As civil unrest was percolating last week, President Donald Trump posted a tweet that escalated both the level of national tension and the fraying relationship between the president and his preferred platform, Twitter. Twitter had already taken the unprecedented step of adding fact-checking information around two of Trump’s earlier tweets about mail-in voting, and the…
Some of 2020’s most viral political ads have come from a liberal organization called MeidasTouch, and if you’d never heard of the group before the past few weeks, there’s a good reason: they didn’t exist yet. Created in quarantine by three brothers originally from Long Island, MeidasTouch is technically a liberal PAC but in practice…
Tensions are escalating inside Facebook over the social platform’s laissez-faire approach to the president’s posts. While Twitter took an active approach to Donald Trump’s account last week–including flagging a tweet that encouraged shooting unarmed protesters–Facebook chose to interpret Trump’s message differently and has not modified the same post. Some Facebook employees are upset over the…
While one social network took a stand against potentially misleading information and statements glorifying violence posted by President Donald Trump, another held firm to its policy of inaction, despite pressure from both inside and outside of the company. The first social network is Twitter, which labeled two tweets by Trump Tuesday regarding mail-in ballots with…
As an uprising ravaged Minneapolis, Minn., in the aftermath of the police killing of a black man, George Floyd, the president tweeted (at 12:53 a.m.): I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis. A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his…
President Trump signed an executive order Thursday to try and limit liability protections long afforded to social platforms, an action that many experts say is on dubious legal footing. The order comes after two days of tension between the president and Twitter–typically the president’s preferred method of communicating–after the social media company took the unprecedented…
President Donald Trump is not happy with Twitter, usually his favorite social media platform. On Tuesday night, he accused Twitter of “interfering” with the 2020 presidential election and “stifling free speech” by placing a fact-check label on two of his tweets. It’s the first label Twitter has put on one of the president’s tweets, and…
Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., introduced a bill today that would restrict microtargeting efforts on political advertisements. The Banning Microtargeted Political Ads Act would bar online platforms from targeting political ads based on users’ demographic and behavioral data, though it would still permit geographic targeting and any targeting to which users voluntarily opt in. The bill…
Believe it or not, leaders and legislators besides President Donald Trump use Twitter, too, and Pew Research Center examined usage trends by national leaders and legislators in five predominantly English-speaking countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. Researchers from Pew examined more than 1.3 million tweets posted between Jan. 1 and June…
We know Joe Biden, presidential candidate. We know Joe Biden, rogue talker. But do we know Joe Biden, style icon? Well, now you can emulate Biden’s most memeable look: his aviator sunglasses. The presumptive Democratic nominee’s campaign released an augmented reality lens on Snapchat that allows users to “try on Joe’s favorite aviators.” The stunt…
Snapchat said 52% of its U.S. users between the ages of 18 and 24 will be voting for the first time in November’s presidential election, and Snap Inc. shared some data on how it impacted the midterm elections in 2018 and its potential to do the same this year. According to Democracy Works, 450,000 Snapchatters…
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University sent a letter to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) Wednesday urging him to stop blocking Twitter users from his @JohnCornyn account due to differing viewpoints. Cornyn’s office had not responded to a request for comment at the time of this post. The letter stops short of threatening legal…
Democratic senators have introduced legislation today that will require major airlines to offer “full cash” refunds for all tickets canceled during the Covid-19 pandemic. While it’s unclear how far the partisan bill will get, the legislation was spearheaded by Sens. Edward Markey, D-Mass., former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Chris Murphy, D-Conn.,…
Occasionally, Facebook will add a panel with election information to your News Feed, which allows you to share that you’re voting with your friends or access more information about the voting process. If you don’t want to see these posts in your feed, follow these steps. Note: These screenshots were captured in the Facebook application…
Facebook will begin providing information on the location of high-reach pages and Instagram accounts on every post they share in an effort to boost transparency measures prior to November’s presidential election in the U.S. and similar events in other countries. Facebook product manager Anita Joseph and Instagram product manager Georgina Sheedy-Collier said in a Newsroom…
Hispanic-targeted media company Univision teamed up with the Census Bureau on the “Shape Your Future. Start Here (Dale Forma a tu Futuro. Empieza Aqu?)” campaign on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to help drive Hispanic participation in the 2020 Census. Univision senior vice president of partner solutions Luis de la Parra said the company has been…
The Democratic National Convention has been postponed by about a month in light of the ongoing coronavirus crisis. The convention, where delegates will confirm their party’s candidate for the presidential race, was originally slated to take place July 13-16. It is now scheduled to take place the week of Aug. 17, putting the DNC a…
If you can believe, it’s been less than a month since billionaire Mike Bloomberg dropped out of the presidential race after spending a record-shattering $558 million on advertising. Since then, the political world has shifted immeasurably: A vigorous Democratic primary has been usurped by nearly monolithic media attention to the coronavirus pandemic. In this brave…
President Donald Trump gets a lot of hate on Twitter, but multiple courts have ruled that he cannot block his critics. On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied Trump’s request for an en banc review of the court’s previous decision. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University sued Trump…
Democratic presidential candidate debate No. 11 took place Sunday night and, for the first time, former Vice President Joe Biden topped President Donald Trump as the most-tweeted-about politician during the event. The top-tweeted moment during Sunday night’s debate were: Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) debate their voting records on Social Security Biden commits to…
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