered that amount to $175 million – a sum Trump claims he can cover.

However, Trump cannot immediately cash in on his new paper fortune from the TMTG merger, as his shares are locked up for roughly six months under the merger agreement terms. There are also lingering questions about the company’s financial viability, with less than $3.5 million in revenue over the first nine months of 2023 while posting a $49 million net loss during that period.

Nevertheless, Trump’s entry into the rarefied air of the world’s highest net-worth individuals represents a striking reversal from the legal and financial woes that seemed to be intensifying against him just 24 hours prior. For now, his long-held assertion that he is a billionaire is indisputable.

Trump took to his network Truth Social to celebrate the news, posting a report from Fox News with the caption, “ALWAYS ONE STEP AHEAD”.

“ALWAYS ONE STEP AHEAD” pic.twitter.com/HTV3iTSKQV

— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) March 26, 2024

Featured image: Generated by Ideogram

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Trump Media & Technology group, the company behind Truth Social, has been approved for a merger with the Digital World Acquisition Corporation. Shareholders of the DWAC voted on Friday March 22 to approve the merger, and it’s estimated that this deal can net Trump more than $3 billion dollars.

This vote has been over two years in the making, with the DWAC first announcing its intention to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group back in 2021. From here on, the newly-merged company may begin to be publicly traded as soon as next week, with DJT, Donald Trump’s initials, being used as the stock symbol.

Can Donald Trump cash in?

But Trump might not be able to cash in on this payday right away. That’s because he is meant to be barred from selling shares for at least six months, but as NBC notes, there’s a chance the board might lift this restriction sooner, with board members potentially including allies such as Roger Lighthizer, Linda McMahon, and his son, Donald Trump Jr.

Yet, after the merger got approved, Digital World Acquisition Corp’s share price dropped by up to 12%. As previously reported, insiders claim that Trump spoke to Elon Musk about him potentially purchasing Truth Social.

Per the Truth Social website, the divisive social media site is described as: “America’s ‘Big Tent’ social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating on the basis of political ideology.”

Trump recently posted on the platform about how Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, is an “enemy of the people”. This led to Meta’s stock experiencing a drop, showing that even if he is barred from selling shares for a while, he still has a formidable influence in the wider stock market.

Featured image: Ideogram

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Threads is coming to the Fediverse — and it’s happening sooner than you think. On Thursday (Mar.21) Meta, the owners of Threads, announced a beta that allows users in certain countries to share their Threads posts on numerous other platforms. The ability to share Threads posts on other platforms is all down to them being on servers that are compliant with something called ActivityPub.

ActivityPub is an open, decentralized protocol that enables social networks to become interoperable. So, for instance, users could share a Threads post on another ActivityPub-compliant server like Mastodon. Protocols like this are nicknamed the ‘Fediverse’ because they allow federated social networks, which, basically, is just another way of saying interoperable social networks.

So, Threads users who ‘opt in’ will have their posts shared across the Fediverse — but replies from other social media networks won’t be viewable from Threads. Instead, viewers will have to go to the other Fediverse server in question.

When will Threads join the Meta’s Fediverse?

In a post, Meta software engineer Christopher Su and security engineer Simon Blackstein explained that Meta is taking a “phased” approach to Fediverse integration.

“In the future, we expect content to flow from the fediverse into Threads,” they wrote. “Federated Threads users will be able to see and engage with replies to their posts coming from other servers, or follow people on other fediverse servers and engage with their content directly in Threads. Our plan is for fediverse-enabled Threads profiles to ultimately have one consolidated number of followers that combines users that followed them from Threads and users from other servers. “

They concluded: “Building a federated social networking app is a complex and delicate process if it is to be done safely. While we don’t have exact dates or details on our milestones just yet, we’re committed to a fully interoperable experience, and we’ll take the time to get this right and grow the fediverse responsibly.”

Integrating Threads into the Fediverse is the latest in a long line of changes that have been implemented at Meta. Most recently, the social network has been playing around with trending topics —dubbed ‘Today’s Topics’ — and a new save feature similar to X.

Featured Image: Photo by Dave Adamson on Unsplash

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On Wednesday (Mar 20), US Senators received a disturbing briefing about TikTok from the FBI, Justice Department and the Director of National Intelligence office.

As the Senate prepares to vote on a bill that could see TikTok banned, senators tell Axios that a classified briefing exposed some “shocking” details about the app’s Chinese links and capabilities.

