Detention of influencer Oscar Alejandro Pérez at Caracas airport en route to southern national park raises free speech concerns
A popular Venezuelan YouTuber has been arrested in Caracas on terrorism charges as President Nicolás Maduro’s government steps up its crackdown on free speech ahead of upcoming elections.
Oscar Alejandro Pérez was detained in the capital’s main airport on Sunday by police on accusations of terrorism, his family said.
Continue reading...Move involving companies such as Google, Facebook and X comes after evidence of Russian online interference in polls
The EU is calling on eight major tech companies including Google, Facebook and X to detail how they identify and tackle deepfake material amid concerns about the use of the technology to influence elections.
In a world first, they will be using new laws on artificial intelligence to force companies to root out fake video, imagery and audio.
Continue reading...Belgium already takes a cut from Netflix and Disney and new income will support local TV production
Cute cat videos, fried chicken clips and viral dances could soon help to finance Belgian TV, with the Flanders government on the verge of passing laws to force TikTok and YouTube to share revenues with local television producers.
“Politically speaking, it is important in audiovisual and media services that there are obligations on companies to invest in local TV content,” the media minister for the Flemish government, Benjamin Dalle, told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Trevor Daniel Jacob, 30, sentenced for obstructing investigation after deliberately crashing his plane in California
A California YouTuber who authorities say deliberately crashed his plane and posted a video of it online was sentenced to six months in federal prison for obstructing the investigation by destroying the wreckage.
Trevor Daniel Jacob, 30, an experienced pilot and skydiver, pleaded guilty in June to one count of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation. Jacob destroyed wreckage from the small single-engine plane that he crashed in Los Padres national forest in 2021, authorities say.
Continue reading...Authorities step up checks and ‘name and shame’ content creators who break rules in move to regulate industry
When Marie Lopez started recording YouTube videos of makeup and hair tutorials in her bedroom in Lyon aged 16, she “ate, slept and breathed” social media.
By 21, she had an online community of millions and was one of the most watched French women on YouTube, posting about topics from bullying and acne to ecology. Now 28, under the name EnjoyPhoenix she uploads content from her life so many times a day that she is scared to count her working hours, aware that part of success is to “reveal more and more” of your private life.
Continue reading...London tube game is a surprise hit and three geography books by Marshall are bestsellers
In a world where we get from A to B by following the shortest route on our phones or satnavs, are cartographers mapping their way back into our national psyche?
Rather than ignoring what’s around us, we appear to be increasingly fascinated with locations and their significance, whether it’s through a viral tube map game, YouTube videos or books about geopolitics.
Continue reading...The rise in nuisance influencers comes as tourism numbers in Japan near their pre-pandemic levels
A rise in the antics of nuisance influencers in Japan, who are accused of duping train ticket collectors and pretending to be homeless to get cash, has caused consternation in the country as tourism number near their pre-pandemic levels.
A railway company in Japan is investigating allegations that a group of four popular foreign YouTubers had travelled long distances by train without paying. One of the suspected fare dodgers, known online as Fidias, posted a video to his 2.38 million subscribers over the weekend showing him and three others evading rail staff and blagging free food.
Continue reading...Former Autumnwatch presenter describes 8 Out Of 10 Bats show as ‘the Sex Pistols of wildlife TV’
A new upstart is entering the big-budget world of wildlife film-making. After the BBC scrapped Autumnwatch, Chris Packham is launching his own nature show, which will be broadcast for two weeks on YouTube.
In stark contrast to the multimillion-pound Planet Earth III, which premiered on Sunday night with 97-year-old Sir David Attenborough narrating, 8 Out of 10 Bats, which begins on Monday evening, is an “anarchic” DIY operation that cost just £50,000 and features a diverse roster of teenage and 20-something naturalist presenters.
Continue reading...Google-owned company says move is due to it ‘violating our creator responsibility policy’
YouTube has suspended Russell Brand’s ability to earn money on the platform after allegations of rape and sexual assault in a massive hit to his finances.
The video-sharing and social media site said it had suspended Brand’s channel from the YouTube partner programme after serious allegations against him, meaning his videos are no longer able to be monetised on the platform.
