Featured Article
TikTok ban signed into law by President Biden: How we got here, and what comes next
TikTok faces an uncertain fate in the U.S. once again. A bill including a deadline for TikTok parent company Bytedance to divest within nine months or face a ban on app stores to distribute the app in the U.S., was signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday as part of broader legislation including military aid…
12:05 pm PDT • April 24, 2024
Social
A judge just killed Elon Musk’s lawsuit against an anti-hate research org
1:33 pm PDT • March 25, 2024
A federal judge sided against Elon Musk today, dismissing a lawsuit brought by Musk and X that targeted a nonprofit that researches online hate. X sued the Center for Countering…
Social
The controversial bill that could ban TikTok faces a rocky road in the Senate
12:20 pm PDT • March 14, 2024
A bill threatening to ban an app beloved by half of the American population just rocketed through the House of Representatives in a week’s time. But in the other chamber…
The House voted on Wednesday in favor of a bill to require TikTok to sever its connection with parent company ByteDance or face a ban, moving the legislation forward with…
Featured Article
What’s next for Twitch? A big app redesign and more social sharing
In an open letter published on Wednesday, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy outlined the livestreaming company’s plans for 2024, with a focus on helping streamers grow their audiences even when they aren’t live. This year, Twitch plans to overhaul its app for the first time in five years, ditching its long-standing design to focus on a…
11:33 am PST • March 6, 2024
Social
X goes to court in Elon Musk’s war against an anti-hate research org
5:10 pm PST • February 28, 2024
Elon Musk’s crusade against the extremism research organization the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) will have its day in court on Thursday. Elon Musk’s X sued the CCDH last…
Government & Policy
The Supreme Court could decide the future of content moderation
5:15 pm PST • February 26, 2024
The Supreme Court is considering the fate of two state laws that limit how social media companies can moderate the content on their platforms. In oral arguments on Monday, the…
Featured Article
With Disney’s magic, Fortnite is poised to win the metaverse
We may not be using the M word much these days, but the race to build an interconnected avatar-driven virtual world didn’t take the last year off. The metaverse, a tech buzzword sandwiched in between the hype eras of NFTs and AI, is still being built, regardless of what we’re calling it. And in light…
4:39 pm PST • February 9, 2024
Transportation
Cowboy allays e-bike riders’ greatest fears with on-demand repairs and tune-ups
9:48 am PST • February 8, 2024
Cowboy is rolling out a new repairs and service program designed to give its e-bike riders more ways to keep their wheels on the road. The new service option is…
Social
Disney takes a $1.5B stake in Epic Games to build an ‘entertainment universe’ with Fortnite
2:08 pm PST • February 7, 2024
Lego Fortnite is only two months old, but Epic Games is already out with an even bigger collaboration. Epic and Disney announced today that the companies will partner on an…
Social
Oversight Board calls on Meta to rewrite ‘incoherent’ rules against faked videos
3:00 am PST • February 5, 2024
The Oversight Board, the external advisory group that Meta created to review its moderation decisions on Facebook and Instagram, issued a decision on Monday concerning a doctored seven-second video of…
Social media apps can rise quickly and burn out just as fast, but taking a step back and looking at those trends on a longer timeline offers a better glimpse…
Social
Microsoft, X throw their weight behind KOSA, the controversial kids online safety bill
9:43 am PST • January 31, 2024
On the eve of Wednesday’s Big Tech hearing (both Big Tech and a big hearing — five CEOs are testifying as we speak), Microsoft stepped up to back a controversial…
Featured Article
CEOs from Meta, TikTok, Snap, X and Discord head to Congress for kids’ online safety hearing
CEOs from some of the biggest social platforms will appear before Congress on Wednesday to defend their companies against mounting criticism that they have done too little to protect kids and teens online. The hearing, set to begin at 10 a.m. ET, is the latest in a long string of congressional tech hearings stretching back…
1:40 pm PST • January 30, 2024
Four years after leaving iOS, Fortnite is coming back — but only European players will be dropping in this time. The endless beef between Epic Games and Apple over the…
