Category Archives: Media

Evidence suggests reporter killed in Kenya was targeted, says Pakistan

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Kenyan police decline to respond to interior minister’s comments regarding death of Arshad Sharif

Pakistan’s interior minister has said evidence suggests a prominent Pakistani journalist was the victim of a targeted killing in Kenya, rather than an accidental shooting, though he said he still needed more information on the incident.

The Kenyan police spokesperson Bruno Shioso declined to respond to Rana Sanaullah’s comments on Tuesday regarding the death of the TV journalist Arshad Sharif, who was shot dead on the evening of 23 October on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

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Influencer ‘Ray Hushpuppi’ jailed over plan to launder $300m

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Ramon Abbas, described by FBI as one of world’s most prolific money launderers, sentenced to 11 years

A social media influencer who called himself Ray Hushpuppi and flaunted a lavish lifestyle fuelled by his efforts to launder millions of stolen dollars has been sentenced in Los Angeles to more than 11 years in federal prison.

Ramon Abbas, 40, also was ordered by a federal judge to pay $1.7m in restitution to two fraud victims, according to a statement from the US Department of Justice.

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Philippine police allege prisons chief ordered murder of journalist

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Gerald Bantag behind killing of Percival Mabasa in Manila suburb last month, authorities claim

Police in the Philippines have accused the country’s prisons chief of ordering the killing of a prominent radio journalist whose death sparked international alarm.

Percival Mabasa, 63, who went by the name Percy Lapid on his programme, was shot dead in a Manila suburb on 3 October as he drove to his studio.

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Archie Battersbee’s mother asks coroner to examine role of TikTok in death

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Exclusive: Hollie Dance believes 12-year-old was ‘influenced, persuaded or peer-pressured’ into taking part in online challenge

The mother of Archie Battersbee, the 12-year-old boy who died in August after his life support was switched off, wants a coroner to consider what role exposure to TikTok videos may have played in his death.

Archie sustained a catastrophic brain injury on 7 April at his home in Southend, Essex, when a ligature was found over his head. His mother, Hollie Dance, believes he was injured as a result of taking part in an internet challenge known as the “blackout challenge” and wants the inquest into his death to scrutinise how social media may have contributed.

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Twitter bans comedian Kathy Griffin for impersonating Elon Musk

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Users adopt Musk’s name after he announces suspension of accounts pretending to be someone else

Elon Musk has banned a US comedian’s Twitter account after taking on users who impersonate him on the platform.

Twitter’s new owner announced an immediate ban on accounts pretending to be someone else without flagging them as parodies. The move resulted in the removal of an “Elon Musk” account held by the comedian Kathy Griffin, who had changed her account name to match that of the Tesla chief executive.

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Elon Musk tries to lure YouTube stars on to Twitter

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Platform’s new owner tells video-makers he’s planning ‘creator monetization for all forms of content’

The anarchic behaviour of YouTubers draws huge online audiences and has turned stars such as MrBeast and Logan Paul into the best-paid entertainers of the internet age. Now Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, wants a piece of this lucrative action and will attempt to lure video creators on to the social media platform.

In a series of messages, Musk engaged with video-makers, saying he was planning “creator monetization for all forms of content”, and that his company could “beat” the 55% cut of advertising revenue that YouTube gives its top entertainers.

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Twitter staff in UK facing axe given three days to nominate representative

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Social media firm sets deadline for workers to name person to represent them at job consultations amid layoffs

Twitter staff who face losing their jobs in the UK have been given three days to nominate a representative for a formal consultation about their employment.

An email sent to staff from Twitter’s HR department on Saturday said they had until 9am on Tuesday to nominate any current employee. Staff can nominate themselves.

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Former Twitter chief Jack Dorsey issues apology amid mass layoffs

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As anger builds, Dorsey says ‘I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation – I grew the company too quickly’

Former Twitter chief executive officer Jack Dorsey has gone on the platform recently acquired by billionaire Elon Musk to apologize for the state of the site, which has laid off thousands of workers.

On Saturday Dorsey published a series of tweets in response to the layoffs across Twitter’s workforce, which began on Friday. As many as half of the company’s 7,500 staffers could be axed since Musk acquired the company for $44bn last week.

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Netflix with ads draws some big brands – but others are unimpressed

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L’Oréal and Budweiser owner advertise on Basic with Ads but high prices for slots put off some agencies

Netflix has launched its first subscription package featuring ads in a drive to reignite growth by attracting cost-conscious users, but the hurried launch, high prices for slots and accompanying demands have left some advertisers unconvinced.

Basic with Ads, which went live in 12 countries this week, costs £4.99 a month in the UK – £2 less than its cheapest ad-free package – and hopes to lure households whose budgets are shrinking in the cost of living crisis.

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Eric Allison, Guardian’s prison correspondent, dies at 79

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Former inmate, who claimed to be only man to escape from Strangeways, joined paper at 60 and worked to expose cruelty of prison system

Eric Allison, who became the Guardian’s prison correspondent aged 60 after spending much of his life in jail, has died. He had been recently diagnosed with secondary bone cancer and was 79.

Allison, who claimed to be the only man to ever escape from Strangeways prison in Manchester, joined the Guardian in 2003 after serving multiple jail terms for fraud, theft and burglary.

