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The US Senate Intelligence Committee chair and top Republican have called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate social media app TikTok and Chinese parent ByteDance due to “repeated misrepresentations” over its handling of US data. The request on Tuesday from Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, and Republican Marco Rubio followed a Buzzfeed report

Britain is proposing a new law that will require social media companies to proactively tackle disinformation posted by foreign states such as Russia, the government said on Monday. The law would tackle fake accounts on platforms such as Meta‘s Facebook and Twitter that were set up on behalf of foreign states to influence elections or

Chinese-owned social media site TikTok told US senators it was working on a final agreement with the Biden Administration that would “fully safeguard user data and US national security interests,” according to a letter seen Friday by Reuters. TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew told senators in a letter dated Thursday that the short video

WhatsApp is found to be working on adding an option to let users hide their online status. This functionality would allow users to choose who can see when they are online on the instant messaging app. It is likely to be available in a future update. Separately, the Meta-owned company is reportedly updating the time

Donald Trump’s social media company and some of its employees received subpoenas from both a federal grand jury and securities regulators, according to a public disclosure Friday, possibly delaying or even killing a deal promising a cash infusion needed to take on Twitter. Trump Media & Technology Group received subpoenas from a grand jury in

Facebook parent Meta Platforms has reportedly reduced its target for hiring engineers in 2022 to around 6,000-7,000, down from an initial plan to hire about 10,000 new engineers. According to Reuters, the statement comes Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who cited the figure during a weekly employee Q&A session on Thursday. In another update, Meta

Snap on Wednesday launched a paid version of the Snapchat app in the US, priced at $3.99 (nearly Rs. 315) a month, and a few other markets, in a major step away from a revenue model dependent mostly on advertising. Snap, which had teased the subscription version, Snapchat+, earlier this month, said the paid service

Amazon has placed a temporary purchase limit of three units per week on emergency contraceptive pills, the company said on Tuesday. The move comes days after the US Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe vs Wade ruling that recognised women’s constitutional right to abortion. Women with unwanted pregnancies in the country now may face

Twitter was allegedly ordered by the Indian government in 2021 to block 2020 tweets by Freedom House in India that reported the declining Internet freedom in the country. The social media company is said to have only enforced the order on Sunday. It also blocked some tweets and/ or handles of various other users who

Social media personality Khaby Lame has achieved a new record of garnering 142.8 million followers on the short-form video hosting service, TikTok. Lame, has surged past popular TikTok video creator Charli D’Amelio who currently has 142.3 million followers, reported Variety. The 22-year-old’s video content includes reacting to absurd life-hack videos and recreating the video himself

Spain’s defence minister Margarita Robles warned on Friday of a possible cyberattack during the NATO summit in Madrid next week. Asked if Spain feared Russia could launch such an attack, Robles told journalists “the possibility of a cyberattack exists”, without mentioning the country by name. “There are many challenges and many threats,” she said, adding

A group of six Republican senators on Friday asked the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen about an ongoing Biden administration national security review of social media platform TikTok. The US government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews deals by foreign acquirers for potential national security risks, in 2020 ordered Chinese

The UN called on countries to stop imposing internet shutdowns or disruptions, warning Thursday that they can have dire and even deadly consequences. In a fresh report, the UN rights office warned that “the dramatic real-life effects of shutdowns on the lives and human rights of millions of people are vastly underappreciated.” “Hospitals being unable

Shopify has launched new tools to help its merchants sell to other businesses and on Twitter, as the Canadian tech giant attempts to shore up sales to counter a post-pandemic slowdown in online shopping. More than a 100 new tools were unveiled on Wednesday, including ones to support its plans to push into business-to-business, for

The United States and Facebook owner Meta Platforms have settled a lawsuit over a housing advertising system that illegally discriminated against users based on race and other characteristics, the Department of Justice said on Tuesday. In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said Meta encouraged advertisers to target

China’s Tencent announced to its staff on Monday the official formation of an ‘extended reality’ (XR) unit, three people familiar with the matter said, formally placing its bets on the metaverse concept of virtual worlds. The unit is tasked with building up the extended reality business for Tencent including both software and hardware, the sources

TikTok said it has completed migrating information on its US users to servers at Oracle, in a move that could address US regulatory concerns over data integrity on the popular short video app. The move, which was first reported by Reuters, comes nearly two years after a US national security panel ordered parent company ByteDance

Facebook-owner Meta Platforms is launching a digital clothing store where users can purchase designer outfits for their avatars, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Friday. Initial fashion brands participating in the store launch will be Balenciaga, Prada, and Thom Browne, but Meta aims to make the store an open marketplace where developers can create and