Tech

On Friday, Twitter banned Donald Trump from his favorite platform, citing the 45th president’s potential to whip up more violence after the week’s deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol. The ban followed Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to bar Trump indefinitely from Facebook, limiting the president’s ability to communicate directly to tens of millions of his most

Parler, the far-right social network favored by some Trump supporters, is set to go dark Sunday after Amazon’s AWS division said it is pulling the plug on the service’s hosting account. Amazon informed Parler, which boasts of taking a hands-off policy to content moderation, of the imminent loss of its web hosting services on Saturday.

Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip have been given their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, royal officials told AP. The vaccinations were administered on Saturday at Windsor Castle, the location in which both royals have been quarantining since the pandemic began to spread through the U.K. They are now part of the

Parler, the social-media app popular among Trump loyalists and right-wingers, was removed from the Google Play Store late Friday — with the internet giant alleging Parler failed to remove “egregious content like posts that incite violence.” Also Friday, Apple warned Parler, which styles itself as a “free speech” alternative to Twitter or Facebook, that the

Celebrities took to Twitter to celebrate President Donald Trump’s ban from the social media platform. Trump, who had 88.8 million followers at last count on Twitter, was “deplatformed” by the company, following years of criticism calling on the social media service to block his account for the spread of misinformation. Prior to closing his account

UPDATED: Donald Trump has been kicked off Twitter for good, the social network said Friday. “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of

Happy birthday, Ziggy Stardust: On what would have been David Bowie’s 74th birthday, TikTok has added the iconic British artist’s full music catalog to the app. In addition, an account established in Bowie’s memory has launched on TikTok (at @davidbowie) in partnership with Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and the David Bowie estate. The

Even with a streaming market that’s actually been made more robust by the pandemic, SiriusXM plans to write down the value of its Pandora streaming service by around $1 billion, down 40% from the $3.5 billion price it paid for the company at the close of the acquisition in February of 2019, as noted by

Reddit on Friday said it banned r/donaldtrump — one of the biggest pro-Trump subreddits on the platform — after “repeated” violations of the site’s policy against inciting violence. The move comes after hundreds of pro-Trump rioters, who were encouraged and praised by President Trump, overwhelmed police in Washington, D.C., to illegally occupy the U.S. Capitol

Roku snapped up the rights to the majority of Quibi’s multimillion-dollar portfolio original programming — more than 75 shows in all — and will make them available free to stream in 2021 on the Roku Channel. Following Quibi’s decision last October to shut down after failing to attract a sustainable base of subscribers, Roku acquired

Brad Rukstales, the chief executive of a Chicago-area company that provides data-marketing solutions, said he was arrested Wednesday after he entered the U.S. Capitol alongside a mob of pro-Trump rioters seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election. His company, Cogensia, said in a statement that Rukstales has been placed on leave while it considers next

Twitch has joined the widening movement to deplatform Donald Trump from internet services, following the rioting and violence by a pro-Trump horde Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Trump launched an account on Twitch, the game-centered live-streaming platform owned by Amazon, in the fall of 2019 as part of expanding his reelection campaign messaging. In a statement

With most people staying home last year, content creation on social media app TikTok continued to see a boom in users and videos. The social site shared 2020’s top 100 lists for creators, hashtag trends and viral videos to surface on the app over the year. Many of the year’s top creators gained millions of

Online gaming platform Roblox announced Wednesday that it has raised $520 million in new Series H funding with investors that include Warner Music Group and the Investment Group of Santa Barbara. The announcement was made in advance of the company’s plan to float on the stock exchange in a direct listing, similar to the one

The focus of the streaming wars has been on major players like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and Disney Plus, and HBO Max — all fighting to build massive subscriber bases. Now comes Struum, an L.A.-based startup founded by ex-Disney, Discovery and Disney ABC TV execs who believe they can spin smaller, niche-oriented subscription-streaming services into a

Facebook extended its block on Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts “indefinitely,” with the ban lasting at least until Trump leaves office, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday. The move comes after Facebook yesterday initially said it would freeze Trump’s access to its services for a 24-hour period, following the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol

