social media

Thanks to a "faulty server migration," MySpace has lost all data uploaded to the site before 2016. MySpace users started noticing the problem over a year ago, but tech support staff only recently started acknowledging that users' data may never come back. The Guardian claims "50m tracks from 14...

Anyone who spends time online has probably heard of, and run into, websites and social media posts that are clearly being promoted by bots. But just what do those bots look like on the other end? While I expected to see rackmount servers spoofing various devices en masse, according to a post...

Facebook and Instagram are reportedly down. This probably means that your personal information will have to wait until both services are back up before it is harvested (sarcasm.) Facebook acknowledged the connection troubles on Twitter since it couldn't announce it on its own social media...

In his newest video, Jim of AdoredTV on YouTube discusses fanboys, old school tech reviews, Zen II leaks, Ryzen 3000 leaks, overclocking the Radeon VII, and more. Listen to him reminisce over the days when reviewers told it like it was without a filter and then compare it to the advertiser...

YouTube has responded to a report that the company allows child predators to comment and socialize in the comments section of videos that feature minors. YouTube has taken the corrective action of disabling the comments section of tens of millions of videos that feature young minors. Some videos...

The NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence published a report on the challenges governments face with online security, and Wired managed to spot a particular interesting experiment within the multi-section report. As part of an experiment, the independent NATO organization used...

According to a report from the Washington Post, Facebook is negotiating with the FCC over a multi-billion dollar fine for its privacy issues and practices. The fine is expected to be the largest ever levied against a tech company. In 2011, the FTC and Facebook reached a deal to improve the...

Scandals from social media companies and tech giants seem to make the headlines every day, and stories of data breaches or serious vulnerabilities follow right behind them. The publicity is prompting lots of talk about the value of privacy, but a recent article from NBC highlights a critical...

Thousands of Facebook employees have lost all access to internal iOS corporate apps because Apple has revoked the company's enterprise license that allows Facebook to develop apps outside of the Apple App Store for internal use only. This has caused widespread panic at the social media giant as...

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on Alphabet Inc. unit's social media practices. After a year of avoiding the spotlight -- and the political scrutiny that's befallen his peers at Facebook and Twitter -- Pichai is set to deliver his first-ever...

Tumblr recently announced a plan to remove all porn from their site, and naturally, the decision has sparked some controversy. Some users claim that the automatic filters are removing "benign" content while leaving explicit content alone. Nevertheless, Tumblr still has a lot of porn, a topic...

According to a report by Reuters, positive, paid reviews by popular cryptocurrency "experts" and social media personalities are widely available. Reuters talked to "more than two dozen people in the cryptocurrency market," but the first example they cited is a textbook case of the practice. The...

TechXplore reports that researchers are investigating the use of machine learning algorithms to create digital representations of the deceased. The study focused on an existing service called Replika, which is designed to create chatbots that mimic the personalities of the people they're...

Back in June, TechCrunch reported that Facebook was working on a feature that tracks the time users spend on the social media platform. Apparently, that feature took some time to develop, as Facebook just rolled it out this week. On the surface, a way to track excessive Facebook usage seems like...

Snapchat's parent company Snap was the darling of Wall Street when its IPO debuted in March 2017. Now the company faces issues with a revolving user base that engages with its content less, struggles to sell advertising on the platform, and a general lack of content that interests its...

Billionaire owner of the LA Times and Chairman/CEO of biotech firm NantKwest, Patrick Soon-Shiong is campaigning to change how we consume news. He views social media as a serious problem that is causing issues with this generation's ability to maintain a long enough attention span. He...

The Wall Street Journal has a video article from the Moving Upstream series where the use of artificial intelligence (A.I.) in the hiring process is discussed. Almost all Fortune 500 companies use some form of automation in the hiring process. By quantifying human behavior with software...

According to online divorce specialists at DivorceOnline, Fortnite has been gaining traction as one of the problems cited in divorce petitions. Since January of 2018, more than 200 divorce filings have specifically listed Fortnite and other digital games as the reason for filing for a divorce...

Teens are addicted to social media, but a new study finds that they are cognizant that the companies are manipulating them. Social media companies like Snapchat have activities that require that you send at least one message to a group of friends or family members at least once a day to...

An interesting study from the Pew Research Center is showing that U.S. teens are starting to limit their use of smartphones and apps. It says 54% of teens are admitting to staying on the phones too much and almost the same percentage say they are trying to limit their use. In regards to social...

Twitter has hired scholars from multiple universities to study how echo chambers form and their effect upon others on the platform. It has been proven in the past that those who don't share the same sentiment as those within the echo chamber are treated badly and with resentment. They will use...

Many internet users love social media so Paypal designed the Venmo app to target the Facebook crowd. Sign up for the service with the privacy focused Facebook login and the Venmo app will allow you to send money to friends and make purchases at approved merchants. You can even see what your...

Instead of pampering their customers by shipping product out in a timely manner, online retailer Tooth & Nail Cosmetics out of New Bern, N.C. has allegedly resorted to silencing irate customers on social media according to the Better Business Bureau (BBB). A bevy of complaints have been...

Saudi Arabia has issued a list of 47 banned video games after two children committed suicide. The children aged 12 and 13 were participating in a social media challenge called the "Blue Whale." The Blue Whale Challenge consists of 50 levels of challenges with each new tier becoming more...

The Guardian posted an interesting article yesterday, introducing some people who still use Myspace. Reporter Olivia Solon interviewed a few people who still use the site daily, despite the site essentially dying in 2009. There are some who wholeheartedly still believe in the site, despite any...

The New York Times (Archive page with no auto-start video) has a good handle on what has to happen next with social media, and that is to remove its ownership of your information from the companies that push it out, and place it back in the hands of the owners. Of course, you could choose to...

In a report from the New York Times, a group of former Facebook and Google employees aren't happy with the ill effects of social networks and smartphones, and are creating a union to fight what they helped build. The coalition is called the "Center for Humane Technology" and plans on an...

Speaking at a school in England on Friday, Apple CEO Tim Cook stated he didn't want his nephew to use social networks. "I don't have a kid, but I have a nephew that I put some boundaries on," Cook said "There are some things that I won't allow; I don't want them on a social network." He also...

Professor of psychology Jean M. Twenge, has written an incredible article on how the Smartphone and social media has been shaping a generation, and it does not look good. In it she goes into the sharp swings in characteristics including fleeting desire for independence and dating, as well as...

Hold on to your pocket books. Amazon just launched its own social media platform called Spark. Only available on iOS for Amazon Prime members, the new feature allows recent owners of brand-new-shiny material to share photos and blog about the thing they just wasted their money on. Amazon is...

A study by the Education Policy Institute has found some interesting trends among UK children and internet usage. The study defines "Extreme Internet Users" as those who spend more than 6 ours online daily outside of school; using that parameter 37.8% of all UK 15 year olds are Extreme Users...

You know what the problem is with you damn millennials, besides being on my lawn, is the fact that y'all don't get down to the bar near enough! Put the phone down and go have a cold one, or two, before you irreparably harm that gray matter further. The digital age has changed the nature of...

As we have reported on before, the EU has been stepping up its attempt to force social media networks to take down criminal content more quickly. The German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection has announced that a bill to strengthen these protections has been approved in...