Category Archives: Social media

Elon Musk and X to fight Australian eSafety order to remove content relating to Sydney stabbing

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Company says it complied with directive over posts about stabbing of Sydney bishop but will challenge ‘unlawful and dangerous approach’ in court

Elon Musk and his social media company X have accused Australia’s eSafety commissioner of censorship and say they will challenge in court an order to remove content on the site relating to Monday’s Sydney church stabbing.

On Tuesday the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said that X and Meta were issued with a notice to remove material within 24 hours that depicted “gratuitous or offensive violence with a high degree of impact or detail”, with the companies facing potential fines if they failed to comply.

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Exclusive: Georgia lawmaker runs secret election-conspiracy Telegram channel

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Bridget Thorne, a Republican elected in Fulton county in 2022, has spread election fraud lies and accused county employees of crimes

A Fulton county commissioner in Georgia has been operating a private Telegram channel for years, propagating debunked claims about the 2020 election, and spreading accusations of crimes by county employees, including Ruby Freeman, an election worker defamed by Rudy Giuliani in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2020 loss.

Bridget Thorne, a Republican representing the relatively conservative cities of Fulton county north of Atlanta, indirectly identifies herself as the creator and administrator of the Fulton County Elections channel on Telegram, a mobile messaging platform, in multiple posts to its page. The channel uses the official logo of the Fulton county board of registration and elections.

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High-ranking Queensland police officers under scrutiny over offensive social media activity

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Exclusive: Ethical standards command launches internal review as Guardian Australia unearths Facebook posts dating back years

Queensland police’s ethical standards command is conducting a review after high-ranking members of the service appeared to publicly share and comment on lewd social media posts over a number of years, including one about a sexual assault.

From 2017 to 2022, Det Supt Benjamin Fadian publicly tagged a number of officers in dozens of Facebook posts about subjects including pornography, masturbation and dildos.

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Sydney church stabbing: social media pages ‘infamous’ for spreading misinformation taken down

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Premier Chris Minns is alarmed at the ‘wildfire’ of rumour and graphic content online after Wakeley and Bondi stabbings

Social media pages “infamous” for spreading misinformation have been taken down after the Wakeley church stabbing attack, the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, said on Thursday, while expressing alarm at the “wildfire” of rumour and graphic content still proliferating on tech platforms.

On Monday night YouTube was live broadcasting Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel’s service at the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church. After the stabbing occurred, video clips spread through WhatsApp groups before police had arrived on scene.

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eSafety commissioner orders X and Meta to remove violent videos following Sydney church stabbing

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Julie Inman Grant issues notices compelling companies to remove offending material within 24 hours

Facebook’s parent company Meta and X/Twitter have been told to remove violent and distressing videos and imagery of the stabbing of a prominent Orthodox Christian leader in Sydney’s west on Monday evening.

The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, told reporters on Tuesday that X and Meta had been issued with notices to remove material within 24 hours that depicted “gratuitous or offensive violence with a high degree of impact or detail”, with the companies facing potential fines if they fail to comply.

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Licence to trill: Molly the magpie returned to Queensland carers after special wildlife permit granted

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Juliette Wells and Reece Mortensen are allowed to keep the bird, which had become Instagram famous with their staffy, Peggy, but are forbidden from monetising it

Molly the magpie has been returned to its Gold Coast carers – but they are no longer allowed to make money from its 837,000 Instagram followers.

The department of environment, science and innovation approved a special licence for Juliette Wells and Reece Mortensen, who have cared for it since it fell from the nest in 2020.

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Use TikTok to combat misinformation, MPs tell government

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Cross-party committee urges creation of strategy engage with new platforms that appeal to young

The government needs a TikTok strategy to help combat misinformation directed at young people, MPs have said.

Members of the cross-party culture, media and sport committee said the government needed to adapt to new apps and platforms that appeal to young people who are increasingly turning away from traditional sources of news.

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Instagram ads in UK promoting ‘butt lifts’ in Turkey as part of holidays in potential breach of rules

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Watchdog warns cosmetic surgery providers abroad as analysis reveals thousands of Facebook adverts

A post on Instagram shows the back of a woman in tight blue leggings, her lower body taking up most of the frame. The words “Temptingly sexy curves ahead … Ready to turn heads and break hearts?” are written in the caption. It is from a company offering Britons the chance to get a Brazilian butt lift while enjoying a luxury holiday abroad.

The advert is one of thousands on social media promoting cosmetic surgery tourism by companies in Turkey to UK residents, including gastric band operations, hair transplants and Brazilian butt lifts (BBL) – a process that involves fat taken from elsewhere on the body being injected into the buttocks – in a trend that has triggered safety concerns among doctors in Britain.

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‘I will not dance’: Olaf Scholz joins TikTok with a promise

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German chancellor follows in the footsteps of Joe Biden and other leaders on social media platform

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has opened a TikTok account, promising he will not be seen dancing on the social media platform popular with young people.

The newest official government channel “increases the information offer to citizens, who increasingly inform themselves and discuss politics on TikTok”, Scholz’s spokesperson, Steffen Hebestreit, said in a statement.

