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.
Snapchat will not remove a filter that promotes InfoWars and the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the company told Cheddar on Wednesday. A Snap spokesperson told Cheddar that the lens Jones promoted on Twitter wasn’t created by InfoWars or Snap, but rather a third party.
Snap may have beat revenue expectations for the second quarter, but BTIG media and tech analyst Rich Greenfield says the Snapchat maker's performance is well below where many investors thought it would be when the company went public.
MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe told Cheddar on Wednesday that he expects to turn a profit in six to nine months, despite the fact that the company is losing tens of millions of dollars each month as it struggles to find a sustainable business model.
Gene Munster, managing partner at Loup Ventures and a long-time Tesla bull, says there's a one in three chance Musk can take Tesla private. A Tesla-leveraged buyout, Munster adds, is very achievable.
The e-commerce site Etsy is spending strategically on "performance marketing" to offer consumers a stronger connection with the site's 2 million creative sellers, says CFO Rachel Glaser.
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Snap beat analyst expectations for revenue in the second quarter, earning $262 million. But the company's Snapchat app lost 3 million users, its first quarterly decline. The company also reported a $250 million investment from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a billionaire tech investor.
Galileo Russell, Founder of HyperChange TV and a bull investor on Tesla stock, believes Musk's motion to take Tesla private at $420 was a long time coming if one were to follow signs of Musk's discontent with public investors. Russell's reaction is full of excitement, but hopes he will not be forced to sell shares because he would alt to hold.
With big-money backing from nearly every major Hollywood studio, NewTV should scare the established streaming services, says Julian Roman, correspondent for MovieWeb. "It's going to be prime-quality entertainment from Hollywood's biggest producers," meant to be distributed on mobile devices, Roman says.
A 12-month moratorium on most new for-hire licenses would let the city study how the expansion of ride-hailing services affects traffic, and how the Council can ensure drivers earn a living wage, says Speaker Corey Johnson. Uber and Lyft have pushed back against rules they say would limit their growth.
