META SHUTS DOWN 4,800 ACCOUNTS OVER AN ALLEGED CHINESE INFLUENCE CAMPAIGN

Fri 01 December 2023: Meta has removed nearly 4,800 fake accounts that were part of a China-based influence campaign aimed at spreading polarising content about United States politics ahead of the 2024 presidential election, the tech giant has announced. The influence operation was one of two China-based campaigns detected by Meta, which owns Facebook and […]

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INACTIVE GOOGLE ACCOUNTS WILL BE DELETED STARTING FRIDAY. HERE’S HOW TO PREVENT IT

Fri 01 December 2023: Google will begin removing user accounts that haven’t been used for a few years on Friday, December 1, according to a BBC report.  Under its inactive account policy, the tech giant will start the purge, albeit in a phased manner, with accounts that “were created and never used again” getting the […]

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GOOGLE AGREES TO PAY CANADA NEWS PUBLISHERS $100M A YEAR TO KEEP NEWS IN SEARCH

Thu 30 October 2023: Google and the Canadian government came to an agreement on Wednesday whereby the search engine giant will pay Canadian news businesses CAN$100 million (US$73.6 million) a year to share their stories on its platforms. The agreement averts Google’s threat to prevent Canadians from searching for Canadian news on Google in Canada […]

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INTERNET OF THINGS: TECH FIRMS HAVE BECOME OUR DIGITAL LANDLORDS – BUT PEOPLE ARE STARTING TO FIGHT BACK

Wed 29 October 2023: From smart toasters to fitness collars for dogs, we live in a world where everything around us is gradually being connected to the internet and fitted with sensors so that we can interact with them online. Many people worry about the privacy risks of using these devices because they may allow […]

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WHEN TO GIVE YOUR CHILD THEIR FIRST MOBILE PHONE – AND HOW TO KEEP THEM SAFE

Tue 28 October 2023: I spend my career researching young people and the internet: what they do online, what they think about it and how their views differ to those of their parents. I often get questions from parents about their children’s internet use. One of the most common is when to get their child […]

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THE DISTURBING TREND OF STATE MEDIA USE OF DEEPFAKES

Mon 27 October 2023: Social media has been awash with fake images of a stylish Pope Francis, Elon Musk protesting in New York and Donald Trump resisting arrest. uch AI-generated images and videos, or deepfakes, have become increasingly accessible due to advances in artificial intelligence. As more sophisticated fabricated images spread, it will become increasingly difficult for users to differentiate […]

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NEW CRYPTO FRONT EMERGES IN ISRAEL’S FIGHT AGAINST FUNDING OF HAMAS-LIKE GROUPS

Mon 27 October 2023: A new front has emerged in Israel’s fight against the funding of groups from Hamas to Hezbollah: A fast-growing crypto network called Tron that until recently attracted less scrutiny than Bitcoin, Reuters reports. Quicker and cheaper than Bitcoin, the Tron network has overtaken its rival as a platform for crypto transfers associated with […]

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WHY A SOCIAL MEDIA DETOX MAY NOT BE AS GOOD FOR YOU AS YOU THINK – NEW RESEARCH

Sun 26 October 2023: Whether you’re an influencer, an occasional poster, or just a lurker, you likely spend more time than you’d like on social media. Globally, working-age people with internet access now spend more than 2.5 hours per day on social platforms like Instagram, Facebook or X (Twitter). Social media use can become excessive and problematic […]

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AI IS NOW ACCESSIBLE TO EVERYONE: 3 THINGS PARENTS SHOULD TEACH THEIR KIDS

Thu 23 October 2023: It is almost a year since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, fuelling great excitement as well as concern about what it might mean for education. The changes keep coming. Earlier in the year, MyAI was embedded into social media platform Snapchat. This is a chatbot powered by ChatGPT, which encourages teens to ask anything […]

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META BENEFITS FROM SPREAD OF HATEFUL GAZA WAR-RELATED CONTENT: REPORT

Thu 23 October 2023: The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media found that Meta – the company that owns Facebook and Instagram – is reaping financial benefits from the dissemination of harmful content on its platforms. The Palestinian digital rights group’s investigation was prompted by the discovery that Facebook ran targeted ads calling […]

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