According to one Senator, national security officials detailed how China could not only harvest and track Americans’ data, but also weaponize it through misinformation and propaganda. Another told the outlet of claims that TikTok could spy on users’ microphones, track keystrokes and otherwise “determine” what users were doing on other apps.

TikTok’s ability to spy is shocking

According to Senator Richard Blumenthal, the briefing’s “level of detail and specificity was extremely impactful,” while Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) noted that the briefing was useful in “bringing some members up to date with the threats that China poses through TikTok.” Senator Eric Schmitt simply added: “Their ability to track, their ability to spy is shocking.”

However, despite these concerns, Axios report that there is little chance of the bill being fast-tracked. On March 21, Senator Mark Warner, chair of the Intelligence Committee, said that the bill would take longer than hoped because that’s “just the way the Senate works.”

But as TikTok’s much-debated ban seems all the more likely, both China and the app are biting back. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin describes the behavior as “bullying,” arguing that “this kind of bullying behavior that cannot win in fair competition disrupts companies’ normal business activity, damages the confidence of international investors in the investment environment, and damages the normal international economic and trade order.”

Meanwhile, TikTok said in a statement that “we are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents and realize the impact on the economy, 7 million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service.”

Featured image: ideogram

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Action has been taken by a group of cross-party US lawmakers to introduce legislation against ByteDance which would force the company to divest its dominant social media platform TikTok or risk a ban in the United States.

The move is driven by fears over national security concerns emanating from TikTok’s Chinese ownership and its links to the Beijing government. It follows previous efforts in Congress to address perceived risks from the video-hosting app with a ruling in late 2022 banning federal employees from using the platform on government-issued devices.

Now, Mike Gallagher, Republican chair of the House of Representatives China select committee has joined with leading Democrat figure, Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi to face down ByteDance.

“This is my message to TikTok, break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users,” Gallagher stated.

“America’s foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States.”

What is the response to the US action against TikTok?

If approved, the bill would instruct the Chinese tech giant to divest TikTok within 165 days, otherwise, action could be taken to make it unlawful for Apple, Google and other app store providers to offer it to the market.

The seriousness of the confrontation is underlined by the 170 million active users of the app in the US, but ByteDance has slammed the proposed legislation.

“This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it,” a company spokesperson said on Tuesday.

“This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”

Conversely, a White House National Security Council spokesperson welcomed the bill as “an important and welcome step” commenting that the Biden administration would work together with Congress “to further strengthen this legislation and put it on the strongest possible legal footing.”

Whether anything meaningful comes to fruition in the coming weeks and months remains to be seen in what is election season in the states, and is further clouded by President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign joining TikTok last month.

Image credit: Ideogram

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CrowdTangle has confirmed that, despite its widespread use by academic researchers, journalists, and others, Meta will be phasing out the data tool.

The public insights tool from the social media giant made it easy to follow, analyze, and report on what’s happening with public content on online networking platforms.

However, Meta has said it would decommission it by August 14, 2024, instead replacing it with a system called the Meta Content Library.

The firm confirmed to ReadWrite that the five-month notice period “should give people time to complete any current projects they are using it for and, if eligible, to get up to speed with our new research tools, Meta Content Library and API, or others that serve their needs.”

The company added that researchers will be able to apply for access to the tools with the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan. It aims to provide near real-time public content from Facebook and Instagram. However, it did not elaborate on whether news outlets will get access to the feature.

According to CrowdTangle’s website, news organizations can only continue to use Insights within Meta’s Business Suite, and they may choose to partner with third-parties who have social listening capabilities built on top of Meta’s APIs.

The platform explained that it was originally created to help organize social causes on Facebook, while showcasing what social content overperformed on Facebook Pages.

In 2019, CrowdTangle then added research, academic and fact-checking partners, and built tools to help these partners study how public content spreads across Facebook and Instagram.

Citing the company, the Wall Street Journal said that Meta has already started taking applications for its new content library and that it would be an upgrade over its previous version.

Meta facing backlash from news outlets

Meta announced that the Facebook News tab will be removed for U.S. and Australian users earlier this month. The section was already shut down last year in the UK, France, and Germany as the company shifted its focus towards providing content that people “want to see more of on the platform.”

However, the Australian government threatened action against Meta, after the California-based social media company said it would stop paying local media companies this year for using their content.

