Twitter plans to shut down Periscope, the live video streaming app it acquired in 2015, due to declining usage and high costs. In a blog post wistfully headlined “Farewell, Periscope,” the team running the app disclosed that it has been in an “unsustainable maintenance-mode state” for some time.
QUARTERLY REPORT
Twitter Posts Stronger-Than-Expected 2Q Results, Shares Jump
The San Francisco-based company earned $65.6 million, or 8 cents per share, in the April-June quarter. That’s up from a loss of $1.38 billion, or $1.75 per share, a year earlier. Revenue jumped 74% to $1.19 billion from $683.4 million, surpassing Wall Street’s expectations. Ad revenue in the U.S. alone nearly doubled.
Trump announced the action against Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube, along with the companies’ CEOs, at a press conference in New Jersey on Wednesday. He was joined by other plaintiffs in the suits, which were filed in federal court in Miami.
Twitter is partnering with veteran climate journalist and meteorologist Eric Holthaus to launch a local weather news service on the platform called “Tomorrow” that will be built using all of Twitter’s new creator products — from paid newsletters to ticketed live audio rooms and more.
Exclusives
Twitter stressed live content and real-time connection in its presentation at the 2021 Digital NewFronts on Wednesday. The company also announced a slate of new and expanded video-based content partnerships. “Twitter is not only a second screen, but it’s also the first scroll when anything is happening in the world,” said Jen Prince, Twitter’s global head of content, in a recent interview.
Twitter is acquiring Scroll, a subscription service that removes ads from participating news sites. Scroll, which charges $5 per month, is going into private beta with Twitter in preparation for being incorporated in a broader subscription service later this year, Scroll CEO Tony Haile said in a blog post.
QUARTERLY REPORT
Twitter Posts Solid 1Q Results But Outlook Sinks Stock
The San Francisco-based company earned $68 million, or 8 cents per share, in the January-March period. That’s up from a loss of $8.4 million, or 1 cent per share, a year earlier. Revenue grew 28% to $1.04 billion. Analysts, on average, were expecting a loss of 2 cents per share on revenue of $1.03 billion, according to a poll by FactSet.
A months-long war of words between CNN and Project Veritas has escalated into an actual libel suit. On Tuesday, James O’Keefe’s operation filed a complaint in Georgia after a CNN anchor discussed Twitter’s suspension of Project Veritas and attempted to explain that “this is part of a much broader crackdown … by social media giants on accounts that are promoting misinformation.”
Usually, when social media executives are brought to testify in front of Congress, the hearings are centered on specific policies and types of content, misinfo and foreign interference, antitrust issues, and privacy concerns. What doesn’t quite get as much attention are the engines that drive these platforms: their algorithms. That’s what makes Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary hearing with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube different. The hearing is entirely focused on social media algorithms.
It said the case is moot. There were no noted dissents, but Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to say the court at some point will need to examine the power of tech media companies.
The chief executives of Twitter, Alphabet and Facebook (l-r: Jack Dorsey, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg) will appear before a House panel, where they will face questions about social media’s role in fomenting discord and their decisions to suspend or ban former President Trump.
TVN FOCUS ON DIGITAL
TVN Focus On Digital | Facebook Remains TV Stations’ Most Important Social Platform
Facebook overwhelmingly is the most important social media platform for TV stations, say executives for CBS stations, E.W. Scripps, Nexstar, NBCU stations, Fox stations and Meredith. Broadcasters’ relationship with the platform once widely viewed as a “frenemy” continues to evolve, though the opacity of its all-important algorithm still frustrates. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.
NEWS ANALYSIS
Survey Says: Journalists Should Never Tweet
The tensions in newsrooms over reporters’ social media presence are not just about politics. Above, in 2012, David Carr, a New York Times media columnist, spotted the way social media had begun to shift the balance of power in newsrooms.
In an effort to combat misinformation, Twitter says it hopes to build a community of “Birdwatchers” that can eventually help moderate and label tweets in its main product.
