TikTok artist Lubalin brilliantly captures the drama of low stakes online fights. But internet discord is increasingly spilling into everyday life
It was summer 2016 and I was looking after a friend’s flat in Kirribilli.
Out the back was a communal laundry and clothesline.
Continue reading...Following Trump’s Twitter ban, Polish government wants to protect posts that do not break nation’s laws
Polish government officials have denounced the deactivation of Donald Trump’s social media accounts, and said a draft law being readied in Poland will make it illegal for tech companies to take similar actions there.
“Algorithms or the owners of corporate giants should not decide which views are right and which are not,” wrote the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, on Facebook earlier this week, without directly mentioning Trump. “There can be no consent to censorship.”
Continue reading...Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of Twitter, has said that banning Donald Trump from the platform was the “right decision” but that it sets a dangerous precedent.
Related: Donald Trump becomes the first US president to be impeached for a second time – live
Continue reading...From Facebook and Twitter to Reddit and Amazon, tech firms are moving to silence the president, and his QAnon supporters
Twitter’s decision to suspend Donald Trump’s account on Wednesday evening has opened the floodgates for tech companies and platforms to remove the outgoing US president from their services.
Twitter’s suspension was followed by Facebook, which a day later announced the move would be “indefinite”. Twitter then announced a “permanent” suspension of Trump’s account.
Continue reading...The network said it acted after ‘violent events in Washington’ when a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol
Twitter has said it has suspended more than 70,000 accounts since Friday that were primarily dedicated to sharing QAnon content as the social media site continued to crack down on content after supporters of Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol.
“Given the violent events in Washington DC, and increased risk of harm, we began permanently suspending thousands of accounts that were primarily dedicated to sharing QAnon content on Friday afternoon,” Twitter said in a blog late on Monday.
Continue reading...Actions spark debate on free speech and whether chief executives of tech firms are fit to act as judge and jury
As rioters were gathering around the US Capitol last Wednesday, a familiar question began to echo around the offices of the large social networks: what should they do about Donald Trump and his provocative posts?
The answer has been emphatic: ban him.
Continue reading...Twitter’s decision to permanently suspend Donald Trump’s account in the wake of the storming of Capitol Hill on Wednesday continues to stoke fierce debate, supporters and critics split on partisan lines as they contest what the suspension means for a cherished American tradition: freedom of speech.
Related: Insurrection Day: when white supremacist terror came to the US Capitol
Continue reading...We asked Guardian readers what kept you giggling through a year unlike any other. Here’s what you told us
Todrick Hall’s Covid cover of his own song, Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels comes front of mind. – ChrisR22
Continue reading...Over the last few years, the internet has thrilled to pictures of chubby pets. But now experts are calling for a new era of cat shaming and determined dieting
Name: Fat cats.
Age: Probably no older than 10, given their propensity to die young.
Appearance: Fat.
Although preoccupations changed over year, Britons’ thirst for Covid-related information continued to outstrip that for all other health topics
At the peak of the pandemic, Britons were searching for coronavirus-related information six times a day on average, an analysis of search engine data reveals. And although our preoccupations have changed over the months, our thirst for Covid-related information continues to outstrip that for all other health and social care-related topics.
2020 has been an extraordinary year. Never before have we been so united in our concerns and interests as we roller-coasted through the months. To better understand what that psychological journey looked like, Kaiasm, a Somerset-based data intelligence company, crunches the searches people make on Google, Bing and other internet sites. But rather than analysing the top search terms people use, it groups these together into underlying concepts, to better understand people’s needs and interests.
Continue reading...Class action claims weak security allowed hackers to take over the smart cameras used on doorbells and in homes
Dozens of people who say they were subjected to death threats, racial slurs, and blackmail after their in-home Ring smart cameras were hacked are suing the company over “horrific” invasions of privacy.
A new class action lawsuit alleges that lax security measures at Ring, which is owned by Amazon, allowed hackers to take over their devices. Ring provides home security in the form of smart cameras that are often installed on doorbells or inside people’s comes.
Continue reading...Proposed legislation would also give government power to unmask identities of anonymous accounts
Australian internet service providers, social media companies and other online platforms will need to remove severely harmful, abusive or bullying content within 24 hours or risk being blocked and fined $555,000 under the federal government’s proposed online safety legislation.
