Tag: TikTok (ByteDance)

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To Fight Vaccine Lies, Authorities Recruit an ‘Influencer Army’

In March, the White House also orchestrated an Instagram Live chat between Dr. Fauci and Eugenio Derbez, a Mexican actor with over 16.6 million Instagram followers who had been openly doubtful of the vaccines. During their 37-minute discussion, Mr. Derbez was upfront about his concerns.“What if I get the vaccine, but it doesn’t protect me against the new variant?” he asked. Dr. Fauci acknowledged that the vaccines might not completely shield people from variants, but said, “It’s very, very good at protecting you from getting seriously ill.”Understand the State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.Mr. …

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Facebook Wants to Court Creators. It Could Be a Tough Sell.

SAN FRANCISCO — Over the past 18 months, Chris Cox, Facebook’s top product executive, watched with surprise as Instagram came alive in ways he hadn’t seen before.As young people looked for ways to express themselves digitally in the pandemic, Mr. Cox became captivated by the content of creators like Oumi Janta. The Senegalese roller-skater, who is based in Berlin, shot to fame when she posted videos to her Instagram account of herself dancing in skates to techno music. Her viral success — and that of others — made Facebook, which owns Instagram, realize it needed to do more to court creators, …

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Biden Revokes and Replaces Trump Order That Banned TikTok

TikTok’s woes subsided with Mr. Trump’s election defeat. Though the company is still under scrutiny with the Biden administration’s new executive order, analysts say the dramatic ups and downs for the company will significantly dwindle.Updated June 9, 2021, 7:03 p.m. ETJames Lewis, a senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Biden administration had shown no easing of the government’s strong stance against China. But the new order lays out much more precise criteria for weighing risks posed by TikTok and other companies owned by foreign adversaries like China.“They are taking …

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Russia Raises Heat on Twitter, Google and Facebook in Online Crackdown

LONDON — Russia is increasingly pressuring Google, Twitter and Facebook to fall in line with Kremlin internet crackdown orders or risk restrictions inside the country, as more governments around the world challenge the companies’ principles on online freedom.Russia’s internet regulator, Roskomnadzor, recently ramped up its demands for the Silicon Valley companies to remove online content that it deems illegal or restore pro-Kremlin material that had been blocked. The warnings have come at least weekly since services from Facebook, Twitter and Google were used as tools for anti-Kremlin protests in January. If the companies do not comply, the regulator has …

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TikTok’s Owner, ByteDance, Says C.E.O. Zhang Yiming Will Resign

Zhang Yiming, who helped found TikTok’s parent company, the Chinese internet conglomerate ByteDance, and turned it into a globe-straddling giant, will step down as chief executive at the end of the year to focus on long-term strategy, he wrote in a letter to employees dated Wednesday.ByteDance’s co-founder and head of human resources, Liang Rubo, will take the reins as chief executive.“After handing over my role as C.E.O., and removing myself from the responsibilities of daily management, I will have the space to explore long-term strategies, organizational culture and social responsibility, with a more objective …

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What TikTok Stars Owe ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’

In May 2010, well before the TikTok era, a 12-year-old from Oklahoma named Greyson Chance was summoned to “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” A couple of weeks earlier, Greyson had found early viral fame after he posted his middle school talent show performance of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” on YouTube. When Greyson came on the show, where he sat in a plush chair directly across from the daytime star and discussed his Gaga cover, the YouTube video had a million page views.His “Ellen” appearance brought him to a new stratosphere. In the following days, media coverage around the 12-year-old sensation exploded, …

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How TikTok Helped a Finnish Baked Feta Pasta Go Viral

In the rarefied world of small-batch cheese, the closest a product may get to widespread fame is Tom Colicchio’s shout-out for his favorite bloomy rind on “Top Chef.”That’s why Anne Saxelby, the founder and co-owner of Saxelby Cheesemongers, in New York City, was so surprised when a supplier told her that a recipe on the popular video app TikTok had whipped up such a demand for feta that she wouldn’t get her weekly shipment of the cheese.Ms. Saxelby and her feta maker — Narragansett Creamery, a small Rhode Island dairy — had been swept up in the …

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How TikTok Helped a Finnish Baked Feta Pasta Go Viral

In the rarefied world of small-batch cheese, the closest a product may get to widespread fame is Tom Colicchio’s shout-out for his favorite bloomy rind on “Top Chef.”That’s why Anne Saxelby, the founder and co-owner of Saxelby Cheesemongers, in New York City, was so surprised when a supplier told her that a recipe on the popular video app TikTok had whipped up such a demand for feta that she wouldn’t get her weekly shipment of the cheese.Ms. Saxelby and her feta maker — Narragansett Creamery, a small Rhode Island dairy — had been swept up in the …

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As Deadline Lapses, Trump Administration Continues TikTok Talks

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will allow a Friday deadline for TikTok’s Chinese parent company to sell the viral video app to lapse, said a person with knowledge of the decision. But the government will continue to work on a deal that would put a larger slice of TikTok’s ownership in American hands, the person said.The White House ordered the sale of TikTok’s U.S. assets in August over concerns that the app’s Chinese ownership posed a national security risk. ByteDance, the Chinese internet giant that owns the app, embarked on an effort to sell the …

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