The House committee leading the investigation into the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol issued subpoenas to four major tech companies Thursday. January 6 select committee chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) sent letters to YouTube parent company Alphabet, Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, Reddit and Twitter demanding for those companies to provide […]
UK class action lodged against Meta seeks $3.1B for breach of competition law
A competition legal expert, backed by a powerful litigation fund, is set to mount a multibillion-dollar class action suit against Facebook/Meta for breach of competition law on the basis that it abused its dominance of social networking in the U.K. for several years. If successful, the action would see Facebook having to pay $3.1 billion […]
Cheugiest tech moments of 2021
Technology has come a long way in 2021. There’s widespread mRNA vaccines! An asteroid-deflecting space mission! A very powerful laptop with a very controversial notch! But it’s unfortunately easier to think about the cringiest moments of the year than it is to remember times when we marveled at indoor farming robots. So hop aboard the choo-choo-cheugy […]
Snapchat knows you want to see what you’d look like in the metaverse
Snapchat released an Avatar lens AR filter today, which makes you look like a Sims character. Or, in more modern parlance, it makes you look like what you’d look like in the metaverse. To use the lens, open your camera in the Snapchat app to scan the QR code on Snapchat’s website, then look at […]
Nonprofits have the answers to improve social media: Big Tech has the resources to make it happen
There is potential for social media giants to team up with other organizations and nonprofits to make social media a safer place for all people.
Facebook and Instagram roll out personalized ‘Year in Review’ features
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has rolled out “Year in Review” features for both Facebook and Instagram. On Facebook, users can share their personalized “Year Together” card, which highlights the friends, feelings, places and people that mattered most to them in 2021. The new in-feed experience reflects on people’s year on the platform and curates […]
UK’s antitrust watchdog orders Facebook to sell Giphy
In a significant push against big tech’s ability to maintain market dominance through sheer buying power, the UK’s competition watchdog has ordered Facebook (now Meta) to reverse its acquisition of animated GIF platform, Giphy — confirming the Financial Times‘ earlier reporting. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said its phase 2 investigation cemented its earlier […]
This Week in Apps: Twitter launches livestream shopping, Netflix snags new games, Tile gets acquired
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 continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes […]
This Week in Apps: Apple defends app ad buying, Spotify gains lyrics, Instagram kills Threads
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 continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spending in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes […]
Snapchat partners with Sony Music, announces plans for new AR music lenses
Snapchat has inked a deal with Sony Music Entertainment to include its artists’ music in the app’s Sounds library. The company also revealed that it’s creating new AR music lenses. Soon, Snapchat will feature “Sound Lenses” with a pre-selected song embedded into the lens, a lens that transforms pictures of anyone to appear as if […]