Texas plans to ban TikTok on state-owned devices |
1. Former Twitter executives testified yesterday in front of the House Oversight Committee, with lawmakers grilling the social media executives over censorship complaints. The former executives admitted they made a mistake by suppressing the New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden's laptop but insisted they did not receive any requests from the government to do so. |
2. More scrutiny for social media companies: Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is working on drafting legislation that would aim to protect children online, including setting the minimum age for social media use at 16. The proposed bill would include mandating age verification for social media users and giving parents the right to delete their children's data. |
3. There are some new perks for Blue subscribers. Twitter has introduced longer tweets with up to 4,000 characters for paying users and will include a "Show more" indicator to access the rest of the content. |
4. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott plans to ban TikTok from all state-issued devices and networks due to security risks. The statewide plan would prevent the use of TikTok on state-owned cell phones, laptops, tablets, and desktop computers. |
5. Invest like your favorite influencers with Follow, a new social investment platform that helps users grow a portfolio that mimics influencers' strategies. The platform, which launched with 25 influencers yesterday, has raised $9M in new funding from venture capital firms Atomic, Uncork Capital, and Vera Equity. |
6. Imagine if Discord and Facebook had a baby — that’s Frond, a social platform for building online communities founded by Matt Blackshaw and Jan Senderek. The company announced a $3.3M pre-Seed funding round led by Cherry Ventures and featuring investors such as Dylan Field, Arash Ferdowsi, and Jack Altman. |
7. TikTok is rolling out new ad capabilities with Promote, which allows brands and users to boost other users' videos and improve audience targeting and campaign objectives. The in-app tool is aimed at small businesses and creators in the hopes of making it easier to reach customers and audiences. |