An integration with LTK, an app that lets consumers shop from creator and influencers’ recommendations, is rolling out on TikTok, according to videos by select creators viewed by TechCrunch. The collaboration could boost fashion creators’ ability to earn affiliate commissions via LTK, while also making it easier for consumers to locate the clothes and accessories […]

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President-elect Donald Trump will try to prevent TikTok from getting banned in the United States, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. During his campaign, Trump promised voters that he would save the popular social media app if elected. Former Trump adviser and campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told the Post that the president-elect “appreciates the breadth and […]

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Is the grass greener on the other side? We’re not sure, but the sky is most certainly bluer. It’s been two years since Elon Musk purchased Twitter, now X, leading people to set up shop on alternative platforms. Mastodon, Post, Pebble (two of which have already shuttered operations) and Spill have been presented as potential […]

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X, formerly Twitter, is no longer the “digital town square” it once promised to be. Following the results of the U.S. presidential election, floods of users unhappy with the app’s latest direction are moving over to a competing app, Bluesky. Bluesky’s decentralized social media platform has steadily grown from 9+ million users as of September […]

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Users will be able to directly access Lemon8, ByteDance’s newer social media app, with their TikTok account, the company announced Tuesday. ByteDance says the integration will make photo sharing more feasible, and give creators the ability to cross-share photo content between the apps. Lemon8 will remain a separate app, but the two platforms will share […]

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It’s rare when French newspapers team up and agree on something. But major publications, such as Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Le Parisien, have collectively decided to take legal action against X over neighboring rights, according to a statement sent to Reuters and the AFP. Under EU law, digital platforms are required to negotiate with […]

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Meta, under legal pressure in the European Union over a binary ‘pay us or consent to ad tracking’ choice it currently offers regional users of its social networks Facebook and Instagram, is changing how its regional ad business works again. Little wonder when compliance failure in this context risks fines of up to 10% of […]

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Privacy-focused messaging app Signal is adding new features for video calls, including links, reactions and a calls tab, in a bid to pose as an alternative to Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. The highlight of the update is a new “Calls” tab, which lets you make new calls, manage call links, and check your […]

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Social network X has so far limited its AI chatbot Grok (built by Elon Musk’s other company xAI) to its premium, paying users. However, the platform is seemingly preparing to open up the chatbot to free users. Over the weekend, several app researchers and users posted about a free version of Grok being made available […]

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Lawsuits against X (formerly Twitter) will soon be heard in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The shift was first announced last month as part of a broader set of changes to X’s terms of service and privacy policy. Now, with the changes set to take effect on November 15, The […]

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Welcome back to Week in Review. This week, we’re unpacking the latest layoffs at Mozilla, Perplexity offering to cross a picket line, and Apple warning investors that it might never top the iPhone. Let’s get into it. The Mozilla Foundation laid off 30% of its employees in the second round of layoffs for the Firefox […]

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As TikTok stares down an impending federal ban, Donald Trump’s win in the presidential election could be a lifeline. It’s a plot twist for the embattled, Chinese-owned social media company. During Trump’s last presidency, the president-elect had been the one to initiate the calls to ban TikTok, which only petered out because he didn’t win […]

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An effort to bring a broader news ecosystem to the open social web, also known as the fediverse, is now in the hands of the social magazine app Flipboard. Press.coop, a service that created mirrored accounts of top news publishers (including Reuters, AP, WSJ, NYT, BBC, CNN, and even yours truly), has transferred its collection […]

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TikTok on Thursday debuted a new feature that will more closely connect its app, which already influences which songs top the charts, to the streaming services where users discover and play their favorite music. With the launch of a new “Share to TikTok” feature, music fans will be able to directly share tracks from both […]

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With all eyes on how a new Trump administration in the U.S. will interface with China Tech in the years ahead, its neighbor to the north has leveled a blow to one of the biggest apps to come out of the country. Canada has ordered the closure of ByteDance’s operations in Canada — specifically the […]

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Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday announced plans in the country to ban social media for children under 16, saying that “social media is doing harm to our kids, and I’m calling time on it.” The proposed legislation will enter parliament this year, taking effect a year after lawmakers ratify it, said Albanese, adding […]

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“For You” algorithms that promote the most interesting content across a social network, personalized to the individual user, offered a disjointed, outdated, and nearly unusable experience on election night in the U.S. as they highlighted hours-old posts that no longer reflected the current state of the race. Frustrations were particularly high on Threads, Meta’s X […]

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Meta announced Tuesday that it is extending its restriction on political ads until later in the week, though it did not specify which day the ban would be lifted.  When asked for more information, a Meta spokesperson pointed TechCrunch to the announcement about the company working to “protect the integrity of elections on Facebook and […]

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Meta has added another privacy sanction to its extensive collection: South Korea’s data protection agency fined the social media giant around $15.7 million for processing sensitive user data and passing it to advertisers without a proper legal basis, Reuters reports. Seoul’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) found Facebook’s parent collected information from about 980,000 users, […]

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