News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

Twitter News

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Judge Throws out Shareholder Lawsuit Against Elon Musk Over Twitter Buyout

A judge dismissed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Elon Musk that claimed he cheated Twitter shareholders several times last year in the course of buying the social media company for $44 billion.

In a decision on Monday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said plaintiff William Heresniak lacked standing to sue because he challenged “wrongs associated with” Musk’s buyout, not the fairness of the buyout itself.

Breyer said Heresniak did not show harm from Musk’s belated disclosure of a 9.2 percent Twitter stake, which the suit said let him buy more shares at lower prices before the buyout was announced, or from the closing’s taking place 1 1/2 months later than planned.

The judge also found no proof that Musk helped two friends then on Twitter’s board, co-founder Jack Dorsey and Silver Lake private equity firm managing partner Egon Durban, breach their fiduciary duties by favoring their own and Musk’s interests.

Breyer said letting Dorsey roll over his approximately $1 billion of Twitter shares into an equity stake in the new company merely reduced how much Musk had to pay at closing, and did not “improperly divert” money from other shareholders.

DeSantis to Launch 2024 Campaign on Twitter With Elon Musk on Wednesday

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will launch his 2024 presidential campaign on May 24 in a Twitter Spaces interview with Elon Musk, The Epoch Times confirmed.

The news of the campaign launch follows months of speculation about the Florida governor’s formal entry into the 2024 race. DeSantis is jumping into the expanding GOP field currently dominated by former President Donald Trump.

Bryan Griffin, the press secretary for the DeSantis campaign operation, confirmed the plans in a text message to The Epoch Times. Fox News was the first to report the story. Elon Musk retweeted a message from a Fox News reporter breaking the story.

Trump, the frontrunner in the GOP field, has spent weeks attacking DeSantis in Truth Social posts and ads on national television. The ads attack DeSantis for supporting a national sales tax while in Congress, among other issues. DeSantis has largely refrained from attacking Trump.

The announcement event will take place at 6 p.m. on Wednesday on Twitter Spaces. The Spaces feature allows for a large group of people to participate in a voice conversation. The feature’s current iteration does not allow for video.

Social Media News

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Newly Appointed Twitter CEO Responds to Meta’s Plan to Launch Clone Rival

“Game on!” Yaccarino said in a May 22 tweet while responding to an article about Instagram developing a Twitter clone. The news was first reported by Moneycontrol. “We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests,” a Meta spokesperson said, according to the outlet.

The text-based content app will reportedly support the decentralized social networking protocol ActivityPub which powers apps like Twitter rival Mastodon. Meta’s Twitter clone, codenamed P92, will be partially linked to Instagram, and users will be able to log into the new app using their existing credentials.

Instagram users who do not sign up for P92 will be shown to users who do sign up for the Twitter clone, with the company hoping that new P92 users would recommend the app to their unsigned friends, said Moneycontrol.
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The Meta team is also said to be planning to make use of Instagram user data, whether they have signed up for P92 or not, for analytics, ranking, and product improvement on the new app.

P92 is said to include tappable links in posts with previews and verification badges. Though the app will allow for followers and likes, it is unsure whether messaging and commenting features would be present in the initial version.

In a May 19 tweet, Lia Haberman, author of social media newsletter ICYMI, said that Meta is briefing creators about its upcoming Twitter clone, with a potential launch as early as June.

Meta News

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Instagram Back Up After Global Outage Affecting Thousands of Users

Meta Platform Inc.’s Instagram was back up for most users, the company said on Sunday, after a technical issue that disrupted services to thousands of people had been resolved.

“Earlier today, a technical issue caused some people to have trouble accessing Instagram. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted,” a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.

The company did not disclose the number of users affected by the disruption. Outage tracking website Downdetector.com showed more than 100,000 incidents in the United States, 24,000 in Canada, and over 56,000 in Britain.

More than 180,000 users reported issues with accessing Instagram at the peak of the outage.

Instagram was down for some users on Sunday from around 5:45 p.m. EST (2145 GMT), according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. The number of outages eased to just over 7,000 reports as of 8:30 p.m. EST.

Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources, including users.

WhatsApp Allows Users to Edit Messages

WhatsApp has granted users one of its most awaited features—the ability to edit messages.

“For the moments when you make a mistake or simply change your mind, you can now edit your sent messages on WhatsApp,” the Meta Platforms Inc-owned messaging app said in a blog post on Monday.

With the feature rolling out globally in the coming weeks, senders will be able to modify their messages within 15 minutes of hitting send.

The function can be accessed by long-pressing the message and choosing “edit” in the drop-down menu. The modified message will carry the label “edited,” without showing edit history.

Video Game News

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CCP Little Pinkies Call for Nintendo Boycott
Accuse New Game Legend of Zelda
of Supporting Anti-Extradition Protests, Insulting China

Nintendo launched its new game on May 12, on the same day as the 15th anniversary of China’s destructive 8.0 magnitude Sichuan Earthquake in 2008. Angry mainland netizens accused the game manufacturer of carrying secret messages in the game’s dialogues.

Since then, some have been actively calling for boycotts on Twitter and other social media channels.
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It is common for “little pinkies” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to accuse something or someone of “humiliating China.” The party’s trollers have recently turned against Japanese game manufacturer Nintendo and its newly launched game.

Netizens screenshot the dialogue in question. A character commented on Princess Zelda’s energy and catch phrase, “I can sense the energy of ‘light’ and ‘time’ from you.”

The words “light” and times” were short names for the unofficially banned protest slogan in Chinese: “Liberate Hong Kong’ Revolution of our times.”

Meanwhile, after accusing Legend of Zelda of its May 12 launch date, other mainland netizens claimed that the game plot, divided into three levels: The Heaven, The Earth, and The Underworld, was also insulting to their motherland.

They believed that the game release on May 12 notably suggested that after the Sichuan Earthquake in 2008, some people survived on Earth, some people died and went to the Underworld, and others went to Heaven.

They called the plot “disgusting.”

However, a group of anti-CCP netizens ridiculed that something was constantly and seemingly humiliating the communist party every day for 365 days: May 12 (Sichuan Earthquake in 2008), June 4 (Tiananmen Square Massacre), Sept. 18 (The 918 Incident, also known as the Japanese Invasion of Manchuria, China, in 1931), Oct. 10 (Taiwan’s National Day). They mocked the party-supporting little pinkies for accusing the entire world, except China, of being born to humiliate China.