Romanian court orders recount of presidential election’s first-round votes

Recheck of result of the first round, won by Călin Georgescu with Elena Lasconi second, likely to take days

Romania’s constitutional court has ordered a recount of all first-round votes to rule out a suspicion of fraud in the country’s presidential election, which was won in a major upset by a little-known far-right candidate.

The court said on Thursday it had decided unanimously to order Romania’s central electoral bureau to “recheck and recount all valid and invalid ballots” cast in Sunday’s election, won by the Moscow-friendly ultranationalist Călin Georgescu.

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Romania regulator calls for TikTok suspension amid vote interference fears

Far-right, pro-Moscow candidate Călin Georgescu came from 5% in polls to win presidential election’s first round

Romania’s telecoms regulator is asking for TikTok to be suspended as the country’s defence council prepares to discuss cyber risks to its elections, after a little-known ultranationalist came from nowhere to win the first round of the presidential vote.

The country’s constitutional court will also examine two allegations of electoral fraud after Călin Georgescu, a Moscow-friendly, EU-sceptic and anti-Nato independent, topped the ballot in a result that upended Romanian politics.

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Ireland orders X, TikTok and Instagram to curb terrorist content

Regulator issues online safety ruling after finding weak processes leave networks ‘exposed to terrorist content’

Elon Musk’s X, TikTok and Meta’s Instagram have been ordered by Irish media regulators to take “necessary measures” to prevent terrorist content being platformed in order to comply with sweeping new online safety legislation.

The Irish media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, said it issued the ruling after its investigations determined that the social media networks were “exposed to terrorist content” due to weak processes.

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French parents whose children took own lives sue TikTok over harmful content

Lawsuit alleges TikTok’s algorithm exposed teenagers to videos promoting suicide, self-harm and eating disorders

Seven French families have filed a lawsuit against TikTok, accusing the platform of exposing their adolescent children to harmful content that led to two of them taking their own lives at 15, their lawyer said.

The lawsuit alleges TikTok’s algorithm exposed the seven teenagers to videos promoting suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, lawyer Laure Boutron-Marmion told broadcaster Franceinfo on Monday.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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EU events on curbing big tech ‘distorted’ by attenders with industry links

Campaigners say 21% of people at workshops did not disclose on their applications relationships with firms being discussed

More than one in five attenders at EU events on regulating big tech companies did not disclose links to the industry when applying to take part, according to transparency campaigners who say hidden networks are distorting public debate.

Researchers at three NGOs analysed nearly 4,000 registrations at European Commission workshops organised earlier this year to test companies’ compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law to curb anti-competitive behaviour.

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US states sue TikTok, claiming its addictive features harm youth mental health

States and District of Columbia allege platform’s ‘dopamine-inducing’ algorithm can lead to anxiety and depression

More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia have filed lawsuits against TikTok on Tuesday, alleging the popular short-form video app is harming youth mental health by designing its platform to be addictive to kids.

The lawsuits stem from a national investigation into TikTok, which was launched in March 2022 by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from many states, including California, Kentucky and New Jersey. All of the complaints were filed in state courts.

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Sausage rolls and Oasis: ‘Britishcore’ Tiktok trend drives interest in UK culture

From crummy pubs to a ‘cheeky Tesco run’, some of the most mundane aspects of British life are going viral

Think of British cultural exports in the 21st century and you might reach for the familiar examples: James Bond, Downton Abbey, Adele.

But in the algorithm-driven universe of TikTok where a trend known as “Britishcore” is one of the most in demand movements of the moment, it’s the mundane aspects of life in the UK which are going viral.

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US gambling sector’s ‘relentless’ social media posts breached own rules, study claims

Exclusive: University of Bristol academics say gambling industry code ‘not being followed’ after analysis of social media posts by leading firms

As gambling companies target social media users, the four leading online brands appear to be routinely breaching the industry’s self-imposed marketing regulations, according to a new study.

Over one week this summer, academics at the University of Bristol found that BetMGM, DraftKings, ESPN Bet and FanDuel published more than a thousand posts – 75% of their non-sponsored content on Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok – that did not include problem gambling support messages or a helpline number.

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

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.

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‘Hawk tuah’ girl leans into craze she ignited but looks forward to moving on

Hailey Welch details in podcast interview how viral clip has upended her life and doesn’t want it to ‘be her image’

When she went viral in a video clip showing her coining the onomatopoeia “hawk tuah” to describe what intimate act reliably drives men wild in her experience, Hailey Welch thought about keeping herself hidden from the masses.

Then the rumor circulated that the photogenic blonde in the video with the thick southern drawl was actually the daughter of a humiliated religious leader. The attention had caused the woman to be fired from her education job, another rumor claimed. And social media users started creating fake accounts with photos of her.

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Fatima Payman admits she ‘upset a few colleagues’ by crossing the floor – as it happened

This blog is now closed.

Housing minister Julie Collins is speaking to the ABC RN about Labor’s build-to-rent bill which was knocked back in the Senate yesterday, with the Greens and the Coalition combining to delay it:

What we want to do is get this done. We’ve already been consulting, we announced it in the previous budget. Any delays will actually stop the pipeline of construction and the certainty for the sector.

What we want to do is get more affordable homes and more homes of every type on the ground as quickly as we can.

