Minneapolis will pay influencers to post during the George Floyd murder trials

Minneapolis, Minn. approved a unique program on Friday. The city will pay social media influencers to spread “approved messages” during the trials of the police officers charged with killing George Floyd. The Minneapolis City Council passed the program, “contracts with community organizations for public safety and engagement services,” with the intent of curbing misinformation around…

An ode to pandemic pen pals

Until about a year ago, I had never bought stamps. I knew how to send mail, thanks to an elementary school lesson tucked away in the recesses of my memory, but I could probably count the number of times I had actually written a letter on one hand. Since last year, writing letters has become…

Twitter experiments with voice DMs

If you’ve ever dreamed of shouting at people using Twitter DMs, get ready for the best news of your life. Twitter has begun rolling out voice DMs in India, Brazil, and Japan, per AndroidCentral. India was the latest country to get voice DMs, while Brazil got them last year. People with access to this feature…

Facebook says it’ll ban anti-vax content, again

If at first you don’t succeed, keep telling people that you’re trying again. Facebook announced Monday that, over a year into a pandemic that has killed more than 460,000 people in the U.S. alone, it intends to do more about the pervasive anti-vaccine content sloshing across its platform. Specifically, the social media giant said it…

Parler offered Trump an ownership stake to post there, report claims

Parler wanted Donald Trump, and badly.  The team behind the social media platform known for its far-right friendly approach to content moderation and, more recently, hosting issues, reportedly offered Trump a 40 percent ownership stake in the company. In exchange, the now-former president would’ve needed to primarily post to that site — giving other social…