As a precaution against coordinated violence as the U.S. approaches President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, Facebook announced a few new measures it’s putting in place. In a blog post and tweets from Facebook Policy Communications Director Andy Stone, the company explained that it would block any events slated to happen near the White House, the U.S. […]
WhatsApp delays enforcement of a controversial privacy change, Apple may get rid of the Touch Bar in future MacBooks and Bumble files to go public. This is your Daily Crunch for January 15, 2021. The big story: WhatsApp responds to privacy backlash Earlier this month, WhatsApp sent users a notification asking them to consent to […]
WhatsApp said on Friday that it won’t enforce the planned update to its data-sharing policy until May 15, weeks after news about the new terms created confusion among its users, exposed the Facebook app to a potential lawsuit, triggered a nationwide investigation and drove tens of millions of its loyal fans to explore alternative messaging […]
Confusion over an update to Facebook-owned chat platform WhatsApp’s terms and conditions has triggered an intervention by Italy’s data protection agency. The Italian GPDP said today it has contacted the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) to raise concerns about a lack of clear information over what’s changing under the incoming T&Cs. In recent weeks WhatsApp […]
WhatsApp is facing a legal challenge in India, its biggest market, after a petition was filed Thursday before Delhi High Court over the upcoming change in the Facebook-owned app’s data-sharing policy. The petition alleges the new terms that WhatsApp requires its roughly 450 million users in the country to accept is a violation of their […]
Privacy concerns that have been driving app users to alternative chat apps like Signal and Telegram in recent weeks, since Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced a T&Cs change, appear to also be generating some uplift for end-to-end encrypted email providers. Two Europe-based Protonmail and Tutanota have reported an uptick in sign ups in recent weeks. Protonmail founder […]
Quite a bit has happened since Snap announced last week that it was indefinitely locking President Trump’s Snapchat account. But after temporary bans from his Facebook, Instagram and YouTube accounts as well as a permanent ban from Twitter, Snap has decided that it will also be making its ban of the President’s Snapchat account permanent. […]
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has agreed to swiftly finalize a long-standing complaint against Facebook’s international data transfers which could force the tech giant to suspend data flows from the European Union to the US within in a matter of months. The complaint, which was filed in 2013 by privacy campaigner Max Schrems, relates to […]
Mobile adoption continued to grow in 2020, in part due to the market forces of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to App Annie’s annual “State of Mobile” industry report, mobile app downloads grew by 7% year-over-year to a record 218 billion in 2020. Meanwhile, consumer spending grew by 20% to also hit a new milestone of […]
Around a third of Americans regularly get their news from Facebook, according to the latest study from Pew Research Center, whose surveys aim to better understand the current media landscape in the U.S. In the updated report, Pew Research found that around half of U.S. adults, or 53%, said they “often” or “sometimes” use social […]
Facebook today is rolling out an update to its Access Your Information tool with the goal of making the tool easier to both use and navigate, as well as better explain how and why that data is used. The new version of the tool has been visually redesigned, and now further breaks down the viewable […]
Amazon has begun the process of removing QAnon-related products from its platform. A spokesperson for the company said that the process may take a few days. Any sellers that attempt to evade the company’s systems and list products will be subject to action, including a blanket selling ban across Amazon stores. News of the ban was […]
WhatsApp has enjoyed unrivaled reach in India for years. By mid-2019, the Facebook-owned app had amassed over 400 million users in the country. Its closest app rival at the time was YouTube, which, according to the company’s own statement and data from mobile insight firm App Annie, had about 260 million users in India then. […]
In the wake of last week’s violence at the U.S. Capitol, Facebook today announced it will be taking additional steps to remove content referencing the phrase “stop the steal” on its platform. The phrase is associated with the right-wing campaign that falsely alleges the democratic U.S. elections have been rigged and aims to keep Trump […]
Categories
Facebook hires a VP of civil rights
Facebook has hired Roy Austin to become its first-ever VP of Civil Rights and Deputy General Counsel to create a new civil rights organization within the company, Facebook announced today. Austin is set to start on January 19 and will be based in Washington, DC. Austin most recently served as a civil rights lawyer at […]
