Ryan Lovelace

Lawmakers tee up investigation of Postal Service snooping on Americans

The House Oversight and Reform Committee has the U.S. Postal Service in its crosshairs for an investigation of allegations that postal inspectors snooped on Americans via their social media accounts and online activity.

December 6, 2022

Meta threatens to remove news from Facebook if antitrust journalism bill becomes law

Meta warned Monday that it will consider killing news on its platforms such as Facebook if Congress passes an antitrust journalism bill, teeing up a major clash between Big Tech companies and federal lawmakers before the new year.

December 5, 2022

TikTok says it’s changing policy amid concerns of Chinese-influence op targeting Americans

TikTok said it is making changes to its policies involving state-run accounts, amid allegations that China used the video-based social media platform to influence American politics ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

December 5, 2022

Rapper Ye ousted from Twitter following swastika post as Musk enforces rules

Twitter booted rapper Ye off its platform after he published an image of a swastika combined with the Star of David, testing the limits of allowable speech on the social media platform under Elon Musk's ownership.

December 2, 2022

Robocops? San Francisco police to use killer robots

San Francisco supervisors approved the use of killer robots by the city's police force in emergencies, adding lethal machines usually found in science fiction flicks to law enforcement's arsenal.

December 1, 2022

Apple banning Twitter? Not happening, Musk says after visiting Cook

Apple never planned to remove Twitter from its App Store, after all, Elon Musk said after meeting with the company's CEO.

December 1, 2022

Musk says Twitter ‘interfered in elections,’ vows to make the platform transparent and ‘even handed’

Elon Musk on Wednesday said that Twitter has meddled in elections, lending credence to critics who say social media platforms have immense power to control politics in the U.S. and around the world.

November 30, 2022

House Republicans poised to investigate Big Tech’s social media censorship, ties to Biden admin

House Republicans are refining their investigation of major tech companies, as the lawmakers preparing to take charge aim to unearth hidden censorship operations of Big Tech platforms and social media websites.

November 30, 2022

Kevin McCarthy to Biden administration: ‘Stop picking on Elon Musk’

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday that the Biden administration needs to leave Twitter and its new owner Elon Musk alone, following a White House spokeswoman saying officials were closely watching the company and Mr. Musk.

November 29, 2022

Twitter downloads up in China but spam overwhelms searches for COVID lockdown protest news

Downloads of Twitter's app in China look to have surged amid spreading unrest but searches for news about the widespread protests overwhelmingly return spam and porn results, suggesting the communist regime may be using the social media platform to obscure dissent.

November 29, 2022

Musk vows to make new phones if Apple and Google try to restrict Twitter

Twitter owner Elon Musk pledged to build new phones to compete with Apple and Google's devices if they try to wall his social media platform out of their app stores, escalating a competitive threat to the prominent tech titans' power posed by the billionaire tycoon.

November 28, 2022

FTC writing new internet rules to safeguard users’ search, health and location data

The Federal Trade Commission is working on new internet privacy rules affecting the gathering, analyzing and selling of people's data rather than waiting for Congress to advance legislation governing commercial surveillance.

November 22, 2022

Musk delays rollout of Twitter changes amid workforce cuts

Elon Musk said he has delayed the overhaul of Twitter's process for verifying users' authenticity, as the billionaire entrepreneur considers more ways to change the social media platform's rules without losing its luster.

November 22, 2022

Banned Twitter users return: ‘We’re coming back with a vengeance’

Several banned Twitter users are making their return to the social media platform, following new owner Elon Musk's decision to restore some restricted accounts, including activists, satirists and celebrities.

November 21, 2022

Musk mocks panicked users fearing the death of Twitter: ‘More alive than ever!’

Twitter owner Elon Musk is mocking people who fear that his hard-charging management style may push the social media platform into an early grave.

November 18, 2022

TikTok hiring while U.S. big tech companies slash workforces

American big tech workers' loss is their Chinese competition's gain -- TikTok is growing its workforce while Facebook, Twitter and Amazon are shedding thousands of jobs.

November 17, 2022

DuckDuckGo unveils new tools to stop Google from snooping on Android users

Alternative search engine DuckDuckGo said Wednesday it released new tools to help stop Google from snooping on Android users amid mounting attention to the big tech company's surveillance practices.

November 16, 2022

Xbox says its agents cracked down on content millions of times in 2022

Social media companies are not alone in censoring content online. Xbox said it has cracked down on content millions more times in 2022 than last year.

November 15, 2022

Trump legal team revives Twitter litigation: ‘Crackpot ideas sometimes turn out to be true’

Former President Donald Trump's legal team revived his First Amendment complaint against Twitter's censorship practices on Monday, protesting the social media platform now owned by Elon Musk.

November 14, 2022

Chinese people standing up to communist censorship and repression, advocacy group’s analysis says

China has failed to completely stamp out dissent within its borders, according to a new analysis from the nonprofit advocacy and research group Freedom House documenting protests across the country.