Twitter

Twitter staff give $1m to fight Trump order

The ACLU has pledged to fight President Donald Trump's temporary ban on refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The civil rights group has reportedly raised more than $24m in online donations in the past few days.

Taxi hailing company Lyft previously said that it would donate $1m to the ACLU over the next four years.

Why a Trump voter came to her rescue

Laila Alawa is a 25-year-old Muslim woman living in D.C. Troy Pflum is a 49-year-old Lutheran man living in Wisconsin.

She's a moderate who voted for Hillary. He's a Republican who voted for Trump.

But Pflum, a truck driver and jewelry salesman, has become an important Twitter ally to Alawa.

Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

The largest network ties together more than 350,000 accounts and further work suggests others may be even bigger.

UK researchers accidentally uncovered the lurking networks while probing Twitter to see how people use it.

Some of the accounts have been used to fake follower numbers, send spam and boost interest in trending topics.

 

Hidden purpose

Glitch forces Twitter users to follow Trump

CEO Jack Dorsey apologized Saturday for inadvertently signing up about 560,000 users to follow accounts controlled by the Trump administration, including the @POTUS Twitter handle after it switched over to President Trump.

Dorsey said the issue has been corrected.

He explained in a series of tweets that users who followed President Obama's new handle -- @POTUS44 -- after noon on Friday were automatically set to follow the Trump-run @POTUS handle.

Trump's @POTUS Twitter account used Obama crowd image

Mr Trump inherited the official presidential account as he was sworn in as America's 45th president.

The original image showed flag-waving crowds in front of the US Capitol.

But it was changed about an hour later, amid claims from Mr Trump's opponents that crowds at his inauguration were not as large as in 2013.

Trump supporters on social media branded claims Mr Trump was trying to make his inauguration appear better-attended "pathetic" and a "non-story".

Trump's Twitter milestone: 20 million followers

Trump has been climbing the Twitter charts recently, thanks in part to his frequent use of the social networking site. Sometime on Monday he surpassed the 20 million mark.

According to the measuring tool TwitterCounter, Trump is the 68th-most-followed user on the site, just behind Canadian singer Avril Lavigne and right ahead of Indian actor Aamir Khan.

Trump's aides had been keeping a close eye on the follower number, waiting for the account to reach 20 million.

Facebook, Google, Twitter accused of enabling ISIS

The suit claims that the three companies allowed ISIS access to its social networks for spreading terrorist propaganda, raising money and luring recruits. (The gunman who killed 49 people at the Orlando nightclub in June had repeatedly referenced ISIS.)

Twitter reinstates 'alt-right' leader

The social network suspended Richard Spencer on 15 November.

Since then, he was filmed shouting: "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory," at a meeting, prompting some audience members to raise their arms in Nazi-style salutes.

A leading anti-racism campaigner has criticised Twitter's decision.

Extremist images 'fingerprinted' by tech firms

The four tech firms plan to create a database that contains "digital fingerprints" of the content.

The database will be used to screen uploads in order to spot violent or extremist material before it is shared.

Eventually, the database will be made available to other firms keen to police this content.

"There is no place for content that promotes terrorism on our hosted consumer services," said a spokesman for Twitter in a statement.

He said the initiative was aimed at the "most extreme and egregious" images and videos.

MPs debate porn block for Twitter

The Digital Economy Bill will lead to sites that do not ask for age verification being blocked.

It received an unopposed third reading from MPs on Monday evening, meaning it is set to become law.

But John Whittingdale, the Tory MP who first tabled the bill in July, is not convinced it will solve the problem.

"One of the main ways in which young people are now exposed to pornography is through social media such as Twitter, and I do not really see that the bill will do anything to stop that happening," Mr Whittingdale said.