Should we ban TikTok? ByteDance doesn’t think so, and Americans are increasingly unsure
This morning, a US federal appeals court will hear the case for keeping TikTok — almost 5 months after the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of legislation which, at present, will see the popular s...
Elon Musk thought he was screwing Mark Zuckerberg by buying Twitter
Vanity Fair published an excerpt from Kate Conger and Ryan Mac’s new book about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, Character Limit, and it’s great. Go read it all. One part that stood out to us? Some of th...
Fidelity slashing its X valuation shows that Elon Musk is a bad trader
The Washington Post reported earlier this week that Fidelity’s stake in Elon Musk’s social media site “X” is down more than 72% in value since Musk acquired the company, dropping from $316 million to ...
Here’s the transcript of the secret briefing that kicked off the TikTok law
It’s hard for Americans — or American politicians — to agree on much of anything these days. But, following a classified briefing on the potential national security threat posed by TikTok on March 7, ...
More people are posting on Bluesky than ever before
People are posting, liking, and following on X alternative Bluesky more than ever before. And it’s all thanks to X. Recently the site formerly known as Twitter was blocked in Brazil , after owner Elon...
Snapchat’s answer to its sinking stock price is more ads
Snap back to reality… Yesterday, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel marked the company’s 13th anniversary with a letter to employees that cut straight to the chase: Snap is struggling. The Snapchat founder address...
Temu app downloads have completely flatlined in the US
Even before a lackluster earnings report wiped out $55 billion worth of Temu parent company market value on Monday, there were signs that US interest in Temu was waning. The number of Temu app downloa...
Users keep climbing towards 1 billion at Telegram
Once a tech platform approaches a billion users, it stands to reason that most people have heard of it. Telegram might have been the exception… at least until its founder, Pavel Durov, was arrested in...
Threads’ chaotic “For You” feed quantified
Since Twitter's rapid unscheduled disassembly following Elon Musk's purchase of the platform, hundreds of millions of users have turned to Threads as a potential replacement for the newsy town square...
Zuckerberg says Biden administration pressured Meta to censor COVID-19 misinformation
Regrets, Mark Zuckerberg has a few. In a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg said that was repeatedly pressured by the Biden administration...
Elon Musk posts about Trump more than Tesla these days
Elon Musk used to tweet about his companies. Now, he mostly posts about politics on his social media platform, X, formerly Twitter. In a fascinating visualization, the Wall Street Journal examined 300...
More people might get to see the US government’s secret TikTok evidence
We know that whatever caused the US government to try and ban TikTok is supposed to be big and bad. But besides the vague idea that the Chinese government could force ByteDance to manipulate its algor...
Nine-figure podcast deals are back. Will it go any better this time?
You might recall Spotify’s podcasting over $1 billion spending spree in 2019 and 2020, including paying $400 million for Parcast, Gimlet Media, and Anchor, at least $200 million for exclusive rights t...
Trump’s Spaces event drove just 5% more web traffic to X than normal
Having Donald Trump on X earlier this week was presumably such a coup for Elon Musk’s struggling social media platform, that Musk was willing to tolerate the interview’s potentially negative impacts o...
Trump's return to X was good news for the platform—but it seems he's not back for good
X owner Elon Musk interviewed former president Donald Trump in a 2+ hour Spaces audio event last night. While the terrain covered in the mutually-congratulatory conversation was mostly old hat, what w...
TikTok — like Meta and X — is also paying users to generate AI slop
TikTok, Meta and X all incentivize users to post on their sites by offering cash for virality. They seem to all be incentivizing bad behavior — made much easier by generative AI. An excellent Wall Str...
You can now pay more to still see ads on X
When Elon Musk originally announced his $8 paid blue check accounts, Twitter Blue, shortly after buying the social media company now called X in late 2022, one of the big selling points was that those...
Meta, like Twitter, is also paying people to generate AI slop
Surprise! The social media companies tasked with stopping the AI slop on their platforms are responsible for it. Remember shrimp Jesus ? 404 Media found that Facebook, through its Creator Bonus Progra...
Elon Musk says advertiser boycott — not Elon Musk — is costing X billions
Forget the armies of bots , forget the hateful rhetoric rampant on the platform, forget declining traffic , and forget that time Musk told advertisers to “go fuck yourself.” Instead, X (née Twitter) o...
Are you experienced? Joe Rogan's podcast is still massive
No average Joe Joe Rogan has been the world’s most popular podcaster for a while now — with The Joe Rogan Experience topping Spotify’s global podcast chart for the 4th time in a row last year — but o...