It is also set to stop promoting political content across the company’s social apps, adding that AI would play their part in considering “personalized signals, like survey responses, that help us understand what is informative, meaningful, or worth your time” on Facebook.

In a statement made of Thurday (March 14), the company pledged that it would “continue to gather feedback from researchers and add new features and data sets over time.”

Featured image: Canva

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Elon Musk has abruptly pulled the plug on Don Lemon’s upcoming talk show on the X platform, after a tense inaugural interview between the former CNN anchor and the billionaire.

Lemon said Musk texted him to say “contract terminated”. He then shared a post and a video on X discussing the interview and the outcome. “Elon Musk is mad at me,” he said. “His commitment to a global town square where all questions can be asked and all ideas can be shared seems not to include questions of him from people like me,” he elaborated.

Elon Musk canceled #TheDonLemonShow

Watch on YouTube and listen everywhere on Monday March 18. pic.twitter.com/AAhnvcY0ny

— Don Lemon (@donlemon) March 13, 2024

“Throughout our conversation, I kept reiterating to him that although it was tense at times, I thought it was good for people to see and hear our exchange, and that they would learn from our conversation,” he said in the video.

Why did Elon Musk cancel the Don Lemon show on X?

Musk, who owns X, posted on the site about the decision, and the company’s official account stated: “after careful consideration, X decided not to enter into a commercial partnership with the show.”

When pressed for a specific reason, the 52-year-old himself stated that he believed Lemon was taking the wrong approach.

“His approach was basically just ‘CNN, but on social media’, which doesn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying. And, instead of it being the real Don Lemon, it was really just Jeff Zucker talking through Don, so lacked authenticity. All this said, Lemon/Zucker are of course welcome to build their viewership on this platform along with everyone else,” said his post.

He clarified that Don Lemon is welcome to share and host the show on X, but there will be no commercial agreement between the entities.

is welcome to monetize on this platform, just like everyone else.

What we aren’t going to do is guarantee minimum payments to him, as he was demanding, which would be going beyond everyone else!

Unfortunately, all wants to do is rehash the dying CNN business model “but…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 14, 2024

The talk show was announced in January as part of a way to encourage advertising revenue back to X after significant ad revenue losses. The interview with Elon was intended to be the first episode of the new venture. Don Lemon has stated that the show will be available across platforms including YouTube and X on Monday, March 18, and will include the interview with Musk, despite the dissolution of the partnership.

With news that X is coming to TVs, this seems like a serious blow to Musk’s plans to expand the platform.

Featured Image: midjourney

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As US lawmakers approve a bill that could see TikTok banned, China warns that such a ban would “come back to bite” America.

March 13 saw the House of Representatives voting on a bill that could result in TikTok being banned in the US within six months, unless the Chinese-owned app severs its ties with China. The US is the country with the largest TikTok audience by far as it stands, with almost 150 million users engaging with the popular social video platform – a substantial audience that the company, Bytedance, will not want to lose.

Concern around TikTok from US officials has been a long-standing issue, with fears around data protection and child safety on the app at the forefront. However, Bytedance has always defended the app’s safety regulations.

What happens next with the TikTok bill?

The bill, under the official name of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support. It will now head to the Senate and, if it has enough support there, go on to President Joe Biden in the White House to sign it into law.

Before the House of Representatives vote, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin maintains that the US has “never found evidence that TikTok threatens national security.”

“This kind of bullying behavior that cannot win in fair competition disrupts companies’ normal business activity, damages the confidence of international investors in the investment environment, and damages the normal international economic and trade order,” Mr Wang stated.

“In the end, this will inevitably come back to bite the United States itself.”

Ironically, as with other global social media platforms, TikTok is banned in China. Chinese users can access a similar app called Douyin, however, only available in China and subject to monitoring and censorship by the government.

Featured image: Ideogram

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Elon Musk has confirmed X is on its way to your smart TV, in the next stage of the social media platform’s ambition to develop into an app for everything.

It appears the Tesla billionaire has Netflix, Amazon Prime and other streaming services in his sights with the rollout of the new medium for X. In recent days, Musk replied “Coming soon” to a post indicating you will soon be able to watch long-form X videos on a TV app.

A report has suggested the launch will first be hosted on Samsung TVs as well as Amazon’s Fire TV platform.

Coming soon https://t.co/JlnlSL7eS9

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 9, 2024

What will X TV look like?

