Social

Social networking shapes society and our news coverage reflects and directs that. We keep tabs on all the biggest social companies, including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Reddit, as well as funding and acquisitions of new social startups.

If X continues to violate Europe’s data protection rules, the company is on the hook for fines of up to €4,000 per day.

More bad news for Elon Musk after X user’s legal challenge to shadowban prevails

The platform formerly known as Twitter has earned the dubious honor of being the first very large online platform (VLOP) to face a preliminary finding of breaching the European Union’s…

Europe confirms first clutch of DSA grievances on Elon Musk’s X

Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, is continuing to develop a downvoting feature that will be used to improve how replies are ranked. Although the company has not yet officially announced…

X is building a ‘dislike’ button for downvoting replies

Retro CEO Nathan Sharp isn’t worrying just yet about Google’s plan to copy his app’s experience, despite the numerous similarities.

Photo-sharing startup Retro spots Google Photos copying its idea and design

The new YouTube features include those that will automatically transform longer videos into Shorts, among others.

YouTube tempts creators with a half dozen new features for Shorts

Just like in your favorite anime, this is the story of a young group of twentysomethings who started with nothing, traveled the world and ended up with a global license…

Sekai secures Naruto’s license to develop consumer apps for anime fans

Elon Musk faces several lawsuits for firing more than 6,000 Twitter employees, including then-CEO Parag Agrawal, following Musk’s 2022 takeover of the social media platform. On Tuesday, Musk defeated one…

Elon Musk does not owe ex-Twitter staffers $500 million in severance, court rules

Meta announced on Wednesday that users aged 10 to 12 will soon be able to interact with others in VR if they have their parents’ approval to do so. Up…

Meta will soon let kids aged 10 to 12 interact with others in VR with their parents’ approval

The question now is whether Spotify will add something similar for music artists in the future.

Spotify is no longer just a streaming app, it’s a social network

As TikTok continues to test the waters with longer videos, Instagram Head Adam Mosseri has said the Meta-owned social network will continue to focus on short-form content. In an Instagram…

While TikTok chases YouTube, Instagram vows to focus on short-form content

Fast-food chain Whataburger’s app has gone viral in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, which left around 1.8 million utility customers in Houston, Texas without power. Hundreds of thousands of those…

Whataburger app becomes unlikely power outage map after Houston hurricane

The concept of Airchat is fun, especially if you’re someone who loves to send voice memos instead of typing out long paragraphs on your phone keyboard.

Talky social app Airchat gets a major overhaul, making it more like an asynchronous Clubhouse

Ahead of these potential competitors comes Openvibe, a simple aggregator for the open social web.

Openvibe combines Mastodon, Bluesky and Nostr into one social app

Two of my friends died within the last three years. By some coincidence, both of their birthdays fall in the beginning of July. So, twice this week, Facebook has reminded…

Facebook keeps asking me to say ‘happy birthday’ to dead people

The feature puts Spotify in more direct competition with YouTube as a place where creators can interact with their listeners.

Chasing YouTube, Spotify adds comments to podcasts

The essential labor of data work, like moderation and annotation, is systematically hidden from those who benefit from the fruits of that labor. A new project puts the lived experiences…

Data workers detail exploitation by tech industry in DAIR report

Over the past few days, Ghost says it has achieved two major milestones in its move to become a federated service.

Substack rival Ghost federates its first newsletter

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. This week, Figma CEO Dylan…

Figma pauses its new AI feature after Apple controversy

We’ve created this guide to help parents navigate the controls offered by popular social media companies.

How to set up parental controls on Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and more popular sites

Elon Musk’s X is exploring more ways to integrate xAI’s Grok into the social networking app. According to a series of recent discoveries, X is developing new features like the…

X plans to more deeply integrate Grok’s AI, app researcher finds

Teddy Solomon just moved to a new house in Palo Alto, so he turned to the Stanford community on Fizz to furnish his room. “Every time I show up to…

Fizz, the anonymous Gen Z social app, adds a marketplace for college students

Noplace had already gone viral ahead of its public launch because of its feature that allows users to express themselves by customizing the colors of their profile.

noplace, a mashup of Twitter and Myspace for Gen Z, hits No. 1 on the App Store

Meta’s Threads now has more than 175 million monthly active users, Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday. The announcement comes two days away from Threads’ first anniversary. Zuckerberg revealed back in…

Threads nears its one-year anniversary with more than 175M monthly active users

code references found in the X iOS app indicate that the company could be considering adding downvotes for replies only to improve how they’re ranked.

X weighs adding a downvote button to replies — but it doesn’t want to emulate Reddit

Snapchat is introducing new ways for users to personalize their accounts, the company announced on Tuesday. The updates, which are mostly available for Snapchat+ subscribers, allow users to do things…

Snapchat’s latest features help users personalize their accounts

“Fediverse” is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean? The word comes from “federation” and “universe”…

TechCrunch Minute: A beginner’s guide to the fediverse

Music, podcasts, audiobooks…emergency alerts? Spotify’s latest test has the streaming app venturing into new territory with a test of an emergency alerts system in its home market of Sweden. According…

Spotify tests emergency alerts in Sweden

The Supreme Court on Monday vacated two judicial decisions concerning Republican-backed laws from Florida and Texas aimed at limiting social media companies’ ability to moderate content on their platforms. The…

Supreme Court sends Texas and Florida social media regulation laws back to lower courts

The EC has found that Meta’s “pay or consent” offer to Facebook and Instagram users in Europe does not comply with the bloc’s DMA.

Meta’s ‘pay or consent’ model fails EU competition rules, Commission finds

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. This week, Apple finally added…

Apple finally supports RCS in iOS 18 update