It’s a Twitter user’s worst nightmare: Wake up to find most of your followers gone. But that’s exactly what will happen on Wednesday to the official presidential accounts on Twitter. No, not @realDonaldTrump — he’s already been banned for life. This is the fate awaiting lesser-known accounts such as @POTUS, @WhiteHouse, @FLOTUS and @VP. (POTUS […]
“I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter,“ Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey wrote. But he added: ”I believe this was the right decision for Twitter.” Dorsey acknowledged that shows of strength like the Trump ban could set dangerous precedents, even calling them a sign of “failure.” Although not in so many words, Dorsey suggested that Twitter needs to find ways to avoid having to make such decisions in the first place.
Twitter shares plunged by more than 10% Monday in early morning trading following the social media giant’s move to ban President Trump, reflecting fears of political retribution and financial fallout stemming from the company’s decision.
Twitter on Friday permanently suspended President Donald Trump from the site, meting out its toughest punishment two days after a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
UPDATED THURSDAY, 2:28 AM
Capitol Violence Sparks Social Media Reckoning With Trump
On Wednesday, in an unprecedented step, the two companies temporarily suspended Trump from posting to their platforms after a mob of his supporters stormed the house of Congress. It was the most aggressive action either company has yet taken against Trump, who more than a decade ago embraced the immediacy and scale of Twitter to rally loyalists, castigate enemies and spread false rumors.
The Federal Trade Commission on Monday voted to issue orders to nine major internet platforms requiring information about how they handle data for a new study. The orders, which do not implicate any legal wrongdoing, were sent to Amazon, ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok), Discord, Facebook, Reddit, Snap, Twitter, WhatsApp and Youtube. The agency is requesting information about how the platforms collect, use, track or estimate personal and demographic information.
Twitter wants to be more than just 280-character blocks of text. On Tuesday, the social network announced disappearing tweets and previewed a few more upcoming features, including audio.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter testified Tuesday about their platforms, misinformation and the 2020 election.
QUARTERLY REPORT
Tech Giants Report Mixed 3Q Results
While all five — Amazon, Google parent Alphabet, Facebook, Apple and Twitter — exceeded analyst expectations, gloomy forecasts and other uncertainties led to share-price declines for all but Alphabet in after-market trading.
The CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google were scolded by Republicans at a Senate hearing Wednesday for alleged anti-conservative bias in the companies’ social media platforms and received a warning of coming restrictions from Congress. Lawmakers of both parties are assessing the companies’ tremendous power to disseminate speech and ideas, and are looking to challenge their long-enjoyed bedrock legal protections for online speech.
The Senate Commerce Committee has summoned Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai to testify for a hearing Wednesday. The executives agreed to appear remotely after being threatened with subpoenas. With the presidential election looming, Republicans led by President Donald Trump have thrown a barrage of grievances at Big Tech’s social media platforms, which they accuse without evidence of deliberately suppressing conservative, religious and anti-abortion views. Above (l-r): Dorsey, Pichai and Zuckerberg.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on Friday his company had been wrong to block links to an article making claims about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son. “Our goal is to attempt to add context, and now we have capabilities to do that,” he tweeted here.
Facebook and Twitter cast doubt on a New York Post story that made claims about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, taking proactive steps to restrict dissemination of the story in the hours after it was published on Wednesday.
Facebook has deleted a post in which President Trump had claimed Covid-19 was “less lethal” than the flu. Twitter hid the same message behind a warning about “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information”.
The Senate Commerce Committee voted last week to authorize subpoenas for (l-r) Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Sundar Pichai of Google and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to force them to testify if they didn’t agree to do so voluntarily. Spokespeople for the companies said Monday that the CEOs will cooperate and appear at an Oct. 28 hearing.
the social media companies still aren’t enforcing even the limited restrictions they’ve recently put in place to stem the tide of dangerous QAnon material, a review by The Associated Press found. Both platforms have vowed to stop “suggesting” QAnon material to users, a powerful way of introducing QAnon to new people.
Telecom giant AT&T plans to push for changes to a federal law that protects companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter from liability for users’ posts. “There is no longer any reason that the nation’s most powerful online platforms should enjoy legal immunities unavailable to similarly-situated traditional companies,” AT&T EVP Joan Marsh said Monday in a blog post.
