Social Media

Washington announced this week it has joined dozens of other states to sue Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, accusing the social media giant of fueling a nationwide youth mental health crisis.

State and local government PIOs and social media teams are navigating the drastic changes at what was once Twitter, grappling with unexpected features and shifts in user verification, as they weigh the pros and cons of remaining on the evolving platform.

The official Twitter/X account for the Boulder, Colo., Office of Disaster Management was deactivated to prevent “suspicious activity” after it was apparently hacked over the weekend.

As more universities make use of the anonymous social networking app Fizz to keep students connected, some officials have questions about cyber bullying, misinformation and other malicious online behaviors.

Social media has a portability problem: When users leave one platform for another, none of their followers go with them. That's no small issue for governments that rely on networks to disseminate important information.

OSF Saint Anthony's Health Center in Illinois is advising school personnel and parents that they need to teach students about social media and how to develop a healthy sense of self-worth and resilience.

New York City leaders pleaded with social media companies to do something about the deadly trend of subway surfing viral videos. Now the tech companies are removing dangerous videos and publishing the city's PSA content.

A U.S. district court judge has issued a temporary injunction against an Arkansas law that mandates social media companies to use third-party vendors for age verification checks on new users or face substantial fines.

The company will soon require election advertisers to disclose when messages have been altered or created by artificial intelligence tools. The change is meant to alert viewers when ads contain content from generative AI.

A lawsuit from the Livingston Parish School Board against two social media giants, their parent companies and two Internet service providers alleges the intentional addictiveness of those platforms has harmed students.

The request is raising a mountain of practical and legal questions from content moderation experts who contend that reining in the videos could be exceedingly difficult for companies to do effectively or ethically.

Common Sense Education's Digital Well-Being program offers free videos for students in grades 6-12 about identifying tech-related stressors, developing healthy habits and understanding how digital media can affect them.

Government agencies are working to conform to a changing social media landscape these days, with Twitter’s rebranding to X — among other things — presenting challenges.

While recent security updates prevent random adults from accessing student information, the schedule-sharing app Saturn has some parents and educators worried about how it tracks students and collects data.

The deadline for Facebook users to get a piece of the $725 million settlement from the exploitation of their personal data is coming this week. Users have until Friday to complete the necessary forms.

A public school district in Indiana is part of a national class-action lawsuit alleging that Google, TikTok, Snapchat and Meta have played a role in the youth mental health crisis and pressuring them to make changes.

Gov. Chris Sununu’s executive order calls on the Department of Education and other state agencies to gather public input from students and families and develop guidelines for a social media curriculum by Sept. 4.

The city, citing security risks from the massively popular social media platform, follows the lead of other public agencies. TikTok has been downloaded more than 220 million times in the U.S., according to an estimate.