After a year in which COVID-19 upended Hollywood, 2021 looms with big question marks for home entertainment executives. The pandemic accelerated the growth of streaming and made premium video-on-demand (PVOD) an economic and logistical necessity due to the closure of movie theaters. And despite the dearth of fresh theatrical product, the transactional end of the

UPDATED: Twitter on Wednesday said President Trump’s account would remain locked for 12 hours, following the removal of three tweets that represented “repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy.” Facebook subsequently said it was freezing Trump’s page on the social network for 24 hours. “We’ve assessed two policy violations against President Trump’s Page

UPDATED: Facebook, in an unusual action, removed President Trump’s video post to D.C. rioters telling them to “go home” — while he also fanned the conspiracy flames that the U.S. election was fraudulent. A Facebook executive said the company deleted Trump’s video over the risk that it would increase the risk of violence. YouTube also

Family Video is shutting down all of its 248 video-rental locations across the U.S., with the 42-year-old chain citing the COVID pandemic as the final blow to a business already decimated by the rise of streaming. The company, which at its peak operated some 800 locations, on Tuesday announced the decision to shut down. The

Roku says it had a booming fourth quarter: The streaming platform company announced that it ended 2020 with an estimated 51.2 million active accounts — up 39% for the year, a gain of about 14.3 million accounts. According to Roku’s preliminary estimated data, its users watched a cumulative 17 billion streaming hours in Q4 of

Celebrity-driven online learning platform MasterClass hired Vanna Krantz, most recently chief financial officer of Disney Plus and ESPN Plus, as CFO. At Disney, Krantz built and led the finance organization supporting the launch of Disney Plus, which rocketed to over 86 million subscribers in a little over a year, and sports streamer ESPN Plus. Prior

As it ramps up original productions, Middle Eastern broadcaster MBC is launching lavish 1980s-set Arabic crime drama ‘Rashash,’ created by Britain’s Tony Jordan (“EastEnders”) and touted as its most ambitious Saudi series to date. Directed by another Brit, Collin Teague, whose credits include “Doctor Who,” “Rashash” is based on the true story of a Saudi Arabian

Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer, saw his overall pay package increase by 28% for the tech giant’s 2020 fiscal year, according to a regulatory filing. Cook’s base salary remained at $3 million for Apple’s 2020 fiscal year — the same as it was in 2019 and 2018 — but his non-equity incentive plan compensation

Football legend Brett Favre, NBA star Robert Horry and conservative political commentator Eric Bolling are teaming up with LiveXLive’s PodcastOne. Favre and Bolling will launch a podcast this month, with a title to be unveiled in days to come. The two initially met in a bid to raise awareness of the dangers of opioid addiction.

Apple announced that Monica Lozano, president and CEO of College Futures Foundation and former editor and publisher of newspaper La Opinión, was elected to the tech giant’s board of directors. Prior to joining College Futures Foundation, Lozano spent 30 years as editor and publisher of La Opinión, the U.S.’s largest Spanish-language newspaper. She went on

Another top exec from Quibi, which flamed out in 2020 just six months after launching, has found a new gig: Rob Post, formerly Quibi’s chief technology officer, has joined Cameo — which sells personalized video messages from celebrities — as its new CTO. Post had joined Quibi, the ill-fated mobile streaming subscription service led by

YouTube pulled down the channel of U.K. radio station TalkRadio, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, for unspecified violations of its rules. “This account has been terminated for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines,” a notice reads on the page where TalkRadio’s channel had been. Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for more info.

Paris Hilton’s story is getting the podcast treatment, with Wondery’s original podcast “Even the Rich” launching its newest season focused on the heiress, entrepreneur and OG influencer. Over four episodes, co-hosts Brooke Siffrinn and Aricia Skidmore-Williams take a deep dive into Hilton’s empire and “how this hotel heiress turned a provocative moment into super-stardom and

Over the weekend, indie-rock fans of a certain age were surprised to learn that “Bean Dad” — a man who posted a long Twitter thread about refusing to teach his hungry, crying daughter how to operate a can opener — was John Roderick, frontman of the veteran Seattle band the Long Winters and currently a