The actor has announced he will speak live online to the director on 28 June
Alec Baldwin has announced he is to interview Woody Allen on Instagram Live on 28 June.
The actor made the announcement on his own Instagram account, with a note which sought to pre-empt criticism of the move.
Continue reading...Lawyer for Coleen Rooney suggests Vardy is trying to shift blame for leaking of information to Sun newspaper
Rebekah Vardy has been accused of throwing her former agent and friend “under a bus” in a last-ditch attempt to save her reputation in the “Wagatha Christie” libel trial.
The footballer’s wife was accused – during the third day of a libel trial at the high court on Thursday – of deliberately destroying evidence, habitually leaking stories to the Sun newspaper, and trying to shift the blame on to her adviser Caroline Watt.
Continue reading...Popularity of ‘finfluencers’ providing stock tips and flaunting lavish lifestyles is rising as younger demographic looks to invest
The corporate watchdog has warned Instagram and other social media influencers that they need a licence to give financial advice and face up to five years in jail if they break the law.
In a new information sheet aimed at so-called “finfluencers”, issued on Monday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) took aim at social media stock-tippers who promise big returns or promise the investments they recommend are as good as putting money in the bank.
Continue reading...There is a wealth of exciting growers, collectives and designers whose posts aim to broaden know-how and help the would-be green-fingered to cultivate their passions
Alessandro Vitale has become an Instagram and TikTok guru for urban gardeners growing their own food. The Italian tattoo studio manager films his experiments in vertical farming and organic gardening for fun- and information-packed posts. If you’re wondering about the username, it’s a reference to his chilli obsession – he has seeds for more than 600 varieties.
Social media lit up with messages and videos decrying the war, ignoring the risk that comes with speaking against a Russian dictator
Social media influencers are often maligned for their vapidity, but as the Russian army moves across Ukraine some of Russia’s biggest digital influencers have become beacons of resistance. Many are speaking out about their unease at the speed and brutality with which the Russian president is leading his country to war. Ukrainian influencers, meanwhile, are also braving the risks of attack from the advancing army to make sure to document the horror of war in mainland Europe.
Some of Russia’s biggest names in the digital sphere have spoken out against war. The daughter of Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, posted a message reading “No to war” on her Instagram story, before quickly deleting it. Max Galkin, the husband of Alla Pugacheva, and one of Russia’s biggest stars, posted a black square on Instagram and the message “Нет войне!” (“no to war!”) to his 9.4m followers. Fashion designer Svetlana Taccori took time out of Milan fashion week to post a photo holding a Ukrainian flag and the same message. Influencer Lova Olala painted the Russian and Ukrainian flag on each cheek and the caption “I have nothing to say”. The independent Russian journalist Ilya Varlamov has posted regular photos and videos highlighting Russian brutality, calling for a cessation of violence in Ukraine.
Continue reading...More and more young people are enticed by the glittering promises of a career as an influencer – but it’s usually someone else getting rich
I was a 14-year-old schoolboy when the rapper 50 Cent released Get Rich or Die Tryin’. The most precocious kids in class declared the debut hip-hop album an instant classic and hailed the rapper’s legend: “He’s been shot nine times, you know?” The failed attempt on 50 Cent’s life was at the centre of his sales pitch as the bulletproof king of gangsta rap. My friends and I were easily sold. His debut was the bestselling album of 2003, selling 12m copies worldwide. Curtis Jackson may have been born black and poor in New York, but as 50 Cent, he was now worth $30m.
There are few things we find more compelling than a fable of overcoming the odds and achieving self-made success. Everyone loves an outsider, because deep down most of us believe we are one, and each generation has its own version for inspiration. For me, it was the constant reinvention of the hustler made good in hip-hop that stuck.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Mexico
Continue reading...Oversight Board of Meta recommends exception to privacy rules should be removed
Facebook and Instagram should tighten privacy rules to protect against the revealing of private residential addresses and images online, known as doxxing, according to the independent body that decides if content should be on the social media platforms.
The Oversight Board of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has recommended that an exception to the company’s privacy rules that allows the sharing of private residential information when it is considered “publicly available” should be removed.
Continue reading...Influencers told to extol country’s virtues on social media despite diplomatic boycotts of Beijing Games over human rights record
An army of western social media influencers, each with hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok, Instagram or Twitch, is set to spread positive stories about China throughout next month’s Winter Olympics.
Concerned about the international backlash against the Beijing Games amid a wave of diplomatic boycotts, the government has hired western PR professionals to spread an alternative narrative through social media.
Continue reading...He is not a big name among dogfluencers, but whenever I felt stressed, something about this pekingese Instagram pup calmed me
On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog, went the New Yorker cartoon. Nearly 30 years later, it says so in your profile.
My Instagram feed is full of dogs, or people posting as their dogs from their own accounts. Some I know well, like my sister’s sweet but vacant pug Margot.
