Twitter will add labels to political candidates in order to increase transparency in the upcoming United States midterm elections. Only those running for state governor, the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives will get a label, which will be positioned beneath their username, on their profile and in every tweet or retweet. The information will include which office they're seeking, the state they're in and which district they'd represent, if applicable. The label will include a government building icon. After the fallout from the 2016 election, during which rampant Russian bot accounts interacted with 1.4 million users, Twitter is taking this political season more seriously. - ENGADGET

Facebook users worldwide are being asked to review their privacy settings, including information they share on their profiles and facial recognition preferences. The alert is related to the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which gives users more control over which personal data is shared through online platforms. Users will see how Facebook uses their activity to send targeted ads and what the company does with facial recognition tools. Facebook will show them which features they currently have turned on, allowing them to opt out if they choose to do so. The alert has already appeared for European users, but this time there will be a worldwide rollout. - CNBC

Twitter is hoping to woo smaller publishers who are frustrated with Facebook to its new website. Twitter plans to introduce the site in the next couple of weeks to teach smaller publishers how to produce content. Such content will include live and on-demand videos for Twitter that the publishers will make money from, according to an announcement at a video summit this week. The initiative is similar to how platforms introduce self-serve ad-buying tools to accommodate smaller advertisers. The new site will let Twitter support the smaller publishers to whom it can’t dedicate partner managers. Currently, Facebook gives publishers 55 percent of the revenue from ads attached to their videos, while Twitter offers them 70 percent. - DIGIDAY

Facebook users in the United States who want to run certain ads on the platform will need to supply the last four digits of their Social Security number, a picture of a government-issued ID and the user’s United States mailing address. The social network now requires anyone who wants to run ads related to political campaigns, civil rights, immigration, guns, economy or several other issues, to prove they're in the United States. The move is part of a series of initiatives by Facebook to increase transparency after a Russian government-linked troll group spent thousands of rubles on Facebook ads targeting Americans ahead of the 2016 presidential election. After verifying the information, Facebook said it plans to delete the information and mail a code to the address to authorize the user's Facebook account to buy ads. Facebook declined to share how it would verify the information. - CNN

A growing number of publishers are creating content specifically for Snapchat. One mom and writer is warning parents that some of them, such as Cosmopolitan’s Cosmo After Dark, aren’t suitable for children who potentially have access to them. Snapchat is challenging for parents to monitor, she says, and Cosmo After Dark isn’t suitable for young users. Here are another 12 risky apps including Whisper and Houseparty, that parents should know about. – COOL MOM TECH

President Donald Trump’s blocking of his critics on Twitter is unconstitutional, a federal court judge said today. A public figure, even the president of the United States, cannot block a person on Twitter in response to an expressed political view. A suit was filed in July 2017 by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, as well as seven other plaintiffs who had been blocked on Twitter by Trump. - CNBC

Vevo, scrapping plans to build its own music-video platform outside of YouTube’s control, is shutting down its mobile apps and consumer-facing website, the company announced Thursday. Vevo is refocusing on YouTube, stating in a blog post: “We will phase out elements of our owned and operated platforms. Going forward, Vevo will remain focused on engaging the biggest audiences and pursuing growth opportunities.” Vevo has long reached most of its audience through a distribution deal with YouTube, but in recent years, Vevo tried to lessen its dependence on YouTube by launching apps for mobile and TV-connected devices. The strategy was driven by former CEO Erik Huggers, who left the company in December 2017. - VARIETY

YouTube is experimenting with a personalized feed and it isn’t sitting well with many creators and viewers. The company is attempting to make scrolling through subscription feeds simpler by introducing personalized feeds. “We are currently experimenting with how to show content in the subs feed,” a YouTube representative said on Twitter. “We find that some viewers are able to more easily find the videos they want to watch when we order the subs feed in a personalized order versus always showing most recent video first.” Those who don’t like personalized feeds say that a viewer may not immediately find a creator’s video because it hasn’t surfaced on their feed, so a creator’s video is more likely to go unnoticed. - POLYGON

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have contacted Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter's Jack Dorsey with complaints about how the social networks treat conservatives. Brad Parscale, Donald Trump's campaign manager for the United States presidential election in 2020, posted the letter on Twitter today and it received hundreds of retweets within minutes. The letter requested information about Facebook's and Twitter's efforts to "prevent political bias" on their social networks and it calls for an answer from the two companies by June 18. - CNET

Facebook Marketplace has expanded into home services. Starting today, users can search through thousands of plumbers, cleaners, contractors and other professionals on the platform to find someone to hire. The feature will help locate top-rated and vetted professionals as well as receive quotes. It is populated with data from Facebook’s partners, Handy, HomeAdvisor and Porch. The idea came about, according to Facebook, because millions of people continually ask for recommendations for home professionals on the network. - TECHCRUNCH

The TeenSafe app parents use to monitor their children's devices instead has left personal information exposed after servers affiliated with the app were left open to the public. It allowed anyone who ran across the servers to access Apple IDs, user IDs and passwords stored in plaintext. More than 1 million parents use TeenSafe, which doesn't require the children's consent. At least 10,200 accounts were compromised. - ZDNET

