Meta Kills a Crucial Transparency Tool At the Worst Possible Time

Earlier this month, Meta announced that it would be shutting down CrowdTangle, the social media monitoring and transparency tool that has allowed journalists and researchers to track the spread of mis- and disinformation. It will cease to function on August 14, 2024—just months before the US presidential election. Meta’s move is just the latest example … Read more

Trump’s Truth Social Is Going Public

Former president Donald Trump’s Truth Social, a shameless Twitter clone, is set to become a publicly traded company as soon as next week. Shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp. voted on Friday to merge with Trump Media and Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social. The vote is a culmination of a years-long saga attempting … Read more

Trump social media merger approved by DWAC shareholders

This photo illustration shows an image of former President Donald Trump next to a phone screen that is displaying the Truth Social app, in Washington, DC, on February 21, 2022. Stefani Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images Shareholders in Digital World Acquisition Corp. voted Friday to approve a merger with Donald Trump’s social media company, … Read more

Zuck Just Entered the Fediverse: Here’s What That Means

Mark Zuckerberg made his first post in the “fediverse” on Thursday. If you have no idea what the hell that means, join the club. The fediverse is a relatively new concept for social networking, and Threads became the largest member of it this week. Millions of Threads users will soon be able to opt in … Read more

Reddit Stock Surges on Its First Day of Trading

A big concern ahead of the public listing was that Reddit, the platform that gave birth to the memestocks of 2021, could also suffer the wild price swings caused by large numbers of investors coordinating their strategy over social media, including Reddit itself, on forums such as r/wallstreetbets. Reddit’s IPO is a test of investor … Read more

Sam Altman’s Reddit stake worth over $600 million after NYSE debut

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he has no equity in the $80 billion artificial intelligence startup he co-founded in 2015. His Reddit ownership is another matter altogether. Following Reddit’s stock market debut on Thursday, Altman’s stake in the social media site ballooned by $200 million to over $613 million. Shares of the 19-year-old company jumped … Read more

(RDDT) starts trading on NYSE

Reddit shares jumped as much as 70% in their debut on Thursday in the first initial public offering for a major social media company since Pinterest hit the market in 2019. The 19-year-old website that hosts millions of online forums priced its IPO on Wednesday at $34 a share, the top of the expected range. … Read more

Reddit prices IPO at $34 per share, valuing company at $6.5 billion

In this photo illustration a Reddit logo is seen displayed on a smartphone. Mateusz Slodkowski | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images Reddit, the 19-year-old website that hosts millions of online forums, priced its IPO on Wednesday at $34 a share, the top of the expected range. The offering brought in $519 million, according … Read more

Parler’s New Owners Swear This Time Will Be Different

Rhodes said the new version of Parler will include a native video player and messaging service, in a bid to differentiate the company from its former iterations and competing platforms like Truth Social and X. One key distinction it makes from X, Rhodes says, is a ban on pornography, according to Rhodes and Parler’s community … Read more

Glassdoor Wants to Know Your Real Name

Glassdoor has a history of working to keep its users’ identities private, but there are concerns about these identity changes. “Glassdoor has been second to none in defending their user’s First Amendment rights,” says Aaron Mackey, a senior staff attorney with the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation. He represented a Glassdoor user in a … Read more