People linked to Russian-backed Facebook accounts helped organize or fund events in the US around divisive topics — often playing both sides of a hot-button issue, according to The Wall Street Journal. The WSJ cited an example in July, when a Russia-based firm organized two events on the same day. The first was a “Blue …
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Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg meet with China President Xi Jinping
Apple CEO Tim Cook and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The executives were in town for an annual gathering of advisers to Tsinghua University in Beijing, according to Reuters. Both Cook and Zuckerberg serve on the advisory board for Tsinghua’s School of Economics and Management. Xi spoke to business leaders and officials at a meeting …
Read More »Workplace, Facebook’s Slack rival, adds desktop chat app
A year ago, Facebook released Workplace, its answer to the popular collaborative tool Slack. Early Thursday, Facebook said it’s expanding the software’s chat capabilities. Workplace’s chat feature has always had mobile and browser components, but Facebook is adding a desktop app. From it, employees can do screen sharing, file sharing and video chat. It’s available for Mac and PCs, as …
Read More »Facebook looks to become your next used car salesman
It’s been a little more than a year since Facebook launched its Marketplace platform. Now, the social media giant says it’s time to expand it. Marketplace, which lets people sell new and used stuff locally, is adding more detailed US listings of used cars, one of the categories Facebook said has been most active. In the coming weeks, the platform …
Read More »Instagram’s new ‘Superzoom’ gets up close and personal
Nothing says funny like a theatrical superzoom. Case in point: Dramatic Chipmunk. In that video, you see the little furry creature quickly turn around and then stare into the camera as it zooms in closer and closer to its face. Now, Instagram is making it easy to record and post videos just like this on the social network. The photo-sharing …
Read More »Twitter announces new policy toward political ads
Pressure has been mounting for social media sites like Facebook to reveal information about the people and groups who advertise on such platforms. On Tuesday, Twitter announced a new policy to be more transparent about ads that run on its platform and reveal the identity of who bought them. In a post on Twitter’s website, Bruce Falck, general manager of …
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Read More »Facebook Messenger now lets you pay pals with PayPal
Facebook Messenger can make payments to friends, and has already worked with Paypal. But it can now make payments to people using Paypal using peer-to-peer, too (in the US, for now). The service is live on iOS, and is coming to Android soon. The service connects its 2.5 million customers in the US to make the same payments to friends …
Read More »Lights, camera, livestream: How anyone can make it big
Walking into Tomás Puig’s San Francisco apartment, I notice something is a little unusual. There are three cameras in the kitchen and what looks to be a TV switcher sitting against the wall. Rather than hosting a handful of guests for dinner, twice a week Tomás opens his home to thousands who watch his cooking show on Facebook Live. “Tomás’ …
Read More »Senators aim to halt bogus political ads on Facebook
Some US senators are looking to beef up laws around political ads that appear online, given apparent Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. It’s largely believed the election was at least partially swayed by bogus political ads on Facebook, Twitter and Google. Democratic Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota are teaming up with Republican Sen. …
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