Continue reading...Tech firms permit ads for potentially harmful products including vaginal ‘cleanse’ balls and useless herbs for infertility, according to an investigation
Meta, YouTube and Google are profiting from posts promoting harmful and useless health products to women in Kenya, according to an investigation.
Researchers from the media collective Fumbua have accused big tech firms of amplifying content that promises unproven cures for infertility and herbs that can stave off cancers on their networks.
Continue reading...Trevor Jacob, 29, faces up to 20 years in prison after purposely destroying wreckage of small plane that he crashed in 2021
A YouTuber accused of deliberately crashing his plane to get a boost in views has agreed to plead guilty to obstructing a federal investigation, the US Department of Justice announced.
Trevor Jacob, 29, faces up to 20 years in federal prison after he purposely destroyed the wreckage of the small single-engine plane that he crashed in California’s Los Padres national forest in 2021, according to a statement from the US attorney’s office.
Continue reading...The video, which has been removed from the ABC’s YouTube channel, had 127,000 views by the time Bruce Lehrmann’s claim was filed
The video of Brittany Higgins’ and Grace Tame’s full National Press Club address on the treatment of women has been removed from YouTube after defamation proceedings were lodged against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The ABC has for months resisted legal demands for the video to be removed from YouTube, prompting Bruce Lehrmann to sue in the federal court for defamation last week.
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Continue reading...Manhattan grand jury has been investigating former president’s alleged hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels
A more serious concern for Congress and the White House is TikTok, the wildly popular video-sharing app that many in Washington fear is in cahoots with the Chinese Communist Party. Here’s what we know about the growing feud between the US and China over the app:
TikTok is once again fending off claims that its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, would share user data from its popular video-sharing app with the Chinese government, or push propaganda and misinformation on its behalf.
Continue reading...Platform says it ‘carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence’ before reversing ex-president’s ban
Social media platform YouTube said on Friday it was lifting restrictions on Donald Trump’s official account which were imposed after the violent January 6 attack on Congress.
Leslie Miller, vice-president of public policy, told Axios Trump’s “ability to upload new content is restored”.
Continue reading...The platform banned the Russia-controlled publication last year for its Ukraine falsehoods, but its content is still posted on various channels
Hundreds of videos produced by the Russia-controlled publication RT have found their way on to YouTube in the past year, despite the platform’s ban of such media last year.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, banned all Russian state-funded media from its platform globally in March 2022, citing a policy barring content that “denies, minimizes or trivializes well-documented violent events” as Russia sought to guide the narrative on its war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Video with DJ Bizarrap ridiculing footballer’s new relationship racks up 63m views in 24 hours
A savage new song by Shakira in which the Colombian star, philanthropist and committed believer in the veracity of hips ridicules her former partner Gerard Piqué has logged more than 63m YouTube views in 24 hours, making it the most watched new Latin song in the platform’s history.
Shakira and Piqué, who played football for Barcelona, Manchester United and the Spanish national team, separated last year after more than a decade and have two children. The former centre-back, 35, has since begun a relationship with a 23-year-old woman, Clara Chía.
Continue reading...Lawsuit accuses companies behind TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube of harming young people’s mental health
Seattle’s public schools district has filed a lawsuit in the US against multiple major social media companies, accusing them of harming young people’s mental health across the country.
The lawsuit which was filed on Friday with a US district court accused the social media companies behind TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube of creating a “mental health crisis among America’s youth”.
Continue reading...Ukrainian ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko says he is a victim of a ‘telephone harassment campaign’ but Simeon Boikov denies inciting followers
The Ukrainian ambassador to Australia claims a controversial pro-Putin YouTuber who broadcast his personal phone number – which had been included in a press release – to more than 160,000 subscribers has enabled a campaign of harassment and intimidation.
Australian federal police have been made aware of Vasyl Myroshnychenko’s complaint that Simeon Boikov, who goes by the nickname “Aussie Cossack”, made a prank call on Thursday which was filmed and published on social media.
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Continue reading...Australian couple behind Wieambilla attack were in regular contact with man with a similar fundamentalist theology
In the hours after Gareth Train and his wife, Stacey, murdered two police officers and wounded a third during a chilling, premeditated attack on their remote Queensland property this week, they posted a haunting video to YouTube.
“They came to kill us, and we killed them,” Gareth says, his face partly obscured in darkness.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...