We’re saying they have to have a minimum of 10% to be eligible for the tax concessions that we’re talking about for each development.

That’s what our consultations and our discussions with the sector have done and, as I said, this is not the only thing we’re doing for affordable homes … My point here is that they continually delay and block housing up every time by coming together and having this unholy alliance between the Liberals and the Greens in the Senate, because they’re more interested in votes than they are about people.

We’re not open to negotiation and we want to get this done.

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Nigel Farage outperforms all other UK parties and candidates on TikTok

Exclusive: Videos on Reform leader’s account show more engagement and average views than any other candidate

Nigel Farage is outperforming all other parties and candidates on TikTok throughout the general election campaign, analysis shows, eclipsing politicians considered most popular among young people.

Since the election was called, videos posted to the Reform leader’s personal account had more engagement and views on average than any other candidate – as well as the main channels of other parties.

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ByteDance alleges US’s ‘singling out of TikTok’ is unconstitutional

Chinese firm recounts talks with US government that ended abruptly and says it spent $2bn to draft security agreement

New legal filings from the Chinese tech firm ByteDance have challenged the US government’s “unconstitutional singling out of TikTok”, revealing fresh details about failed negotiations over a potential ban of the platform.

Legislation signed in April by Joe Biden gives ByteDance until 19 January to either divest TikTok’s US assets or face a ban. ByteDance claims in its new filings that such divestiture is “not possible technologically, commercially, or legally” and accuses the US government of refusing to engage in any serious settlement talks after 2022.

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Hip-hop mimes and breast jokes win Farage a valuable gen Z following

Reform leader’s strategy to engage with young voters online pays off as he hits 776,000 TikTok followers

While Nigel Farage has written off many in generation X for being hopelessly woke and leftwing, he is much more interested in gen Z.

“Support is exploding among young gen Z 18-25 voters,” he told an audience in Runcorn in Cheshire on Thursday. “Something remarkable is happening out there. There’s an awakening in a younger generation who have had enough of being dictated to, have had enough of being lectured to, and they’re seeing through the BS they’re getting in schools and universities.”

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Trump joins TikTok despite seeking to ban app as president

‘The campaign is playing on all fields,’ an adviser to Trump’s campaign tells Politico

Former president Donald Trump has joined social media platform TikTok and made his first post late Saturday night, a video featuring the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, Dana White, introducing Trump on the social media platform.

The move came despite that fact that as president Trump pushed to ban TikTok by executive order due to the app’s parent company being based in China. Trump said in March 2024 that he believed the app was a national security threat, but later reversed on supporting a ban.

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Labour is already dominating the online general election campaign | Matthew McGregor

Starmer’s party was quicker out of the digital gate, with slicker, more engaging content than the Tory offering

The video opens with an old clip of Cilla Black singing her classic ‘Surprise, Surprise!’. The caption reads “POV: Rishi Sunak turns up at your 18th birthday to send you to war.”

This appeared on Labour’s TikTok account the day after the Conservatives launched their national service policy. It fitted perfectly with TikTok’s meme-heavy, wry and sarcastic culture and has been watched 4.5 million times. The video racked up almost 700,000 likes, more than double the likes on all the Tories’ TikToks put together.

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Young people buying large knives on Telegram and TikTok, police say

Commander says authorities scrambling to keep up with supply trends as knife crimes rise

Young people are using sites such as Telegram and TikTok to buy large knives for use in attacks and intimidation, with some linked to Britain’s drug wars, police said.

Stephen Clayman, national lead for knife crime for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, made it clear on Tuesday that police want tougher action after a 7% year-on-year rise in knife offences, with a 20% rise in knife-point robberies.

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‘It’s just not hitting like it used to’: TikTok was in its flop era before it got banned in the US

I used to be an avid user of TikTok, but the algorithm serves much less delight and serendipity than it used to

TikTok is facing its most credible existential threat yet. Last week, the US Congress passed a bill that bans the short-form video app if it does not sell to an American company by this time next year. But as a former avid user whose time on the app has dropped sharply in recent months, I am left wondering – will I even be using the app a year from now?

Like many Americans of my demographic (aging millennial), I first started using TikTok regularly when the Covid-19 pandemic began and lockdowns gave many of us more time than we knew how to fill.

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Ofcom accused of ‘excluding’ bereaved parents from online safety consultation

The UK regulator has been criticised by grieving families and internet abuse survivors for failing to engage with them

Bereaved parents and abuse survivors who have endured years of “preventable, life-changing harm” linked to social media say they have been denied a voice in official discussions about holding tech firms to account.

Mariano Janin, whose ­daughter Mia, 14, killed herself after online bullying, and the parents of Oliver Stephens, 13, who was murdered after a dispute on social media, are among those who have accused Ofcom of excluding them from a ­consultation process for tackling online harms.

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Iraqi TikTok star Om Fahad shot dead outside Baghdad home

Officials say unidentified man killed influencer who had previously been imprisoned over dancing videos

A man on a motorbike has shot dead a social media influencer known as Om Fahad outside her Baghdad home, Iraqi security officials have said.

The unidentified attacker shot Om Fahad in her car in the Zayouna district on Friday, a security official said, requesting anonymity because he was not cleared to speak to the media.

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