Category Archives: Social Media

Bluesky Is Testing A Trending Topics Feature

Bluesky, Social Media

Social network Bluesky said on Christmas that it is testing a trending topics view. The trending topics are visible both on the desktop and mobile apps of the social media network for users across the word, TechCrunch reported.

On the desktop, you can see trending topic on the right sidebar, and on the mobile app, you can tap on the search button to look at them.

Bluesky said trending topics are currently available only in English. Users can disable trending topics by going to Settings > Content and Media and then unchecking the “Enable trending topics” option. Bluesky is making sure content you don’t want to see will not be visible in the trending topics — muted words are carried over, so any words or phrases on your muted list won’t appear in trending topics.

The Verge reported: As a special holiday treat, on December 25th, the social media app Bluesky announced that it has added a new feature to its mobile app: a list of Trending topics that lets you know what subjects are popular among its users.

 The new feature can be found by selecting the search icon (the magnifying glass), which appear at the bottom of the screen on the mobile app and on the left sidebar on the web. Lists of Trending and Recommended subjects now appear below the search bar. Tap on any topic, and you will be able to access the associated posts.

According to the announcement, the new feature is “V1” (it is marked as a Beta on the app) and “we will be iterating with your feedback.” So if you have any objections to Trends appearing under your Bluesky search bar, let them know.

Engadget reported: Social media platform Bluesky has launched Trending Topics into beta, the company announced in a post on its platform. The new feature is one of the most-requested by users and matches a function that has been on rival Threads for around nine months.

The Trending section show the top viral content on the platform, with topics like “Christmas,” “Nosferatu” and “Wikipedia” are currently on top. It can be found by clicking on search in both the desktop and mobile apps, or you can disable it altogether in the settings, Any words that you have muted won’t appear in Trending topics either.

Bluesky recently hit a big milestone with 25 million users, many of whom recently fled X following the US elections. Though still relatively small compared to Threads and X, users have remarked on the high levels of engagement along with the lack of bots and harassment compared to Elon Musk’s platform. 

In my opinion, it looks like Bluesky is testing out what its users want to see – or not to see – on their platform. 

Social Media Given ‘Last Chance’ To Tackle Illegal Posts

smartphone, Social Media

Online platforms must begin assessing whether their services expose users to illegal material by 16 March 2025 or face financial punishments as the Online Safety Act (OSA) begins taking effect, BBC reported.

Ofcom, the regulator enforcing the UK’s internet safety law, published its final codes of practice for how firms should deal with illegal online content on Monday.

Platforms have three months to carry out risk assessment identifying potential harms on their services or they could be fined up to 10% of their global turnover.

Ofcom head Dame Melanie Dawes told BBC News this was the “last chance” for industry to make changes.

Under Ofcom’s rules, platforms need to identify if, where and how illegal content might appear on their services and ways they will stop it reaching users.

Many large tech firms have already brought in safety measures for teenage users and controls to give parents more oversight of their social media activity in a bid to tackle dangers for teens and pre-empt regulations.

For instance, on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, users under the age of 18 cannot be discovered in search or messaged by accounts they do not follow.

The Guardian reported: Social media platforms have a “job of work” to do in order to comply with the UK’s Online Safety Act and have yet to introduce all the measures needed to protect children and adults from harmful content, the communications regulator said.

Ofcom on Monday published codes of practice and guidance that tech companies should follow to comply with the act, which carries the threat of significant fines and closure of sites if companies breach it.

The regulator said many of the measures it is recommending are not followed by the largest and riskiest platforms.

Every site and app in scope of the act — from Facebook, Google and X to Reddit and OnlyFans – now has three months to assess the illegal risk of content appearing on the platform.

CNBC reported: The U.K. officially brought its sweeping online safety law into force on Monday, paving the way for stricter supervision of online  safety law into force Monday, paving the way for massive fines for technology giants like Meta, Google, and TikTok

OfCom, the British media and telecommunications watchdog, published its first-edition codes of practice and guidance for tech firms laying out what they should be doing to tackle illegal harms such as terror, hate, fraud and child sexual abuse on their platforms.