Gaming
Lego Fortnite’s first big update squashes bugs and adds a launch pad
1:43 pm PST • January 23, 2024
Epic’s standalone survival crafting game saw its first update on Tuesday, smoothing out some of the new game’s rough edges and adding a flurry of quality of life improvements. We’ve…
Gaming
Gamers flock to Palworld’s ‘Pokémon with guns’ despite copyright qualms
1:57 pm PST • January 22, 2024
When Palworld made its inauspicious debut in a teaser a year or so back, few thought this strange, blatant Pokémon ripoff would be anything but a quickly forgotten oddity. But…
Social
In a new lawsuit, Iowa accuses TikTok of lying about content available to kids
5:10 pm PST • January 18, 2024
The state of Iowa is suing TikTok, alleging that the social media company misleads parents about the kinds of content available to young users. The lawsuit from Iowa Attorney General…
Social
Substack won’t commit to proactively removing Nazi content, ensuring further fallout
3:38 pm PST • January 9, 2024
Substack has industry-leading newsletter tools and a platform that independent writers flock to, but its recent content moderation missteps could prove costly. In late November, the Atlantic reported that a…
Social
Lawsuit against Snap over fentanyl deaths can proceed, judge rules
4:12 pm PST • January 4, 2024
A lawsuit blaming Snapchat for a series of drug overdoses among young people can proceed, a Los Angeles judge ruled this week. A group of family members related to children…
Featured Article
Why Fortnite is getting into cozy gaming
When it comes to figuring out a formula for a hit game that keeps players coming back year after year, Saxs Persson would know. Now at Epic Games overseeing the Fortnite ecosystem, Persson previously spent 12 years at Mojang building Minecraft into the stratospheric success it is today. Persson hopped over to Epic in 2022…
5:44 pm PST • January 2, 2024
Gaming
Activision Blizzard will pay $54M to settle California workplace discrimination suit
10:10 pm PST • December 18, 2023
California’s Civil Rights Department reached a settlement with Activision Blizzard late last week, two years after the state regulator brought a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination, pay inequities and a culture…
Featured Article
7 stellar photography gifts that won’t break the bank in 2023
Shopping for someone whose love of taking pictures is bumping up against the creative constraints of their iPhone’s camera roll? There’s a whole world of photography gifts and gear out there, but you don’t need to spring for an expensive new camera body to get a gift that counts. If you’d like to stay well,…
12:19 pm PST • December 14, 2023
Gaming
Lego Fortnite’s debut builds momentum with 2.4M people playing at once
11:00 pm PST • December 11, 2023
If you still think of Fortnite as a colorful, cartoony battle royale game, you might be surprised to learn the extent of Epic’s true ambitions. Fortnite’s big, chaotic fight to…
Gaming
Fortnite maker Epic Games wins its antitrust fight against Google
6:50 pm PST • December 11, 2023
On Monday, a jury sided with Epic Games over Google in an antitrust case that could reshape how app marketplaces like Google Play are allowed to operate. The unanimous verdict…
Social
Discord reimagines its mobile app to showcase its best social features
5:26 pm PST • December 5, 2023
Discord launched a major refresh of its mobile app on Tuesday, putting messaging front-and-center while making a host of small improvements that users have been requesting. Inspired by user feedback,…
Social
Fortnite is expanding its horizons with a Lego building game and a Rock Band successor
10:02 pm PST • December 4, 2023
The first fruit of the partnership between Fornite-maker Epic Games and Lego is due out this week — along with a pair of other games within a game that expand…
If you weren’t already buying the Reddit IPO rumors, the internet’s beating heart of deeply niche microcultures just introduced a rebrand, refreshing its iconic logo and rolling out some new…
Social
Discord expands its plans to sell custom avatars and other virtual items
10:41 am PST • November 29, 2023
After introducing an in-app shop that invited premium subscribers to buy digital decorations for their profiles, Discord now wants everybody to get in on the goods. Discord is expanding access…
Social
Backlash builds after Elon Musk called an antisemitic conspiracy theory the ‘actual truth’
12:55 pm PST • November 17, 2023
Elon Musk has encouraged extremists and white supremacists throughout his yearlong tenure as the owner of X, formerly Twitter, but this week he still managed to push the limits of…