Continue reading...Accidental deaths soar among young people amid a proliferation of fentanyl-filled pharmaceuticals
Fourteen-year-old Alondra Salinas had set out her new white sneakers and packed her backpack the night before the first day of in-person high school when police say she responded to an offer on Snapchat for blue pills, which turned out to be deadly fentanyl. Her mother couldn’t wake her the next morning.
Seventeen-year-old Zachary Didier was waiting to hear back on his college applications when a fake Percocet killed him. Sammy Berman Chapman, a 16-year-old straight-A student, died in his bedroom after taking what he thought was a single Xanax.
Continue reading...Despite the abuse and anger, the comedian spent hours a day online. But then his daughter Dolly became dangerously drawn in. Was it time for a rethink?
Over the past 30 years, I have read and heard David Baddiel’s thoughts on many subjects, including sex, masturbation, religion, antisemitism, football fandom, football hooliganism, his mother’s sex life and his father’s dementia. “I am quite unfiltered,” he agrees, “mainly because I am almost psychotically comfortable in my own skin.” But today I have found the one subject that makes him squirm.
How much time does he spend on social media a day? “Oh, um, too much,” he says, his usual candour suddenly gone. What’s his daily screen time according to his phone? “It says four hours, which is a bit frightening.”
Continue reading...Losing 10m followers on sites such as Instagram is a price worth paying for co-founder of ethical beauty empire
Quitting social media is hard to do, even when it doesn’t cost you anything. So when Lush’s chief executive, Mark Constantine, shut its thousands of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok accounts on Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, he knew dropping off millions of customers’ screens would damage his business.
Its Facebook and Instagram accounts alone had 10.6 million followers and the void will result in an estimated £10m hit to sales but Constantine, one of the business’s co-founders, said it had “no choice” after whistleblowers called attention to the negative impact social media sites such as Instagram are having on teenagers’ mental health.
Continue reading...Artist says it is ‘astounding’ that women can show any part of their body except nipples
From her infamous corset bodysuit with conical bra cups to her bondage-inspired outfits at the Met Gala and MTV video music awards, Madonna has never been shy of causing a stir with her looks. But now the international superstar has come up against an unlikely and powerful foe: Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire.
On Thursday, the singer criticised Instagram for taking down photographs in which her nipple was exposed, telling her 17 million followers she was grateful she maintained her sanity “through four decades of censorship … sexism … ageism and misogyny”.
Continue reading...For me, the TikTok app never added up. It made more sense to go back to where I’d first started watching TikToks – other people’s Instagram stories
During Melbourne’s first lockdown, Jeanette Nkrumah started spending a lot of time on TikTok.
At first the videos she saw on her “For You” page – the personalised home screen that appears whenever a user opens the app – weren’t particularly compelling. But as she started spending more time there, the recommendations improved.
Continue reading...Twenty accounts and groups tracked by NewsGuard gained more than 370,000 followers over past year
Misinformation and sceptical views about Covid-19 and vaccines has been allowed to spread on more than a dozen Facebook and Instagram accounts, pages and groups that together have gained 370,000 followers over the past year, according to a report.
The misinformation and promotion of vaccine hesitancy includes posts in Facebook groups claiming that children are being “murdered by the experimental jab they’re being pressured to take”, and an Instagram account promoting a documentary by Andrew Wakefield, one of the key figures in promoting discredited links between MMR inoculation and autism.
Continue reading...Mothers describe their daughters’ dangerous experiences after whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony
Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, Michelle noticed her teenage daughters were spending substantially more time on Instagram.
The girls were feeling isolated and bored during lockdown, the Arizona mom, who has asked to only be identified by her first name to maintain her children’s privacy, recalled. She hoped social media could be a way for them to remain connected with their friends and community.
Continue reading...Users in UK, US and other countries find services inaccessible as company apologises
Facebook’s network of services including Instagram and WhatsApp has been hit by an outage in several countries including UK and the US, as the company admitted users were having “trouble accessing our apps”.
Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp became inaccessible for large numbers of people at around 5pm UK time, with the downdetector.com site reporting more than 120,000 outages for Facebook users.
Continue reading...Social media firm reportedly kept own research secret that suggests app worsens body image issues
Facebook has kept internal research secret for two years that suggests its Instagram app makes body image issues worse for teenage girls, according to a leak from the tech firm.
Since at least 2019, staff at the company have been studying the impact of their product on its younger users’ states of mind. Their research has repeatedly found it is harmful for a large proportion, and particularly teenage girls.
Continue reading...TikTok, Twitter and Facebook among companies bringing in new measures worldwide that protect children
TikTok has turned off notifications for children past bedtime, Instagram has disabled targeted adverts for under-18s entirely and YouTube has turned off autoplay for teen users: moves seemingly triggered by Britain introducing a new set of regulations aimed at protecting children online.
On Thursday the UK introduced a new set of regulations aimed at protecting children and at a stroke became a global leader in the field, with the prospect of multimillion-dollar fines for companies that breach its new “age appropriate design code” leading to a cascade of last-minute changes across some of Silicon Valley’s largest players.
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