Hickory dickory dock – Montana passed the #TikTokCokBlock. But seriously, the Montana legislature passed a bill banning TikTok from Montana. While the governor of Montana, Governor Greg Gianforte, has not yet signed it, the smart money is on that he will.

Twitter has lost another major media outlet as the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has abandoned the platform following the new tag labeling it as “government-funded media.” PBS joins fellow nonprofit media organization NPR in leaving Twitter over the tag. Twitter defines government-funded media as outlets where the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content. The label was originally created to identify tweets from state-controlled news agencies like China’s People’s Daily and Russia’s RT.com, known for circulating government propaganda. However, new Twitter owner Elon Musk expanded the label to NPR and PBS despite their independent status.

Twitter’s brand value is at risk of being further eroded by the recent antics of its owner, Elon Musk. Musk’s behavior has escalated over the past month and included labeling several major news organizations as state-funded media, making crude jokes on Twitter, and easing restrictions on Russian government accounts. These moves may further complicate Twitter’s efforts to revive its declining ad business and supplement it with Twitter Blue subscriptions.

A Pennsylvania county has filed a lawsuit against social media companies, claiming their platforms have contributed to a youth mental health crisis through addictive technology and harmful targeted content. The Bucks County commissioners and the district attorney jointly filed the lawsuit in a California federal court on March 14 against parent companies of tech giants such as Meta Platforms Inc., Alphabet Inc., TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd., Snap Inc. and their affiliated groups.

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the way we live and work, just like the internet did.”
Claims like these have become common in the media and academic journals. Large language models (LLMs) are algorithms that form the basis of this type of AI.

Tech giants such as Facebook and Google may soon have to pay publishers for news content under a new California bill aimed at reining in Silicon Valley’s dominance. The proposed California Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, would require digital advertising giants to pay news outlets a “journalism usage fee” when they sell advertising alongside news content. The bill would also mandate that publishers invest 70% of the profits from that fee in journalism jobs.

A new website provides listings of “Covid safe” and “Covid cautious” providers for those who are at high risk for catching Covid, such as the immunocompromised, people with asthma, and others who need to or simply want to avoid getting Covid. The Covid Safe Providers website not only lists Covid-safe doctors, Covid-cautious dentists, and the like, but also lists Covid-safe and Covid-cautious service providers such as Covid-safe furnace and air conditioning repair services, home appliance repair, mechanics, and even notary services.

Personal email addresses from 235 million Twitter accounts hacked over the last several years have been exposed, according to Israeli security researcher Alon Gal — making many vulnerable to having their accounts further compromised or identities exposed if they have used the site anonymously to criticize oppressive governments, for instance….

And they aren’t just k-i-s-s-i-n-g….. It’s much worse.

What’s being disclosed in the now-weekly Twitter releases certainly doesn’t improve the image of the FBI (and, of course, other 3-letter and 4-letter agencies).

Last night the January 6th Committee dropped it’s full and final report, allowing the American public to see the full extent of the information they received and the evidence they developed over their nearly 2-year investigation. According to the Committee, “That evidence has led to an overriding and straight-forward conclusion: The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”

What if someone just around a corner could see what you’re looking at on your computer screen without using a physical or wireless connection and without ever being in your system?

In yet another important policy change, Twitter has announced that customers will no longer be permitted to link to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and different platforms the organisation described as “prohibited.” But the decision generated such instant criticism from everyone with a brain that Musk promised not to make any more…

There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to setting up your iPhone The best approach depends on your parenting style and what you’re trying to achieve. If you’re looking to limit screen time, for example, you might want to consider using the Screen Time feature in iOS 12. This lets you…

Some of us are born beautiful, some of us are born rich, and some of us are born lucky enough to not give a half of a rat about social media or rich people. If you’d like to know what’s up with Twitter since Elon “not the antichrist” Musk bought…

The internet is a marvelous invention, and I could write a long series of dense books on why it’s marvelous, and what exactly makes it marvelous. Perhaps I shall. However, this format of media (being on the internet, of course) doesn’t exactly lend itself to long unengaging texts… Although hey,…