Category Archives: Social media

WeChat user numbers plummet nearly 30% in Australia amid concerns of Chinese interference

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Owner gives parliamentary inquiry no reason for fall over three years but says China’s government could not conduct surveillance on app

WeChat has said its user numbers in Australia have declined almost 30% in the past three years, amid questions being raised about foreign interference on the app.

Tencent-owned WeChat told a parliamentary committee examining foreign interference on social media that as of July 2023, the communications app favoured by Australia’s Chinese diaspora community had fewer than 500,000 daily active users in Australia. The company told the committee in 2020 that its user base was 690,000.

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How a viral Channel 7 clip that had nothing to do with the voice was co-opted by the no camp

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Confusion over Western Australia’s new cultural heritage laws is being co-opted by the no campaign and far-right opponents of the voice

The two-minute clip never mentions the Indigenous voice to parliament, but a now-viral Channel 7 news story about cancelled tree planting ceremonies in Western Australia was quickly seized upon last week by the no campaign and far-right opponents of the voice.

The video has now reached more than 1.5m views on Twitter, largely thanks to a significant boost from opponents of the voice, who have attempted to co-opt controversy over the state’s updated planning laws since at least early July.

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‘An ideal tool for a repressive regime’: Snapchat’s Saudi ties questioned

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Critics say social media app – partly owned by a Saudi investor – pushes pro-crown prince hype while critical voices are punished

Saudi Arabia appears to be exploiting the US messaging app Snapchat to promote the image of its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, while also imposing draconian sentences on influencers who use the platform to post even mild criticism of the future king.

The California-based company, which last year agreed to a “collaboration” with the Saudi culture ministry, has more than 20 million users in the kingdom – including an estimated 90% of 13-to-34-year-olds – and the crown prince has met personally with some of the platform’s biggest “Snapchatters” for informal talks about current events, according to people familiar with the encounters.

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Is Labor cooking up a ‘ministry of truth?’ No, it’s just an opposition scare campaign – with a side of hypocrisy | Paul Karp

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The Coalition now opposes the type of social media regulation it supported in government – and its about-face is aimed at fuelling the campaigning journalism of Labor’s critics

Labor has a patchy record when it comes to free speech online.

In 2008, it attempted to filter the internet – an idea that limped on despite enormous practical difficulties until it was ditched in November 2012.

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Meta vows to crack down on abuse and misinformation surrounding voice to parliament referendum

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Exclusive: Parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads says it will ensure content on its platforms is ‘contributing to democracy’

Facebook and Instagram want to be “contributing to democracy” and not exacerbating harms surrounding the Indigenous voice referendum, the company’s Australian policy head has said, as the social media giant beefs up protections on misinformation, abuse and mental health before the national vote.

Meta, the parent company of the two apps, on Monday announced it would boost funding to factcheckers monitoring misinformation, activate global teams to locate and respond to potential “threats” to the referendum – including coordinated inauthentic behaviour – and form a partnership with ReachOut for mental health support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The company will also maintain transparency tools such as its ad library that tracks political spending.

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Linda Reynolds says she has ‘had enough’ as she threatens Brittany Higgins with defamation case

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Higgins had called on the senator to ‘stop’ after Reynolds confirmed she intended to refer commonwealth’s settlement with Higgins to anti-corruption watchdog

Brittany Higgins has revealed she has received a defamation threat from her former boss Linda Reynolds over an Instagram post that included a list of complaints against the senator.

Reynolds has responded by accusing Higgins of “defamation of my character”.

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Limits on Biden officials working with social media firms a ‘weaponisation of the court’ – expert

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Injunction amounts to unusual intervention by the courts in communications between the government and tech companies

Restricting the ability of the Biden administration to work with social media companies in countering online conspiracy theories is a “weaponisation of the court system” that could devastate the fight against misinformation ahead of the 2024 presidential election, a leading expert has warned.

Nina Jankowicz, a specialist in disinformation campaigns, told the Guardian that an injunction imposed by a federal judge on Tuesday against key federal agencies and officials blocking their communication with tech platforms could unleash false information in critical areas of public life. She said that election denialism and anti-vaccine propaganda could be the beneficiaries.

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Macron accused of authoritarianism after threat to cut off social media

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Élysée insists French president not advocating general blackout as ministers say rioters using platforms to organise violence

Emmanuel Macron is facing a backlash after threatening to cut off social media networks as a means of stopping the spread of violence during periods of unrest.

Élysée officials and government ministers responded on Wednesday by insisting the president was not threatening a “general blackout” but instead the “occasional and temporary” suspension of platforms.

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Meta delays EU launch of Twitter rival Threads amid uncertainty over personal data use

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New app developed by Facebook and WhatsApp owner is due to launch in the UK and US on Thursday

Mark Zuckerberg’s rival to Twitter will not launch in the EU on Thursday amid regulatory uncertainty about the service’s use of personal data.

Sources at Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said regulations were behind the postponement of an EU launch, amid a series of clashes between the social media group and the bloc.

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Rise in racist abuse against Sadiq Khan linked to London clean air zone expansion

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Study by Greater London authority finds mayor has received over 300,000 pieces of racist abuse since being elected

Sadiq Khan has received more than 300,000 pieces of openly racist or racially-oriented abuse on social media since he was elected London mayor, with a recent surge in such messages connected to his plan to expand the city’s clean air zone, research has found.

