The indictment of 13 Russians for interfering with the Presidential election has intensified the pressure put on Facebook, which uncovered about three-thousand Russian-linked ads on its platforms before and after November 2016. Cheddar Senior Reporter, Alex Heath, breaks down the the latest developments.
Facebook's Vice President for ads, Rob Goldman, tweeted about Russia's disinformation effort. President Trump then cited him. Facebook did not intend for Goldman’s tweets to be quoted by Trump. They thought the tweets would only be seen by a contextually-aware audience of techies and media types who follow Goldman.
Heath believes that the tweeting from Goldman and other execs is part of a carefully orchestrated PR campaign by Facebook to make itself appear more transparent and relate-able through engaged spokespeople on Twitter.
Character design studio Superplastic recently raised $20 million in a Series A round. Paul Budnitz, founder and CEO of Superplastic, joined Cheddar News to discuss the financing and a new collaboration with Amazon to develop a new series.
A Republican-led House panel voted to advance a bill that would give President Joe Biden the power to ban TikTok. Chris Pierson, the founder and CEO of BlackCloak, joined Cheddar News to discuss how the process could affect other businesses.
