Category Archives: Digital media

From Oslo pram guy to the teenage vacuum expert: inside the obsessive world of niche online reviewers

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Wade can tell you the best pram for a tall parent; Matthew knows which cleaner has superior suction power. But how do you become a respected reviewer on the wild west of the internet?

Once a month, every month, more than 8,000 strangers pay James Hoffmann a total of £16,263 so he can go out and buy coffee machines. Hoffmann, 41, from London, is an author, business owner, coffee connoisseur and, above all, a YouTuber: more than 900,000 people subscribe to his channel, on which he discusses everything to do with beans and brewing. Around a third of Hoffmann’s videos are product reviews: grinders, espresso machines, storage canisters and filters have all been scrutinised by him.

Hoffmann’s monthly £16,000 comes from Patreon, a membership platform that allows fans to pay creators a regular fee. The money is intended to keep him impartial: it enables him to buy machines to review directly – just like you or me – instead of getting them on loan from brands.

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Turkey’s labourers take to TikTok to show millions their harsh work conditions – video

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Workers in Turkish factories, construction sites and fields have become the unlikely stars of TikTok, revealing harsh and dangerous conditions in posts with millions of views. Turkey, ranked among the '10 worst countries in the world for workers', is one of TikTok’s largest user bases, with approximately 19.2 million users. Its algorithm can allow a labourer with a handful of followers to reach millions if their posts land on the 'discover' page. But despite the grim reality evident in these videos, creativity and humour shine through the cracks

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‘I felt I existed in this world’: TikTok gives a voice to Turkey’s labourers

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Workers have become unlikely stars of the video app, while revealing harsh conditions

Agricultural workers throw their buckets into the air at the end of harvest like at a graduation ceremony. A construction site turns into a concert hall, with workers wearing strands of hemp as wigs and singing into bits of plastic piping instead of microphones. A market stall becomes a runway as fruit vendors strut their stuff: a bunch of bananas as headgear, leeks dangling from their necks.

With posts from factories, fields and construction sites, workers in Turkey are going viral on TikTok. The app’s staples such as challenges, dancing and comedy abound, but amid the joy it is hard not to miss the criticism of dire working conditions.

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Instagram ‘pushes weight-loss messages to teenagers’

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Researchers find minimal interactions by teen users can trigger a deluge of thin-body and dieting images

Instagram’s algorithms are pushing teenage girls who even briefly engage with fitness-related images towards a flood of weight-loss content, according to new research which aimed to recreate the experience of being a child on social networks.

Researchers adopting “mystery shopper” techniques set up a series of Instagram profiles mirroring real children and followed the same accounts as the volunteer teenagers. They then began liking a handful of posts to see how quickly the network’s algorithm pushed potentially damaging material into the site’s “explore” tab, which highlights material that the social network thinks a user might like.

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‘They’re killing people’: Biden slams Facebook for Covid disinformation

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False claims about vaccines has proliferated on the social network, and on other sites including Twitter and YouTube, says president

Joe Biden says social media platforms such as Facebook “are killing people” for allowing disinformation about coronavirus vaccines to be posted on its platform, as the administration continued criticising the company.

“They’re killing people. ... Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people,” the US president told reporters at the White House on Friday, when asked about disinformation and what his message was to social media platforms such as Facebook.

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‘An American riddle’: the black music trailblazer who died a white man

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A fascinating new podcast delves into the life of Harry Pace, forgotten founder of the first black-owned record label in the US – and unlocks a shocking and prescient story about race

There are, according to the academic Emmett Price, “six degrees of Harry Pace”. He is referring to the man born in 1884 who founded America’s first black-owned major record label; desegregated part of Chicago; mentored the founder of Ebony and Jet magazines and spearheaded the career of blues singer Ethel Waters. Pace is a figure who is seemingly everywhere at once, yet his name has been suspiciously absent from the history books.

“This story encapsulates how progress comes about in America – and it is never in a straight line,” says Jad Abumrad. “It is often a cycle – one that contains hope and despair, smashed together.”

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Famous, but not ultra famous: meet the internet’s ‘in-betweeners’

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They’re known by their faces, work, or names, and live a life of semi-stardom – all because they showcased their craft on the internet

You probably know Sarah Bahbah by her name, or her work – but you probably wouldn’t be able to pick her out in a crowd. You may have seen her recent cover shot of DJ Khaled for GQ; or you may know her other visual art work – like her subtitle series, which uses cinematic stills with her inner dialogue as captions, featuring big names like Noah Centineo and Dylan Sprouse. But a few years ago, the 29-year-old was relatively unknown. Then, all of a sudden, she posted a collection of photographic stills based on sex and takeout, and woke up to find herself near famous.

