social media
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Carpenters and Blinks had a field day Tuesday as Sabrina Carpenter — who embarked on the Paris stop of her Emails I Can’t Send Tour a day prior — shared a picture with BLACKPINK‘s Lisa via Instagram. Carpenter’s photo with the BLACKPINK rapper was hidden in a carousel post, which showed snapshots of the star’s […]
Meta is poised to unveil a new app that appears to mimic Twitter — a direct challenge to the social media platform owned by Elon Musk.
A listing for the app, called Threads, appeared on Apple’s App Store, indicating it would debut as early as Thursday. It is billed as a “text-based conversation app” that is linked to Instagram, with the listing teasing a Twitter-like microblogging experience.
“Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow,” it said.
Instagram users will be able to keep their user names and follow the same accounts on the new app, according to screenshots displayed on the App Store listing. Meta declined to comment on the app.
Musk replied “yeah” to a tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey saying, “All your Threads are belong to us,” along with a screenshot from the App Store’s privacy section showing what personal information might be collected by the new Meta app.
Threads could be the latest headache for Musk, who acquired Twitter last year for $44 billion and has been making changes that have unnerved advertisers and turned off users, including new daily limits on the number of tweets people can view.
Meta has good timing because Twitter users are growing frustrated with Musk’s changes and looking for a viable alternative, said Matt Navarra, a social media consultant.
Threads presents the “opportunity to jump to a platform that can give them many of the things that they want Twitter to continue to be that it no longer is,” he said.
Allowing Instagram users to port their profile to Threads could give the new app more traction with potential users by providing a ready-made set of accounts for them to follow, said Navarra, former director of social media at tech news site The Next Web and digital communications adviser for the British government.
Twitter has rolled out a series of unpopular changes in recent days, including a requirement for users to be verified to use the online dashboard TweetDeck. The policy announced Monday takes effect in 30 days and appears to be aimed at raising extra revenue because users need to pay have their accounts verified under Musk’s changes.
TweetDeck is popular with companies and news organizations, allowing users to manage multiple Twitter accounts.
It comes after outcry over Musk’s announcement this weekend that Twitter has limited the number of tweets users can view each day — restrictions that the billionaire Tesla CEO described as an attempt to stop unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data.
Still, some users might be put off by Meta’s data privacy track record, Navarra said. And would-be Twitter challengers like Mastodon have found it a challenge to sign up users.
“It’s hard to tell whether the upset and discontent is strong enough to make a mass exodus or whether it will be somewhat of a slow erosion,” Navarra said.
Musk’s rivalry with Meta Platforms also could end up spilling over into real life. In an online exchange between Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the two tech billionaires seemingly agreed to a cage match face-off, though it’s unclear if they will actually make it to the ring.
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Source: @spillmob / Instagram
In the wake of another chaotic situation caused by Elon Musk, Black Twitter users are making a move to the new Spill social media platform in droves.
On Saturday (July 1st), Twitter users were greeted with an error message that either said “Rate limit exceeded” or “Cannot retrieve tweets.” Musk stated in a tweet that users who were unverified would only be able to read 600 posts a day, but Twitter Blue subscribers would be able to view 6,000 a day. For Black Twitter, that was the last straw in what many felt was the Tesla and Space X CEO’s continual disrespect, prompting many to sign up for Spill.
Spill is a social media platform with the purpose of creating a safe space for diverse communities with a distinct focus on Black women and LGBTQ+ communities. The app had recently launched its beta version on June 19th. It was created by Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell and DeVaris Brown, former Black Twitter employees who were let go in the wake of Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the social media platform. “Our thesis was if we could build a platform from the ground up that caters to these groups, these culture drivers, and then solve the core problems that they’re facing, that our community is facing more specifically, that would make for a better experience for everyone,” Terrell said in a recent interview. The exodus of Black Twitter users, including numerous famous figures such as Keke Palmer and Desus Nice has propelled Spill to be number one in Apple’s App Store as of Monday (July 3).
