Tag: Instagram
Fox launches Netflix rival Tubi, Scientists develop ‘living skin’ for robots
Rupert Murdoch's Fox Corporation is entering the UK's highly competitive free, ad-supported video streaming market. Tubi will compete with the likes of Netflix, Disney+, ITVX and Channel 4's streaming platform as well as the BBC iPlayer. The platform has been quickly gaining market share in the US where, according to Fox, it has almost 80…
Instagram forces users to watch ads, Russia ‘targeting Olympics with deepfakes’
Instagram is testing adverts that users cannot skip past. The social media platform currently allows people to swipe or scroll past adverts that appear in its main feed of images and videos, as well as in its Stories and Reels feeds. But it is now trialling a feature called "ad break", which users say they…
EU investigates Meta over addiction concerns, shares in Reddit jump after ChatGPT deal
The European Commission has opened an investigation into the owner of Facebook and Instagram over concerns that the platforms are creating addictive behaviour among children and damaging mental health. The EU executive said Meta may have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA), a landmark law passed by the bloc last summer that makes digital companies large and…
Period trackers putting women at risk, Ineos tells government ‘wake up to hydrogen’
Female health monitoring apps are putting women at risk by "coercing" them into disclosing - and then poorly handling - highly sensitive data, according to new research. The study examined the privacy policies and data safety labels of 20 of the most popular of these kind of apps, which are commonly used to help women…
Instagram trialing ‘sextortion’ tools, Government considers under 16 smartphone ban
Instagram will start testing new tools within weeks to fight "sextortion", a form of blackmail involving intimate pictures sent online. The tools include "nudity protection", which blurs naked images in direct messages. It will be turned on by default for under-18s. Pop-ups directing potential victims to support will also be trialled. Governments around the world…
Meta to tackle AI fraud in EU elections, electric Renault 5 makes debut
Facebook and Instagram owner Meta says it will form a team to tackle deceptive artificial intelligence (AI) content in the upcoming EU elections in June. It is concerned by how generative AI - tech which can fake videos, images and audio - might be used to trick voters. It comes on the same day Home…
Apple pushes back EV launch date, children on TikTok for over 2 hours a day
Apple has pushed back the launch date for its long-rumoured electric vehicle and scaled back its self-driving features as the iPhone maker struggles with the shift from gadgets to cars. The Californian tech giant has delayed its internal target to launch a car from 2026 to 2028, according to Bloomberg. The vehicle will also have…
23andMe genetic testing company hacked, Tesla whistleblower highlights self-driving concerns
The genetic testing company 23andMe has said that nearly 7 million people have been affected by a security breach that put DNA ancestry information into the hands of hackers who broke into the site in early October. On Friday, the California-based company said in a regulatory filing that the personal data of 0.1% of customers – or…
1 in 3 social media GDPR fines linked to children
Over the last five years of GDPR, the most popular social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Whatsapp, and X, formerly Twitter) were fined over €2.9B for GDPR breaches, of which €765M was for inadequate protection of children’s data, a study by Surfshark shows. Says Agneska Sablovskaja, Lead Researcher at Surfshark:  “Half of the most popular social…
Online news dominant source of information for young Brits, claims Ofcom
Online news sources – particularly social media sites and apps – are the dominant means by which younger people in the UK access news, meaning their direct relationships with traditional news brands are weakening, Ofcom has found. Ofcom’s News Consumption in the UK 2022/23 report reveals that older teens and young adults aged 16-24 are much…