Now she has more than a million followers on Instagram, but Bahbah first recognized her new level of fame when she started to pass the barbecue test – that is, when you are invited to a gathering where you don’t know anyone, and a stranger asks if you’re familiar with your own work. “It’s happened numerous times,” she says. “I would just be sitting there listening to someone talk about my work, in this room full of strangers. That’s such a cool feeling to have – knowing that no matter where you are in the world, because of the internet, people discover you on their own terms and connect to your work.”

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FinTok: how TikTok is helping young people use cash wisely

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It’s not just jokes and emojis – the video-sharing platform can help users learn how to manage money

Sea shanties and viral dance trends have helped make TikTok a hit since the start of the pandemic. In 2020, the social media app, which allows users to create and share one or more 60-second films soundtracked with music clips, surpassed 2bn global downloads.

In the financial world, TikTok has a reputation for promoting volatile cryptocurrencies and activist investing – interest in Dogecoin and GameStop has been fuelled by the platform. But, beyond the jokes and rocket emojis being shared by some users, there is a wealth of practical personal finance videos that are teaching young people how to use their money better.

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‘Where else can I make a month’s rent in two days?’: the unlikely stars of OnlyFans

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Clarita needed to put herself through nursing school; Lex wanted to boost his income as a labourer – now they are erotic influencers on the subscriber site

In many ways, Lex Lederman, 28, is a classic American family man. He owns a farm in New Hampshire, where he lives with his wife and three children (plus a sizable company of chickens, pigs and geese). He’s teaching himself home renovation (plumbing, electrics, how to lay floors) and regularly helps out with homeless food charities, refugee relief, and the local high school football team. But this lifestyle has only become possible since he quit his construction job for a full-time career on OnlyFans – the content subscription service where he uploads erotic pictures and videos for his predominantly gay male fanbase.

One of the biggest tech success stories of the last few years, OnlyFans was founded by British entrepreneur Tim Stokely in September 2016. “You could see the explosion of influencer marketing, but the influencers were getting paid via ad campaigns and product endorsements,” he explained in an interview earlier this year. “Our thinking was always, OK, what if you could build a platform where it’s similar to existing on social media, but with the key difference being the payment button?” Stokely is now worth an estimated $120m (£86m).

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French court convicts 11 of harassing teenager who posted anti-Islam videos

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Case involving Mila, who was sent more than 100,000 abusive messages, has fuelled debate about free speech.

A French court has convicted 11 people for harassing a teenager online over her anti-Islam videos in a case that has led to a fierce debate about free speech and the right to insult religions.

The prosecutions were part of a judicial fightback against trolling and online abuse after the girl, known as Mila, had to change schools and accept police protection because of death threats.

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Tongue-in-cheek tales from 19th-century India – podcasts of the week

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Meera Syal and Jennifer Saunders star in Audible’s new spoof, Raj! Plus: a tense history lesson in GunPlot, and Unearthed offers gripping plant-themed tales

Raj!
Meera Syal and Jennifer Saunders give standout performances in Audible’s new pod drama, spoofing life in British-controlled India. Ineffectual governor Henry arrives in a rural province, “allergic to emotions”, part of an unwieldy bureaucratic structure, and unwilling to acclimatise. As well as the lines you might see coming (“can’t imagine the British ever going for Indian food!”), there is plenty you might not, in this tale of blustering Brits, and Syal’s Rajmata side-eyeing and sticking it to the man.
Hannah J Davies

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Overconfident of spotting fake news? If so, you may be more likely to fall victim

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Study suggests people who are most sure of their ability to discern fact from fiction are less likely to do so

Are you a purveyor of fake news? People who are most confident about their ability to discern between fact and fiction are also the most likely to fall victim to misinformation, a US study suggests.

Although Americans believe the confusion caused by false news is all-pervasive, relatively few indicate having seen or shared it, something the researchers suggested shows that many may not only have a hard time identifying false news but are not aware of their own deficiencies at doing so.

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EU cites ‘anti-vaccine campaign’ as reason to toughen social media code

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European Commission proposes more factchecking and algorithm changes to tackle disinformation

A “massive anti-vaccination campaign” has been cited by the European Commission as a reason for social media platforms to intensify their factchecking and revise the internal algorithms that can amplify disinformation.

Under a revised code of practice proposed by Brussels, companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter would need to show why particular material is disseminated and prove that false information is being blocked.

