Many features make the platform susceptible to disinformation as world leaders try to harness influencers’ power for goodMany have called the invasion of Ukraine the world’s first “TikTok war”, and experts say it is high time for the short video platform – once known primarily for silly lip syncs and dance challenge – to be taken seriously.Some politicians are doing just that. In a speech, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, appealed to “TikTokers” as a group that could help end the war. Last week, Joe Biden spoke to dozens of top users on the app in a first-of-its kind meeting to brief the influencers on the conflict in Ukraine and how the US is addressing it. Continue reading...
Experts recommend password managers for convenience and enhanced online safety, yet few of us use themIn a competitive field, passwords are one of the worst things about the internet. Long and complex passwords are more secure but difficult to remember, leaving many people using weak and easy-to-guess credentials. One study by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) revealed how millions are using their pet’s name, football team names, ‘password’ and “123456” to access online services.But this leaves you wide open to attack: cybercriminals can crack weak passwords in seconds using automated tools. “A hacker needs roughly two seconds to crack an 11-character password made up of numbers,” says Alex Balan, director of security research at security company Bitdefender. If the password is more complex, containing numbers, symbols and uppercase and lowercase letters, the time needed to break it jumps to 400 years. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hollie Richardson, Hannah Verdier on (#5X83T)
The singer is casual and welcoming as he talks to experts in his thoughtful new podcast about mental health. Plus: Michelle Visage has a charismatic conversation with Cameron DiazFrom next week, your podcast newsletter will have a brand new look. Discover the best new shows and hidden gems with the new Hear Here, which will arrive in your inbox on Thursdays Continue reading...
by Rebecca Ratcliffe South-east Asia correspondent on (#5X6RW)
App claimed that it could help LGBT+ people ‘return to nature’ but the tech company has now made it unavailable for downloadsAn app produced by the Malaysian government that promised to help the LGBTI community “return to nature” has been removed from the Google Play store, after it was found to be in breach of the platform’s guidelines.The app was first released in July 2016, but attracted fresh attention after it was shared on Twitter by the Malaysian government’s Islamic development department. It claimed the app would enable LGBTI people to return to a state of nature or purity, and that it included an e-book detailing the experience of a gay man who “abandoned homosexual behaviour” during Ramadan. Continue reading...
Overhaul of online safety bill reduces grace period for criminal prosecution of senior managers from two years to two monthsTech bosses face the threat of prosecution and up to two years in jail if they hamper investigations by the communications watchdog from next year, under a wide-ranging overhaul of a landmark online safety bill.The government has reduced a grace period for criminal prosecution of senior managers by 22 months from two years to just two months, meaning tech bosses could be charged with offences from early next year. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#5X5S0)
Stunning 10.9in tablet gets Apple’s top chip, long battery life and best-in-class smart video call cameraApple’s latest tablet is an iPad Air upgraded with the M1 chip from the newest Macs and iPad Pro – turning it into a compact powerhouse that’s just as happy manipulating images in Photoshop as it is binge-watching the latest series of Star Trek: Picard.This new fifth-generation model is £10 cheaper than the outgoing model, costing £569 ($599/A$929). While certainly premium-priced, it undercuts Apple’s other M1-equipped 11in tablet, the iPad Pro, by £180. Continue reading...
From a dome celebrating smog-free Sheffield to a rollercoaster ride through Blackpool’s LGBTQ+ past, presenter and historian David Olusoga reveals how cutting edge tech can show us a new BritainIn the summer of 2020, a month after the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was toppled and three months after George Floyd was murdered outside a convenience store in Minneapolis, I gave a lecture about race and racism, diversity and inclusion within the television industry. I used that platform, the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, to tell the story of how for decades TV has failed not only to address its diversity problem but, at times, even to acknowledge that it has one. On the small screen – as in the worlds of art, publishing, theatre and film – who gets their stories told and who gets to do the telling have never been based on talent and passion alone.Television is an old medium with a long established internal culture, one that developed over the decades and from the outset was exclusive rather than inclusive. The BBC that emerged in the 1920s very much reflected the class-bound society that had spawned it. Early television was dominated by London, and its programmes were largely produced and presented by members of a middle-class elite. Continue reading...
Ukraine appealed for a global army of IT experts to help in the battle against Putin – and many answered the call. We speak to people on the digital frontline
At a Miami event, I found myself surrounded by a cult obsessed with minting bananas and trading Eth. Does it all mean anything?Two weeks ago, I walked into an upscale restaurant for a networking dinner. I was brand new to Miami, a city whose residents pride themselves on two-story strip clubs, too-orange spray tans and rented Ferraris.I didn’t want to be here – neither at this dinner, nor in Miami – but since I was supposed to spend six months stuck in this city receiving medical treatment for a weird dizziness issue I’d been dealing with, I figured I’d try my best to make friends with any non-terrible Miamians I could find. Continue reading...
