Last month was the warmest June of the past three decades globally, with several places in western Europe

This year broke records in all the wrong ways. That’s the chilling conclusion of a special report on

Cathie Wood's Ark Invest and crypto investment firm 21Shares are seeking regulatory approval to set up an exchange-traded

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 10, 2023--

Another day, another Twitter apocalypse. This time Elon Musk's company is purging some of the

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 24, 2023--

Meta Platforms Inc. has started refunding advertisers’ money for a major glitch last month that caused businesses to

Britain’s public finances are more vulnerable to shocks than other major economies, the Treasury’s fiscal watchdog said, as

Meta has apologised for a glitch in which Facebook sent friend requests to every profile that a user had viewed — leaving a number of users embarrassed and rushing to delete the requests, or, in some cases, their entire accounts. “We fixed a bug related to a recent app update that caused some Facebook friend requests to be sent mistakenly,” a spokesperson for Meta told The Daily Beast. “We’ve stopped this from happening and we apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.” According to accounts on other social media platforms like Twitter, it caused plenty of inconvenience. “As someone with a severe nosiness problem, this Facebook auto friend request glitch is very spooky and uncool with me,” one Twitter user with the username Lucy wrote. Last Friday, following a Facebook app update, users began sending out a stream of warnings on other social media platforms about the dangers of using the platform when their “nosiness” could be exposed to the very people whose profiles they’d been viewing. The Daily Mail quoted one social media user as writing that the glitch amounted to the “end of stalking.” Now that Meta has fixed the glitch, there is presumably less need to worry. For some, however, the damage may be done. “Facebook update s*cks!” another Twitter user wrote. “It automatically sent a friend request to account you stalked, lmao Imagine you stalked your ex or your enemy and they received a friend request notification.” There was some question over whether the glitch affected Apple phone users in the same way that it did Android users, but the glitch likely is not good news for a platform that has struggled to maintain the attention and affection of younger social media users who have migrated to platforms like Snapchat and TikTok in recent years.

Elon Musk said X is looking to charge users a “small monthly payment” to tackle bots on the social network. X, previously known as Twitter, underwent a number of changes soon after Mr Musk, the multibillionaire owner of X Corp, bought it. The platform is now “moving to having a small, monthly payment for use of the X system” to combat “vast armies of bots”, Mr Musk said during a livestreamed conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. However, the Tesla and SpaceX boss did not reveal how much the new plan would cost X users or what additional features subscribers would get. During the interaction with Mr Netanyahu, the Tesla titan said X currently has 550 million “monthly users” who generate 100-200 million posts per day, adding that the new change to include a “small amount of money” would be necessary to deal with the problem posed by bots. It is unclear whether the multibillionaire’s figure of 550 million monthly users includes bots and also doesn’t allow comparison with the metric the company has used to estimate its user base, called the “average monetizable daily active users” or mDAUs. But the Tesla chief said a subscription fee would make it more difficult for bots to create accounts as each bot would need a new credit card to register on the platform. “It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots,” Mr Musk said. “Because a bot costs a fraction of a penny – call it a tenth of a penny – but even if it has to pay a few dollars or something, the effective cost of bots is very high,” he explained. The platform has historically struggled to curb the activity of bots, with the company’s former security chief Peiter Zatko telling the US Congress last year that Twitter does not even know how many automated accounts are on the site. Mr Musk even cited bots as a reason to back out of buying the social platform before he went on to complete the deal. He has also previously discussed putting all of Twitter behind a paywall. Now the Tesla boss says the rebranded X plans to introduce a new “lower tier pricing” than the $8 monthly fee it currently charges subscribers of its premium Blue service. The conversation between Mr Musk and the Israeli prime minister also touched on topics like AI regulation as well as hate speech and antisemitism on X. Mr Musk claimed during the discussion that he’s “against antisemitism” and “anything that promotes hate and conflict”. “I’m sort of against attacking any group, you know. Doesn’t matter who it is,” the Tesla chief said. Online safety experts have warned about the social media platform under “free speech absolutist” Mr Musk offering “amnesty” to accounts previously suspended for hate speech and instigating violence. Under the Tesla titan, the platform restored the account of former US president Donald Trump who was banned following the 2021 Capitol riots, as well as the profiles of Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene and neo-Nazi website founder Andrew Anglin. Read More The ex factor: the very complex love life of Elon Musk Netanyahu visits Elon Musk in California with plans to talk about artificial intelligence Turkey's President Erdogan and Elon Musk discuss establishing a Tesla car factory in Turkey Elon Musk’s X finally agrees to try and settle Twitter’s mass layoffs lawsuit Musk the messiah (or a very naughty boy?) Elon Musk warns of ‘civilisational risk’ posed by AI at historic gathering

Instagram has now launched Threads on the web for everyone. The company launched Theads in early July, and it swiftly became the fastest-growing app in the world. But it has long been without key features of its rival Twitter, seemingly as a result of being released in a rush to capitalise on chaos at that company since Elon Musk bought it late last year. Those missing features have included a web version of the network, so that it can be viewed on desktop computers and other platforms. Now Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has announced that the web experience is available for everyone at threads.net. “Let us know what you think,” he said in his announcement. On the site, one user pointed out that Mr Mosseri’s claim that it was “live for everyone” missed out the people of the European Union. Mr Mosseri confirmed that was still the case, writing that it was “unfortunate”. Instagram has never launched Threads in Europe. It has said that it is worried about regulatory uncertainty – over fears about upcoming rules including the Digital Markets Act – but it might also be an attempt to lobby against those same rules. As well as the web version. of Threads, Instagram has been scrambling to add missing new features to the site. Those have included a chronological feed and the addition of alt text on images. Many more are still waiting to be added, however. Threads does not have a proper search option, for instance – but Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has indicated that is also being worked on. Read More Meta could finally launch Threads feature everyone is waiting for Mark Zuckerberg hits out at Elon Musk for wasting time over cage fight Zoom CEO raises eyebrows by saying people need to go back to the office

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is rolling back its COVID-19 misinformation rules