Tech

A video posted by Donald Trump’s 2020 election campaign — decrying civil unrest in the wake of the killing of George Floyd — was removed Thursday by Twitter, citing a copyright-infringement claim. A June 3 tweet by the @TeamTrump account with the video now displays the message: “This media has been disabled in response to

Facebook will begin labeling ads, pages and posts from media outlets “wholly or partially” under the editorial control of their government, the company said Thursday as it faces pressure to take measures to prevent foreign influence in the upcoming U.S. elections. The news outlets that will be labeled include China’s official Xinhua news agency and

Jake Paul, a high-profile YouTube creator and digital influencer, was charged by police in Scottsdale, Ariz., with criminal trespassing and unlawful assembly after he was identified among a crowd of looters at a local mall Sunday. “In our continued investigation it was confirmed that Jake Paul was in attendance & remained inside after an unlawful

Nick Offerman of “Parks and Recreation” fame is lending his voice to CuriosityStream’s newest original — taking viewers through every doorway and around each corner of human habitats. Three-part docuseries “The History of Home,” narrated by Offerman, premieres June 18 exclusively on the CuriosityStream subscription streaming service. The company, dedicated to nonfiction programming, is headed

On March 12, Biqtch Puddin was backstage at Downtown L.A.’s Precinct club with fellow drag queens Willam and Alaska Thunderfuck, half-joking that their upcoming deranged country singer act might be their last in front of a crowd for a while. The next day, she says, “I got my ass to the grocery store and grabbed

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, released an open letter addressing racism in America and the death of George Floyd — saying the company “must do more” to address inequality. Cook, in the letter posted Thursday, noted that Apple has previously announced donations to anti-racist organizations, including the Equal Justice Initiative, which is dedicated to ending mass

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, donated $3 million to Know Your Rights Camp, an organization established by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick dedicated to empowering people of color. Dorsey said he gave “$3mm to Colin @Kaepernick7’s @yourrightscamp to advance the liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization to

Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter joined San Dimas High School’s virtual graduation ceremony on Tuesday to deliver a totally bodacious message to the class of 2020. Reeves and Winter starred in the 1989 film “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” which takes place in San Dimas, Calif., with Bill and Ted attending the high school. The

Quibi is making a belt-tightening move, two months after Jeffrey Katzenberg’s ambitious mobile-video subscription startup launched — to disappointing initial numbers. However, the company, which has banked about $1.75 billion in funding, denied reports that Quibi is considering layoffs. “We are not laying off staff as a part of cost-saving measures,” Katzenberg and Meg Whitman,

The Consumer Technology Association said next year’s CES, the world’s biggest technology trade show, will be held in person in early 2021 in Las Vegas. The CTA hasn’t set dates for CES 2021 yet, saying it will announce those later this summer. The convention is a go for now, after numerous other events in 2020

Google illegally tracked millions of people in the U.S. using its Chrome browsers despite their enabling the software’s “Incognito mode” for private browsing, a new lawsuit charges. The lawsuit, filed June 2, alleges Google engaged in “unlawful and intentional interception and collection of individuals’ confidential communications without their consent, even when those individuals expressly follow

In an anti-racist move that demonstrates their formidable social-media power, K-Pop fans took over the hashtag #whitelivesmatter, drowning out white-supremacist messages with nonsensical or anti-racist posts. The move was met with wide approval online early Wednesday morning. “#WhiteLivesMatter LMAO I WAS READY TO INSULT THE SH– OUT OF EVERYONE,” one poster wrote. “THEN I SAW

Reed Hastings, chairman and CEO of Netflix, donated $1 million to a research organization dedicated to fighting racial bias in American law enforcement using data science. The exec’s donation to the Center for Policing Equity was announced Tuesday evening, amid continuing nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man who died while

By the time the Washington Redskins posted a black square to stand against racism — yes, the Washington Redskins — #BlackoutTuesday was well and truly done for. Hours before, a barrage of black squares hit Instagram with solemn captions vowing to stay silent on social media for one whole day. The original idea behind the social

