social media

TikTok, which officially landed in the United States in 2018, was the most downloaded app in the country, and the world, in 2020, 2021 and 2022. It wasn’t that the elements of it were so new — compelling videos from randos had long been a staple of American pop culture — but TikTok put the pieces together in a new way.

Users of Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger will be able to turn to the new technology, powered by Meta’s latest artificial intelligence model, to obtain information and complete tasks.

A new measure attempts to force the Senate’s hand on passing legislation to ban TikTok or mandate the app’s sale.

IPG Mediabrands has unveiled plans to step up its efforts to safeguard clients from the negative impact of misinformation in media — especially on social media — prioritizing political, climate, health care, AI-generated and brand-specific content. The initiative, which was announced along with a new spate of research revealing how consumers feel about brand advertising in misinformation environments, includes an expansion of an ongoing research relationship between IPG Mediabrand’s Magna and brand content safety platform Zefr, as well as new technology developed by IPG Mediabrands’ Kinesso unit.

Global digital rights advocates are watching to see if Congress acts, worried that other countries could follow suit with app bans of their own.

YouTube made an update Monday in relation to third-party ad-blocking apps, which may make it more difficult for users to watch YouTube videos without paying for the company’s ad-free tier. Specifically, viewers using these third-party apps to access YouTube may begin experiencing “buffering issues” or be met with an error message stating that “the following content is not available on this app.”

J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley started coverage on Reddit with equivalent to “hold” ratings, as they wait for clarity on the social media company’s user growth, while staying bullish on ad-revenue growth and artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives. Shares of Reddit were up 0.88% at $42.64 in premarket trading. While Reddit, which made its market debut last month, still relies on advertising for the vast majority of its revenue, it touted AI in its initial public offering marketing roadshow as an area of growth.

Approaching spring shopping trends, YouTube is unveiling new in-stream shopping tools in an effort to facilitate new ways for creators to show off products, push more purchase activity, and gain more revenue opportunities in the video-sharing app. YouTube says its new “Shopping Collections” feature provides creators with a thematic way to curate products from their favorite brands. The feature — which is intended to highlight a creator’s tastes in a similar way to a Pinterest board — may enhance the possibility for more direct promotions, helping creators earn more revenue on the site.

The change, they say, has significantly affected creators who are Black, female, disabled and LGBTQ.

LinkedIn and two advertisers have agreed to settle a long-running battle over the social media platform’s allegedly inflated ad metrics, according to papers filed Monday with  a federal appellate court. Settlement terms have not been disclosed. The move likely brings an end to a dispute dating to 2020, when the tech company TopDevz and recruiting platform Noirefy alleged in a class-action complaint that LinkedIn’s erroneous metrics allowed it to charge inflated prices for ads.

Trump Media’s shares were hovering around $36 as of Monday morning, after closing at about $40 Friday. The latest numbers mark a steep fall for the Truth Social parent, whose shares initially climbed above $79 after going public nearly two weeks ago.

The video app is spending millions on ads as Congress considers a bill that could lead to a U.S. ban.

A new TV ad spot shows TikTok taking new steps to oppose a bill that if passed would force ByteDance, the app’s China-based owner, to sell to a company in the U.S. due to potential concerns over data privacy and national security. TikTok’s ad campaign, which cost $2.1 million, uses testimonials by a diverse range of supposed TikTok influencers and sellers to highlight the damage that could be done to Americans who rely on TikTok to make a living were banned in the U.S.

Social media stars who’ve parlayed content niches into massive, cross-platform audiences will share their unique approaches to content creation in a panel at TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere conference at the NAB Show on April 14. Register here.

The filing also warns shareholders that the former president’s involvement and stake in the company could put it at greater risk. (Christoph Dernbach/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

Facebook “Watch” looked like a Netflix killer in 2017, but antitrust prosecutors claim it was shut down to protect advertising deals.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has sued Media Matters in an attempt to protect Elon Musk and X from the nonprofit watchdog group’s investigations into hate speech on the social network. Bailey’s lawsuit claims that “Media Matters has used fraud to solicit donations from Missourians in order to trick advertisers into removing their advertisements from X, formerly Twitter, one of the last platforms dedicated to free speech in America.”

A privacy case against TikTok would add fuel to the bipartisan chorus of criticism directed at the company over its ties to China.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a law that prohibits social media platforms from allowing anyone under 14 to create or maintain accounts, and also requires tech platforms to obtain parental consent before allowing 14- or 15-year olds to create or maintain accounts.

Some see the TikTok bill as the best chance for now to regulate the tech industry and set a precedent, if a narrow one focused on just one company. President Joe Biden has said he would sign the House bill, which overwhelmingly passed 362-65 this month after a rare 50-0 committee vote moving it to the floor. But it’s already running into roadblocks in the Senate, where there is little unanimity on the best approach to ensure that China doesn’t access private data from the app’s 170 million U.S. users or influence them through its algorithms. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

The share price of Digital World Access Corp. began trending downward following a shareholder vote Friday morning to merge with Donald Trump’s social media company: Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of the Truth Social digital platform. The deal, which personally gives Trump billions of dollars in potential equity value, includes contractual requirements barring him from selling shares for six months.

Reddit, the 19-year-old website that hosts millions of online forums, priced its IPO on Wednesday at $34 a share, the top of the expected range. The offering brought in $519 million, according to Reddit, and values the company at close to $6.5 billion. Reddit had planned to price the deal at $31 to $34 a share.

Instagram has officially launched a new “Ads with Promo Codes” option for all brands using Meta’s photo-sharing platform across the globe. The new ad product aims to provide marketers with a more visible way to highlight promotions and automatically apply them for interested consumers.

Meta Platforms on Monday asked a federal appeals court for an emergency injunction halting an FTC in-house hearing that could result in a ban on monetizing teens’ data. The social media platform contends that FTC in-house hearings are unconstitutional — in part, because the FTC acts as both prosecutor and judge at in-house hearings.

The Supreme Court seemed wary Monday of imposing harsh limits on how federal officials communicate with social media platforms about content moderation decisions. Sharply questioning both sides, the justices sought to determine when it is appropriate for the government to encourage the platforms to remove controversial content — if ever.

After making an initial announcement in November, YouTube is officially rolling out a new set of rules around synthetic media. To enforce a sense of transparency around what users are seeing on the video-sharing app, YouTube is now requiring creators to publicly disclose when they upload synthetic content, including generative AI, that they have altered or created to be realistic in any way.

The justices must distinguish between persuading social media sites to take down posts, which is permitted, and coercing them, which violates the First Amendment.

Legal battle would force courts to weigh the government’s national security objectives against the First Amendment rights of TikTok and its users.

Dozens of popular figures on the app have traveled to Washington to urge lawmakers to oppose a bill that could result in the platform being blocked in the United States.

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he wants to pull together a group of investors to buy TikTok. Mnuchin, who also has connections to Hollywood, announced his plans on CNBC Thursday morning.

Even though legislation is moving forward, the video social media app isn’t disappearing from smartphones any time soon.

House passage of the bill is only the first step. The Senate would also need to pass the measure for it to become law, and lawmakers in that chamber indicated it would undergo a thorough review. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he’ll have to consult with relevant committee chairs to determine the bill’s path.