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TikTok tells European users its staff in China get access to their data

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Privacy policy update confirms data of continent’s users available to range of TikTok bases including in Brazil, Israel and US

TikTok is spelling out to its European users that their data can be accessed by employees outside the continent, including in China, amid political and regulatory concerns about Chinese access to user information on the platform.

The Chinese-owned social video app is updating its privacy policy to confirm that staff in countries, including China, are allowed to access user data to ensure their experience of the platform is “consistent, enjoyable and safe”.

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Banned Twitter accounts will not be reinstated until after US midterms

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Elon Musk says setting up process over those barred, including Donald Trump, will take ‘at least a few more weeks’

Banned Twitter accounts including Donald Trump’s will not be reinstated until after the US midterm elections at least, the platform’s new owner, Elon Musk, has said.

The Tesla chief executive’s statement came as a study revealed that Twitter had taken down six disinformation networks on the platform linked to China and Iran that had been tweeting about the 8 November elections.

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Rogue employee who hacked New York Post apologizes for ‘utmost betrayal’

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Miguel Gonzalez, 25, blames ‘my own stupidity’ for tantrum that led him to post fake sexist and racist headlines on paper’s website

The New York Post employee who was fired after publishing a slew of phony, sexist and racist headlines on the newspaper’s website and Twitter account has apologized for what he described as a tantrum and the “utmost betrayal”.

“I let my own stupidity get the best of me,” Miguel Gonzalez told the Daily Beast’s Confider newsletter in a piece published late on Monday. “I deserved to get fired for a very volatile, irresponsible and disgusting action and an utmost betrayal of the New York Post.

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Indian police raid news site’s office over retracted article about BJP official

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Homes of several editors of the Wire also raided after complaint about story based on falsified documents

Police in Delhi have raided the premises of a news website known for its fierce criticism of the Indian government, over a retracted article about a politician in charge of the ruling party’s social media campaigns.

Officers arrived at the homes of several editors of the Wire in the middle of the night and seized their laptops and phones. They also searched the website’s office in the capital.

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Phone hacking: Mirror Group to pay damages to ex-partner of Kerry Katona

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David Cunningham wins apology and ‘substantial’ damages over articles published in 2005 and 2006

A former partner of Kerry Katona has won an apology for phone hacking and “substantial” damages from the publisher of the Mirror.

David Cunningham, an engineer, brought a claim against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which also publishes the People and the Sunday Mirror, over 36 articles published in 2005 and 2006 while he was in a relationship with the former Atomic Kitten singer.

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Like Trump, Elon Musk reveals a vapid mind super-charged by wealth and ego | Siva Vaidhyanathan

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Musk, despite his wealth, good fortune and global influence, is not a serious person – but he is toying with dangerous ideas

It took less than 48 hours for Elon Musk to reveal just how dangerous his new toy can be to this world. Replying to a tweet from former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the man worth more than $210bn with more than 112 million Twitter followers spread a dangerous conspiracy theory intended to distract people from an attempted political assassination just one week before a major US election.

Clinton had warned that “the Republican party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories”, in response not just to the attack on home and spouse of Nancy Pelosi but a slew of attempted kidnappings and threats against elected officials who have stood up to the Trump agenda and the attempted overthrow of the US government in January 2021.

Siva Vaidhyanathan is a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy

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Elon Musk considers charging Twitter users $20 a month for verified accounts

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World’s richest person plans revamp of social media platform, asking users if he should bring back Vine

Elon Musk is considering charging Twitter users $20 (£17.30) a month or $240 a year for a blue tick on their account, as the world’s richest person prepares an overhaul of the social media platform.

The Tesla chief executive is planning changes to Twitter’s Blue subscription service, according to the tech newsletter Platformer, including raising the $4.99 a month fee to $19.99. Users verified by the platform – who carry a blue tick flagging them as an authentic source – would have 90 days to sign up to Blue or lose their check mark.

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BBC local radio stations face big cuts to content made for their area

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Exclusive: cost-cutting plans would leave local stations in England with hardly any programmes made for their own listeners

BBC local radio stations could be left with just a handful of programmes specific to their area under proposals set to be announced this week.

A fresh round of BBC cuts is due to be announced on Monday, with sources telling the Guardian it will herald the end of most local radio stations as truly distinctive standalone outlets.

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Government urged to investigate report Liz Truss’s phone was hacked

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Breach discovered during Tory leadership in summer but details suppressed, the Mail on Sunday reports

The government has been urged to launch an urgent investigation after reports that Liz Truss’s phone was hacked.

The breach was discovered when Truss, then the foreign secretary, was running for the Tory leadership in the summer, but details were suppressed by the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, the Mail on Sunday reported.

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From Ed Balls to BTS: the greatest hits in Twitter’s history

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To mark the site’s takeover by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, we present a survey of its most media-friendly moments

Twitter has great influence for a social media platform. It has a comparatively modest 230 million users, given that the likes of Instagram, Facebook and TikTok have user bases that run into the billions. But Twitter is beloved of politicians, celebrities, commentators and journalists and can have a great impact on the political and news cycle as a result. Here are some of the best-known and notorious tweets in the company’s 16-year history.

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