Company says most of redundancies will be in UK and US after Nvidia takeover falls throughArm is planning to cut up to 15% of its workforce, the UK computer chipmaker has said, just over a month after the collapse of its $40bn (£30bn) sale to its US rival Nvidia.The Cambridge-based company said most of the job losses, totalling up to about 1,000 roles, would be in the UK and the US. Arm employs more than 6,500 people worldwide, including 3,000 in the UK. Continue reading...
Now more than ever we all need to sprinkle some happiness into our social media feeds. Here are the best accounts to follow, whether you love spectacular jelly creations or hilarious Japanese mascotsEverything is terrible. You know this as well as anyone because, like the rest of the world, you have spent the past few years pummelled by waves of awful historical events, each more debilitating than the last. The only thing that would make everything even worse is dunking your head into the furious, screaming world of social media.However, it doesn’t have to be this way. In times of enormous crisis, one way to find temporary respite is to dilute your feeds with goodness. Below, I – along with some wonderful Guardian readers – have tracked down 50 feelgood social media accounts. Some are on Twitter, some on Instagram, some on TikTok. Some are uplifting, some are funny, some are weird, many have dogs in them. Sprinkle your accounts into your scrolling and you should end up in a much better frame of mind. Continue reading...
by Jonathan Jones, Jenessa Williams, Sam Jordison, Lu on (#5X2ZV)
From beautiful celestial metaphors to a virtual simulacrum of an entire galaxy, our critics suggest popular culture inspired by the wonders of astronomyIt looks as if the universe was designed by a Romantic painter. Great glowing clouds of smoke and mist hang in the void with twinkling stars spangled within them. Instead of lonely bright dots in black nothingness, as space used to be pictured, it turns out to be a sublime storm of dazzling richness. The Pillars of Creation is the photo that made the Hubble telescope’s name. It shows a star-forming region of the Eagle nebula, 7,000 light years from Earth. In 2015 Nasa released a second, even more detailed and glorious Pillars of Creation). The successful launch of the new James Webb telescope has eclipsed Hubble, but as it “sees” in infrared, it is unlikely to provide similarly beguiling pictures. The Hubble Age is ending but it changed our cosmic perception for ever. Jonathan Jones Continue reading...
Collectible and cartoonish, these digital multiples, traded in cryptocurrency, confer membership of an exclusive club – sometimes literally. But do they have any aesthetic value? A critic weighs inIn January, a clip from The Tonight Show featuring Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton went viral: not because either had said anything particularly interesting or scandalous, but because the interview was so uncanny in its content and its style. In the video, Hilton, who looks like a telegenic, radioactive Barbie in a lime green cocktail dress, is discussing Bored Ape NFTs, the popular crypto images that have been selling for a minimum of $200,000 since their first release in April 2021.“I’m so happy I taught you what they were,” she informs Fallon in a voice a little lower than her usual characteristic purr. Continue reading...
The term embraces the comforts of depravity and a direct departure from the ‘cottagecore’ influence of early pandemic daysAt some point in the stretch of days between the start of the pandemic’s third year and the launch of world war three, a new phrase entered the zeitgeist, a mysterious harbinger of an age to come: people were going “goblin mode”.The term embraces the comforts of depravity: spending the day in bed watching 90 Day Fiancé on mute while scrolling endlessly through social media, pouring the end of a bag of chips in your mouth; downing Eggo toaster oven waffles with hot sauce over the sink because you can’t be bothered to put them on a plate. Leaving the house in your pajamas and socks only to get a single Diet Coke from the bodega. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#5X2SZ)
Feature-packed phablet has stylus, long battery life and unrivalled camera zoom, now made of recycled materialsWith the Galaxy S22 Ultra superphone, Samsung has brought back its popular Note line in all but name, equipping it with a built-in stylus and the competition-beating camera with both 3x and 10x optical zoom from last year’s S21 Ultra.Costing £1,149 ($1,200/A$1,849) it is one of the most expensive non-folding phones you can buy but it offers features you simply can’t get on other phones and will receive at least five years of software updates – longer than any other Android.Main screen: 6.8in QHD+ Dynamic Amoled 2X (500ppi) 120HzProcessor: Samsung Exynos 2200 (EU) or Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (US)RAM: 8 or 12GB of RAMStorage: 128, 256, 512GB or 1TBOperating system: One UI 4.1 based on Android 12Camera: Quad rear camera: 108MP wide, 12MP ultra-wide, 10MP 3x and 10x telephoto; 40MP front-facingConnectivity: 5G, USB-C, wifi 6E, NFC, Bluetooth 5.2, UWB and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 mins)Dimensions: 163.3 x 77.9 x 8.9mmWeight: 228g Continue reading...