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Associated Newspapers pays damages for revealing Sand Van Roy as Luc Besson accuser

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MailOnline published actor’s identity as complainant in rape case against French director

Associated Newspapers has paid substantial damages and apologised to actor Sand Van Roy for revealing her identity as a complainant in a rape case against the French film director Luc Besson.

In May 2018, Van Roy filed a complaint with French police alleging that she had been raped by Besson. She expected to remain anonymous, as is her right under French law, but details of her complaint were leaked and reported in the French press, breaching her right to anonymity, the high court heard.

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Spanish aid volunteer abused online for hugging Senegalese migrant

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Luna Reyes targeted by far-right supporters after footage of gesture goes viral

The image captured the raw humanity of the moment: a Red Cross volunteer tenderly consoling a Senegalese man moments after he stepped foot in Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta.

Hours after the footage went viral, however, Luna Reyes set her social media accounts to private after she was targeted by a torrent of abuse from supporters of Spain’s far-right Vox party and others incensed by the unprecedented arrival of 8,000 migrants in Ceuta.

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The new food stars of TikTok

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The app’s snappy videos are the new gateway to food fame. Its breakout stars explain the secrets of their success

When Poppy O’Toole was made redundant from her job as junior sous chef at the AllBright private members club in Mayfair during the first wave of the pandemic, she expected to return to work soon enough. “I thought, I’ve got three weeks to cook some nice food at home,” 27-year-old O’Toole remembers, “and be back in work in a few weeks.”

With lockdown opening up in front of her, O’Toole decided to upload the recipes she was cooking for herself on to the video-sharing app TikTok. “I’d always wanted to do the social media thing,” she says, “but I never had time, because I worked 70-hour weeks.” On 1 April 2020, O’Toole uploaded her first TikTok video under the handle @poppycooks. “Hi everyone … I’m going to start cooking at home doing TikToks,” said O’Toole. She captioned the video “hope this TikTok doesn’t flop like my career”.

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How missing CCTV footage turned a Chinese family’s tragedy into a national conspiracy

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A mother’s search for the truth about her son’s death exposes the level of public distrust in China’s authorities

On Mother’s Day last Sunday, 17-year-old Lin Weiqi wished his mother – referred to only as Madame Lu in Chinese media – a good day. “Mum, enjoy your day,” he said to her that morning. He was Lu’s only child. Like most Chinese parents of the one-child generation, Lin was her pride and joy.

Late in the afternoon, before Lin had gone back to his school in the south-western city of Chengdu, Lu prepared snacks for him in case he was hungry in the evening. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until an hour later.

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No shame: the podcast taking on the Arab world’s sex and gender taboos

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Eib is now in its seventh season, fearlessly tackling subjects from Beirut’s drag queen scene to Jordanian widows’ rights

Rude, fault or blemish; flaw, disgrace or shame. The word has many shades, but nearly every woman who grows up in Arabic-speaking households knows its singular weight. “Anything related to women is eib,” says Tala El-Issa, from her home in Cairo. “If they want to talk about their bodies, it’s eib, their problems – eib. Just being a woman is almost eib.”

When the team at Sowt, an Arabic podcasting network based across the Middle East, wanted to create a show that charged fearlessly into the region’s taboos around sex and gender, the title was obvious. “Eib” is now in its seventh season, the company’s longest-lasting podcast and its most popular.

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Donald Trump returns to social media with glorified blog

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Ex-president unveils retro webpage featuring series of statements resembling blogposts ahead of Facebook oversight board’s decision on his suspension

Banned by Facebook and Twitter, Donald Trump has gone back to the future with an online communication tool that might be described as a glorified blog.

His retro webpage, billed “From the Desk of Donald J Trump”, appears at DonaldJTrump.com/desk and features a small photo of the 45th president writing in a book on his desk.

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Substack: how the game-changer turned poacher

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It started as a newsletter platform for unknown writers. Now it is becoming a media giant in its own right – with many of the problems it was supposed to avoid

Isabelle Roughol was done with her day job at LinkedIn and was ready to start something of her own. She quit in early 2020 and launched Borderline, a podcast and newsletter aimed at “defiant global citizens”, and to help her build it she became an early user of a new online service: Substack.

Substack has marketed itself aggressively to people such as Roughol as a new type of tech company, one that will let writers build their own brands and communities. The company offers software to help people set up free or paid-for newsletters and promises the people creating them that they can write what they want and that they own their own mailing list and can take it with them if they leave.

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