ProPublica looks at “a booming underground community of Instagram scammers and hackers who shut down profiles on the social network and then demand payment to reactivate them.”

While they also target TikTok and other platforms, takedown-for-hire scam…

An anonymous reader writes: Reddit’s transparency reports go beyond what most social media companies offer, providing copious data on content moderation and global legal requests. Now, the company has introduced a transparency center serving as a hub f…

Toronto-based Feroot Security “found that so-called tracking pixels from the TikTok parent company were present in 30 U.S. state-government websites across 27 states,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “including some where the app has been banned from …

France announced Friday it is banning the “recreational” use of TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and other apps on government employees’ phones because of concern about insufficient data security measures. Reuters reports: The French Minister for Transformat…

The BBC has advised staff to delete TikTok from corporate phones because of privacy and security fears. From a report: The BBC seems to be the first UK media organisation to issue the guidance – and only the second in the world after Denmark’s public s…

New Zealand will ban TikTok on devices with access to the parliamentary network because of cybersecurity concerns, a government official said on Friday. CNBC reports: TikTok will be banned on all devices with access to New Zealand’s parliamentary netwo…

The French government is planning to ask cabinet ministers to avoid using TikTok and similar apps on their personal phones, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the discussions. From the report: The government is…

Reddit is currently experiencing a big outage affecting its websites and apps, according to the company’s status page. The Verge reports: “We’ve identified an internal systems issue and are working to determine a fix,” the company wrote at 12:56PM ET o…

Belgian federal government employees will no longer be allowed to use the Chinese-owned video app TikTok on their work phones, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Friday. From a report: De Croo said the Belgian national security council ha…

Twitter’s decline is paving the way for other platforms to build next-generation replacements. And now the biggest player in the game is getting involved: Meta is in the early stages of building a dedicated app for people to post text-based updates. Fr…