Cyberstalking, body shaming and being sent explicit content among issues highlighted by Plan International
Most girls and young women using social media have experienced abuse that has driven them offline and left them traumatised, according to a new global survey.
More than half of the 14,000 15- to 25-year-olds interviewed by Plan International said they had been cyberstalked, sent explicit messages and images, or abused online.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has said he “approves a deal in concept” that will allow TikTok to continue to operate in the US, after threatening to ban the Chinese-owned app.
Related: China attacks US 'bullying' over ban on Tiktok and WeChat
Continue reading...Followers believe that Donald Trump is waging secret war against ritual child abusers
A conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is waging a secret war against an elite who engage in ritual child abuse is growing across UK social media, Guardian analysis has found.
The QAnon conspiracy theory is propelled by an unlikely coalition of spirituality and wellness groups, vigilante “paedophile hunter” networks, pre-existing conspiracy forums, local news pages, pro-Brexit campaigners and the far right.
Continue reading...Reality TV mogul says she will also freeze Facebook as platforms allow ‘spreading of hate and misinformation’
Kim Kardashian West criticised Instagram and Facebook for allowing the “spreading of hate” and said she would freeze her social media accounts on the platforms.
Actors including Kerry Washington, Jennifer Lawrence, Sacha Baron Cohen and Mark Ruffalo also posted in support of the #StopHateForProfit campaign and called on Facebook to do more.
Continue reading...Graphic footage originally broadcast on Facebook has spread across social network
TikTok is battling to remove a graphic video of a livestreamed suicide, after the footage was uploaded to the service on Sunday night from Facebook, where it was initially broadcast.
Although the footage was rapidly taken down from TikTok, users spent much of Monday re-uploading it, initially unchanged, but later incorporated into so-called bait-and-switch videos, which are designed to shock and upset unsuspecting users.
Continue reading...New director general says he wants to focus on impartiality after accusations of bias
Tim Davie is to crack down on staff posting their views on social media in a move to restore the view of the BBC as impartial, and raised the question of slashing the corporation’s output by a fifth, cutting more jobs and potentially shutting TV channels.
The new director general said the BBC had to focus on impartiality to address accusations of bias from politicians on both sides of the political divide.
Continue reading...He’s back – sporting a post-lockdown haircut and hosting a new podcast. Britain’s No 1 raconteur talks about his new hat, driving a Vauxhall, and why Boris Johnson looks like the evil rabbit in Watership Down
Turn right out of Norwich railway station, take the number 12 bus, change at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, ride eight stops on the number 4 towards Swanton Morley, walk 1.1 miles, and you can’t help but spot the twin louvred conical towers of the oasthouse that Alan Partridge calls home. It is from this very oasthouse that Partridge – raconteur, national treasure, wit – broadcasts his brand new podcast, From the Oasthouse: The Alan Partridge Podcast, and to which Partridge has invited the Guardian.
Partridge bounds out to greet me in what appears to be an effusive show of hospitality. He offers a handshake before snapping it back into a more pandemic-appropriate wave. “I am so fine with social distancing,” he says. “Remember, I work in television where you’re forever mauled, hugged and leant on by over-pally floor managers or cackling makeup ladies. Now I can say, ‘Get your hands off me!’ without appearing in any way rude.”
Continue reading...The controversial app’s users are ignoring geopolitical battle over its digital security, says Richard Waterworth
TikTok’s UK chief has strenuously denied the video-sharing app, which Donald Trump has threatened to ban, shares data with China.
Richard Waterworth told the Observer that the UK and European arm of TikTok was growing quickly, despite the “turbulent” geopolitical battle in which the Chinese-born app has found itself.
Continue reading...BP ordered to pay Western Australia oil refinery worker for lost wages, after his parody of bosses got him fired
An oil refinery worker who was sacked for creating a Hitler parody of his bosses has been awarded $200,000 in compensation.
The employee, a technician on a BP refinery in Western Australia, was sacked after he used an oft-parodied scene from the 2004 film Downfall by Oliver Hirschbiegel about the final days of Hitler and Nazi Germany to depict his bosses during a tense wage negotiation.
Continue reading...Duke of Sussex urges advertisers to demand companies do more to curb hate speech online
Prince Harry has hit out at social media companies for creating a “crisis of hate” and called for “meaningful digital reform” after an unprecedented advertiser boycott of Facebook.
In an opinion piece for the US business magazine Fast Company, the Duke of Sussex revealed that he and his wife, Meghan, had begun campaigning for change in social media “a little over four weeks ago”.