The measures form the first set of duties imposed by the regulator under the Online Safety Act, a sweeping law requiring tech platforms to do more to combat illegal content online.

In my opinion, it sounds like the UK’s regulator is intent on making sure that children – and adults – who use social media should be protected from seeing thing that do not belong online.

Bluesky Has 20M+ Users After Hitting 15M On November 13

Bluesky, Social Media

Bluesky, the social media network and X competitor has been benefiting from a surge of departures from the Elon-Musk-owned app formerly known as Twitter, TechCrunch reported.

Today, Bluesky has hit a major milestone: it’s topped 20 million users. What’s more, new data indicates the app’s rapid growth is seeing it close the gap with another prominent X rival, Instagram Threads, across metrics like daily active users and website visits.

Bluesky’s user base is still much smaller than Threads, which recently reported north of 275 million monthly active users. However, if Bluesky’s current rate of growth holds up, I could catch up with Threads in time, market intelligence form Similarweb believes.

The Musk-owned app X remains dominant, though, with a U.S. daily active user count that’s more than 10 times larger than Bluesky at present.

The firm’s data also indicates that Bluesky overtook Threads in daily website visits in both the U.S. and the U.K., which signals strong interest from potential new users. Globally, daily website visits on Bluesky haven’t yet surpassed Threads, but its come very close as of mid-November.

Engadget reported Bluesky has passed the 20 million user mark as the app continues its recent surge in growth. The decentralized service, which reached 15 million users less than a week ago, has just about tripled its user base in the last three months.

Though it’s still smaller than its rivals on Threads and X, Bluesky’s current momentum is notable. The app has had several days over the last week where it added a million new users in a single 24-hour period.

That’s similar to the growth rate of Threads, which has been getting a million new sign-up a day for “going on three months,” according to an update last week from Meta’s Adam Mosseri. Threads reached 275 million monthly users this month and has added at least 15 million since the start of November.

And while Bluesky remains the underdog, there are other signs it’s gaining momentum. Bluesky has been the top app in Apple’s App Store for the last six days and has been the top non-gaming app in Google Play for four days, according to data provide by the analytics firm App Figure. Meta’s Threads is currently in the number two spot on the App Store.

The Hollywood Reporter posted: “#Xodus: Bluesky Hits 20M Users as People Continue to Flee X”

A trickle is becoming a flood for Bluesky, the social media company that has seen spectacular growth since the presidential election. On Tuesday, the microblogging platform hit 20 million users, after averaging 1 million new users per day over he past five days.

Bluesky has been one of the main beneficiaries of millions of users leaving Elon Musk’s X, as the site formerly known as Twitter descends into a mess of bots, extreme content, crypto scams, ads, pornography, racism, transphobia and misinformation.

In my opinion, a large number of people are moving to Bluesky and leaving Elon Musk’s X. This could be a really good thing for Bluesky.

Trump Media Loses $19.2 Million In Third Quarter

Social Media

Trump Media, which experienced a flurry of trading activity Tuesday as a possible proxy for Donald Trump’s presidency chances, revealed after the closing bell Tuesday a loss for the third quarter along with a sight drop in already-meager revenue, CNBC reported.

The Truth Social parent lost $19.2 million during the period. Revenue fell 5.6% to just $1.01 million from the year-earlier period. The filing was not telegraphed to investors beforehand and came as a surprise to traders not expecting it on Election Day, the very day the former president and Trump Media majority owner squares off against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Shares rose more than 6% in after-hours trading following the filing. Earlier in the day, the stock gave up an 18.6% surge to close 1.2% lower. The shares could move in the after hours or on Wednesday depending on the election results.

Trump Media, which trades under the ticket DJT, has seen volatile trading lately. Over the past week, it is down more than 34%. However it is still 93% year to date.

Volume for the stock more than doubled its average 30-day volume. 

Fortune reported Donald Trump has posted about his personal wealth for decades. But a dollar figure has never been publicly shared — or settled upon. Now that he’s been elected president for the second time, his actually net worth could swing dramatically.