Once regarded as a useful but dull tool for professional networking, the service has added features such as video profiles to attract a younger audience. But will it work?If you heard that there’s a social network attracting 200 new users every minute, has its users making 9,000 new connections, and which says that the often hard-to-reach gen Zers make up a growing fraction of that new activity, you would probably think it must be Snapchat, TikTok, or some new social network that you have never heard of – but you would be wrong.One further official company statistic would make the answer glaringly obvious: the site also handles 4,500 job adverts every minute, and claims that six people actually get a new job each minute too. With that detail, it could only be LinkedIn – the social media network many of us tend to forget exists. Continue reading...
The ads, some offering loans delivered ‘faster than a pizza’, appear to deliberately target those in financial troubleGoogle is profiting from ads promoting “instant” cash and loans delivered “faster than pizza” despite a pledge to protect users from “deceptive and harmful” financial products.The ads were served to people in the UK who searched terms like “quick money now” and “need money help” and directed users to firms offering high-interest loans. Continue reading...
Elizabeth Williamson’s book on the 2012 elementary school shooting is a near-unbearable, necessary indictment of Facebook, YouTube and the conspiracy theories they spreadEven in a country now completely inured to the horrors of mass shootings, the massacre at Sandy Hook remains lodged in the minds of everyone old enough to remember it. Ten years ago, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fired 154 rounds from an AR-15-style rifle in less than five minutes. Twenty extremely young children and six adults were killed.It was the worst elementary school shooting in American history. Continue reading...
Videos of the heists are all set to one song – Simon Latorre’s Chutero Yo Soy – which is now an anthem for those in the tradeHigh in the Bolivian Altiplano, Challapata is where the road from La Paz splits: one way to Potosí and the other to Uyuni and the salt flats. It seems an unremarkable place; many tourists steam through without even realising. But Bolivians know it to be home to the country’s biggest contraband car fair, a hub in a trade network that reaches from Japan to the Bolivian Amazon.Contraband cars – known as chutos – are nothing new in Bolivia. But those behind the business have recently received a fresh burst of attention, as a younger generation has taken to posting videos of their adrenaline-fueled border runs on Tiktok. Continue reading...
The Google-owned platform said the invasion of Ukraine fell under its violent events policy and violating material would be removedYouTube announced on Friday that it had begun blocking access globally to channels associated with Russian state-funded media, citing a policy barring content that denies, minimizes or trivializes well-documented violent events.The video platform had previously blocked the channels, specifically those of Russia Today and Sputnik, across Europe. Continue reading...
Ukrainian websites have been subjected to a relentless series of attacks – but what will happen when the sights are set on America?The war between Russia and Ukraine has been widely anticipated to play out online, in addition to on the ground.Moscow’s cyberwar capabilities have long been cause for concern. Russia has a record of coordinating cyber-attacks on the US, Ukraine and other adversaries. And the country has established itself in recent years as an international hub for cybercrime. Continue reading...
The Tor-friendly site follows moves by Facebook and BBC who also had their platforms restricted on state-owned mediaTwitter has launched a privacy-protected version of its site to bypass surveillance and censorship after Russia restricted access to its service in the country.Russia has blocked access to Facebook and has limited Twitter in an attempt to try to restrict the flow of information about its war in Ukraine. Both companies have said they are working on restoring access to people inside Russia even as they restrict the country’s state media from their services. Continue reading...
The comedian and self-described ‘laggard’ shares what cracks him up online – including many long-forgotten morsels of Australian historyI never really got formally introduced to the internet. I was off wandering around when it came out. Been a bit of a laggard since; I still have a Hotmail account.Most of my time now on the internet is spent watching other people’s barbecuing techniques or looking at videos and articles about people having fights on planes. The following stuff has probably already passed across your desk because it’s old. I don’t care; there’s rewatch value. Continue reading...
Experts says both sides may understand that large-scale cyber-attacks will result in ‘mutually assured destruction of systems’As military conflict has mounted between Ukraine and Russia, so have fears of unprecedented cyberwar.Experts are monitoring both countries closely, fearing a volatile crisis involving one of the world’s leading hacking super powers could lead to a huge conflict playing out online – one that could outlast the physical battles. Continue reading...