Snap wants to find the next big media business, so it’s launching a seed accelerator to invest in startups or creators that want to build media projects for mobile devices. The new accelerator, named “Yellow,” will invest $150,000 into 10 creators or startups beginning this fall. The company will take an equity stake in exchange for the money, but Snap did not specify the amount. A Snap spokesperson said the terms are in line with similar incubators and accelerators that are created with founders in mind. Y Combinator, perhaps the best-known seed-stage accelerator in the tech world, invests $120,000 for a 7 percent ownership stake in all of its accelerator companies. - RECODE

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg answered questions Tuesday from the European Parliament in Brussels about the platform’s massive data leak affecting millions of users. Europeans have focused on the good that technology and connecting people can do, but are concerned about the harm that it brings as well. “We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility and that was a mistake - and I am sorry for it,” Zuckerberg said in his opening statement. “…Keeping people safe will always be more important than maximizing our profits.” He said Facebook is: * doubling the number of people working on safety and security to more than 20 thousand by the end of this year; * making significant operational investments to protect the integrity of elections; * committed to its investment in Europe; * working with governments and other technology companies to share information about threats in real time; * using new technology including artificial intelligence to remove fake accounts responsible for false news; and, * making the advertising on Facebook much more transparent. * continuing to remove questionable material from its platform. Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook has suspended 200 apps and investigated third-party apps with access to large amounts of user data.  * planning to offer a way to clear history of data associated with user accounts. - REUTERS

Twitter bots may have changed the outcome of two of the world’s most consequential elections in recent years, according to an economic study. Automated tweeting played a small but potentially decisive role in the 2016 Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s presidential victory, the National Bureau of Economic Research working paper showed this month. The group said that bots added a 1.76 percentage point to the pro-“leave” vote share as Britain weighed whether to remain in the European Union and may explain 3.23 percentage points of the actual vote for Trump in the United States’ presidential race. - TIME

Privacy and anti-monopoly advocacy groups kicked off a Freedom From Facebook campaign Monday, demanding that the Federal Trade Commission require the social media giant to break up into four separate companies. Sensing a moment of weakness, activists hope to establish stronger privacy protections and cross-platform communication. A coalition of groups that includes Demand Progress, Move On, Citizens Against Monopoly and the Open Markets Institute is pouncing on an opportunity amid Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal. This week, the group launched a petition urging several core demands. The group wants Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger to be separated into four independent companies. It also wants to require interoperability between competing social networks as well as strong privacy rules. - GIZMODO

Slack is giving developers the tools to build new integrations that turn clicks on messages into actions on their own platforms. Developers including Asana, Jira, Pocket, and Zendesk have integrated the new “action buttons,” as they are known, letting users perform actions on those services directly from Slack messages. Some of this feature was previously available using slash commands, but insiders say that showcasing the options in a visual interface will boost usage. Slack announced action buttons today ahead of its developer conference. The company now has 8 million daily users, 3 million of whom have paid accounts. Since 2015, Slack has strived to become a hub for all workplace communication. – THE VERGE

Instagram is adding a mute function so that users can avoid seeing content from select users without completely unfollowing them. The feature will be rolled out in the next few weeks. Currently, users can mute Instagram stories but the new feature applies to posts in the main feed. Instagram is also testing a notification, “You’re All Caught Up,” that lets users know if they've seen all of the posts from their network from the previous 48 hours. - CNBC

Since the start of the year, BuzzFeed noticed a significant decrease in Facebook Live video views on its news channel, pushing the team to find other platforms such as Twitch to reach new audiences. Twitch, now owned by Amazon, got its start livestreaming general-interest content and later spun off video-game streaming. Over the last six months, BuzzFeed News ran four Twitch livestreams: a live broadcast from the bottom of the ocean and the rest covering election results. Over the weekend, BuzzFeed broadcasted the royal wedding on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Twitch. An added benefit on Twitch is that BuzzFeed can schedule recorded content or series reruns. Its IRL (In Real Life) also allows for users to interact and share real-time experiences worldwide. - DIGIDAY

Facebook is enlisting Qualcomm to provide the tech for its gigabit Wi-Fi project meant to make sending data through routers more efficient and increase internet speeds. Called the Terragraph Project, it’s been in the works since Facebook first announced it at the company’s 2016 annual developer conference. The project was then described as a “multi-node wireless system focused on bringing high-speed internet connectivity to dense urban areas.” New Qualcomm chipsets will be integrated with the Terragraph technology so manufacturers can upgrade routers to be able to send data at the 60GHz frequency, which will increase broadband connections to higher speeds. It’s meant to be a solution for both rural and urban areas with spotty Wi-Fi. Field tests are set to begin the middle of next year. – THE VERGE

Facebook and YouTube are the worst offenders when it comes to exposing children to suicide, violence, cyberbullying and sex, according to Britain's highest-profile children's charity, the NSPCC. The charity gathered reviews from more than 4,000 parents and young people, created a league table of tech companies and slapped Facebook and YouTube with red warnings indicating high or more alarming at-risk ratings in those categories. Facebook and YouTube garnered the same rating as Grand Theft Auto, a highly adult-content game. The findings were published a day after the British government announced it would introduce laws to rein in social-media companies, including fining them for having users under the age of 13. - BUSINESS INSIDER