By the end of 2017, Dish Network’s Sling TV service had racked up 2.21 million subscribers, Variety reports. “Sling TV’s customer base grew 47% in the fourth quarter of 2017 from 1.5 million in Q4 of 2016 -- while its legacy satellite TV business continued to shrink, dropping 1.1 million over the course of last year,” Variety writes, citing data from Dish.

Despite promises by top content-sharing sites to crack down on false and misleading information, conspiracy videos related to the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida, are thriving on their platforms. “The conspiracy theories have already become so widespread that they cost a Florida state representative's aide his job after he accused the student activists of being actors,” CNet reports.

Nike “dropping” its latest Air Jordan on Snapchat has interesting implications for the messaging platform. “The sneaker drop comes a few weeks after opening up its own Snap Store storefront, where it sold some of its own branded sweatshirts and hats,” Recode notes. “For now, though, these launches come across as compelling one-offs rather than a cohesive online commerce strategy.”

Twitter remains a hotbed for Russians determined to sow discord across the United States, The New York Times reports. In fact, “One hour after news broke about the Florida school shooting, hundreds of suspected Russian-linked Twitter bots released divisive posts on the gun control debate,” it writes.  

Google this week is launching Google Pay for Android. “With this, Google is rolling out an update to Android Pay and introducing some new functionality that the company hopes will make its payment service ubiquitous -- both in stores and on the internet,” TechCrunch reports.

Cambridge researchers have built an online game with the goal of teaching the public how fake news is produced spread. In “Bad News,” players compete to become “a disinformation and fake news tycoon,” The Guardan reports. “By shedding light on the shady practices, they hope the game will ‘vaccinate’ the public, and make people immune to the spread of untruths.”

Embedding a tweet on a webpage may quality as a copyright violation, a New York district court just ruled. The decision “could have a wide-ranging impact on social media and publishing,” The Verge suggests. “The case in question dates back to 2016, when photographer Justin Goldman posted a Snapchat Story photo of NFL quarterback Tom Brady walking with Boston Celtics general manager Danny Ainge.”

In Russia, Instagram has blocked posts relating to corruption claims made by what BBC News calls “the country’s most prominent opposition leader.” As the BBC reports: “It follows a demand by the country’s internet censor that the Facebook-owned service restrict access to posts on its platform connected to allegations made by Alexei Navalny.”

A Belgian court is threatening to fine Facebook up to $125 million for tracking users on third-party websites. “In a case brought by Belgium’s privacy watchdog, the court also ruled that Facebook had to delete all data it had gathered illegally on Belgian citizens, including people who were not Facebook users themselves,” Reuters reports.

Following a partnership with Getty Images, Google has apparently removed the "view image" button from its image search feature. “This seems to be in direct response to the concession Google made with Getty Images a few days ago around helping reduce copyright infringement through the popular search engine,” Search Engine Land writes.