Amazon did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ initial request for comment. Later, the company said there was no change in its policy after all. “This morning’s email to some of our employees was sent in error,” Amazon said. “There is no change to our policies right now with regard to TikTok.” A spokesperson for TikTok…
After the Indian government banned 59 apps owned by Chinese firms last week, the videoconferencing app Zoom is fighting xenophobic rumors on social media that it is Chinese-owned. It’s not — the company is American and is scrambling to let Indians know. In a blog post on Tuesday, Velchamy Sankarlingam, Zoom’s president of product and…
Facebook took down the ad more than six hours after being alerted to it by BuzzFeed News. “The ads shouldn’t have run on Facebook and they’ve been removed,” said Rob Leathern, director of product management at Facebook. “We’ve also permanently banned this Page from using our advertising system.” The ad comes at a particularly fraught…
Employees at hundreds of companies also raised money for the Black Lives Matter Foundation. Some 200 companies, including Apple, Google, and Nordstrom, raised $4 million for the Black Lives Matter Foundation between May 31 and June 5 using Benevity, a popular corporate fundraising platform. Benevity founder Bryan de Lottinville told BuzzFeed News that over the…
Following rising domestic pressure to boycott Chinese-made goods, the Indian government on Monday ordered 59 Chinese apps to be blocked, including TikTok, WeChat, Shareit, and Clash of Kings. The Indian government framed the move as protecting personal information from what it called “malicious apps,” that “harm India’s sovereignty as well as the privacy of our…
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A Florida woman and 15 of her friends have reportedly tested positive with the coronavirus after a night out at a bar in Jacksonville Beach. “Welp, Florida opened back up & my ass should’ve stayed tf home this past weekend cause I just tested positive for the damn COVID,” she wrote on Facebook last week….
Earlier this month, the IFAT asked India’s largest services for food delivery and ride-hailing, including Zomato, Swiggy, Ola, and Dunzo, to allow gig workers to do their jobs without having the contact tracing app on their phones, a rule that the platforms imposed shortly after the national government launched Aarogya Setu in early April. “Nobody…
Facebook is suing two developers and a Spanish company it alleges sold software that delivered fake likes and comments on Instagram, and unlawfully scraped user data from Facebook. Facebook filed separate lawsuits in Spain and California today against Mohammad Zaghar, a Moroccan developer, and Marcos Gómez Platón, a Spanish developer, and his company MGP25 Cyberint…
The Trump administration plans to soon announce a policy that will deny work permits for asylum-seekers who cross into the US without authorization, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. The policy, which was first reported by BuzzFeed News in August, will make asylum-seekers who do not cross into the country at a…