Continue reading...The disparity between the fees paid to black influencers and their white counterparts has come under scrutiny after a group of campaigners spoke out
At the start of the pandemic, Vanity Fair asked whether the influencer era was over because people were tired of glossy, edited lives on social media and wanted something more “real”. Instead, it seems the world of influencers is adapting to reflect changes in the rest of the world. In recent weeks, the focus has been the shocking pay disparity between white influencers and influencers of colour.
In June, a group of influencers of colour shared an open letter on Instagram that called out Fohr, a marketing agency that work as a middleman between brands and influencers. Women including Valerie Eguavoen spoke out. “I cannot be silent when I see clear evidence of pay disparities between Black women and other creatives who work with you,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “I cannot be silent when you refuse to address racism form [sic] individuals on your team adequately. Enough is enough.” (Fohr replied on Instagram, apologising for its conduct, writing: “We HAVE to do a better job listening to, promoting and working with black influencers.”)
Continue reading...Video-sharing app suspends building plans, with British ban on Huawei 5G kit seen as factor
The Chinese social media firm TikTok has pulled back from talks to site the headquarters for its non-China business in the UK, threatening the creation of 3,000 jobs, as fears grow of a tit-for-tat trade war between London and Beijing.
Its parent company, ByteDance, which is based in Beijing, had spent months in negotiations with the Department for International Trade and No 10 officials to expand operations in addition to the near 800 employed by TikTok.
Continue reading...Service adds to firms shunning Facebook over refusal to act against Donald Trump posts
The messaging service Viber, the fifth biggest with more than a billion users around the world, is severing all ties to Facebook as part of a growing boycott of the company by commercial partners.
The campaign, initially started in the US after Facebook’s refusal to take action against posts from Donald Trump which critics said incited violence, has now grown to become an international movement.
Continue reading...Pocket Casts says it refuses to restrict its content at request of Chinese authorities
Apple has removed two podcast apps from its Chinese app store, following government pressure to censor content.
Pocket Casts and Castro were both pulled from distribution in China after the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) demanded that the apps stop allowing content that breached the country’s restrictive speech laws.
Continue reading...Test to promote informed discussion will ask users if they want to retweet unread links
Twitter is trying to stop people from sharing articles they have not read, in an experiment the company hopes will “promote informed discussion” on social media.
In the test, pushed to some users on Android devices, the company is introducing a prompt asking people if they really want to retweet a link that they have not tapped on.
Continue reading...Brussels shifts position by accusing Beijing for first time of running false campaigns
China has been accused by Brussels of running disinformation campaigns inside the European Union, as the bloc set out a plan to tackle a “huge wave” of false facts about the coronavirus pandemic.
The European commission said Russia and China were running “targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns in the EU, its neighbourhood, and globally”. While the charge against Russia has been levelled on many occasions, this is the first time the EU executive has publicly named China as a source of disinformation.
Continue reading...Researchers find coordinated effort to promote conspiracy theory that coronavirus is a bioweapon engineered by China
Misinformation about the origins of Covid-19 is far more likely to be spread by pro-Trump, QAnon or Republican bots on Twitter than any other source, according to a study commissioned by the Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology.
In late March, when the coronavirus pandemic was taking hold in the US and across much of the rest of the world, two researchers at Queensland University of Technology, Timothy Graham and Axel Bruns, analysed 2.6m tweets related to coronavirus, and 25.5m retweets of those tweets, over the course of 10 days.
Continue reading...Donald Trump is preparing to sign an executive order that could erode legal protections for social media companies for content posted on their platforms, potentially opening them to liability claims over controversial content.
Continue reading...The Star Wars actor expanded on his defiance of racist social media users in an Instagram Live video
John Boyega has been praised for a series of uncompromising social media posts speaking out about racism in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers.
Boyega’s initial Tweet, “I really fucking hate racists”, currently has 1.3m likes, but came in for criticism for his hard-hitting tone and use of an expletive.
Continue reading...Streaming service must convince podcast listeners to switch from their favourite app
Joe Rogan, the comedian, MMA commentator and podcaster, may seem an unlikely prospect for becoming the world’s highest paid broadcaster. But after signing an exclusive deal with Spotify, that is what he may have become, marking a new era for podcasting in the process.
To much of the world, Rogan’s name is most associated with the periodic furores that erupt from the marathon interviews around which his podcast is structured.
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