House judiciary committee asks Merrick Garland to investigate whether retail giant obstructed Congress with misleading conductMembers of the Democratic-controlled House judiciary committee have referred Amazon to the Department of Justice, alleging “potentially criminal conduct” by the company and some of its senior executives.In a letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland, lawmakers claim that Amazon had engaged in a “pattern and practice of misleading conduct that suggests” it was acting to influence the committee’s investigation into online market competition. Continue reading...
Action comes as officials increasingly voice concern that Russia may be using cryptocurrency to avoid the impact of sanctionsJoe Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order on government oversight of cryptocurrency that urges the Federal Reserve to explore whether the central bank should jump in and create its own digital currency.The Biden administration views the explosive popularity of cryptocurrency as an opportunity to examine the risks and benefits of digital assets, said a senior administration official who previewed the order Tuesday on the condition of anonymity, terms set by the White House. Continue reading...
A new documentary chronicles the adventures of the Grannies, a group of friends who went looking for the glitchy event horizon of Rockstar’s virtual-western epicThe story of online cowboy posse the Grannies starts, as video games so often do, in a character creation menu. Having played through the single-player story of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2, Kalonica Quigley and Marigold Bartlett, Melbourne-based friends and game developers, decided to try the online multiplayer portion of the game. On separate PlayStation 4s, and without one another’s knowledge, they each created elderly women as their avatars. It was an opportunity, laughs Bartlett over a Discord call, to cosplay as themselves in the future.Not long after, friends and fellow game-makers Ian MacLarty and Andy Brophy, rendered as elderly men, joined them. The group hung out in Rockstar’s staggering, almost photorealistic depiction of the US on the brink of the 20th century, taking photos and making their own silly fun beyond the game’s murderous objectives. Then they started seeking out glitches, faults or weirdnesses in its code. Continue reading...
Musk lawyers accused US regulators of ‘micro-management’ but experts call the move an ‘exercise in legal silliness’Elon Musk has asked a federal judge to terminate his 2018 agreement with the top US securities regulator requiring some of his tweets to be vetted by a lawyer.Musk also asked the judge to block a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) subpoena requesting records of pre-approval of a Twitter poll he conducted in November on potentially selling some of his stock. Continue reading...
John Barksdale faces up to 65 in prison in connection with Ormeus Coin as well as facing civil charges alongside JonAtina BarksdaleUS authorities on Tuesday filed criminal charges against a cryptocurrency executive and civil charges against him and his sister, accusing them of defrauding retail investors out of millions of dollars with a digital token known as Ormeus Coin.In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, the justice department said John Barksdale lied about the value and profitability of Ormeus Coin’s mining assets, including that the coin was backed by a $250m mining operation generating more than $5m of monthly revenue. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#5WWXW)
Cheapest iPhone gets 5G plus updated iPad Air and new power computer aimed at creative prosApple has announced a new version of its cheapest iPhone, an updated iPad Air tablet and a new powerful professional desktop computer called the Mac Studio.During a livestreamed event on Tuesday, Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook also announced that the firm would begin showing Friday night Major League Baseball games on its Apple TV+ service in the US, UK, Australia and other markets. Continue reading...
Too many of us found ourselves hotly arguing about a pointless question last week. Why can’t we help wasting time on inconsequential online queries such as what colour is The Dress or how dogs would wear trousers?The internet is no place for reasonable discussion. This is a lesson that was recently learned in the most painful way by Auckland resident Ryan Nixon, who last weekend made the innocent mistake of asking Twitter whether there were more doors or wheels in the world.A whopping 223,347 people replied and filled out his poll, with 53.6% of them guessing there were more wheels in the world. One guy worked out a complex formula on a piece of paper. Others argued that a wheel can be a door but a door cannot be a wheel. One particularly deep thinker pointed out that, while wheels are a human invention, doors “are primal – even celestial – in nature”. The debate, which will never be definitively resolved, continues. Sorry for putting it into your brain. Continue reading...
The Russian artist – who spent two years in a Siberian jail for singing an anti-Putin ‘punk prayer’ – is using NFTs to fight the dictator, raising $7m in five days. At a time like this, she says, only activism will keep you saneNadya Tolokonnikova is in a geographically undisclosed location, speaking to me on Zoom, in a Pussy Riot T-shirt, looking purposeful, driven and singleminded. Her feminist protest art has been deadly serious since its inception, when she founded Pussy Riot in 2011. The watching world may have been entertained by its playful notes, the guerrilla gigs in unauthorised places, culminating in the event for which she was prosecuted, in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, when she sang Punk Prayer: Mother of God, Drive Putin Away.But the consequences have always been seismic and severe. Tolokonnikova, along with two other members of Pussy Riot, were sentenced to two years in prison for hooliganism in 2012, separated from their very young children, went on hunger strike, endured unimaginably harsh conditions and were named prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International. Continue reading...