X on TV will not be rivalling the heavyweight streamers with its offerings immediately but it is likely to have some similarities to those platforms, with an initial focus on video hosting like YouTube, whilst it could aim to later bid for live events and other forms of entertainment, as found on Netflix or Amazon Prime to establish itself within the market.

In the ongoing diversification of X, since Musk completed his takeover of Twitter, it was announced in December 2023 that his Grok AI chatbot would be opened up to premium subscribers on the app. It also has Twitch in its crosshairs with the hosting of monetized live streams.

X has also introduced audio and video calling, now available to all users on Android and iOS. Any user of the social media platform can receive a call but only paid users can make a call.

This targeted upscaling is likely to be influenced to some extent by WeChat, the Chinese app which acts as a one-stop shop combining social media and instant messaging with a mobile payment functionality and more.

Musk has frequently remarked on his intentions to deliver “the everything app,” when he acquired Twitter.

He stated, “In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird.”

Featured image: Ideogram

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Facebook’s stock has fallen sharply after former President Donald Trump went on a rant on two separate occasions about the American technology company.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg was caught directly in the cross-fire too, with Trump writing on Truth Social: “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People.”

The 45th U.S. President then went on CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box,’ and further criticized Facebook when speaking about a bill going through the House of Representatives to regulate competitor TikTok. He said: “I’m not looking to make Facebook double the size…

“And I think Facebook has been very dishonest. I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.”

On both the day of the social media post and after the interview, the stock of Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook, dropped.

Meta saw the lowest closing figure since last July, Forbes reported. The shares dropped by about 4.5 percent to just under $484 on Monday, after the CNBC feature.

The shares dropped by 1.2 percent after the social media post went live on the Friday before.

On Tuesday 12 March, Donald Trump once again took to the site Truth Social to share a news article link with the title ‘Meta’s stock drops twice after Trump calls Facebook ‘an enemy of the people.’

What does Donald Trump think of TikTok

Much of Donald Trump’s scathing comments against Facebook then pivoted to give support of the video app TikTok.

This comes after the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously voted to advance legislation that would force ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to divest ownership of the app.

The reason for this is that ByteDance is a Chinese company, which has led to fear among Americans over their user data security.

While Trump now seems to be in favor of the app which took the world by storm, it wasn’t always that way. In August 2020, when he was still president, he said he intended to ban TikTok and even signed an executive order banning U.S. companies from transactions with ByteDance.

Featured image: Generated by ideogram

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Elon Musk’s X continues its battle with legacy media and traditional websites with its launch of long form articles, which vastly expands the possibilities open to writers on the platform.

Announced in a post on X yesterday (March 7), the feature expands the previous character limit from 25,000 by around four times, up to 100,000 characters. It also allows for media embedding, including images, videos, and of course, X posts.

However, currently, the editor is basic. While it can do basic text formatting like bold, italic, strikethrough, and bullet point and numbered lists, it lacks a markdown reader and can’t handle code blocks, something X users have already been requesting.

I've been using articles, and they're fantastic! It would be beneficial to incorporate something like markdown for easier editing. One significant challenge I've encountered is the inability to include code snippets in my articles. I've had to resort to taking screenshots of my…

— storm (@snowcra5h) March 8, 2024

When a user has written an article, it will appear in a new tab on their profile alongside their replies and media tabs. When reading an article, users have the option to full-screen the page for a cleaner, distraction-free interface, which is a nice addition.

Articles behave like normal X posts, with the ability to reply, repost, and like any article post.

Who can write articles on X/Twitter?

‘Articles’ is a feature that is only available to Premium + subscribers on X. While a Premium account costs around $130 annually, Premium + is double that at around $260 – more if you pay monthly instead of annually.

Presently, it is unclear what the uptake will be for this feature. Under Elon Musk, X has become increasingly hostile to journalists and people who create content off-platform. It notably suppresses Substack links, and removed headlines from links to external content, minimizing the capacity for creators to reach their audiences.

Musk has previously discussed his plans to take on live streaming platform Twitch, owned by Amazon, and bring monetized live streaming directly to X. X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino also encouraged Rockstar Games to upload the trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 directly to X rather than sharing a YouTube link. They did so, but more than 24 hours after sharing the link to the YouTube video.

His goal seems to be to minimize the reasons users would ever leave the site by gradually adding features that have been siloed across different services and rolling them into one huge X ecosystem that charges a fee and keeps users on-site, endlessly scrolling through a variety of content types. Whether he will be successful remains to be seen.

