A team of some of the world's leading social media researchers has published four studies looking at the relationship between the algorithms used by Facebook and Instagram and America's widening political divide

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 15, 2023--

Adverts promoting crypto scams are appearing on X, formerly Twitter, amid an exodus of major brands from the platform. Many of the scam ads use the likeness of Elon Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion last year, to promote fake cryptocurrency giveaways. The scam ads work by promoting a fake pre-sale of “X Token”, which fraudulently offers early investors large profits if they buy the cryptocurrency before it officially launches on exchanges. Some of the adverts seen by The Independent have even appeared on the profile page of Elon Musk, who has 165 million followers on X – more than any other user. The scammers have paid for the sponsored posts, providing much-needed revenue for X as the company struggles with retaining traditional advertisers. Over 100 brands and other advertisers have pulled their ads from X in recent weeks, according to internal documents seen by The New York Times, which could lead to losses of around $75 million in earnings this year. The exodus reportedly began after Mr Musk engaged with a controversial tweet about an antisemitic conspiracy theory. The X owner responded to claims that he is antisemitic by saying “nothing could be further from the truth”. Companies to have withdrawn ads include Airbnb, Apple, Coca-Cola, Disney, IBM, Netflix and Uber. X disputed the figure reported, claiming it “represented an internal exercise to evaluate total risk” and that the true figure was closer to $11 million. The emergence of scam crypto ads has already resulted in significant financial losses for X users, according to the MalwareTips forum, with some victims reporting they lost their entire crypto savings. “The anonymity of cryptocurrency enables the scammers to quickly withdraw funds without being tracked down,” a post to MalwareTips notes. A twitter-hackers-cryptocurrency-a8620436.html">2018 investigation by The Independent found that crypto scams shared on Twitter had tricked people into sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to cyber criminals posing as Mr Musk. Hackers were able to take over Twitter accounts belonging to verified brands like Matalan and Pantheon Books, before switching the name and profile picture in order to impersonate the tech entrepreneur. They then posted messages offering fake giveaways that required people to send cryptocurrency in order to verify their bitcoin address. Analysis of the addresses found that more than 400 people sent bitcoin to one address, with transactions totalling 28.2 bitcoins ($1.1m at current exchange rates). Mr Musk cited the cryptocurrency scam epidemic as one of the motivating reasons for his purchase of Twitter, pledging to fix the issue upon his takeover. “If our Twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying,” he tweeted in April 2022. In June 2022, Mr Musk also criticised YouTube for fake cryptocurrency promotions that featured on the platform. “YouTube seems to be nonstop scam ads,” he tweeted. Efforts to defeat the bot endemic have included subscriptions and a $1 charge to new users, which was introduced in New Zealand and the Philippines last month. The “Not a Bot” subscription method is designed to “reduce spam, manipulation or our platform and bot activity,” the company said at the time. It is not clear how this approach will prevent accounts from promoting crypto scams, with all of the ads seen in October and November coming from verified X accounts. X did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent about the issue of crypto scam ads. Read More Elon Musk mocked for trying to resurrect QAnon Pizzagate conspiracy Elon Musk set to meet Netanyahu and hostage families in Israel Elon Musk weighs in on Dublin riots claiming country’s PM ‘hates the Irish people’ X introduces limits to prevent non-paying users from replying to posts

Valorant Episode 7 Act 2 starts on Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023 and features the return of Breeze, Agent changes, and new map, Sunset.

HANOI, Vietnam--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 19, 2023--

Amazon and Apple have been fined a total of $218 million after Spanish regulators say they colluded to box out competitors by favoring sales of Apple products directly from the online retail giant

TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 17, 2023--

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 12, 2023--

The iPhone 15 could bring major changes to the battery life and charging speed of Apple’s handsets, according to new reports. The new phones could be charged at up to 35W speeds, according to a report from 9to5mac. That would allow the device to charge far more rapidly than its predecessors: the iPhone 14 Pro is limited to 27W, while the normal iPhone 14 is capped at 20W. Multiple rumours have suggested that Apple will be swapping the charging port in the bottom of the phone from the existing Lightning cable to USB-C, at least in some models. That could allow for the additional charging speeds. But that might also mean that the Pro and non-Pro versions of the upcoming device could charge at different speeds. Some rumours have suggested that all the new Apple devices will have the new port, but that some of its capabilities will be restricted to the more expensive Pro models, since they will have Thunderbolt built in. The charging might also require certified cables, rather than any USB-C wire. While the ports on the end of all USB-C cables are the same, the technology inside both the plugs and the wires themselves can be vastly different. The new charging rumours come after a run of reports suggesting that the iPhone 15 could come with increased battery capacity, too. Rumours have suggested that the devices could come with up to 18 per cent larger batteries. Alongside those changes, Apple is said to be preparing to bring a new hardware button to the side of the iPhone, improved cameras, and better chips – but, again, only for those premium, Pro models. Apple is widely expected to reveal the new phones in the second week of September, with them going on sale a week and a half later. As usual, it will probably do so from a livestreamed event hosted at its California campus. Around the same time, Apple will also make its upcoming iOS 17 update available, which comes with a wide array of new updates and a potentially controversial new change to the button used to put down the phone. Apple’s iPhone batteries have been the subject of a number of critical stories in recent weeks. Some have suggested that the most recent iPhone 14 Pro models are losing their battery capacity more quickly than predecessors, and the company is sending out payments to customers affected by Apple’s “batterygate” controversy. Read More iPhone owners to receive payouts from Apple iPhone 15: Global smartphone demand collapses as Apple aims to take top spot Something unexpected is happening to people’s iPhone 14s, owners claim

WhatsApp will finally let people create group chats without having to come up with a clever name for them – or any name at all. Users will instead be able to just make a group and then have that group name itself after the people inside of it. WhatsApp suggested that the tool will be useful when “you need to create a group in a hurry, or you don’t have a group topic in mind”. It will be available for group chats with up to six people in them. The group names will be changed dynamically, depending on who is in the group. The group name will display differently for each user in it, depending on how they have people saved in their phone. If someone is added to a group with people who don’t have that person saved, then their phone number will show instead. Mark Zuckerberg announced the feature on Facebook. “Making it simpler to start WhatsApp groups by naming them based on who’s in the chat when you don’t feel like coming up with another name,” he wrote, sharing a picture of how the new groups will look. The feature is rolling out “globally over the next few days”, Meta said. It is one of a number of small tweaks that have been added to WhatsApp in recent weeks. Most recently, it fixed a major frustration that meant that pictures would be shrunk when they were sent within a group. The company is also quietly working on other features, including the addition of generative AI to create new stickers just by describing them. Read More WhatsApp update finally stops it ruining your photos WhatsApp rolls out AI tool for creating custom art Jury finds teenager responsible for computer hacking spree

TROY, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 17, 2023--

WARSAW, Poland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 21, 2023--