In February 2012, PayPal drew criticism from the press and civil liberties groups when it threatened to kick book publishers off its platform unless they removed “offending literature” from their catalogs. Although the company claimed that... +Read more
Instagram found itself at the center of an international controversy after it removed a photo posted by the Sikh artist and poet Rapi Kaur. Even though the photo was of a fully dressed woman alone in bed with a period stain on her clothing, Instagram deleted the photo... +Read more
Facebook was heavily criticized for maintaining a “fake name” reporting option even as it took steps to move away from its “real name policy.” The system was abused to target legitimate users, particularly members of the LGBT community... +Read more
Facebook found itself in the middle of another controversy around online speech when it deleted a blog post that, ironically enough, was about free speech and... +Read more
In February 2012, Facebook offices were the site of “ nurse-ins ” protesting the social giant’s practice of repeatedly taking down photographs of breastfeeding mothers. Although... +Read more
In 2012, Twitter faced allegations of preferential treatment of NBC, which had partnered with Twitter to promote the Olympics, after it encouraged NBC to complain about journalist Guy Adams’ tweets and then immediately suspended his... +Read more
Twitter started out as a service that would only produce plain text. When Twitter users began using hashtags on the service, Twitter initially resisted calls from users to officially support them . As hashtags continued to become popular,... +Read more
Apple was showered with praise from users and the press after it announced in 2009 that it would... +Read more
In 2007 Google became the target of public outcry when it tried to close down its video service that incorporated DRM technology. Because users would have been unable to continue to use their previously purchased content once Google terminated the service,... +Read more
Microsoft was blasted as “ gross, despicable, greedy, pathetic, cowardly and out of touch ” after it announced a controversial policy that restricted sharing of games and... +Read more
In 2009, Kindle users were furious when they discovered e-Books including George Orwell’s 1984 were removed from their Kindles without notice . Amazon eventually explained that the... +Read more
Apple was chastised by Forbes for “ biting the fans that feed it ” after trying to clamp down on blog posts about rumored upcoming products. A California appeals court shot down Apple’s attempt to use legal methods to try to... +Read more