The study, carried out by the Greater London authority, found that racist abuse against the Labour mayor, which peaked when he was targeted on Twitter by Donald Trump, has started to rise again this year.

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Australian teens ‘inundated’ with gambling ads with YouTube most common platform, report states

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At-risk children between 12 and 17 reported seeing promotions from a wide range of sources including their homes, school and social media

Young people are being “inundated” with gambling ads in their everyday lives, particularly sports betting ads and social casino games, amid unprecedented levels of exposure for at-risk adolescents.

Children between 12 and 17 who are at risk of becoming problem gamblers reported a wide range of sources that promote gambling, including in their home, school, social, digital and media environments.

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Influencer Dylan Mulvaney condemns Bud Light’s response to transphobia

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Trans social media star says company largely abandoned her amid bullying responses to beer promotion

Dylan Mulvaney has spoken out against Bud Light, criticizing the brand for not supporting her amid transphobic backlash to an advertisement featuring the influencer.

In a TikTok video captioned “Trans people like beer, too”, Mulvaney, who is trans, called out Bud Light for largely abandoning her after she was bullied for posting a sponsored video to Instagram with the beer brand.

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Online safety bill: changes urged to allow access to social media data

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Campaigners say bill in ‘serious peril’ of passing without powers to make platforms more transparent

Online safety experts will struggle to sound the alarm about harmful content if landmark legislation does not allow independent researchers to access data from social media platforms, campaigners have warned.

The government is being urged to adopt amendments to the online safety bill enabling researchers to access platform data in order to monitor harmful material. Access would be overseen by Ofcom, the communications watchdog, and would protect user privacy.

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Police and crime researchers fear social media’s affect on crime in NSW and Victoria

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Data released in both states suggest online posts may have contributed to a rise in certain types of crime

Social media platforms allowing teenagers to brag about crimes might be contributing to an increase in youth offending in Australia’s most populous states, Victorian police and New South Wales’ crime statistics agency say.

In Victoria, data from the Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) released on Thursday reported that home burglaries committed by 10-to-14-year-olds increased by almost 87% in the 12 months to 31 March, compared with the prior year. This is despite youth offending being down by almost half, compared with a decade ago.

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Army of fake social media accounts defend UAE presidency of climate summit

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Sultan Al Jaber – Cop28 president and CEO of state oil firm – is ‘ally the climate movement needs’, posts say

An army of fake social media accounts on Twitter and the blogging site Medium have been promoting and defending the controversial hosting of a UN climate summit by the United Arab Emirates.

The president of the Cop28 climate talks is Sultan Al Jaber, who is also the chief executive of the state oil giant Adnoc, which has major net zero-busting expansion plans.

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Watchdog considers action over Oxfam cartoon of anti-trans ‘hate groups’

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Oxfam International apologised and re-edited cartoon alleged to include racial stereotyping and JK Rowling attack

The UK charities watchdog is assessing whether it will take action against Oxfam after receiving complaints about a cartoon published by the charity that ignited a row about transgender issues.

Oxfam International put the cartoon out on Twitter last week to mark pride month, but took it down on Tuesday after a backlash against its use of the term Terf (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) in an image depicting anti-trans “hate groups”.

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Google and Facebook urged by EU to label AI-generated content

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Call comes amid moves to combat disinformation from Russia, while Twitter is warned to comply with new digital content laws

Social media companies including Google and Facebook have been urged by the EU to “immediately” start labelling content and images generated by artificial intelligence as part of a package of moves to combat fake news and disinformation from Russia.

At the same time, the EU has warned Twitter that it faces “swift” sanctions if it does not comply with new digital content laws that come into effect across the bloc on 25 August.

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Saudi Arabia warns Snapchat users that ‘insulting’ regime is a criminal offense

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Users of the social media app have faced legal consequences for posts – some private – that are critical of Saudi authorities

Saudi state media issued an explicit warning that it is a criminal offense to “insult” authorities using social media apps such as Snapchat, the California-based messaging app whose chief executive recently forged a new “cooperation” deal with the kingdom’s culture ministry.

The threat – which was originally televised in April and then deleted – has gained new resonance as more cases emerge in which Snapchat users and influencers in the kingdom have been arrested by authorities and, in some cases, sentenced to decades-long prison sentences.

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Chinese censors remove protest site Sitong Bridge from online maps

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Amid usual scrubbing for Tiananmen Square anniversary, searches for bridge where protest was held in 2022 return no results

Chinese censors scrubbing the internet of any words or symbols that could be used to reference the Tiananmen Square massacre in the run-up to Sunday’s anniversary have a new target in their sights: a bridge in Beijing where a rare protest was staged last year.

As the 34th anniversary of the 1989 massacre approaches, anyone searching in Chinese for Sitong Bridge on Baidu maps will draw a blank.

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Rockhampton mob ringleader was head of ‘patriots’ group that posted anti-Islam content

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Torin O’Brien led a far-right group that was deregistered as an incorporated association in 2015

The ringleader of a Rockhampton mob that surrounded the home of an Indigenous teenager on Sunday was previously the national leader of a far-right “patriots” group, which regularly published anti-Islam content online.

Torin O’Brien, a former One Nation candidate, posted the names and photographs of the two Aboriginal young people, believed to be teenagers, on Facebook last week and called for locals to attend their address on Sunday.

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