Featured image credit: MatiMango via Pexels

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Facebook and Instagram have reportedly gone down, suggesting a widespread outage affecting the platforms of their parent company, Meta.

Users reported receiving error messages and were subsequently logged out of both the app and the desktop site, preventing the feeds from refreshing.

Has Facebook and Messenger logged you out and then rejects your password?

Don't panic, you're not alone, LOADS of people seem to be experiencing this right now.

I guess we just gotta wait and see what the heck this is pic.twitter.com/YiQz17AeXR

— Talha Ali (@TalhaAli781) March 5, 2024

According to Downdetector, there were more than 250,000 reports of outages on Facebook and 45,000 reports on Instagram. WhatsApp had almost 1,000 incidents, and Threads was also encountering some issues.

Reports indicate that the impact has been felt in multiple countries worldwide.

ReadWrite has approached Meta for a comment. The tech giant’s own status page shows that a number of products, including some of the developer tools and business platforms, were experiencing some disruptions.

In a statement on their site, it said: “We are aware of an issue users are having logging into our platforms. Our engineering teams are aware and are actively looking to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

“We are currently recovering from an earlier outage affecting the ability to log in to our platforms. Services are in the process of being restored. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused,” it later updated.

However, some users report that Facebook has resumed its services, while Instagram remains down.

A Meta spokesperson told ReadWrite: “Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”

Update: Services definitely seem to be returning for some, but others are still unable to get in with their existing passwords, so it seems things are not quite back to normal.

Meta’s previous outages

It’s not the first time Meta has experienced an outage. In 2019, there was a worldwide disruption where Facebook’s services and servers encountered technical issues, particularly affecting Europe, some parts of the US, and Asia. This occurred just one month following another significant outage.

At the time, Facebook posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) a short statement blaming their issues on a server configuration change. 

Featured image: Pexels

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Meta has announced that the Facebook News tab will be removed for U.S. and Australian users. The section was already shut down last year in the UK, France, and Germany as the company shifted its focus towards providing content that people “want to see more of on the platform.”

The section had provided news content since 2019, as a way to “bring people closer to the stories that affect their lives.” However, following the rise of TikTok, the company has shifted its resources toward short-form video content through its Reels feature.

“As a company, we have to focus our time and resources on things people tell us they want to see more of on the platform, including short-form video,” its corporate blog post said. “The number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the U.S. has dropped by over 80% last year.”

The social networking giant stated that despite shuttering the feature, users will still be able to view links to news articles on Facebook, while news publishers will continue to have access to their Facebook accounts and Pages, “where they can post links to their stories and direct people to their websites.”

The update will not affect the existing Facebook News agreements that Meta holds with publishers in Australia, France, and Germany. The company highlighted that similar news-related agreements “have already expired in the US and the UK,” as stated in the blog post.

Australia threatens action against Meta over Facebook News

Amid the changes, the Australian government threatened action against Meta, after the California-based social media company said it would stop paying local media companies this year for using their content. 

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed that he was “very concerned” about the repercussions of Meta’s decision. His administration announced its commitment to “work through all available options under the News Media Bargaining Code.”

Speaking to an Australian newspaper, Albanese said, “We know that it’s absolutely critical that media is able to function properly and be properly funded. Journalism is important and the idea that research and work done by others can be taken free is simply untenable.”

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland wrote on X that “Australian news publishers deserve fair compensation for the content they provide,” whilst Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones called it a “dereliction” of their commitment to Australian media.

This decision removes a significant source of revenue for Australian news media businesses.

Australian news publishers deserve fair compensation for the content they provide. pic.twitter.com/lIdYZEndyU

— Michelle Rowland (@MRowlandMP) March 1, 2024

The Albanese Government is deeply disappointed in Meta's decision to no longer pay for news content in a number of jurisdictions.

It represents a dereliction of commitment to the sustainability of Australian news media.

Our Government is backing Australian journalism. pic.twitter.com/oOKT9TOqxg

— Stephen Jones MP (@StephenJonesMP) March 1, 2024

According to the Guardian, Jones added, “Nobody should be under any doubts about the government’s resolve to ensure that we have a viable media industry in this country.”

As a result, the ministers stated that the government is consulting with the Treasury and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for guidance on the forthcoming steps, which will be determined promptly.

Featured image: Canva

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