Currently, takedown notices for image-based abuse, cyber-abuse, cyberbullying, and seriously harmful online content needs to be actioned within 48 hours.
Continue reading...Threatening messages led to monitoring of phone that unearthed evidence of cyber-attack against Qatar-based network
A series of abusive text messages sent to an Al Jazeera investigative programme were the first crumbs that eventually led to the discovery of an unprecedented hacking operation against dozens of staff from the Qatar-based media network, according to one of the journalists who was targeted.
Researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto claimed on Sunday that the UAE and Saudi Arabia used spyware sold by an Israeli private intelligence company to access the phones of at least 36 journalists, producers and executives from Al Jazeera, as well as that of a London-based reporter with the Al Araby network.
Continue reading...Citizen Lab researchers say cyber-attack using NSO Group software likely ordered by Saudia Arabia and UAE
Spyware sold by an Israeli private intelligence firm was allegedly used to hack the phones of dozens of Al Jazeera journalists in an unprecedented cyber-attack that is likely to have been ordered by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to leading researchers.
In a stunning new report, researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said they discovered what appears to be a major espionage campaign against one of the world’s leading media organisations, which is based in Qatar and has long been a thorn in the side of many of the region’s autocratic regimes.
Continue reading...Covid-19 pushed many into poverty but brought huge benefits for some of the wealthiest, renewing calls for fairer taxes
Ten of the richest people in the world have boosted their already vast wealth by more than $400bn (£296bn) since the coronavirus pandemic began as their businesses were boosted by lockdowns and financial crises across the globe.
The extra wealth accumulated by the 10 men – approximately $450bn, using Forbes figures – over the past nine months is more than the £284bn the British government is estimated to have spent on tackling the pandemic and the economic damage it has wrought on its 66 million people.
Continue reading...Analysis: trade in stolen data is a boon for investigators and a headache for Kremlin
In early 2019, the journalist Andrei Zakharov managed to buy his own phone and banking records in a groundbreaking investigation into Russia’s thriving markets in stolen personal data, in which law enforcement and telecoms employees can be contracted anonymously to dip into their systems and pull out sensitive details on anyone.
A year and a half later, investigators from Bellingcat and the Insider used some of the same tools and clever analysis to out a secret FSB team that had been tasked with killing Alexei Navalny using a novichok nerve agent.
Continue reading...Amidst a ‘great awakening’, white Americans overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Are liberals really doing the groundwork they claim?
In the winter of 2018, Gwen Kansen, a 33-year-old self-professed liberal, met a man called Elias in a bar. Within minutes, she knew he was intense. His phone screensaver was of Pepe the Frog – a symbol of the alt-right movement. His style reminded her of a Confederate soldier, and he wore badges proudly proclaiming his hatred for political correctness.
It was not long before he disclosed he was a member of the Proud Boys, a far-right, male-only political organization. Still, Kansen didn’t put an end to the date. They drank rum and cokes; spoke about music, books, and exes; and that night, he walked her home. The two had a brief fling. Later, Kansen wrote an article about coming to terms with her so-called liberal beliefs while still choosing to entertain the affair.
Continue reading...The Internet Watch Foundation is seeing a growing number of tipoffs about child abuse. We talk to one analyst about her work
Isobel* has been working throughout lockdown. With her colleagues in the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) analyst room in Cambridge she has been responding to a rising number of tipoffs from the public that child abuse images are circulating online. The work is gruelling.
“Today I started at 8.30 and I’ll be looking at content all day long: thousands and thousands of images in a day. We analysts come from all sorts of backgrounds. The main thing is your emotional resilience – it’s incredibly important that you can look at this content and then go home and not think about it.”
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s bid to retake the presidency in 2024 has been launched – by two comedians.
“We got the domain DonaldJTrump2024.com,” comics Jason Selvig and Davram Stiefler, AKA The Good Liars, wrote on Twitter.
Continue reading...Creation of specialist cyber force and artificial intelligence unit in pipeline
A specialist cyber force of several hundred British hackers has been in the works for nearly three years, although its creation has been partly held back by turf wars between the spy agency GCHQ and the Ministry of Defence, to which the unit is expected to jointly report.
Continue reading...