King Charles sends ‘heartfelt thanks’ to police for restoring order after riots

Posted on August 9, 2024 by Admin

The monarch held calls with Keir Starmer and senior officers and paid tribute to the emergency services

King Charles has sent his “heartfelt thanks” to the police for restoring order after speaking to Keir Starmer and senior officers following the week of unrest across the UK.

The king and the prime minister held a phone call on Friday evening, Buckingham Palace said. Gavin Stephens, a chief constable and chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and the UK gold commander Ben Harrington, chief constable of Essex police, held a separate joint call with the king.

Nicolás Maduro blocks X for 10 days in Venezuela amid spat with Elon Musk

Posted on August 9, 2024 by Admin

President accuses social network’s owner of using it to ‘incite hatred’ after country’s disputed election

President Nicolás Maduro said he had ordered a 10-day block on access to X in Venezuela, accusing the owner, Elon Musk, of using the social network to promote hatred after the country’s disputed presidential election.

Associated Press (AP) journalists in Caracas found that by Thursday night posts had stopped loading on X on two private telephone services and the state-owned Movilnet.

Online Safety Act not fit for purpose after far-right riots, says Sadiq Khan

Posted on August 8, 2024 by Admin

Exclusive: London mayor warns law must be revisited ‘very, very quickly’ due to falsehoods that contributed to unrest

Sadiq Khan on the riots: ‘Like a lot of people of my generation, I felt triggered’

Laws designed to counter misinformation are “not fit for purpose” and must be revisited after the spread of online falsehoods contributed to this month’s far-right riots, the mayor of London has said.

Sadiq Khan, one of the UK’s most senior Muslim politicians, said ministers should act “very, very quickly” to review the Online Safety Act after the violent unrest in England and Belfast over the past week. There have been calls to hasten the act’s implementation.

UK police monitoring TikTok for evidence of criminality at far-right riots

Posted on August 7, 2024 by Admin

Footage of disorder can reach hundreds of thousands of viewers and often shows faces of those committing crimes

Police officers are watching TikTok in an attempt to catch far-right demonstrators livestreaming self-incriminating footage of their illegal behaviour.

TikTok’s Live function has become one of the defining outlets for coverage of this summer’s riots, with hundreds of thousands of viewers watching live streams of rioting over the last week in cities such as Stoke, Leeds, Hull and Nottingham.

The far right has moved online, where its voice is more dangerous than ever

Posted on August 3, 2024 by Admin

Social media such as X are fuelling the growth of extremism by allowing its figureheads a platform to direct violence

The resurgence of far-right violence in the UK is in part due to Elon Musk’s decision to allow figures such as Tommy Robinson back on to the social media platform X, researchers say.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and those of his ilk are not leaders in the traditional sense and the far right has no central organisation capable of directing the disorder and violence that has been seen, experts say.

Don Lemon sues Elon Musk and X over terminated talkshow deal

Posted on August 1, 2024 by Admin

Ex-CNN anchor alleges fraud and breach of contract after X Corp owner abruptly ended video series partnership

The former CNN anchor Don Lemon has sued Elon Musk and X over a cancelled deal with the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

His filing in California superior court in San Francisco includes claims of fraud, negligent misrepresentation, misappropriation of Lemon’s name and likeness and breach of express contract.

Olympic ‘drag queen scene’ DJ files legal complaint after torrent of online abuse

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Admin

Barbara Butch has received homophobic abuse
Legal complaint is precursor to possible police action
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A DJ and LGBTQ+ activist who performed during a controversial scene in the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony has said she is taking legal action after becoming the target of “an extremely violent campaign of cyber-harassment and defamation”.

Barbara Butch, who calls herself a “love activist”, had been “threatened with death, torture and rape, and has also been the target of numerous antisemitic, homophobic, sexist and body-shaming insults”, her lawyer said in a post on her Instagram page.

‘Just missed’: German comedian loses job over Trump shooting joke

Posted on July 18, 2024 by Admin

Sebastian Hotz, aka El Hotzo, was dropped from his radio show and provoked anger from Elon Musk after now-deleted posts on X

A 28-year-old German comedian has got into trouble with Donald Trump supporters and then Elon Musk after sending a series of tweets appearing to welcome the assassination attempt on the former US president.

Sebastian Hotz, who posts and performs as El Hotzo, lost his job with a public broadcaster this week for a series of tweets on X, Musk’s social media platform, after Trump narrowly escaped death, saying that the attempt had been like the last bus – “unfortunately, just missed”.

Doomscrolling linked to existential anxiety, distrust, suspicion and despair, study finds

Posted on July 18, 2024 by Admin

Expert compares doomscrolling to being in a room where people are constantly yelling at you and says media needs to rethink news

Does scrolling your phone give you an existential crisis? That’s the question a team of international experts have sought to answer in a study published in the Journal of Computers in Human Behavior Reports.

Researchers surveyed 800 university students from the US and Iran and found that doomscrolling – or spending excessive time consuming negative news – was linked to feelings of existential anxiety, distrust and suspicion of others, and despair.

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Irish glee as Sinn Féin leader congratulates Spain on Euros win over England

Posted on July 16, 2024 by Admin

For some it was harmless banter but others say Mary Lou McDonald’s post on X was an example of obnoxious trolling

It’s a venerable football equation: English defeat = Irish glee.

Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Féin leader, reflected this tradition when she posted “Olé, Olé, Olé” and celebrated Spain’s victory over England in the Euro 2024 final in Berlin on Sunday. “Felicidades! Comhghairdeas to the champions of Europe,” she added, using the Irish word for congratulations.

Disinformation networks ‘flooded’ X before EU elections, report says

Posted on July 12, 2024 by Admin

Analysis by Dutch researchers shows coordinated activity in France, Germany and Italy in run-up to ballot

Coordinated networks of accounts spreading disinformation “flooded” social media in France, Germany and Italy before the elections to the European parliament, Dutch researchers have found.

After an in-depth analysis of disinformation on the platform X in four EU countries, the researchers concluded that many of the accounts had been set up after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but were cranked up in the weeks and days before the vote, with growth in their numbers of followers rocketing.

UK political parties on track to spend £1m on election day online ads

Posted on July 4, 2024 by Admin

Digital campaigning gets round media blackout rule restricting broadcasters’ coverage while polls are open

UK election live – latest updates

The UK’s political parties are on track to spend more than a million pounds on online adverts on Thursday, circumventing a media blackout rule that forces television and radio stations to stop their election coverage when polls open.

British parties have traditionally ceased top-level campaign activity when voting began as they had no way to get out their message out. This is because of a longstanding broadcasting rule, enforced by the media regulator Ofcom, that states: “Discussion and analysis of election and referendum issues must finish when the poll opens.”

Revealed: the tech entrepreneur behind a pro-Israel hate network

Posted on June 29, 2024 by Admin

The Guardian used public records and open source materials to identify Daniel Linden of the Shirion Collective

A prime mover behind the Shirion Collective, a conspiracy-minded, pro-Israel disinformation network seeking to shape public opinion about the Gaza conflict in the US, Australia and the UK, is a tech entrepreneur named Daniel Linden living in Florida who co-wrote a guidebook for OnlyFans users, the Guardian can reveal.

Shirion has harassed pro-Palestinian activists, including many Jews, offered bounties for the identity of pro-Palestinian protesters, spread conspiracy narratives centered on figures like George Soros, and boasted of an AI-surveillance platform but offered few concrete details of how the technology functions.