Social Media

US Judge Halts Ban on WeChat Due to Lack of Evidence in Relation to National Security Concerns

As negotiations continue on the sale of TikTok, a US judge has also halted the White House’s Executive Order which would have seen the Chinese-owned messaging platform WeChat removed from US app stores on Sunday. In its original Executive Order, the US Government ruled that both TikTok and WeChat would be removed from US app stores on September 20th due to national security concerns, with the Chinese-owned apps believed to be sharing data on US users with the Chinese Government.

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TikTok May Still Face Restrictions in the US, as Final Details of Proposed Oracle Deal are Ironed Out

It seems TikTok may not be out of the woods just yet, with various conflicting stories around the pending Oracle/TikTok deal. On Saturday, US President Donald Trump told reporters that he had given the Oracle-lead deal for TikTok’s operations in the US ‘his blessing‘, which was enough for TikTok to put out two official statements about the app being ‘here to stay‘.

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Facebook Threatens to Leave Europe Due to Proposed New Data-Sharing Regulations

While TikTok remains in the firing line due to concerns that it may be sharing data on US citizens with the Chinese Government, the case may have also highlighted rising global concerns over data sovereignty, and the risks associated with sharing user data between nations. Earlier this month, the European Union privacy regulator sent a preliminary order to Facebook which called for it to suspend data transfers about its EU users back to the US. According to the order, EU officials are increasingly concerned about potential surveillance practices by the US Government, and are now looking to limit such by restricting the flow of user information.

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Marketing

Googlers Do Not Answer Direct Messages; Here’s Why

Google’s Search Relations team explains why they cannot answer direct messages from SEOs and site owners, according to company policy. This topic came up during the September 21 episode of Google’s Search Off the Record podcast. Google’s John Mueller, Gary Illyes, and Martin Splitt discuss how they deal with being asked SEO questions in private messages. They all agree they’re prohibited from answering such questions as per a company policy designed to maintain a “level playing field.” With that being the case, they all have a similar way of dealing with questions sent privately via email or Twitter. Here’s more about Google’s “honest results” policy, and how each Googler manages their DMs.

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Affinity Answers Helps Brands Talk to Fans

Affinity Answers, the marketing data science vendor, today announced the re-branding of its AudiencePlanner tool as FanFinder360° to reflect an increased commitment to serving the media and entertainment industry. Founded in 2004 as a boot-strap start-up, the company today delivers anonymized social media-based audience insights not just to brands, but for example to political campaigns. The insights can be converted into programmatic audiences, or used to identify web content which matches an expressed affinity and is therefore likely to draw an audience with similar affinities.

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Modern Link Acquisition: 10 Tactics That Work

Depending on your experience in SEO, the term link acquisition could be viewed as a dirty word, a magic bullet, or a pain in the… you know what. But regardless of how you view link building, the fact remains that Google uses links as a ranking signal within their search algorithm and studies continue to show a strong correlation between links and ranking position. And Google uses links for good reason. Links, when they’re not manipulated, represent an endorsement of one site by another. If you are willing to send your audience away from your site to another site, it better be for good reason (you endorse the page, you’re citing a source, the page expands on a topic, etc.).

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