A board member of Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, has been accused of hacking one of the executives who helped bring the firm public as part of a corporate coup attempt, according to a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of Florida. Trump Media became a …
Read More »Did Social Media Kill the Pop Song?
Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That” landed with the force of an atomic bomb. Released last month, the thumping diss track hit the Billboard Hot 100 in a flash but went dynamite across X, Instagram, and TikTok thanks to a surprise verse from Kendrick Lamar, the Compton rapper who won …
Read More »Elon Musk Is Platforming Far-Right Activists in Brazil, Defying Court Order
A Brazilian court has announced that it will be opening an investigation into X owner Elon Musk for obstruction of justice, after Musk reactivated far-right accounts that the Brazilian government had flagged for removal. The announcement came after Musk called for Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who heads …
Read More »Welcome to the Age of Technofeudalism
The tech giants have overthrown capitalism. That’s the argument of former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who became famous trying to defend debt-laden Greece from its German creditors. Varoufakis has never quite regained the notoriety of 2015. But he has remained a prominent left-wing voice. After a failed campaign for …
Read More »The World Doesn’t Need More Journal Apps
Picture it. The year is 2013. Something called a “cronut” keeps popping up in your Instagram feed. You went on a trip with your best friend, so you made an album on Facebook, tagged her, and geotagged the restaurant. Then you wrote a Yelp review. Maybe you publicly disagreed with …
Read More »The Influencers with as Much Presidential Access as the Press
Campaigns and politicians have experimented with influencer marketing over the past four years. But recruiting content creators to reach voters is already happening more than ever in 2024. The Biden campaign has built out a powerful digital operation with a few staffers specifically focused on online persuasion. The White House …
Read More »How Social Media Turned Into a Shopping Mall
Hey, did you see the ad for that Bluetooth-enabled shiatsu foot massager? How about the one for the organic mushroom supplement powder? They’re probably not even the most interesting things you can buy on TikTok or Instagram. Just as the apps have thrived on a steady stream of feel-good content, …
Read More »A TikTok Whistleblower Got DC’s Attention. Do His Claims Add Up?
The United States government is currently poised to outlaw TikTok. Little of the evidence that convinced Congress the app may be a national security threat has been shared publicly, in some cases because it remains classified. But one former TikTok employee turned whistleblower, who claims to have driven key news …
Read More »Truth Social Can’t Meme Its Way to Becoming the Next GameStop
On Reddit and Truth Social, users have been trying to re-create the meme-stock magic for Trump Media and Technology Group—the company behind Truth Social—that boosted companies like GameStop in 2021. So far, they haven’t been too successful. Truth Social, former president Donald Trump’s Twitter copycat, lacks two essential ingredients to …
Read More »TikTok Shop’s Era of Super Subsidies Is Ending
The days of buying ultracheap stuff on TikTok Shop may be winding down. Starting today, the fees TikTok charges sellers increase from 2 percent to 6 percent of the price of each order. They will creep up to 8 percent in July. The changes may mark a crucial moment for …
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