Page 8 - Social Media Apps

China's social media under fire over xenophobic content after stabbings

The algorithms used by Chinese platforms, which are optimised to maximise user engagement, contribute to the spread of controversial content, including hyper-nationalistic posts

Families sue TikTok in France, link teen suicides to harmful content

In the moment when her world shattered three years ago, Stephanie Mistre found her 15-year-old daughter, Marie, lifeless in the bedroom where she died by suicide. I went from light to darkness in a fraction of a second, Mistre said, describing the day in September 2021 that marked the start of her fight against TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app she blames for pushing her daughter toward despair. Delving into her daughter's phone after her death, Mistre discovered videos promoting suicide methods, tutorials and comments encouraging users to go beyond mere suicide attempts. She said TikTok's algorithm had repeatedly pushed such content to her daughter. It was brainwashing, said Mistre, who lives in Cassis, near Marseille, in the south of France. They normalized depression and self-harm, turning it into a twisted sense of belonging. Now Mistre and six other families are suing TikTok France, accusing the platform of failing to moderate harmful content and exposing children to ...

1 in 12 children globally subject to online sexual abuse: Lancet study

About one in every 12 children around the world were subjected to online sexual abuse in the past year, according to a study published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health journal. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh, UK, and China Agricultural University reviewed 123 studies conducted between 2010 and 2023, and found that one in eight children globally are affected by image-based sexual abuse on the internet. Roughly the same number were found to be subjected to 'online solicitation' -- being persuaded into sexual activity or exposure. "One in 12 children globally have been subjected to at least one form of online sexual exploitation or abuse in the past year," the authors wrote. However, in regions, including South Asia, where current evidence is either limited or non-existent, the team called for more research. "East Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, and South Asia are lacking prevalence data; these regions constitute a large percentage of the global populat

Instagram extends Reels duration, changes profile grid, introduces 'Edits'

Instagram now allows Reels of up to three minutes duration on the platform. The profile grid has been revised to display content in vertical format. Video editing app Edits is set to launch soon

'Community Notes' model on Meta platforms will not apply to paid ads

Aspects of the program remain subject to change, the report said, adding that brand and influencer organic posts might not be subject to Community Notes when they first go live

President Biden won't enforce ban on social media app TikTok, says official

President Joe Biden won't enforce a ban on the social media app TikTok that is set to take effect a day before he leaves office on Monday, a US official said Thursday, leaving its fate in the hands of President-elect Donald Trump. Congress last year, in a law signed by Biden, required that TikTok's China-based parent company ByteDance divest the company by January 19, a day before the presidential inauguration. The official said the outgoing administration was leaving the implementation of the law and the potential enforcement of the ban to Trump. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal Biden administration thinking. Trump, who once called to ban the app, has since pledged to keep it available in the US, though his transition team has not said how they intend to accomplish that. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is expected to attend Trump's inauguration and be granted a prime seating location on the dais as the president-elect's national security adviser

China gives a wary welcome to influx of 'TikTok refugees' on RedNote

The influx of more than 700,000 new users has been driven by a looming US ban on TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, on national security concerns

Elon Musk's deconstruction of X might show what's in store for TikTok

The world's wealthiest man has long said he hopes to create an 'everything app,' and incorporating TikTok into X, formerly Twitter, would take him a step toward that goal

Meta to cut 5% of staff, focusing on performance-based terminations

Altogether, Meta expects its headcount to be down 10 per cent by the end of the current performance cycle. That total includes an additional 5 per cent attrition from last year

Users flock to Chinese apps like Xiaohongshu amid TikTok ban risk

Familiar to Chinese who use the service not just as a repository for travel and pet videos but also a live online marketplace, its rise in the US took many in the industry by surprise

Zuckerberg reveals US govt made Facebook censor content on Covid vaccine

Referring to the investigation and committee set up to look into the government censorship, Mark Zuckerberg said, 'We produced all these documents and it's all in the public domain'

Brazil issues 72-hr deadline to Meta over content fact-checking practices

Attorney General's Office in Brazil gave Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, 72 hours to explain its decision to discontinue its data verification program earlier this week

Social media opened avenues to verify info, strengthened democracy: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said social media has strengthened democracy by opening up ways to verify information which earlier was available from a handful of sources with little alternatives. In an interaction with Zerodha founder Nikhil Kamath, Modi said earlier there were very few persons who used to report on events and their version was considered as the truth. "You were trapped as there was no opportunity to seek verification. But, today you have an alternative to verify information on different platforms. Everything is available on your mobile phone," Modi said. "If you pay little attention, you can find out the truth. This is the reason that social media can strengthen democracy," he said. The prime minister said youngsters have the tendency to verify information on social media before believing anything as the truth. Modi said he was amazed to see the amount of interest the youngsters have shown in developments in the space sector. "Chandrayaan's success has created a

Meta to let some FB users view eBay listings as way to resolve EU charges

Meta said Wednesday that it will allow some Facebook users to view eBay listings on its Marketplace service, as it tries out a possible way to resolve European Union charges of anticompetitive behaviour that the bloc levelled last year. The social media company said it's launching a test that will let Facebook users in Germany, France and the US browse eBay listings directly on its Marketplace online classifieds service but complete the transaction on eBay. Meta is carrying out the trial after Brussels slapped the company in November with a penalty of nearly 800 million euros ($824 million) for what it called abusive practices involving Marketplace. European Union antitrust enforcers accused Meta of illegally shutting out competition by tying Marketplace to its social network and automatically exposing Facebook users to Marketplace whether or not they wanted it. They also accused Meta of gaining an unfair advantage through ad-related data. While we disagree with and continue to app

Meta's fact-checking reversal lets Mark Zuckerberg drop the charade

Zuckerberg said he would now work on issues of free speech with Trump, who, just four years ago, was considered too dangerous even to be a Meta user

'Digital timepass' is India's 'lying flat': How boredom became a business?

In smaller Indian cities and towns, where opportunities for advancement are few and dwindling, the nounis emerging as something of a social and cultural phenomenon

Cyber frauds: WhatsApp, Telegram and Instagram are top targets of scammers

In the first three months of 2024, there were a total of 43,797 complaints of cyber fraud related to WhatsApp, 22,680 against Telegram, and 19,800 regarding Instagram

Telegram turns profitable for first time after paying down $2 billion debt

White-supremacist groups escalated efforts in the run-up to the US election to recruit new members over Telegram, where they've amplified racist conspiracies while posing as men-only fight clubs

Elon Musk owned X increases price of premium-plus plan to pay creators

X offers premium-plus subscribers ad-free browsing and features such as expanded access to the Grok AI chatbot and Radar, which offers real-time analytics on emerging trends through keyword tracking

Albania to shut down TikTok for a year over violence among children

Albania's prime minister said on Saturday the government will shut down the video service TikTok for one year, blaming it for inciting violence and bullying, especially among children. Albanian authorities held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents following the stabbing death of a teenager in mid-November by another teen after a quarrel that started on TikTok. Prime Minister Edi Rama, speaking at a meeting with teachers and parents, said TikTok "would be fully closed for all.... There will be no TikTok in the Republic of Albania". Rama said the shutdown would begin sometime next year. It was not immediately clear if TikTok has a contact in Albania. TikTok, in an email response on Saturday to a request for comment, asked for "urgent clarity from the Albanian government" on the case of the stabbed teenager. The company said it had "found no evidence that the perpetrator or victim had TikTok accounts, and multiple reports have in fact confirmed videos leading up to this incident w