President Donald Trump’s executive order aiming to strip social-media companies’ protection from legal liability for speech on their platforms is unconstitutional, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by a nonprofit technology policy group. The D.C.-based Center for Democracy & Technology filed a federal lawsuit naming Trump as a defendant “in his official capacity as President

Twitter has a new chairman: Patrick Pichette, who most recently was Google’s chief financial officer. Omid Kordestani — another ex-Google exec — stepped down as Twitter’s executive chairman, effective June 1, and will remain on the board as a non-employee director. Pichette has served as the company’s lead independent director since Dec. 31, 2018. Pichette’s

Facebook is making it easier for users to wipe out embarrassing or otherwise personally painful posts. The social-media giant announced Manage Activity, a new feature to make it easier for users to delete or hide many posts at once. “Whether you’re entering the job market after college or moving on from an old relationship, we

TikTok said a “technical glitch” last week made it temporarily appear as if videos using #BlackLivesMatter and #GeorgeFloyd hashtags had zero views — and the short-form video company vowed to do better in representing and supporting black creators. Many TikTok users assumed the issue was an intentional act of censorship by the company, which is

Grindr said it will remove the racial and ethnic filter from its popular gay dating and social-networking app, citing user feedback and a commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement. “We will not be silent, and we will not be inactive,” the company said in posts on social media Monday. “We will continue to fight

When Spotify announced over the weekend that it will support Blackout Tuesday (June 2), some people assumed that that the entire service will go dark: It won’t. The streaming giant posted on its blog that it “Stands with the Black Community in the Fight Against Racism and Injustice,” and is giving a number of staffers

Since 2009, LL Cool  — the Long Island, New York-born rapper and one of hip-hop’s beloved names since the early days of Def Jam – has been better known to CBS television network audiences as the stoic law enforcer on “NCIS” and “NCIS: Los Angeles.” When he’s not throwing bad guys out of planes or

Warren Schlichting, president of Dish Network’s Sling TV over-the-top division who also oversaw ad sales and programming deals, is no longer with the company. His exit comes after Dish reported a net loss of 375,000 Sling TV customers over the last two quarters. Schlichting, a nearly nine-year Dish veteran, had been named head of the

A number of Facebook employees, protesting the social giant’s failure to take action against Donald Trump’s posts suggesting that the U.S. government would fire at rioting crowds, walked off the job Monday — in virtual fashion, given that most staffers are still working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several hundred of the company’s employees staged

Christo, the Bulgaria-born artist best known for large-scale installations and wrapping in fabric famous landmarks such as the Pont Neuf, has died. He was 84. Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, known as Christo, died of natural causes on May 31 at his home in New York, according to a statement made on the artist’s official Twitter and

Google, Twitter and Instagram are free, which means there is no excuse to stay silent, uneducated, and uninformed in 2020. Diversifying your feed, and point of view, is as easy as tapping a button. To highlight profiles that are doing good work, Variety consulted with media and industry experts Akilah Hughes, Ashley Reese, Peyton Dix,

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is set to make history today as the first private spacecraft to launch astronauts into Earth’s orbit. If today’s launch is successful, it will also mark the first time that NASA has sent humans into space since the final flight of NASA’s Space Shuttle in 2011. Although the mission was first attempted

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he “struggled” with how to respond to President Donald Trump’s posts — on both Facebook and Instagram — suggesting the government would fire upon rioting crowds. Ultimately, while Trump’s posts included a “troubling historical reference” and Zuckerberg said he “disagree[s] strongly with how the President spoke about this,” Facebook decided

We at Variety Music don’t usually write about playlists, but it’s hard not to make an exception for Britney Spears’ “I Miss Y2K” collection at Apple Music. “I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since a lot of these songs came out,” Spears told Apple Music. “For me these songs remind me of the time period

YouTube and Tribeca Enterprises have kicked off We Are One: A Global Film Festival — a 10-day collaboration among 21 film fests from around the world, encompassing a lineup of more than 100 films and other programming, all streaming for free. Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s chief business officer, is thrilled that the video giant is the

While Twitter put Donald Trump in a penalty box for a tweet advocating violence against crowds Minneapolis protesters, Facebook and Instagram for now have left up the same message from the president on their services without any similar warning. Trump, responding to protests in Minneapolis over the death of George Floyd, a black man killed