Social Media Quiz 2023: Test Your Current Social Knowledge

In a deal valued at $44 billion, Twitter announced on Apr. 25, 2022, that it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Elon Musk. The transaction would result in Twitter becoming a privately owned company.

Did Musk drop out of the Twitter deal?

On May 13, 2022, Elon Musk tweeted, “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts represent less than 5% of users.” On July  8, he said in a letter to Twitter that the company’s “misrepresentation of the number of spam accounts” might be a “material adverse effect (MAE)” that would allow him to walk away under the terms of the deal contract.

Was that the end of it?

Twitter filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery against Musk on July 12, 2022, trying to force Musk to complete the takeover. Ahead of the Delaware court face-off on Oct. 17, Musk tweeted on Oct. 4, 2022, that buying Twitter would speed up his ambition to create an “everything app” called X and proposed to proceed with his original $44 billion bid to take Twitter, which he eventually did.

In 2016, Mastodon was launched as a “free, open-source, decentralized social media platform” aimed at being a “viable alternative to Twitter.” Mastodon is a federated social network owned by different people and groups. A lot of Mastodon is crowdfunded. The servers it runs are funded through Patreon, a subscription platform used by content creators. More than 70,000 users joined Mastodon on the day after Elon Musk announced he bought Twitter.

Wasn’t Mastodon something else?

The Mastodon social platform was named after an extinct relative of elephants and mammoths.

Simply put, Metaverse is a collection of Virtual 3D meeting spaces. It’s been one of the most prominent tech buzz terms of 2021. Epic Games directed fundraising to build Fortnite into a metaverse; Microsoft presented Mesh, a mixed reality software enabling virtual presence through Microsoft devices. South Korea announced the creation of a national metaverse alliance to build a unified national VR and AR platform.

What’s Facebook’s Metaverse?

In 2021 Facebook announced it attempts to develop a Metaverse. On Oct. 18, Facebook announced plans to create 10,000 jobs in the European Union over the next five years to help build the virtual environment. US tech news website The Verge broke the news that Facebook’s founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is preparing to change the name of the company at the company’s annual Connect conference on Oct. 28, 2021, to match its new ambitions. The new name chosen for the company is Meta.

As of mid-Sept. 2022, TikTok is the second most popular domain in the world, after Google, according to online performance and security company Cloudflare. As reported by NewsGuard on Sept. 14, 2022, nearly one in five videos that TikTok automatically suggests when searching for videos related to prominent news topics contained misinformation. TikTok’s official community guidelines prohibit harmful misinformation. Chinese company ByteDance owns the app.

Linda Yaccarino, previously the head of advertising and partnerships for NBCUniversal, was confirmed as the new CEO of Twitter on May 12, 2023. She was appointed by Elon Musk, who bought the platform last year for $44 billion. She will focus on business operations while Musk works on product design and technology. Yaccarino is one of the rare female chief executives in technology. She has often said she was the only woman at the table and faced bias incidents in her career.

Twitter Blue is the company’s subscription service, allowing paying subscribers to recall tweets, theme their Twitter app and app icon, and experience new features early.

Where and when is Twitter Blue available?

Twitter first launched the Twitter Blue service in June 2021 in Canada and Australia on iOS. On Nov. 9, 2021, Twitter Blue became available in the US and New Zealand and on Android and the web. After purchasing Twitter, Elon Musk said he was considering raising the subscription price and moving all verified users to the paid program. Starting Dec. 13, 2022, the relaunched service costs $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for iPhone users. Subscribers see fewer ads, can post longer videos, and have their tweets emphasized.

On Feb. 19, 2023, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced Meta Verified as a premium subscription service. Users who pay a monthly fee get blue check marks, improved reach, extra impersonation protection against accounts “claiming to be you,” and direct access to customer service. Users must submit a government ID to prove their identity, use their legal names on their profile pages, and pay $11.99 (or $14.99 on iOS and Android) monthly to qualify for Meta Verified. Australia and New Zealand will get the service first.

Wasn’t that “Twitter Blue”?

Meta’s subscription move follows Twitter’s push to charge for blue check marks through Twitter Blue. Elon Musk’s company announced that starting on Mar. 20, SMS-based two-factor authentication will be limited to paid accounts.

xQc, whose real name is Félix Lengyel, is a popular Twitch streamer who plays video games and hosts shows for almost 12 million followers. Many consider him Twitch’s most popular streamer. On June 17, 2023, he announced his departure from Twitch for Kick, a rival streaming platform. He signed a two-year non-exclusive contract worth roughly $70 million, with incentives that could bump that to $100 million. Kick is backed by online gaming and gambling sites in Australia and offers streamer-friendly policies such as lower subscription fees, non-exclusive contracts, and more creative freedom. xQc plans to continue streaming on Twitch and appearing on YouTube and TikTok, but he aims to focus on Kick. His agent, Ryan Morrison, said his deal was “one of the highest deals in entertainment, period.“

By February 2023, TikTok had an average of 125 million active users in the EU. In October 2022, there were 65.9 million TikTok users in the US, with two-thirds of teens using it. The number of Canadians on TikTok is relatively small (26%), but 76% of people 18-24 have an account.

What is the TikTok ban?

The European Commission temporarily banned TikTok from staff phones over cybersecurity concerns on Feb. 23, 2023. The reason: The Chinese government could use TikTok to promote pro-Beijing views or sweep up users’ information. The White House on Feb. 27 gave government agencies 30 days to ensure they do not have the Chinese-owned app on federal devices. By Feb. 28, Canada announced its own ban on TikTok from all government-issued devices. China’s foreign ministry said that the US government has been “overstretching the concept of national security.” and “suppressing other countries’ companies.”

China’s commerce ministry declared it opposed a TikTok sale just hours before Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, testified before Congress about TikTok’s ties to China on March 23, 2023.

What was his testimony about?

During the five-hour testimony, Republican and Democratic lawmakers repeatedly asked Chew if TikTok was spying on Americans on behalf of the Chinese government, which he strongly denied. Chew also said that ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government – a notion undermined by China’s commerce ministry’s earlier statement.

Montana passed a bill that makes it illegal for app stores to offer TikTok in the state. The bill was motivated by concerns about potential Chinese spying through the app. It specifies that the ban would be lifted if TikTok is sold to a non-Chinese company or Congress passes a law banning TikTok nationwide. Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the unprecedented law on May 17, 2023, making Montana the first state to ban TikTok from app stores starting Jan. 2024. Nonetheless, it will face legal challenges from TikTok and other groups claiming it violates free speech rights.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook), and Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, have agreed to fight each other in a cage match after exchanging challenges on social media. The feud started when Musk tweeted he was “up for a cage fight” with Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg responded with “Send me the location” on Instagram. Musk then suggested “Vegas Octagon” as the venue, referring to the fenced-in area used for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bouts. The fight date and time are not set. However, Musk said it “might actually happen” and admitted it could end badly for him, as he has not started training yet. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg has trained in mixed martial arts (MMA) and recently won jiu-jitsu tournaments.