Trump’s call to ban Muslims draws fire on social media

By Angela Moon and Melissa Fares NEW YORK (Reuters) – Republican presidential contender Donald Trump’s demand that the U.S. stop allowing Muslims into the United States lit up social media on Tuesday, as critics of the proposal around the world took to Twitter and Facebook to express their outrage. Outside of the United States, there were about 4.2 negative mentions for every positive one on social media regarding Trump, according to data provided by Zoomph, an analytics platform that tracks and aggregates social media mentions

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New Jersey university probes threats against African-Americans

An anonymous user posted messages to Twitter on Tuesday night, threatening to kill or shoot black students and others at the school, where students have been demonstrating to raise awareness about racism on U.S. campuses. “I will shoot every black woman and male I see at Kean University,” wrote the Twitter user using the name @keanuagainstblk.

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Relatives search for missing, grief pours out on social media after Paris attacks

By Raissa Kasolowsky LONDON (Reuters) – Scores of appeals for missing people circulated on Twitter and green “I am safe” ticks appeared on Facebook profiles of many Parisians on Saturday, as an outpouring of shock and grief over Friday’s deadly assault dominated social media. Instagram, Twitter and Facebook were flooded with tributes, messages of condolences and solidarity for the victims and for France, with #PrayforParis and #PrayersforParis the top trending hashtags by far

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Hired-gun hacking played key role in JPMorgan, Fidelity breaches

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – When U.S. prosecutors this week charged two Israelis and an American fugitive with raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in one of the largest and most complex cases of cyber fraud ever exposed, they also provided an unusual look into the burgeoning industry of criminal hackers for hire. The trio, who are accused of orchestrating massive computer breaches at JPMorgan Chase & Co and other financial firms, as well as a series of other major offences, did little if any hacking themselves, the federal indictments and a previous civil case brought by the U.S.

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Trump’s rant against Carson goes viral on social media

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's rant against fellow contender Ben Carson on Thursday, in which he said Carson had a “pathological” temper as a young man, quickly became a lively topic on social media on Friday. Speaking in Iowa late Thursday, Trump cast doubt on Carson's often-reported story of lunging at someone with a hunting knife as a child, an episode Carson says led him to Christianity.

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Square IPO priced at 30 percent discount to last private funding

By Heather Somerville SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Mobile payments company Square Inc set a price range on Friday for its highly anticipated initial public offering that values the company at up to $4.2 billion, a 30 percent discount to its valuation at its last fundraising round. San Francisco-based Square, which is headed by Twitter Inc Chief Executive Jack Dorsey, is one of the most prominent “unicorns,” or private companies valued at more than $1 billion, to make a public debut this year

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Alibaba to pay about $3.7 billion for ‘China’s YouTube’

It is also a vote of confidence in China's economy by Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma, who has said investors should not overreact to his country's slowing growth. Youku Tudou's American Depositary Shares rose 10 percent to $26.80 in premarket trading on Friday, below Alibaba's offer of $27.60 per ADS. Alibaba held 18.3 percent of Youku Tudou as of Oct

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Twitter’s Dorsey says to give a third of his stock to employee equity pool

(Reuters) – Twitter Inc Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said he is giving a third of his stock in the company, about 1 percent, to the employee equity pool. This move is to “reinvest directly in our people,” Dorsey, who was named as the company's permanent CEO earlier this month, said in a tweet on Thursday. Twitter could not be reached immediately for a comment outside regular business hours.

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Twitter unveils new tools to measure ad effectiveness

(Reuters) – Twitter Inc said in a blog it would provide its advertisers with custom data-driven reports to help them gauge the impact of their ad campaigns on their profits. The effectiveness of an ad campaign will be measured by dividing an advertiser's target audience into two groups – one that sees the ads and another that doesn't – and comparing conversions across the two test groups. Twitter's ad revenue per monthly average user has been declining and to stem this it has launched new advertising products, notably its app install ads

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