Snail facial serum with gold flakes for $3.20, a litter box for $2.34, and candles shaped and scented like Starbucks Frappuccinos for $5.63. You might not have it on your holiday wish list, but you can find it on TikTok Shop, which is already discounting hard ahead of Black Friday. …
Read More »Bumble, Grindr, and Hinge Moderators Struggle to Keep Users—and Themselves—Safe
“I wasn’t able to go outside anywhere alone,” Ana says. “I had so much anxiety that when I went outside to do errands, I lost consciousness twice. That’s when I realized I was very sick.” Ana began working for LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr when she was in her early twenties, …
Read More »Elon Musk May Have Just Signed X’s Death Warrant
Elon Musk may have put the final nail in X’s coffin. On Wednesday, Musk appeared to endorse an antisemitic post by user @breakingbaht alleging that “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” In …
Read More »Your ‘Dear Algorithm’ Post on Threads Doesn’t Work
Earlier this week Amanda McCellon, a city government worker and community organizer in the greater Oklahoma City metropolitical area, finally decided to pray to the algorithm. “Dear Algorithm,” began her post on Threads, Meta’s newish Twitter clone. From there, McCellon asked to be connected with 10 topics and like-minded folks …
Read More »How to Turn Off Facebook’s Two-Factor Authentication Change
Meta changed how two-factor authentication works for Facebook and Instagram last year. You might have received notifications about this, but it was easy to miss in the platform’s sea of red alerts. OK, so what’s different? “Any devices you’ve frequently used Facebook on in the past two years will be …
Read More »Norway’s Privacy Battle With Meta Is Just Getting Started
Norway is doubling down in its long-running fight against Meta over users’ data. The country’s privacy watchdog, Datatilsynet, says it is already investigating the company’s new ad-free subscription model, less than a week after the service was launched across Europe. Meta started rolling out its new model last week, giving …
Read More »A Watchdog Group Calls for an Investigation of X’s Sneaky New Ads
In October, X rolled out a new ad format that appeared to serve paid-for posts without labeling them as ads. Experts speculated that the posts might violate US laws against deceptive advertising. Today, the ad industry watchdog Check My Ads filed a petition with the Federal Trade Commission, asking that …
Read More »Running Signal Will Soon Cost $50 Million a Year
The encrypted messaging and calling app Signal has become a one-of-a-kind phenomenon in the tech world: It has grown from the preferred encrypted messenger for the paranoid privacy elite into a legitimately mainstream service with hundreds of millions of installs worldwide. And it has done this entirely as a nonprofit …
Read More »TikTok Is the New TV
The latest satirical show about a rich family bumbling a big business hits small screens this week. But you won't find it on on Netflix, Hulu, Max, or any other contenders in the streaming wars—instead, it might pop up on your TikTok For You page, shuffled in among influencer videos …
Read More »Sweeping New Powers Could Let the UK Block Big Tech Platforms
The UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, says it is prepared to “disrupt” tech platforms that don’t comply with the country’s controversial new Online Safety Act, including cutting them off from payment systems or even blocking them from the UK. The act—a sprawling piece of legislation that covers a spectrum of issues, …
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