The cold blast of popular opinion: ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s takes on the home secretary August 13, 2020 It was a young political journalist who summed up one of the oddest political storms of the summer so far when she tweeted on Wednesday: “Who had ‘MP argues with ice cream company’ on their 2020 bingo card?” In case you missed it, the story in brief: Priti Patel, the home secretary, has been making [...]
Government to crack down on online political campaigns August 12, 2020 The government has today outlined proposals for new laws designed to improve the transparency of political advertising on social media. The new measures would require political parties and campaigners to clearly state who they are when promoting campaign content online. Under the plans, all campaigners would be required to include a digital imprint containing their [...]
Twitter suffers advertising revenue slump amid pandemic and US protests July 23, 2020 Twitter suffered a 23 per cent slump in advertising revenue in the second quarter due to the coronavirus pandemic and civil unrest in the US. The social media giant said today that advertising revenue was $562m, down 23 per cent year-on-year. The company said it had seen a “gradual, moderate recovery” compared to March, however [...]
Twitter employee ‘helped attackers’ perpetrate blue tick account hack July 16, 2020 A Twitter employee was to blame for last night’s high profile hack of the social media, two sources have told Vice. In one of the most devastating data breaches in history, hackers managed to infiltrate Twitter’s most notable blue tick accounts and send scam tweets supporting bitcoin before the social network clamped down on the [...]
Twitter bitcoin scam: Blue tick accounts blocked after massive data breach July 16, 2020 Hackers managed to infiltrate Twitter’s most notable blue tick accounts last night and send scam tweets supporting bitcoin before the social network clamped down on the breach. Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos were three such accounts hackers managed to compromise. Others included Apple’s official Twitter account, with tweets typically promising to double people’s [...]
Katie Hopkins permanently banned from Twitter June 19, 2020 Right-wing commentator and media personality has been permanently banned from Twitter, the social media platform confirmed today. The micro-blogging site had suspended her account, but a spokesperson told the Huffington Post that this time the ban was for good. “In this case, the account has been permanently suspended for violations of our hateful conduct policy”, [...]
Twitter flags Trump tweet for ‘glorifying violence’ as row escalates May 29, 2020 Twitter today said that one of Donald Trump’s tweets had broken its rules about “glorifying violence”, marking the latest salvo in an escalating feud between social media firms and the US president. “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” Trump tweeted, in reference to protests over the [...]
Twitter stamps fact check warning on Donald Trump tweet May 27, 2020 A tweet by US President Donald Trump has been marked by Twitter with a warning for the first time ever after its unsubstantiated claims were debunked by fact checkers. In a post published yesterday Trump said there was “NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent”. In the post, which [...]
Twitter allows staff to work from home permanently May 13, 2020 Twitter has told employees they can work from home “forever” as the social media firm adapts to new working conditions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In a company-wide email yesterday chief executive Jack Dorsey said Twitter had been one of the first adopters of the flexible working model and would allow staff to continue to [...]
Twitter posts rise in revenue despite Covid-19 advertising hit April 30, 2020 Twitter today posted a rise in revenue for the first quarter despite the lingering threat of a slowdown in advertising caused by the coronavirus crisis. The social media platform reported revenue of $808m (£646m) in the first three months of the year, up three per cent on the same period in 2019 and ahead of [...]