Twitter adds Communities (Similar to Facebook Groups)

Taking on Facebook Groups and Reddit threads, Twitter has announced Communities. Now in testing, Twitter is adding communities based around content themes. “Imagine an alternative timeline where everyone just gets you…” Twitter posted in making the announcement. Twitter showed examples including: Plant lovers Black women photographers Sneakerheads Crypto Skincare Traveling solo It will take some

More than 1,000 Advertisers Have Now Joined the Facebook Boycott

More than a thousand advertisers have now stopped spending on Facebook.  Those behind the efforts say Facebook hasn’t made a commitment to changing anything. Jonathon Greenblatt with the Anti-Defamation League, along with leaders of other civil rights groups (NAACP, Color of Change, Free Press), organized the Stop Hate for Profit campaign to hold Facebook accountable. 

Bipartisan Legislation to Hold Internet Companies Accountable for Moderation Practices

SOURCE:  News Release U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation and the Internet, and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), ranking member of the subcommittee, in introducing the Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency (PACT) Act, new bipartisan legislation to update Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The PACT Act would

Changing Consumption Habits During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Remember all the headlines about the death of network news?  It turns out the ABC World News Tonight with David Muir is the #1 program on television right now.  It’s not just the #1 news program; it’s the #1 program period – beating everything in prime time. During the coronavirus pandemic, consumption of media has

Report: Fake Accounts and Bots are Proliferating Online; Social Media Companies Aren’t Stopping Them

Let’s say you were able to positively identify more than 15,000 fake social media accounts.  You reported a significant number of them to social media platforms as fake.  Nearly a month later, who many do you think would still be on the platform? If you said 95% of the fake accounts were remaining online, you’d

Online Gamers Face Consistent Harrassment

You’re right in the middle of an online battle when suddenly someone starts threatening you.  It goes way outside the bounds of any acceptable behavior.  The harasser might target your ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion.  They might spew hate speech or start rambling about extreme views. If you’ve done any multiplayer online gaming, no

Photos of men appear twice as often as women in news stories

A new study by the folks at the Pew Research Center turned up an interesting finding: Men appears twice as often as women when it comes to being featured in news photos on Facebook. The research group analyzed posting from 17 national new outlets with at least 20 million unique visitors during Q3 of 2018.

Facebook Will Eliminate Ad Targeting Options to Settle Lawsuits

For businesses that rely on Facebook’s micro-targeting options, there’s a significant change coming.  To settle pending lawsuits for violations of federal law, Facebook will take away some targeting options for advertisers.  These targeting options violated federal Fair Housing, Employment, and Credit laws by discriminating against protected classes. Advertisers targeting jobs, housing, or credit will not

Long-form Content Results in 56% More Social Shares

Long-form content results in 56% more social shares than content shorter than 1,000 words, according to new research from BuzzSumo and Backlinko. The research, which analyzed over 900 million articles, also discovered that long-form content was correlated with better backlink performance. Specifically, posts weighing in at more than 3,000 words receive an average of 77.2% more referring

Can public officials block citizens on social media? Nope.

The law is playing catch-up with many facets of digital technology and social media.  The latest battle has been over whether government officials can block people on Facebook. The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeal has upheld a lower court ruling that said it was unconstitutional for publicly elected officials to block citizens from their

Tiktok Passes Facebook in App Downloads

TikTok has been downloaded more than 100 million times in the U.S. and claims 500 million monthly active users.  The social video app has surpassed Facebook when it comes to downloads. Facebook responded by launching Lasso, a similar product to try to compete. https://youtu.be/mlGS-WKCizU If you haven’t seen these videos, they are a departure from what