Now months after the September 10 assassination of conservative activist and Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk, there’s been a sort of paradigm shift among employers emboldened to snoop on their employees’ social media activity and discipline or fire them, according to a Washington Post story by corporate culture reporter Taylor Telford. As Telford put […]
CBP Announces Plan to Look at Foreign Tourists’ Social Media Activity Prior to U.S. Entry
For months now, foreigners and even dual citizens have been worried about how their social media histories might affect their ability to travel freely to and from the U.S. It’s increasingly clear that the answer is a lot. On Tuesday at the Federal Register, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol posted a proposed policy tweak: It […]
Grok Says Elon Musk Is Smarter Than Einstein and More Fit Than LeBron James
Elon Musk has been pretty open about the fact that he’s been working to “fix” Grok anytime the AI chatbot gives an answer he doesn’t like. But we all know that his fixes are just transparently an effort to make Grok agree with him. With every new tweak, Grok gets creepier and more flattering to […]
Meta Loses Its Chief Revenue Officer as Zuckerberg Tries to Win the AI Race
Meta, which has been struggling to keep up with its competitors in the AI race and just lost its Chief AI Scientist, is shedding another key official. The company’s chief revenue officer is leaving, apparently for greener pastures. Bloomberg reports that John Hegeman, who has been with the company for over 17 years, will be […]
Denmark Says It Will Ban Social Media for Users Under 15
By now, there’s a mountain of evidence that social media—not to mention, like, the internet in general—is not particularly good for children. With an iPhone, the average teenager has access to every terrible thing on the web that adults do, but none of the emotional maturity to handle it. Teens now spend hours on their […]
Bluesky Will Test a ‘Dislike’ Option. It Could Help Fix a Huge Problem
Bluesky is the social media platform that most resembles Twitter before it was taken over by Elon Musk, but it’s its own thing, and it has its own problems. One of those problems is a horrible “Discover” tab, something that might be greatly improved by adding the “dislike” feature currently headed for a beta release. […]
Does President Trump Actually Write His Own Tweets?
President Donald Trump has spent years posting the most unhinged content to social media, from all-caps screeds in the immediate wake of his 2020 presidential election defeat to AI videos promoting fictional magic beds. But we’re often asking ourselves: Did Trump actually sit down and post that himself? Wired has a new report that takes […]
Social Media Might Not Be Rotting Our Brains as Much as We Think, Twin Study Finds
A new study out this week might complicate the narrative over social media’s supposed draining effects on our mental health. It showed only a small correlation between social media use and poorer well-being—one that’s likely explained in part by our genes. Researchers in the Netherlands examined data from thousands of twins. They found small associations […]
New York City Sues Social Media Companies Over ‘Youth Mental Health Crisis’
Here’s a new element of the East Coast vs. West Coast beef: The City of New York is reaching across the country to sue tech giants headquartered in California over allegations that their platforms have created a youth mental health crisis. The city, along with its school districts and health department, alleges that “gross negligence” […]
Data on Sydney Sweeney Ad Controversy Shows How MAGA Weaponizes Social Trends
There’s plenty of talk online about echo chambers and the way that certain ideas can get amplified when stuck in a silo of like-minded people. But the controversy earlier this year over American Eagle’s “Good Jeans” advertising campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney is an example of how motivated political actors can pluck otherwise insulated discourse out […]