Can we consider our conversations sponsored? It’s easy to argue that hot topics have always been spurred in one way or another by advertisers who attempt to bend public groupthink to their advantage, but in the past it’s been done by way of billboards, print advertisements or commercials. Now, a nice slice of our online banter has …
Acai Berry Twitter Spam Hijacks Thousands Of Feeds
In a morning swimming in cyber attacks, Twitter is now fending off one of its own. A new acai berry Twitter scheme has compromised thousands of accounts, spamming followers with dangerous links.
Mashable reported that the spam was spreading at a pace of 10,000 tweets per minute early this morning, with tweets linking to an …
Study Shows Only 8 Percent of People Online Use Twitter
Strangely enough, although it seems that everyone and their mother has a Twitter account, a recent study by PEW Internet and Life Project discovered that only eight percent of people online admitted having a Twitter account, with two percent saying they use it every day. Twenty-four percent of people surveyed did say they used some sort …
Twitter On Possible #WikiLeaks Block: It Isn’t What You Think
Twitter has responded to accusations of the possible censoring of WikiLeaks hashtags that have hit the blogs this week.
(More on Techland: Who Are The WikiLeaks Hackivists?)
In the wake of big web blocks from Amazon and Paypal, Twitter says it won’t block WikiLeaks-related conversations from trending. In a blog post, Twitter …
God of War’s Kratos in PS3 Version of Upcoming “Mortal Kombat”
The angry Spartan hero of the Playstation’s action series will be facing off against the ninjas and mystical warriors in next year’s Mortal Kombat reboot. According to the latest issue of Official Playstation Magazine, Kratos will be exclusively playable in the Playstation 3 version of Mortal Kombat. David Jaffe–creator of the God of …
Hackers Target MasterCard for Blocking WikiLeaks Payments
A group of hackers simply going by the name “Anonymous” is targeting companies that have blocked whistleblowing site WikiLeaks from using their services.
The latest target is MasterCard, whose site mastercard.com has currently been knocked offline thanks to a series of DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks against it. On a very …
Tumblr Still Down, Bloggers Flock To Twitter
Tumblr has been out of commission since the site crashed on Sunday, and unable to blog about it, users of the social media site have been Tweeting their displeasure.
Since the Tumblr tech department also can’t blog their progress on fixing the problem, the website has turned to Twitter to update the depressed writers who haven’t been …
Gowalla 3.0: All-In-One Check Ins Are Here
Popular location-based network Gowalla announced the 3.0 update of its mobile app, which integrates the service with rival Foursquare.
(More on TIME: Groupon Becomes Social Shopping Network)
With its new congruent app, Gowalla 3 has broken the barriers between the popular geosocial sites – a startling and quite clever campaign to …
World AIDS Day: For Awareness, Charities Turn To Social Media
Telethons no more: Non-profits around the world are working to raise AIDS awareness via social media.
Silent For A Cause:
The Digital Life Sacrifice campaign, lead by singer Alicia Keys, is raising money for the Keep A Child Alive fund, which provides support to people affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India. To raise finances, …
Twitter Turns Off Verified Account Feature
As Twitter flips the off-switch to its “verified account” feature, we would like to extend a warm welcome to the return of the celebrity impostor.
(More on TIME: Facebook Alum Starts “Jumo” Social Network For Charities)
The system, introduced in June 2009, won’t be wiped from feeds that have already earned a “verified” status, but …
Air Force to Soldiers: Be Careful With Your Social Media Updates
Well, this seemed kind of obvious: The Air Force issued a memo on an internal website telling soldiers not to tweet their locations, check in on foursquare or use Facebook places while in war zones. The notice states “careless use of these services by airmen can have devastating operations security and privacy implications,” AP reports. …
Tweet Sends Chinese Woman To Labor Camp
Cheng Jianping probably didn’t think much about retweeting her fiance’s statement. Now that tweet is now going to cost her a year in a labor camp “for disrupting social order.”
(More on TIME.com: Should Governments Be Able To Censor Facebook?)
The 46-year-old Chinese woman, who goes by the twitter handle wangyi09, retweeted her …
