When is a photograph of nude bodies artistic or titillating? A woman’s exposed nipple a political statement or erotica? A video of childbirth might show genitalia. Should what someone considers a celebration of life be censored? In 1964, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously wrote in a case about obscene material that he could tell the difference when...

Fake accounts, which claim to be of U.S. rabbis, have been posting messages seemingly geared at pitting Jews against African Americans — but why aren’t social media sites stepping in sooner to stop them?

Facebook is reaffirming its freewheeling policy on political ads, saying it won’t ban them, won’t fact-check them and won’t limit how they can be targeted to specific groups of people. Instead, Facebook will offer users slightly more control over how many political ads they see and make its online library of such ads easier to use.

A battle playing out in Oregon is pitting residents of a tiny coastal town with no stoplights or cellphone service against a tech giant. Locals in Tierra del Mar are trying to stop Facebook from using property in their community as a landing spot for an undersea cable connecting America with Asia.

Facebook says it’s banning “deepfake” videos as it steps up efforts to fight online manipulation. The social network said Monday it’s beefing up its policies to remove the the false but realistic clips created with artificial intelligence. The company said the new rules won’t include parody or satire, or clips edited just to change the order of words. The exceptions...

Spotify has become the latest tech company to enter the conversation around political ads, announcing Friday it will suspend them at the beginning of 2020. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, however, Spotify refrained from offering its perspective on political advertising, saying that the decision is the result of the music-streaming company not having sufficient tools to vet the ads. “At this point in time,...

A Ukrainian security researcher reported finding a database with the names, phone numbers and unique user IDs of more than 267 million Facebook users — nearly all U.S.-based — on the open internet. That data was likely harvested by criminals, said researcher Bob Diachenko, an independent security consultant in Kyiv.

Facebook plans to clamp down on attempts to use its services to interfere with the 2020 U.S. census, including the posting of misleading information about when and how to participate, who can participate and what happens when people do.

Facebook and Instagram will no longer allow influencers to promote vaping, tobacco products or weapons on its platforms using “branded content.”

Instagram announced Wednesday it would no longer allow “branded content” that promotes those goods on either platform.

Facebook is rebuffing efforts by U.S. Attorney General William Barr to give authorities a way to read encrypted messages. The heads of Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Messenger services told Barr and his U.K. and Australian counterparts that Facebook is moving forward with plans to enable end-to-end encryption on all of its messaging services. End-to-end encryption locks up messages so that not...

A first-year cadet at the Virginia Military Institute who was back home in Stafford County, Virginia, for the Thanksgiving holiday died in a car crash Saturday.

Facebook has started testing a tool that lets users move their images more easily to other online services, as it faces pressure from regulators to loosen its grip on data.

In a British election dominated by Brexit, young voters who had no say in the country’s decision to leave the European Union could hold the key to victory. That is, if they can be bothered to vote. It has long been a truth in British politics that young people vote in lower numbers than older ones. In the last election...

Some people heading to Thanksgiving gatherings predict it’s not just the turkey that will get roasted. Already polarized over Republican Donald Trump’s presidency, Americans are deeply split on a looming historic impeachment. Many families reflect the nation’s divisions, setting up heated holiday debates in households with a taste for politics. Bryan Wright, of Cincinnati, said “impeachment will definitely come up”...

Two massive explosions 13 hours apart tore through a Texas chemical plant Wednesday, and one left three workers injured. The blasts blew out windows and doors of nearby homes and prompted a mandatory evacuation of a 4-mile radius from the plant in Port Neches in Southeast Texas, about 80 miles east of Houston. Officials say they have no estimate for...

Taiwanese-Canadian model-actor Godfrey Gao has died after suffering an apparent heart attack while on set in China. Gao was filming a sports reality show in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo on Wednesday when he died. His agency, JetStar Entertainment, confirmed his death on its official Facebook page. The 35-year-old was filming “Chase Me,” a Chinese variety series, when he...

Rarely has a Tinder date ended so poorly than the one shown in “Queen & Slim.” Even more rarely has a bad Tinder date produced such a great film.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s indictment is expected to sharpen the battle lines in Israel’s already deadlocked political system and could test the loyalty of his right-wing allies, Israeli commentators said Friday. The serious corruption charges announced Thursday appear to have dashed already slim hopes for a unity government following September’s elections, paving the way for an unprecedented repeat vote in...

Sacha Baron Cohen slammed Facebook and other large social media platforms as “the greatest propaganda machine in history” in a searing speech Thursday night. Addressing the Anti-Defamation League’s Never Is Now summit, the actor — who is known for using his satirical personas such as Borat, Bruno and Ali G to highlight bigotry around the world — tore into technology...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted Thursday in a series of corruption cases, throwing Israel’s paralyzed political system into further disarray and threatening his 10-year grip on power. He rejected calls to resign, angrily accusing prosecutors of staging “an attempted coup.”