Facebook to test downranking political content in News Feed
After years of optimizing its products for engagement, no matter the costs, Facebook announced today it will “test” changes to its News Feed focused on reducing the distribution of political…
Facebook will give academic researchers access to 2020 election ad targeting data
Starting next month, Facebook will open up academic access to a dataset of 1.3 million political and social issue ads, including those that ran between August 3 and November 3,…
On Facebook, Trump’s next false voting claim will come with an info label
As part of its effort to steel its platform against threats to the 2020 election, Facebook will try surfacing accurate voting info in a new place — on politicians’ own…
Twitter is bringing back Election Labels to identify 2020 US election candidates
With just less than a year until U.S. Election Day, Twitter is bringing back its Election Labels, which provide information about political candidates — including which office they’re running for…
Google to discontinue political affiliation targeting
Google this month announced that it will no longer allow political affiliation to be used to target ads to users or to promote advertisers’ products or services in the United…
Facebook says government demands for user data are at a record high
Facebook’s latest transparency report is out. The social media giant said the number of government demands for user data increased by 16% to 128,617 demands during the first half of…
Just 6% of US adults on Twitter account for 73% of political tweets… and they disapprove of Trump
A small number of prolific U.S. Twitter users create the majority of tweets, and that extends to Twitter discussions around politics, according to a new report from the Pew Research…
Trump gets on Twitch
The reelection campaign will be live-streamed. US president Donald Trump has joined Amazon-owned live-streaming platform Twitch. Twitch is best known as a social video streaming platform for gamers but does…
Silicon Valley’s competing philosophies on tech ethics with The New Yorker’s Andrew Marantz
“If Silicon Valley is going to keep telling itself the story that the only uses of their technology will be the most optimistic, the most hopeful, the most salubrious, the…
TikTok explains its ban on political advertising
Already under fire for advancing Chinese foreign policy by censoring topics like Hong Kong’s protests and pro-LGBT content, the Beijing-based video app TikTok is now further distancing itself from U.S….