Social Media Apps

Meta's $25 bn penalty marks a massive win for New Mexico's attorney general

A judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in a New Mexico case stemming from a privacy scandal, an amount that dwarfs the state's projected $14.8 billion general fund revenue for fiscal 2028

Australian govt to sue Facebook, TikTok for alleged breaches of ban

The country's online safety regulator, eSafety Commissioner, said in March it was investigating Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube for potentially failing to adhere to the law

SC seeks Centre, NCPCR's response on social media risks to children

The Supreme Court on Friday sought replies from the Centre and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights on a PIL filed by an Indore-based school seeking a comprehensive and enforceable national framework to protect children from the alleged risks associated with social media platforms. A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi took note of the plea filed by Emerald Heights International School and its director of academics, Siddharth Singh Girnar, and issued notices to the ministries of women and child development and law and justice, and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). The bench tagged the plea, filed by Vaibhav Choudhary, with a pending petition and listed it for hearing on December 7. "Issue an appropriate writ, order or direction declaring that the continuing failure of the respondents to provide effective protection to children against foreseeable risks of grooming, sexual exploitation, cyber-bullying,

Delhi Police gets 300 social media posts taken down for spreading 'rumours'

Delhi Police is monitoring various social media platforms to curb the spread of misinformation amid protests in the capital, with around 300 posts allegedly aimed at spreading rumours or creating public unrest taken down, police sources said on Monday. The action comes days after police arrested a 24-year-old man for allegedly using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to create and circulate a fabricated video depicting a police officer sexually harassing a woman journalist during a protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The accused, identified as Nadeem Ahmed, allegedly circulated the video falsely portraying a police personnel in an objectionable manner, police said. The incident is being investigated separately from the allegations of sexual harassment levelled against police personnel by women journalists. The police have also approached social media platform X seeking the removal of objectionable and allegedly misleading content linked to the protests, source

Govt asks social media firms to act on unlawful content linked to protests

The government has advised large social media firms to prioritise action against unlawful content related to ongoing protests based on complaints received from authorised bodies, including law enforcement agencies, sources aware of the development said. The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) is learnt to have issued an advisory to social media platforms on October 8, expressing concern over the online circulation of certain information related to the ongoing protests that is false, misleading, manipulated or presented out of context. The IT Ministry has expressed apprehension that such unlawful content may disturb public order, social tranquility and raise law and order concern as well as may incite violence. "MeitY has advised large social media platforms to identify such unlawful content and prioritise action based on complaints received from authorised government bodies," an official source aware of the development said. The advisory has asked social media platforms to labe

Under-18 social media ban: Centre plans changes to IT intermediary rules

Government tells Supreme Court it will make age restrictions a statutory obligation for platforms after bench pushes for enforceable safeguards

Indirect aggression common in Indian conversations on X during major events

Indirect aggression in Indian conversations on social media platform X is most common during major social, financial, sporting and political events, business school researchers have found after they used machine learning models to examine patterns of aggressive communication, analysing more than 1.31 lakh posts. The study, titled "Indian Aggression Detection through Multiple ML Models from Twitter Data", was conducted by researchers at Goa Institute of Management (GIM) and Goa Business School. The findings have been published in renowned journal "Advances in Consumer Research". The study explored whether machine learning could help to identify different forms of aggression in Indian X posts and how aggressive behaviour varied across emotionally and politically charged events. The researchers classified the posts into three categories -- Overtly Aggressive (OAG), Covertly Aggressive (CAG) and Non-Aggressive (NAG). "The findings indicate that OAG responses among Indians remained ...

Put on record steps to curb online child abuse material: SC to govt

The Supreme Court directed the Centre to disclose measures taken to implement its 2024 ruling on reporting child sexual exploitation and abuse material by intermediaries

How the EU's new age-verification app will keep children safe online

The EU is proposing more than age limits for children online, with a common verification system and rules designed to make platforms safer by default

Delhi HC asks govt about policy to regulate addictive social media designs

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to respond whether it was contemplating a policy to regulate addiction-causing design features on social media platforms like infinite scroll and autoplay. A bench of Justices Nitin Wasudeo Sambre and Amit Sharma said it would hear after three weeks a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking constitution of an expert committee to examine engagement-maximising and addiction-causing design features on social media platforms. On being asked by the court whether the Centre was contemplating framing a policy on the issue, additional solicitor general Chetan Sharma said he does not have specific instructions on this. To this, the bench orally said, "you take instructions whether you are contemplating framing of a policy and we will have the matter after three weeks". Sharma also said that the PIL does raises some issues but it will be in the domain of the policy makers to consider and suggested that the petition could give a representati

Terms of engagement

If Meta is forced to abandon the engagement-algorithm for its most committed users, and if other platforms follow suit, the industry will undergo a tectonic shift

Meta's new teen safety rules: What changes on Instagram and Facebook

The new protections will first apply in participating US states and territories, subject to judicial approval. Meta has not announced these measures as a global rollout

Meta's campaign on teen safeguards puts TikTok, YouTube, Snap on back foot

In a public callout to TikTok and YouTube that included a plan to publish open letters in newspapers, Meta said it's seeking to set a 'new industry standard'

US Federal Trade Commission probes YouTube over social media policies

The antitrust and consumer protection agency has been probing YouTube since last year and is in the final stages of preparing a potential lawsuit

Meta settlement opens new front in global fight over social media harm

Meta's up to $18 billion settlement with nearly all US states over social media harm to teenagers has opened a new front in a global government fight to protect children and curb addiction

Instagram automates Reels creation on iPhone with First Draft: How it works

Instagram's new First Draft feature creates a rough Reel from selected clips, trimming footage and removing pauses automatically, with iPhone users able to edit and refine the video before publishing

Meta's teen safety deal facing big hurdle: Knowing who's under 18

In a landmark deal with state attorneys general across the US, Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion and implement design changes

Meta's $18 billion social media settlement: Numbers behind the deal

Of the overall amount, the company has pledged to shell out about $12.7 billion in installments to states over the next 10 years as a starting point

Meta to pay up to $16.7 billion to settle social media addiction cases

The deal requires Meta to put new guardrails on its platforms, including restricting how much time youths can scroll and preventing them from switching off certain safety settings

Australia teens return to TikTok 8 months after under-16 social media ban

Some 26% of children between the ages of 13 and 15 were on TikTok as of last month, just one percentage point below the rate prior to Australia's groundbreaking rules coming into effect