Social Media

Twitter clamps down on the account of Donald Trump Jr.

Twitter clamps down on a video posted by President Trump.

WASHINGTON -- Con artists on Wednesday apparently hacked into the Twitter accounts of technology moguls, politicians and major companies in an apparent bitcoin scam.The ruse included bogus tweets from Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Twitter is testing a new tool that asks users if they’d like to open articles and actually read them before retweeting to their followers.The feature is being tested on Android phones in English “to help promote informed discussion,” the company said Wednesday.“Sharing an article can spark conversation, so you may want to read it before you Tweet it,” Twitter Support wrote.When someone goes to retweet the link to an article on Twitter but hasn’t clicked through to the story, they may be shown a pop-up message asking if they would like to read it before retweeting.The goal is to slow the spread of viral misinformation, according to Twitter’s product lead Kayvon Beykpour.“It's easy for links/articles to go viral on Twitter.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Twitter has blocked a Trump campaign video tribute to George Floyd over a copyright claim, in a move that adds to tensions between the social media platform and the U.S. president, one of its most widely followed users.The company put a label on a video posted by the @TeamTrump account that said, “This media has been disabled in response to a claim by the copyright owner.” The video was still up on President Donald Trump’s YouTube channel and includes pictures of Floyd, whose death sparked widespread protests, at the start.“Per our copyright policy, we respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives,” Twitter said in a statement.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump escalated his war on social media companies Thursday, May 28, signing an executive order challenging the liability protections that have served as a bedrock for unfettered speech on the internet.Still, the move appears to be more about politics than substance, as the president aims to rally supporters after he lashed out at Twitter for applying fact checks to two of his tweets.President Trump said the fact checks were “editorial decisions” by Twitter and amounted to political activism.

SAN FRANCISCO -- When Twitter reopens its offices starting around September, its employees can decide whether they want to return or continue working from home "forever," the company confirmed to FOX Business on Tuesday.The news comes as the country's biggest tech giants extend their work-from-home policies amid the coronavirus pandemic, with some companies like Facebook and Google making work-from-home optional until next year."We were uniquely positioned to respond quickly and allow folks to work from home given our emphasis on decentralization and supporting a distributed workforce capable of working from anywhere," a Twitter spokesperson said. "The past few months have proven we can make that work."The spokesperson added that the company's employees "are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen." If employees choose to return to the office when the company feels it is safe, they will be allowed to do so "with some additional precautions."Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey gave the news to employees in an email obtained by Buzzfeed on Monday, saying they would be given the option to work from home permanently if they want to.The spokesperson said it would likely not be reopening its offices until September with a few exceptions, and environments will likely be somewhat different than before COVID-19 due to extra safety precautions to avoid the spread of germs.

Chicago — Twitter announced Monday it will warn users when a tweet contains disputed or misleading information about the coronavirus.The new rule is the latest in a wave of stricter policies that tech companies are rolling out to confront an outbreak of virus-related misinformation on their sites.Twitter will take a case-by-case approach to how it decides which tweets are labeled and will only remove posts that are harmful, company leaders said Monday.Some tweets will run with a label underneath that directs users to a link with additional information about COVID-19.

MILWAUKEE --Giannis Antetokounmpo's social media accounts were hacked on Thursday afternoon, May 7, and several bizarre and offensive tweets were posted, according to the Milwaukee Bucks, Antetokounmpo's brother and the player's representatives.More than a dozen tweets popped up on Antetokounmpo's feed in the span of about five minutes, and they appeared to clearly be the work of someone other than the reigning MVP.

NEW YORK -- Twitter and Pinterest are taking new steps to root out voting misinformation designed to suppress participation in the November elections.Twitter unveiled a new tool Wednesday that will make it easier for users in the U.S. to report tweets containing misleading information about registering to vote or casting a ballot.

GREEN BAY -- The Twitter account for the Green Bay Packers appears to have been hacked.In addition to the accounts profile and cover pictures not being present, the most recent tweet on the team account says, "We are here to Show people that everything is hackable."The Packers issued the following statement:

NEW YORK — Twitter has identified and removed nearly 6,000 accounts that it said were part of a coordinated effort by Saudi government agencies and individuals to advance the country's geopolitical interests.Separately, Facebook said it removed hundreds of Facebook accounts, groups and pages linked to inauthentic behavior from two separate groups, one originating in the country of Georgia and one in Vietnam, which targeted people both in Vietnam and in the U.S.Facebook said some of the accounts used profile photos generated by artificial intelligence and masqueraded as Americans.

NEW YORK -- Twitter says its new ban on political ads will cover appeals for votes, solicitations for campaign contributions and any political content.Twitter is defining political content to include any ad that references a candidate, political party, government official, ballot measure, or legislative or judicial outcome.

SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter is banning all political advertising from its service, saying social media companies give advertisers an unfair advantage in proliferating highly targeted, misleading messages."While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions," Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted Wednesday in a series of tweets announcing the new policy.Facebook has taken fire since it disclosed earlier in October that it will not fact-check ads by politicians or their campaigns, which could allow them to lie freely.

SAN FRANCISCO — "Miss us?" Twitter tweeted from its official account as the Great Twitter Outage wound down.We did, apparently.

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump can't ban critics from his Twitter account, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday, saying the First Amendment calls for more speech, rather than less, on matters of public concern.The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld a lower court judge who said President Trump violates the Constitution when he blocks critics."The irony in all of this is that we write at a time in the history of this nation when the conduct of our government and its officials is subject to wide-open, robust debate," Circuit Judge Barrington D.

LAS VEGAS -- O.J. Simpson is officially on Twitter, and he seems to want to set the record straight.His Twitter biography is simple and straightforward: “If you don’t see it here, I didn’t say it.”“Hey Twitter world,” Simpson begins cheerfully in his first post – a video.

Otter Pops?

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York says President Donald Trump violates the First Amendment by blocking critics on Twitter for political speech.Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan issued the written decision Wednesday.In ruling, she said no government official — including the president — is above the law.The case was brought last July by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and seven individuals blocked by President Trump after criticizing the Republican president.After a hearing this year, the judge had suggested that President Trump mute rather than block some of his critics.