Just ahead of the wider release of Alex Gibney's Musk documentary, TikTok has banned the film's social media account from its platform. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film's distributor, Bleecker Street, was informed Friday afternoon that a "permanent suspension" was imminent. Bleecker Street has not yet responded to a request for comment from The Verge.

While TikTok has no official affiliation with Elon Musk, part owner Larry Ellison appears in the film via a text message offering to help Musk fund his Twitter purchase.

Last month, YouTube, Meta, X, and TikTok all face …

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Earlier this month, news broke that actress Mia Goth had filed for divorce from actor and filmmaker Shia LaBeouf. An Instagram post from the account miagoth_ - marked with a blue verified checkmark - quickly spread.

The post shows Goth in a T-shirt that reads "MY EX IS MY BIGGEST FAN" in bold black letters. The Beyoncé song "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" had been added to the Instagram post. Hundreds of thousands of people - including some in the entertainment industry - liked the image, and entertainment outlets like OK! and even People wrote about it as if it were authentic. Soon, screenshots of the post were shared widely on other s …

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YouTube, Twitch, Meta, and X aren't saying whether they'll allow the US government to livestream an execution on their platforms. The four companies didn't respond to The Verge's requests for comment after an unnamed Pentagon official said yesterday that the execution of Nidal Hasan, who was convicted of a mass shooting at a Texas military base in 2009, will be livestreamed.

Two platforms responded to The Verge's inquiries. Jamie Favazza, a spokesperson for TikTok's US operations, pointed to the platform's policies banning "shocking and graphic content," including "the moment of someone's death." Kick, a platform known for taking a hands-of …

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Meta has banned ads from TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance across the US and several other countries as the rivalry between the major social media operators heats up, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The ban, which went into effect on Thursday, restricts ads and paid marketing messages from ByteDance, along with third-party ads that link to TikTok.

"We don't have to run ads from a competitor whose goal is to pull people off our apps," Meta spokesperson Christopher Sgro said in a statement to The Verge. "Declining promotional services to a competitor is a normal business practice across industries. We will continue to compete on pr …

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New York is alleging that thousands of TikTok users, including kids and teens, were unknowingly given "ghost" versions of the platform's safety features rather than the working versions. Reuters reports the allegation is part of an "updated, sealed version" of New York's 2024 lawsuit against TikTok, which was "later ordered unsealed by a judge."

According to the new allegations, TikTok's "experiment" effectively blocked some users from accessing features like an option to reset your algorithm, which can potentially help users avoid harmful content popping up in their feed. As Reuters notes, users in the experiment "believed they had activa …

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Since TikTok burst into mainstream consciousness, many things have been called a "TikTok clone": YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, Snapchat Spotlight, Netflix's Clips, LinkedIn's vertical video feed, and countless other, less recognizable names like Triller, Zynn, and Byte.

For years now, Facebook and Instagram have pumped users' feeds with video as Meta chases TikTok's runaway success. But if tests running abroad are any indication, the TikTok-ification of social media might finally be reaching its fullest form.

TechCrunch reports that some users in India are getting a Facebook test that, upon opening the app, drops them directly into a …

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