The Russians are unexpectedly losing the battle on social media. But defeating Putin on the ground is another matterSo is the conflict in Ukraine – as some of the world’s media seem to think, the “TikTok war” – or, more generically, “the first social media war”? As Russian tanks rolled into the country, videos of frightened people huddling together, explosions blasting through urban streets and missiles streaking across Ukrainian skies suddenly replaced TikTok’s usual fare of memes, jokes, fitness and dance videos. “Ukrainian social media influencers,” reported Reuters, “uploaded bleak scenes of themselves wrapped in blankets in underground bunkers and army tanks rolling down residential streets, juxtaposed against photos of blooming flowers and laughing friends at restaurants that honoured more peaceful memories of their home towns. They urged their followers to pray for Ukraine, donate to support the Ukrainian military and demanded Russian users in particular to join anti-war efforts.” TikTok users across the country began livestreaming the war and the buildup of Russian forces, denying Vlad the Invader the ability to dominate the narrative about what was happening.All of which is impressive. It was a light (sometimes the only light last week) shining in the darkness. What we were seeing, wrote Chris Stokel-Walker on Vice, was the “meme-ification of the Ukraine invasion”. In a networked world, this is supposedly a big deal because memes can be used to dominate the information space – now believed to be an important element of any conflict. The strange thing is that, up to now, we thought that the Russians were the Olympic champions of this stuff. Continue reading...
It’s the most popular messaging service in Ukraine, and used by protesters of all kinds. Now it must find a way to make moneyIn the days after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of his country, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, used his Telegram channel to send a defiant video message from the centre of the capital, Kyiv, calling on the nation to unite and resist the Russian attack.The WhatsApp-like messaging service, co-founded by exiled Russian billionaire brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, has become a key weapon in a digital propaganda battle that will ultimately boost its usage and investor profile ahead of a possible $50bn stock market flotation next year. Continue reading...
The British photojournalist on following the Kuch migration in the mountains in IranIt wasn’t navigating rocky paths, herding hundreds of animals or the prospect of spending 14 nights in a tent that Emily Garthwaite was thinking about on her first day on the Zagros mountain range. It was where she fitted within Hossein and Jahan’s family.The British-born photojournalist, who has lived in northern Iraq since 2019, was joining the husband and wife, three of their nine children, other relatives, plus donkeys, dogs, sheep, goats and horses, for their biannual Kuch (migration). The nomad family of the Bakhtiari tribe were moving to warmer pastures for the winter months of 2020, a 250km walk. Continue reading...
Social media platform is a popular news source for young adults, but misinformation is commonplace• Russia-Ukraine war: live newsTrucks carrying large cylindrical containers sweep down a snowy road to a soundtrack of hollering and an alarming, if amateurish, caption: “RUSIA NUCLEAR BOMB”. The video was taken down, but not before it received 18m views. Welcome to the Russia-Ukraine conflict on TikTok.TikTok has 1 billion users worldwide and is an important news source for adults and particularly those under 25. A quarter of US adults say they always use TikTok to get the news, with nearly half of US millennial and Gen Z adults – under-41s and under-25s respectively – indicating the same, according to analysis firm Forrester Research. Continue reading...
In the new series Super Pumped, Joseph Gordon-Levitt brings ‘ruthless’ Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick to life along with his extreme career highs and lowsIn dark jacket, grey sweater and white undershirt, Travis Kalanick was relaxed in comfy chair, coffee mug before him, shooting the breeze with late-night TV host Stephen Colbert. Then came a cry from the studio audience.“Shame! Respect drivers’ labour! Respect professional full-time work!” The camera picked out a T-shirt-wearing protester who, standing and cupping his hands to his mouth, yelled: “Uber exploits taxi drivers for profit and kills professional full-time work in the taxi industry!” Continue reading...
Trading platform boss says "‘crypto is too small for Russia’ and more focus should be placed on the banking systemThe founder of Binance, the cryptocurrency trading platform, has dismissed fears that virtual money could be used by the Kremlin to evade sanctions as he claimed that “crypto is too small for Russia”.Changpeng Zhao said cryptocurrencies also defeated attempts to work around sanctions by being too traceable, adding that more focus should be placed on banks. In a statement Zhao said the media and politicians should be focusing on conventional lenders and the oil and gas market. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier and Hollie Richardso on (#5WR3X)
The psychological illusionist has a new series that could help ease people’s anxieties. Plus, what really happened when plane passengers were taken hostage by Saddam HusseinDerren Brown’s Bootcamp for Life
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