For one, as president, he’ll earn an annual $400,000 salary. For another, he’s currently raking in enormous sums on paper thanks to his hundreds of shares in the parent company of publicly listed social networking site, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp.

The share price of the hugely popular social media platform Truth Social’s parent company has grown over 100% since January and more than 85% over the past month.

Analysts have spent years attempting to ascertain Trump’s precise net worth — and Trump hasn’t helped, by refusing to publish his tax returns over the years. 

What we do know: Trump came into a sizable inheritance from his father Fred Trump’s real estate dealings, and then Trump went on to make major real estate investments for himself, and he secured a bevy of TV licensing deals in the early aughts.

But he also has, in recent years, been buried under a mountain of lawsuits and settlements.

Nonetheless, Bloomberg says real estate — Trump’s original industry — is the main source of his fortune.

Gizmodo reported Donald Trump has won the presidency and businesses connected with him and his allies are soaring. According to early financial reports, winners include banks, crypto-related stocks, and private prison companies. All of the work people in the financial game.

Trump Media & Technology Group’s plummeted in the early hours of the election on Tuesday as people who waited to see who would be elected president. It was up on Monday but crashed so hard during the election that trading of the stock was briefly halted. On November 3, it hit a low of $32.80 a share.

In my opinion, I believe that people who watched the race for the presidency live on TV are either elated or angry about the outcome. 

The US FTC Releases Four Year Study On Social Media Sites Collecting Data

Social Media

The Federal Trade Commission posted a Press Release titled: FTC Staff Report Finds Large Social Media and Video Streaming Companies Have Engaged In Vast Surveillance of Users with Lax Privacy Controls and Inadequate Safeguards for Kids and Teens.

A new Federal Trade Commission staff report that examines the data collection and use practices of major social media and video streaming services shows they engaged in vast surveillance of consumers in order to monetize their personal information while failing to adequately protect users online, especially children and teens.

The staff report is based on responses to 6(b) orders issued in December 2020 to nine companies including some of the largest social media and video streaming services: Amazon.com, Inc., which owns gaming platform Twitch; Facebook Inc. (now Meta Platforms, Inc.); YouTube LLC; Twitter, Inc. (now X Corp); Snap Inc; ByteDance Ltd., which owns the video-sharing platform TikTok; Discord Inc,; Reddit, Inc.; and WhatsApp Inc.

The orders asked for information about how the companies collect, track and use personal and demographic information, how they determine which ads and other content are shown to consumers, whether and how they apply algorithms or data analytics to personal and demographic information, and how their practice impact children and teens.

The Guardian reported social media and online video companies are collecting huge troves of your personal information on and off their websites or apps and sharing it with a wide range of third-party entities, a new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) staff report on nine tech companies confirms.

The FTC report published on Thursday looked at the data gathering practices of Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Discord, Reddit, Amazon, Snap, TikTok, and Twitter/X between January 2019 and 31 December 2020. The majority of the companies’ business models incentivized tracking how people engaged with their platforms, collecting their personal data and using it to determine what content and ads users see on their feeds, the report states.

CBS News reported child advocates have long complained that federal child privacy laws let social media services off the hook provided their products are not directed at kids and that their policies formally bar minors on their sites. Big tech companies also often claim not to know how many kids use their platforms, critics have noted.

The report recommends steps, including federal legislation, to limit surveillance and give consumers rights over their data.

Congress is also moving to hold tech companies accountable for how online content affects kids. In July, the Senate overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation aimed at protecting children called the Kids Online Safety Act. The bill would require companies strengthen kids’ privacy and give parents more control over what content their children see online.

In my opinion, I think the FTC is correct about not only providing their press release, but also to alert parents that not all social media sites are safe for their children and teens.

Supreme Court Rules Public Officials Can Block Social Media Followers

Social Media, ,

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that public officials may block people on social media in certain circumstances, tossing aside challenges against local government officials in Michigan and California who blocked followers who were critical of them on Facebook, CNN reported.

