In The News

TikTok Pulls Out of Hong Kong: TechCrunch

Rita Liao July 7, 2020
TikTok is the world’s most popular short video app, but politicians around the world express “concerns that it could be used by the Beijing government as a surveillance and propaganda tool,” explains Rita Liao for TechCrunch. India has banned TikTok, along with more than 50 other Chinese apps, and the United States may follow. TikTok announced plans to pull out of Hong Kong, where China has...

Teens, K-Pop Stans Claim Trump Rally Tickets: NYT

Taylor Lorenz, Kellen Browning and Sheera Frenkel June 22, 2020
Teenagers and K-pop fans claim they signed up for a million ticket requests to attend US President Donald Trump’s first post-pandemic rally. The Trump campaign planned for overflow crowds in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a city with rising numbers of Covid-19 cases, but the stadium was about two-thirds empty. “TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music groups claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of...

K-Pop Fans Use Internet for Black Lives Matter: Vox

Aja Romano June 8, 2020
The video of George Floyd, pleading for his life, handcuffed and his neck under a police officer’s knee, has moved the world to denounce unequal justice and police abuses. “Across the internet, supporters of Black Lives Matter are weaponizing tweets, posts, and hashtags to spread information, protect protesters, and derail racist rhetoric,” reports Aja Romano for Vox. Originating in South Korea...

Automatic Deletes for Chinese Communist Party: CNBC

Sam Shead June 2, 2020
Social media platforms are highly automated, and when errors occur, fixes can take months – unless a high-profile user complains. For months, YouTube’s automated comment filters were set to delete comments containing Chinese phrases, “communist bandit” and “50-cent party” – phrases mostly linked to criticism of the Chinese Communist Party, though the platform deleted positive comments using those...

Sports Stars as Health Advocates: Wall Street Journal

Ben Cohen and Joshua Robinson March 22, 2020
As the coronavirus outbreak turned into a global health emergency, sports stars play a role in advocating for public sanitation practices over social media with their millions of followers. Basketball player Stephen Curry, with 14 million Twitter followers and nearly 30 million Instagram followers, reminded his followers to wash hands with soap and water and embrace “social distancing.” His video...

Apple, Google Crack Down on COVID-19 Apps: CNBC

Kif Leswing March 7, 2020
Major platforms like Apple and Google are restricting apps on the COVID-19 to those produced or approved by recognized governments and hospitals. “Four independent developers told CNBC that Apple rejected their apps, which would allow people to see stats about which countries have confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus,” reports Kif Leswing for CNBC. “Some of these apps used public data from...

Firms to ID Message Creators for India? TechCrunch

Manish Singh January 22, 2020
India’s regulators may be considering regulations that would require social media and instant-messaging firms to help authorities identify the source of messages and content. Law enforcement agencies would have to obtain court orders. “But regardless, asking companies to comply with such a requirement would be ‘devastating’ for international social media companies, a New Delhi-based policy...