Screenshot: Can social media win the anti-vax war? December 4, 2020 A weekly column from City A.M. bringing you all the biggest stories and trends in technology, media and telecoms This week **Media Moment of the Week: A very British scandal **Social media gears up for the vaccine information war **How data dominates financial markets Media Moment of the Week It was quite possibly the most [...]
Facebook to pay UK news publishers for use of articles December 1, 2020 Facebook will pay UK news publishers to use some of their articles as the tech giant looks to fend off the looming threat of regulation. From January the site will launch a dedicated news section with a selection of articles from top publishing groups. The companies behind the Guardian, the Independent and the Evening Standard [...]
Biden urged to take on Big Tech amid lobbying fears November 30, 2020 US president-elect Joe Biden has been urged to confront Big Tech amid concerns about the number of tech executives linked to the incoming administration. Thirty-two advocacy groups today penned a letter to Biden urging him to hold companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon to account, arguing that their business practices harmed American consumers and [...]
Facebook snaps up chatbot startup Kustomer for ecommerce push November 30, 2020 Facebook has agreed terms to buy customer service startup Kustomer as the social media platform prepares to expand further into ecommerce. Financial details were not disclosed but the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the deal, said the terms valued Kustomer at $1bn (£750m). Kustomer, which was founded in 2015, allows businesses to combine customer [...]
Tech giants hit with new rules amid calls to fix ‘dysfunctional’ ad market November 27, 2020 Facebook and Google will be subjected to tighter scrutiny over how they use consumer data as ministers face calls to fix the “dysfunctional” online advertising market. The government today announced the launch of a new digital markets unit aimed at curbing the dominance of tech giants and giving consumers greater control over their personal data. [...]
Social media firms to crack down on Covid-19 vaccine disinformation November 9, 2020 Major social media platforms have agreed a package of measures with the government in an effort to limit the spread of disinformation about any Covid-19 vaccine. Following a meeting with health secretary Matt Hancock and digital secretary Oliver Dowden, Facebook, Twitter and Google endorsed the principle that no company should profit from false or misleading [...]
Ghosted: Whatsapp rolls out disappearing messages in privacy push November 5, 2020 Whatsapp is introducing a new function that will delete messages from the app after seven days in an effort to ramp up its privacy credentials. The social media platform, which has more than 2bn users worldwide, said the new feature will help keep chats private and “more like a face-to-face conversation that is not recorded [...]
Screenshot: Will Tim Davie win the generation game? October 30, 2020 A weekly column from City A.M. bringing you all the biggest stories and trends in technology, media and telecoms This week: ** Media Moment of the Week: A sorry soy saga ** Tim Davie and the BBC’s tug of war ** The tech titans’ tumultuous year Media Moment of the Week This week it’s another [...]
Facebook revenue jumps as pandemic drives up traffic October 29, 2020 Facebook today posted better-than-expected revenue for the third quarter as higher user numbers during the coronavirus pandemic helped drive up revenue. The social media platform posted revenue of $21.5bn (£16.6bn) in the three-month period, up from $17.7bn last year. Net income rose from $6.1bn to $7.8bn. The bulk of the revenue was generated by advertising [...]
EU to ban tech firms from promoting their own services in new crackdown October 29, 2020 Tech giants will be banned from unfairly promoting their own services and will have to do more to crack down on harmful content under new rules being prepared by the EU. Competition chief Margrethe Vestager today proposed a raft of tough new laws and promised greater powers for enforcement bodies in a bid to tackle [...]