Social

French startup ten ten finds viral success and controversy in reinventing walkie-talkies

Less than one year after its iOS launch, French startup ten ten has gone viral with a walkie-talkie app that allows teens to send voice messages to their close friends — even when their phone is locked.  Whether you think that’s a recipe for disaster or the coolest thing you’ve heard may depend on your […]

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Trump takes off on TikTok

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump now has an account on the short-form video app that he once tried to ban. Trump’s TikTok account, which launched on Saturday night, features just one post as of publication time on Sunday morning. In the video, Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White declares, “The President is now on

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Canva’s rap battle is part of a long legacy of Silicon Valley cringe

You thought the hottest rap battle of the summer was between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. You were wrong. It’s between Canva and an enterprise CIO. At its Canva Create event last week, Canva unveiled its new enterprise offerings. But few people would be talking about that if not for an unexpected rap battle that took

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Spain bans Meta from launching election features on Facebook, Instagram over privacy fears

Meta has been banned from launching features on Facebook and Instagram that would have collected data on voters in Spain using the social networks ahead of next month’s European Elections. The local data protection authority, the AEPD, has used emergency powers to protect local users’ privacy. Meta confirmed to TechCrunch it has complied with the

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Misinformation works, and a handful of social ‘supersharers’ sent 80% of it in 2020

A pair of studies published Thursday in the journal Science offers evidence not only that misinformation on social media changes minds, but that a small group of committed “supersharers,” predominately older Republican women, were responsible for the vast majority of the “fake news” in the period looked at. The studies, by researchers at MIT, Ben-Gurion

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Families of Uvalde shooting victims sue Activision and Meta

The families of victims of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas are suing Activision and Meta, as well as gun manufacturer Daniel Defense. The families bringing the lawsuits are represented by attorney Josh Koskoff, who previously won a settlement from Remington for the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims. The suit against

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Scarlett Johansson brought receipts to the OpenAI controversy

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. OpenAI announced this week that it’s removing Sky, one of the voices used by its new GPT-4o model, after users found it sounded eerily similar to Scarlett Johansson’s AI character

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Using memes, social media users have become red teams for half-baked AI features

“Running with scissors is a cardio exercise that can increase your heart rate and require concentration and focus,” says Google’s new AI search feature. “Some say it can also improve your pores and give you strength.” Google’s AI feature pulled this response from a website called Little Old Lady Comedy, which, as its name makes

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