Trump, FCC unveil plan to accelerate 5G rollout
In a press conference today in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, the president laid out a number of initiatives focused on helping accelerate the U.S. role in the 5G race. “This is, to me, the future,” Trump said, opening the press conference flanked by Ajit...
Instagram now demotes vaguely “inappropriate” content
Instagram is home to plenty of scantily-clad models and edgy memes that may start to get fewer views starting today. Now Instagram says “We have begun reducing the spread of posts that are inappropriate but do not go against Instagram’s Community Guidelines”. That means if...
New privacy assistant Jumbo fixes your Facebook & Twitter settings
Jumbo could be a nightmare for the tech giants, but a savior for the victims of their shady privacy practices. Jumbo saves you hours as well as embarrassment by automatically adjusting 30 Facebook privacy settings to give you more protection, and by deleting your old...
WhatsApp’s Brian Acton to talk Signal Foundation and leaving Facebook at Disrupt SF
“We give them the power. That’s the bad part. We buy their products. We sign up for these websites. Delete Facebook, right?” That’s WhatsApp founder Brian Acton’s most recent quote about his former employer Facebook. Acton has seemingly been fueled by his experience running WhatsApp...
FTC tells ISPs to disclose exactly what information they collect on users and what it’s for
The Federal Trade Commission, in what could be considered a prelude to new regulatory action, has issued an order to several major internet service providers requiring them to share every detail of their data collection practices. The information could expose patterns of abuse or otherwise...
Ahead of third antitrust ruling, Google announces fresh tweaks to Android in Europe
Google is widely expected to be handed a third antitrust fine in Europe this week, with reports suggesting the European Commission’s decision in its long-running investigation of AdSense could land later today. Right on cue the search giant has PRed another Android product tweak —...
Twitter cracks down on API abuse, will charge B2B devs
To prevent its own Cambridge Analytica and make sure it’s getting paid for its data, Twitter will audit developers using its APIs. Starting June 19th, Twitter will require any app that calls a recent tweets from or mentions of a user more than 100,000 times...
Instagram founders say losing autonomy at Facebook meant “winning”
Rather than be sore about losing independence within Facebook, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom told me it was an inevitable sign of his app’s triumph. Today at South By South West, Systrom and fellow co-founder Mike Krieger sat down for their first on-stage talk together since...
Zuckerberg wants messages to auto-expire to make Facebook a “living room”
On feed-based “broader social networks, where people can accumulate friends or followers until the services feel more public . . . it feels more like a town square than a more intimate space like a living room” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained in a blog...
Facebook will shut down its spyware VPN app Onavo
Facebook will end its unpaid market research programs and proactively take its Onavo VPN app off the Google Play store in the wake of backlash following TechCrunch’s investigation about Onavo code being used in a Facebook Research app the sucked up data about teens. The...
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