Spill is styled as a microblogging app with a visual-first approach, with users being able to select from four colorways for their home page. Instead of Twitter’s 140 characters per tweet, each post or “spill” is set at 90 characters but users can get creative with images and GIFs, and even short videos in their posts. Spill is currently invite-only for new users, and is only available on iOS devices, which has spurred some complaints from those using Android devices. But many who’ve made their way to the app are praising it for its diversity and fun factor, as well as the dedication to keeping it a safe space for everyone. Hashtags such as #SpillMigration and #Spillionaires were in wide use on the app, with many more on Twitter making public requests for invite codes.
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SZA is tired of people tearing Lizzo down online. The “Kill Bill” singer took to social media on Tuesday (June 13) to express her annoyance at trolls for targeting Lizzo. “I be wondering where all the virtue signaling, well spoken sh– talking, internet warriors are when someone genuine needs defending. Where the f— do y’all […]
Two U.S. senators are asking TikTok to explain what they called “misleading or inaccurate” responses about how it stores and provides access to U.S. user data after recent news reports raised questions about how the Chinese-owned social media platform handles some sensitive information.
In a letter sent Tuesday to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn cited a report from Forbes that said TikTok had stored financial information of U.S. content creators who get paid by the company — including their Social Security numbers and tax IDs — on China-based servers.
The senators also cited another report from The New York Times, published in late May, that said TikTok employees regularly shared user information, such as driver’s licenses information of some American users, on an internal messaging app called Lark that employees from TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, could easily access.
Forbes first reported Wednesday on the letter.
TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said, ”We are reviewing the letter. We remain confident in the accuracy of our testimony and responses to Congress.”
TikTok has said servers that contain U.S. user data have been physically stored in Virginia and Singapore, where its headquartered. But who can access that data — and from where — is an ongoing question.
Chew, the company’s CEO, said at a congressional hearing in March that access to the data was provided “as-required” to engineers globally for business purposes. He also said some ByteDance employees still maintained access to some U.S. user data, but that would end once Project Texas — the company’s plan to siphon off U.S. user data from China — was completed.
The popular social media app has been under scrutiny from Western governments, who’ve been wary of the company’s Chinese ownership and have prohibited its use on government-issued devices. Earlier this year, the Biden administration threatened to ban the platform nationwide if the company’s Chinese owners don’t sell their stakes.
To assuage concerns from U.S. lawmakers, TikTok has been touting its Project Texas plan to store U.S. user data on servers owned and maintained by the software giant Oracle. Last year, the company said it began directing all U.S. user traffic to those servers but also continued to back up data on its own servers.
Chew said the company began deleting all historic U.S. user data from non-Oracle servers in March, and the process is expected to be completed this year.
In their letter, the senators also said the recent news reports appear to contradict testimonies from another TikTok official about where U.S. user data is stored.
Kid Cudi is in the running for the father of the year award — at least, according to his 13-year-old daughter, Vada Mescudi. On Friday (June 2), Cudi shared a sweet text his daughter sent him after he was able to get her and her closest friends tickets to Taylor Swift‘s The Eras Tour. “THANK […]
Ice Spice has a major fan in Taylor Swift — so much so that the two women are officially collaborators. On Wednesday (May 24), Swift set the Internet ablaze when she announced that she would be dropping a special remix of her Midnights track “Karma.” In the announcement, the pop star also shared several kind […]
Nicki Minaj couldn’t help but celebrate when Lady Gaga gave her track “Princess Diana” a royal shout-out on TikTok this week. It all started Wednesday, when Gaga took to the social media platform to show off the new Le Monster lip crayon shades and held four of the products up to the camera. Nicki’s “Princess Diana” verse […]
The girls of BLACKPINK are booked and busy. Rosé is the latest member of the K-pop group to get dolled up for a glamorous night out, as she made her official debut at the 76th annual Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday (May 17). The K-pop vocalist stepped on the red carpet solo for the premiere […]
Katy Perry was more than prepared for American Idol‘s Disney Night on Sunday — and her costume was also a perfect fit for the Mother’s Day episode. “My secret identity is…. Mom. Katy Perry. Popstar. #Idol judge. But tonight I’m ELASTIGIRL,” she shared via Twitter, along with several photos in which she’s dressed as Helen […]