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Elon Musk faces Brazil inquiry after defying X court order

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Multibillionaire called for resignation of judge who ordered platform to block far-right users

Elon Musk faces a legal investigation in Brazil after becoming embroiled in a public row with a supreme court judge over an order requiring the social network X to take down some far-right accounts.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes had issued a court order forcing the site formerly known as Twitter to block several users as part of his investigation into the former president Jair Bolsonaro’s attempts to stay in power after his 2022 election defeat.

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‘First time?’ Californians poke fun at New Yorkers’ frantic earthquake posts

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Although one Bay Area reporter found the side-eye inappropriate, New York earthquake Twitter proved delightful for Angelenos

For many people in Los Angeles, earthquakes are just another trend that New Yorkers have discovered years after the real cool kids did.

As Angelenos awoke to the news that the east coast had endured a 4.8-magnitude earthquake centered in New Jersey, “First time?” memes filled Los Angeles social media channels.

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Support positive masculinity in England and Wales schools, union conference told

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Boys and young men need guidance – not punishment – to avoid ‘manosphere’, teacher tells NEU

Teachers should promote positive masculinity in schools in England and Wales in order to support boys who might otherwise feel demonised and end up turning to “the manosphere” for hope, a union conference has been told.

Charlotte Keogh, a secondary school English teacher from Worcestershire, said boys and young men needed support and guidance as they grappled with ideas about masculinity, rather than being punished and silenced.

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Teachers’ union leader calls for inquiry into misogyny among young men in UK

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Daniel Kebede accuses government of failing to tackle issue of sexism and its spread online among children

The leader of the UK’s largest education union has called for an independent inquiry into the rise of sexism and misogyny among boys and young men, saying it should not be left to parents and schools to police.

Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said it was “a huge issue” in schools and expressed particular concern about the ease with which pupils are accessing aggressive hardcore pornography on their phones.

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Reform UK drops two more election candidates over racist comments

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Jonathan Kay and Mick Greenhough made derogatory remarks about Muslims and black people on social media

Reform UK has dropped two more parliamentary candidates after accusations they made racist comments on social media.

Campaign group Hope Not Hate found tweets by candidates Jonathan Kay and Mick Greenhough in which they made derogatory comments about Muslims and black people.

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Cleaners, builders, Primark shoppers: ads for London mayor hopeful Susan Hall reveal Tories’ targets

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Analysis shows content is aimed at working-class over-50s, and plays on fears of crime, stirs anger and pushes conspiracy theories

Are you a cleaner or builder who likes Primark, the pub or reality TV – but doesn’t care about the environment? If yes, the Conservative party wants your vote.

These are some of the interest categories used by the campaign team for the Tories’ candidate for London mayor, Susan Hall, to target audiences on social media.

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Canada school boards accuse social media firms of ‘rewiring’ how kids think

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District education authorities launch multibillion-dollar lawsuit against Meta, Snap Inc and ByteDance

Four of Canada’s largest school boards have launched a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the social media companies Meta, Snap Inc and ByteDance, accusing them of acting in a “high-handed, reckless, malicious, and reprehensible manner” with products the boards claim harm student learning and “rewire” how children think.

The four district boards – Ottawa-Carleton, Toronto, Peel and Toronto Catholic – filed four separate statements of claim in Ontario’s superior court of justice on Wednesday.

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Hire factcheckers to fight election fake news, EU tells tech firms

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Parliamentary elections thought vulnerable to fake news will test social media firms and bloc’s new DSA laws

Social media firms including TikTok, X, Facebook and Instagram will be required to put an army of factcheckers and moderators in place with a collective knowledge of 24 EU languages amid fears that the European parliamentary elections will be a prime target for disinformation campaigns run by Russia and others including the far right.

The new rules flow from the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which regulates content on social media, and follows a public consultation with civil society and election observation groups in February.

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Apologies for Kategate – but will the spirit of restraint on social media last?

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The Princess of Wales’s cancer diagnosis has put a stop to the internet’s wilder conspiracy theories, but it could be temporary

After Friday’s filmed statement from the Princess of Wales, it is now TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X, formerly Twitter, who are in the dock. This weekend thousands of individual users have expressed contrition over the conspiracy theories they aired and the boss of X herself tried to reposition her platform by urging compassion.

“A brave message delivered by Princess Kate with her signature grace,” CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino, posted, adding, “Her request for privacy, to protect her children and allow her to move forward (without endless speculation) seems like a reasonable request to respect.”

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Trump could net $3bn after investors approve Truth Social to go public

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Plan approved by vote of shareholders in Digital World Acquisition, with which Trump’s business sought to combine

Investors approved plans to take Donald Trump’s social media platform public on Friday, netting the former president a paper fortune of $3bn.

Trump Media & Technology, the firm behind his minnow social network Truth Social, has spent years fighting to land on the stock market via a so-called “blank check” merger with a shell company.

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Reddit shares priced at $34 in largest IPO by social media company in years

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Platform to make its debut on New York stock exchange on Thursday with a market value of $6.4bn

Reddit will enter a new era as a publicly traded company with a market value of $6.4bn after the social media platform’s initial public offering was priced at $34 per share.

The price, announced late on Wednesday, came in at the top of the target range set by Reddit’s investment bankers as they spent the past few weeks gauging investor demand for the stock. It sets the stage for Reddit’s shares to begin trading Thursday on the New York stock exchange under the ticker symbol RDDT in the largest initial public offering by a social media company in years.

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