In an unanimous opinion written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court set a clearer standard for when public officials are state actors online and when they can have more control over their social media presence. A second opinion dealing with a related dispute was unsigned and there were no noted dissents.

According to CNN, in an era when public officials often communicate with voters through social media, the cases raised important First Amendment questions about whether those pages were private or whether they are an extension of the government. Some of the pages included information that appeared official alongside personal posts showing the family dog.

“When a government official posts about job-related topics on social-media, it can be difficult to tell whether the speech is official or private,” Barrett wrote.

ArsTechnica posted a headline: “Public officials can block haters — but only sometimes, SCOTUS rules.” There are some circumstances where government officials are allowed to block people from commenting on their social media pages, the Supreme Court said.

According to the Supreme Court, the key question is whether officials are speaking as private individuals or on behalf of the state when posting online. Issuing two opinions, the Supreme Court declined to set a clear standard for when personal social media use constitutes state speech, leaving each unique case to be decided by lower courts.

Instead, SCOTUS provided a test for courts to decide first if someone is or isn’t speaking on behalf of the state on their social media pages, and then if they actually have authority to act on what they post online.

The ruling suggests that government officials can block people from commenting on personal social media pages where they discuss official business when that speech can not be attributed to the state and merely reflects personal remarks. This means that blocking is acceptable when the official has no authority to speak for the state or exercise that authority when speaking on their page.

NBC News reported the Supreme Court ruled Friday that members of the public in some circumstances can sue public officials for blocking them on social media platforms, deciding a pair of cases against the backdrop of former President Donald Trump’s contentious and colorful use of Twitter.

The court ruled unanimously that officials can be deemed “state actors” when making use of social media and can therefore face litigation if they block or mute a member of the public.

In ruling that it can, the court found that blocking someone from following an official constitutes a government action that could give rise to a constitutional claim under the Constitution’s First Amendment, which protects free speech.

In my opinion, we might see less posts from public officials on social media, considering the SCOTUS decision. That said, it is unclear to me if SCOTUS is requiring “state actors” to put up with angry people on social media.

 

Supreme Court Questions Florida And Texas Social Media Laws

Social Media,

The Supreme Court on Monday appeared to have deep concerns of state laws enacted in Florida and Texas that would prohibit social media platforms from throttling certain political viewpoints, CNN reported.

The high-stakes battle gives the nation’s highest court an enormous say in how millions of Americans get their news and information, as well as whether sites such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok should be able to make their own decisions about how to moderate spam, hate speech, and election misinformation.

According to CNN, the state laws ban online platforms from removing posts that express opinions, such as political content. States say the laws are necessary to keep the social media platforms from discriminating against conservatives.

At least at this stage of the case, however, it’s unclear how the justices will rule. Several of the justices were unsettled by the possibility that the laws could be applied to other sites, like Uber, without violating the Constitution. Some of the nine, meanwhile, signaled a desire to send the case back down to lower courts for further review about the potential sweep of the laws’ provisions beyond social media platforms.

NPR reported that the Supreme Court wrestled Monday with a pair of cases that could help define the future of the internet.

Legal experts say they’re the most important First Amendment cases in a generation. The question is whether states like Florida and Texas can force big social media platforms to carry content the platforms find hateful or objectionable.

According to NPR, Republicans in Florida and Texas took action, signing sweeping laws that prevent the largest platforms from banning users based on their political viewpoints and require them to provide an individual explanation to users about why their posts have been edited or removed.

NBC News eported that the Supreme Court on Monday grappled with knotty free speech questions as it weighted laws in Florida and Texas that seek to impose restrictions on the ability of social media companies to moderate content.

According to NBC News, after almost four hours of oral arguments, a majority of the justices appeared skeptical that states can prohibit platforms from barring or limiting the reach of some problematic users without violating the free speech rights of the companies.

But justices from across the ideological spectrum raised fears about the power and influence of big social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook and questioned whether the laws should be blocked entirely.

In my opinion, the Supreme Court justices are going to take some time before they come to a conclusion about what to do with the cases from Florida and Texas. Eventually, they will either release their decision or choose to not step into this particular case.