CNN – Social Media/Technology

By Michelle Toh, CNN Business Two of China’s leading tech companies are setting up labor unions for their staff as the industry comes under intense political pressure to rethink how it treats its workers. Chinese ride-hailing company Didi (DIDI) announced on an internal forum last month that it had established a union for its workers,

By Jill Disis, CNN Business Apple will allow companies such as Spotify and Netflix to direct customers to their own websites to make payments, allowing them to more easily avoid fees levied by the App Store. The iPhone maker’s latest concession in a long-standing fight with app developers was announced Wednesday in response to an

By Michelle Toh, CNN Business Hong Kong has reclaimed its status as the host of a marquee Asian tech conference it lost last year, as organizers cite the city’s success in battling the coronavirus pandemic. Rise, an annual tech conference whose recent speakers have included executives from Uber, Alibaba and Stripe, said Thursday that it

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business After days of controversy over its decision not to crack down on misinformation about Covid-19, Reddit is somewhat backtracking, taking action against dozens of its groups known as “subreddits.” The social media site on Wednesday banned one prominent subreddit called r/NoNewNormal, which described itself as hosting a “[skeptical] discussion of

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business Twitter is stepping up its efforts to help users experiencing harassment protect themselves. The social media company on Wednesday announced the test of a new feature called “Safety Mode,” which aims to help users prevent being overwhelmed by harmful tweets and unwanted replies and mentions. The feature will temporarily block

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business After growing its workforce to more than 1.3 million people in 2020, Amazon is planning to hire another 55,000 employees globally in the coming months, the company announced Wednesday. This is the first major hiring push since new Chief Executive Andy Jassy took the reins from Jeff Bezos in July.

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business Apple has enlisted eight states in a program that allows people to “seamlessly and securely” add their driver’s license or state IDs to their Apple Wallet to use at airport security checkpoints. Arizona and Georgia are the first states to enroll in the program, with Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma

By Matt McFarland, CNN Business The $1 trillion infrastructure bill appears set to give passenger and freight rail $66 billion, an infusion that will likely expand where service is offered but does little to increase the speed of train travel in the US. Amtrak has proposed spending its share of the infrastructure funding on more

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business When Twitter suspended Marjorie Taylor Greene for a week last month for posting misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines, it may have sparked some déjà vu. The Republican congresswoman from Georgia had been kicked off the platform for 12 hours for the same violation just three weeks earlier. And six months before

By Michelle Toh and Jake Kwon, CNN Business Google and Apple will have to allow app developers to use alternative payment systems under legislation just passed by South Korea that could set the stage for similar action in other countries. The amended Telecommunications Business Act was approved by the country’s National Assembly on Tuesday, with

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Jury selection began Tuesday in a San Jose federal courtroom for the long-awaited trial of Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO and founder of Theranos. The day kicked off what is likely to be a months-long affair under intense media scrutiny. Central to questioning of potential jurors was the concern

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Google has yet again postponed a full return to the office, announcing that its employees can continue to work remotely until next year. The decision follows similar ones already made by the company’s tech industry peers like Facebook and Amazon. Google workers around the world will not be required to

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business Microsoft is rolling out its newest operating system, Windows 11, earlier than expected for some PC users. Starting October 5, the company will begin a “phased and measured” approach to the free upgrades, in which newer devices will be given priority over older equipment. Microsoft had previously said it expected

By CNN staff, CNN Business China has barred online gamers under the age of 18 from playing on weekdays and limited their play to just three hours most weekends, marking a significant escalation of restrictions on the country’s massive gaming industry. Starting this week, minors will be allowed only an hour of play time between

By Masoud Popalzai and Rob Picheta, CNN Four days after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, 20-year-old YouTuber Najma Sadeqi sat on her bed and recorded a final video to tens of thousands of followers. Usually, her posts would show her cooking or exploring Kabul alongside her friends, in bright clothes and with cheerful music playing

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business As some US cities start requiring proof of vaccination to enter restaurants, events and workplaces, smartphone makers such as Apple, Samsung and Google are rolling out ways to make it easy for users to show their Covid-19 vaccine status with just a tap. It could be Big Tech’s shot

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder and former CEO of Theranos, is set to go to trial this week, more than three years after being indicted on multiple federal fraud and conspiracy charges over allegations she knowingly misrepresented the capabilities of her company’s proprietary blood testing technology. For a time,

By Michelle Toh and Jake Kwon, CNN Business Google and Apple are catching heat for their app store and payments practices in Asia Pacific. Less than a week after Apple said it would allow App Store developers to promote alternative payment methods to their users, South Korea is poised to end restrictions that critics say

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Days after taking control of Afghanistan earlier this month, the Taliban used its first press conference to take a swipe at Facebook in response to a question about freedom of speech. “This question should be asked to those people who are claiming to be promoters of freedom of speech, who

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder and former CEO of Theranos whose criminal trial is set to begin in a matter of days, is likely to defend herself by claiming she was the victim of a decade-long abusive relationship with her ex-boyfriend, also a former Theranos executive, court documents reveal.

By Jill Disis and CNN’s Beijing bureau, CNN Business China is putting companies that overwork their employees on notice. The country’s top court on Thursday issued a lengthy condemnation of what’s commonly known in China as “996,” the practice of working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week that is said to

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Apple is relaxing some restrictions on how iPhone app developers can communicate with customers outside its App Store, as part of a proposed settlement in a class action lawsuit. “Developers can use communications, such as email, to share information about payment methods outside of their iOS app” as long as

By Rishi Iyengar, CNN Business Fortnite users have long had concerts to attend and movies to watch as they wander around the video game through their virtual avatars. Now, they have yet another option: reliving Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. The new virtual experience, which launched Thursday, is called “March

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Business The rocket that flew Jeff Bezos to space last month just took another brief, suborbital jaunt to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, this time without people on board, as the company continues to test the vehicle and prepare to offer rides to other ultra-wealthy thrill seekers. It marked the

By Rachel Metz, CNN Business The next time you make a restaurant reservation through OpenTable, you may also be asked to prove you’re vaccinated against Covid-19 with an app from Clear. The online restaurant reservation service said this week that when a user makes a reservation through its iPhone or Android apps they’ll soon see

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business The global pandemic threw daily routines out the window; sleep schedules changed, so did diets, workout regimens, even hygiene. Stress levels were reported higher than ever. Fitbit CEO James Park said the last 18 months inspired the company to look closer at how its fitness trackers can better support

By Laura He, CNN Business One of China’s biggest tech firms has pledged to hand over its entire profit for the last quarter to rural development projects in the country as Beijing steps up the pressure for wealth redistribution. E-commerce firm Pinduoduo on Tuesday pledged to donate the $372 million it made in the three

By Brian Fung, CNN Business Dozens of major companies, state and federal agencies and other organizations that misconfigured a setting in their Microsoft software inadvertently exposed millions of people’s personal information to the public internet for months, according to security researchers. The data leak, which affected American Airlines, Maryland’s health department and New York’s Metropolitan

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business When Tim Cook took over as chief executive of Apple, it was a corporate transition unlike any other. He stepped out from the shadow of one of the best-known American CEOs and took the reins of one of the world’s biggest tech companies facing some uncertainty about how much more

By Charles Riley, CNN Business Airbnb has pledged to provide free housing for 20,000 Afghan refugees. CEO Brian Chesky said Tuesday that the program would begin immediately, and that Airbnb would pay for the stays. “The displacement and resettlement of Afghan refugees in the US and elsewhere is one of the biggest humanitarian crises of