Social Media

During a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing last week, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were united in their criticisms of social media platforms and the potential dangers they pose to children.

Governments of all sizes have struggled to put boundaries around social media use, occasionally running into controversy and scandal. In today’s connected world, those with the logins need to play by a set of rules.

Search engines, like social media algorithms, get you to click on links by learning what other people click on. Enticing misinformation often comes out on top.

Parler, a social network embraced by right-wing groups, lobbed a new lawsuit at Amazon in Washington courts, weeks after Parler's relaunch rendered moot an accusation in federal court that Amazon killed its business.

A class-action lawsuit against the company claimed that the social media giant violated privacy laws by storing biometric data, like facial scans, without getting user approval first.

On Reddit, hundreds of posts offer tips and instructions for signing up for the shot in the Chicago area, from step-by-step guides for enrolling at different pharmacies to clues on best times to check various websites.

Answer: No.

The proposed bill, which is still being drafted, asks the Florida Legislature to impose penalties for social media companies whose algorithms are perceived to favor one candidate over another.

Research by a San Francisco-based analytics firm found that conversations about election fraud dropped 73 percent across popular social media sites in the week after President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter.

The last several weeks saw Mayor Francis Suarez emerge as a new favorite of tech Twitter as Suarez engaged with a stream of tech execs, founders and promoters expressing online interest in relocating to Miami.

Over the four years of the Trump presidency, social media platforms generally took a soft line in enforcing their policies against threats and misinformation, allowing most borderline speech to stand.

The search for pro-Trump rioters that stormed and defaced the U.S. Capitol building last week has intensified and federal law enforcement is using every means at its disposal to investigate the incident.

YourT1Wifi, which operates in Northern Idaho, is allowing customers to request that access to Facebook and Twitter be blocked following the widespread bans against President Trump on the platforms last Friday.

Carbon County, Pa., commissioners instituted a new social media and website policy allowing employees to engage with the public to bring awareness through its widely used social media platforms.

After Wednesday's siege of the U.S. Capitol by a violent and seditious mob seeking to prevent the certification of the presidential election, Facebook is blocking President Trump from posting until at least Jan. 20.

Social media isn’t valuable to an audience if communications are too broad. Governments should work to understand what different kinds of information constituents might want and target their messaging accordingly.

In the years since public agencies first went social, the way they operate online has made strides, from mid-2000s YouTube experiments to fully fledged social media programs that drive citizen engagement.

Creating content that only lasts for 24 hours may seem like a waste of time for government, but Instagram Stories is an increasingly popular platform that can add a new channel for reaching constituents.