Signal outage keeps messages from sending
If you’re having trouble sending messages in the secure messaging app Signal, it may be due to technical difficulties the company says are affecting the app on Friday. Signal allows for secure and encrypted video, voice, and text communication, but users were greeted this morning with messages that failed to send. Signal confirmed the issue on its official Twitter account with the promise that it would “restore service as quickly as possible.” Signal is experiencing technical difficulties. We are working hard to restore service as quickly as possible. — Signal (@signalapp) January 15, 2021 In the last week, Signal reported a surge of new users to its app following a recommendation from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and a new WhatsApp privacy policy that may have driven users away from the Facebook-o...
Rights group urges lifting Ugandan social media ban
Amnesty International is calling for Ugandan officials to lift bans on social media imposed ahead of Thursday’s election. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni announced on Tuesday that the government had shut down social media. On Jan. 9, Facebook deleted dozens of pro-Ugandan government accounts, saying they were “fake.” Museveni characterized Facebook’s action as arrogant. “It is alarming that the Ugandan authorities have suspended social media networks including Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp and restricted people’s right to freedom of expression and access to information,” said Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes, in a press release. Amnesty International said the move was intended to silence journalists, election o...
Donald Trump’s iPhone Is A Brick After Broad Social Media Ban, Right-Wing Cesspool Parler Shut Down
Source: NurPhoto / Getty Donald Trump has been effectively silenced. After years of gaslighting and racism, the final straw was Donald Trump inciting a coup on the U.S. Capitol for social media companies to say enough is enough. Following the failed act of insurrection, Twitter first suspended Trump’s Twitter account for 12 hours and removed Tweets, including a video in which he continued to push the lie that the election was stolen from him. Mark Zuckerberg took things even further, announcing that Facebook and Instagram banned the liar-in-chief indefinitely. Subsequently, following an open letter from our forever First Lady Michelle Obama calling for all social media companies to take action and give Trump the boot from their services, Jack and his company did it and permanently banned T...
Sacha Baron Cohen Calls Trump’s Twitter Ban “The Most Important Moment in the History of Social Media”
It should’ve happened years ago, but Donald Trump was finally permanently suspended from his Twitter account on Friday. After using the platform to incite an attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, the MAGA leader was also temporarily blocked from accessing Facebook and Instagram until at least the end of his presidency, and Borat actor Sacha Baron Cohen couldn’t be more excited. “This is the most important moment in the history of social media,” he tweeted on Friday evening. “The world’s largest platforms have banned the world’s biggest purveyor of lies, conspiracies and hate. To every Facebook and Twitter employee, user and advocate who fought for this—the entire world thanks you!” Cohen’s investment in the censorship of Trump didn’t start yesterday. The 49-year-old comedian has...
Reddit bans Donald Trump forum for inciting violence
Reddit has banned r/donaldtrump for encouraging and glorifying violence after Wednesday’s mob attack on the US Capitol. Axios reporter Sara Fischer first reported the news, noting that the unofficial pro-Trump forum had been given multiple warnings. A Reddit splash page says the subreddit was “banned due to a violation of Reddit’s rules against inciting violence.” “Reddit’s site-wide policies prohibit content that promotes hate, or encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence against groups of people or individuals. In accordance with this, we have been proactively reaching out to moderators to remind them of our policies and to offer support or resources as needed,” a Reddit spokesperson tells The Verge. “We have also taken action to ban the community r/donaldtrump given repeated...
Facebook Bans US President Trump ‘Indefinitely’
Image sourced from Al Jazeera Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerburg has revealed that US President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will be banned “indefinitely”. In a post, Zuckerburg says “we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.” This comes after Facebook made the decision to stop Trump from posting for 24 hours, following a pro-Trump attack on the US Capitol. “The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden,” reveals Zuckerburg. /* custom css */ .tdi...
Facebook Bans Trump Through the End of His Presidency
Congress officially certified Joe Biden as the next US President yesterday, which means Donald Trump’s reign is about to come to an end — and social media sites are finally ready to wave goodbye. After temporarily banning Trump’s account because he encouraged his supporters to take the Capitol under siege, Facebook is now extending its block through the end of his presidency on January 20th. Starting immediately, Trump’s access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts will be blocked for the two weeks that remain before his term in the office ends. As such, he will not be allowed to post or share any new content on either of the platforms. This is a continuation of the temporary block that Facebook put in place on January 6th after Trump posted messages encouraging his supporters to storm th...
After Twitter Suspended His Account, Facebook Is Indefinitely Banning Donald Trump From Posting
Source: SOPA Images / Getty After all of the racist and outright crazy sh*t that he has said on Twitter that many have warned would eventually lead to yesterday’s bootleg coup, social media companies have said enough. With only 14 days remaining in his nightmare term, Donald Trump, who has been pushing the norms to the limit, has finally done something that both Democrats and a sizeable number of Republicans can agree was absolutely crazy. After urging a mob of his loyal pro-Trump terrorists to storm the U.S. Capitol Building putting the lives of Congress members, Capitol Police, and his own Vice President in danger, Twitter took the unprecedented act to suspend the inciter-in-chief’s account after he continued to spew false information breaking Twitters Rules. In violation of those rules,...
YouTube removes Donald Trump video addressing US Capitol attack
YouTube has removed a video from US President Donald Trump addressing a mob attack on the Capitol today because the president repeats false information about the outcome of the 2020 election. The company will allow Trump’s message to appear in other creators’ videos if there is proper educational or news context; basically, if people are talking about Trump’s message as part of a greater point, YouTube will allow it to remain up. The removal comes after YouTube instituted a new policy update in December 2020 that forbids any type of content that alleges widespread voter fraud impacted the results of the 2020 presidential election. In Trump’s new video, which was also posted to Twitter and Facebook, he continued to spread misinformation about the 2020 election, calling the results fraudulen...
Facebook removes Donald Trump video over US Capitol attack
As rioters stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday, Facebook removed a video from President Donald Trump responding to the violence. The decision came around an hour after the video was posted on the platform. “This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump’s video,” Guy Rosen, Facebook vice president of integrity, said in a tweet Wednesday. “We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.” This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump’s video. We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence. — Guy Rosen (@guyro) January...
ABC: California nurse tests positive over a week after receiving Pfizer coronavirus vaccine
A 45-year-old nurse in California tested positive for COVID-19 more than a week after receiving Pfizer Inc’s coronavirus vaccine, an ABC News affiliate reported on Tuesday. Matthew W., a nurse at two different local hospitals, said in a Facebook post on December 18 that he had received the Pfizer vaccine, telling the ABC News affiliate that his arm was sore for a day but that he had suffered no other side-effects. Six days later on Christmas Eve, he became sick after working a shift in the COVID-19 unit, the report added. He got the chills and later came down with muscle aches and fatigue. He went to a drive-up hospital testing site and tested positive for COVID-19 the day after Christmas, the report said. Christian Ramers, an infectious disease specialist with Family Health Centers of San...
Sarah Megan Thomas Delivers Commentary Track for David Fincher’s The Social Network
Listen via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Stitcher | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Radio Public | RSS Their obsession. Their words. Someone else’s movie. Hosted by Paul Davidson, The Side Track interviews filmmakers, producers, writers, actors, and film fanatics, then hands them the mic to present their own personal feature-length audio commentaries of the movies that moved them and made them who they are today. This week, writer, producer, and actress Sarah Megan Thomas (Equity, A Call To Spy) joins the show to discuss her Philly origins, her aspirations to become the female M. Night, how a cold call to Sundance put her in a solid position for a sweet distribution deal, and the years of research that went into her...