It might be easier at this point to ask which tech platforms President Donald Trump can still use. Payment-processing company Stripe is the latest tech company to kick Donald Trump off of its platform, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. That means the president’s campaign website and online fundraising arms will no […]
The internet is not a private place. Ads try to learn as much about you to sell your information to the highest bidder. Emails know when you open them and which links you click. And some of the biggest internet snoops, like Facebook and Amazon, follow you from site to site as you browse the […]
Categories
The deplatforming of President Trump
After years of placid admonishments, the tech world came out in force against President Trump this past week following the violent assault of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. From Twitter to PayPal, more than a dozen companies have placed unprecedented restrictions or outright banned the current occupant of the White House […]
Online platforms take action against President Trump, Lenovo tries out a swiveling screen and Roblox raises $250 million. This is your Daily Crunch for January 7, 2021. The big story: Facebook bans Trump for two weeks After a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol yesterday, a number of online platforms moved to suspend accounts connected […]
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced via his platform that Donald Trump will be blocked from using both Facebook and Instagram “for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.” The company blocked his accounts temporarily on Wednesday following Trump’s posting on content that incited his followers to violence, […]
Elon Musk, the tech billionaire set to likely soon become the world’s richest man, and one of the most influential voices in the world of tech entrepreneurship, continued his recent trend of criticizing Facebook with a Twitter post late Wednesday night, following the attempted insurrection by pro-Trump rioters at the U.S. Capitol building. Musk shared […]
Digital services taxes adopted by India, Italy and Turkey in recent years discriminate against U.S. companies, the U.S. Trade Representative said on Wednesday. USTR, which began investigations into the three nation’s digital services taxes in June last year, said it found them to be inconsistent with international tax principles, unreasonable and burdening or restricting U.S. […]
After removing a video in which President Trump praised a violent group of his supporters who broke into the U.S. Capitol building, Facebook is rolling out a new set of rules in response to the day’s shocking events. Both Facebook and Instagram also announced that the president would be locked out of posting to his […]
After pro-Trump extremists violently stormed the U.S. Capitol, a number of tech executives and industry leaders are calling on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to more aggressively curb the president’s messages amplifying and endorsing violence. After Trump released a video calling the extremists “very special” and telling them to go home, […]
Color of Change, the nonprofit civil rights advocacy group, along with a growing number of other organizations, called for social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook to remove President Donald Trump from their platforms, following a chaotic day of protests and rioting that led a mob of pro-Trump supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol […]
Facebook and YouTube have removed a video posted by President Trump telling rioters who stormed Congress “we love you.” The same video was left online but blocked from being shared by Twitter just minutes ago. A great deal of video and content from the chaotic scene in Washington, D.C. can be found on social media, […]
Facebook Pages are being redesigned. The social network announced today a significant change to the Facebook Page experience for creators and public figures, which includes a new look-and-feel, updated navigation, the introduction of a dedicated News Feed, a new Q&A format for engaging fans and other tools and insights. Notably, the redesign will also do […]
Georgia is the only state in the U.S. right now where Facebook allows political ads to run, but after Tuesday’s polls close that’s set to change. According to Facebook’s site detailing changes to its ad policies and a story from Axios, the company will no longer allow political and social issue ads anywhere in the […]
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion total downloads and $120 billion in global consumer spend in 2019. Not including Chinese third-party app stores, iOS and […]
Categories
Goodbye Flash, goodbye FarmVille
While much of what made 2020 such an absolute nightmare will still be with us on January 1 (sorry!), we will really, truly be leaving Adobe Flash and FarmVille behind as we enter the new year. The end of Flash has been a long time coming. The plugin, which was first released in 1996 and […]