House committee investigating Jan. 6 subpoenas Meta, YouTube, Twitter and Reddit

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 […]

Meta shuts down its experimental video speed-dating service, Sparked

Meta is shutting down a video speed-dating service it had tested over a good part of last year, the company informed the service’s users via a recent email. Last April, the company formerly known as Facebook confirmed it was testing a new dating service called Sparked, which was developed by its in-house incubator, the NPE […]

Fact-checkers write open letter urging YouTube to get serious about COVID misinformation

A group of more than 80 prominent fact-checking organizations around the world is pressing YouTube to take action against COVID misinformation, which still prevails on the platform now two years into the pandemic. “As an international network of fact-checking organizations, we monitor how lies spread online — and every day, we see that YouTube is […]

Netflix’s ‘Hype House’ shows the dark side of the creator economy

We used to describe celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton as “famous for being famous.” But the TikTok megastars featured on the Netflix docu-soap “Hype House” are famous for being ordinary. Unlike the wealthy offspring of celebrities, this class of superstars shot to stardom virtually overnight, for seemingly arbitrary reasons, all dictated by a […]

Pendulum raises $5.9M to help organizations track harmful narratives

Pendulum helps companies, governments and other organizations track harmful narratives on social media platforms and elsewhere on the web. The company today announced that it has raised a $5.9 million seed round led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from Cercano Management and others. The service was incubated inside Madrona Venture Labs. “Pendulum’s platform applies […]