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An original copy of William Shakespeare’s first collected book of plays has been sold for more than £2m at Sotheby’s auction house in New York.The First Folio, often referred to as one of the most important books in English literature, was auctioned last night and bought by a private collector.The edition is more than 400 years old and contains a collection of 36 plays. Just 750 copies of the manuscript were ever printed, of which only around 220 are known to survive.Without the First Folio, it is possible that 18 of Shakespeare’s best known works, including Macbeth, The Tempest, Julius Caesar and Twelfth Night, would have been lost as no contemporary manuscripts of Shakespeare’s plays survive.Shakespeare’s partners in the acting company, John Heminge and Henry Condell, collated the book, which was published in 1623, seven years after the playwright’s death.Last sold in 1996, the plays belonged to an “important private collector”. The book was originally owned by the Gordon family, with the name featuring throughout the texts. The First Folio was intended to preserve the plays and correct “bad quartos” – pirated editions thought to be based on flawed constructions from memories. Heminge and Condell curated the texts by cross referencing prompt books, authorial fair copy, and working drafts to ensure it was as accurate as possible.The pair’s categorisation of the plays into “comedies”, “tragedies” and “histories” continues to shape modern readings of plays today.The manuscript has subsequently passed through the hands of the British political activist and historian R W Seton-Watson and was later bought by Abel E Berland, a real estate executive and bibliophile from Chicago. It contains various annotations, doodles, and markings from its owners over the centuries.It is thought that the text auctioned on Thursday is one of just 20 remaining in private ownership. The British Library houses five copies, with the rest displayed in museums and libraries across the world. | Writing and Literature |
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- I first met Zibby Owens back in 2019 and learned how her podcast was paying off for readers, writers, and publishers. Now, she is capitalizing on the success of "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books" by publishing her own book.The mom of four from Manhattan has a memoir in stores on July 1, called Bookends.Her podcast has made Owens one of the most influential people in publishing, much to her delight."I love recommending books to people," she said. "I love reading it and then giving the right book to the right person or putting two authors together."We spoke in her very spacious apartment on the Upper East Side, where some of the most famous authors in the world have come to promote their books.Owens has staged an awards show to honor the best books, and even started her own publishing company, Zibby Books.Bookends is the most personal of her many projects, and she calls writing it, "a very therapeutic journey.""It put everything into context for me, and it helped me make sense of various periods of time in my life and why I felt that way then," she said.Owens was born into a life of privilege, but as a shy child, she had trouble expressing herself. Writing was her "salvation," and so was reading."When you find the right book at the right time, it's such a healer," she said.This proved especially as she experienced bouts of depression.Her memoir chronicles a series of tragedies that began when her best friend and roommate Stacey Sanders was killed on 9/11 after the first plane struck the North Tower where she worked."I don't think I ever got over it," Owens said. "I think it completely changed who I was. I had not even considered mortality before Stacey died."Owens began writing after that, but living a full life and meeting life's challenges meant Bookends wasn't ready until now.It's about loss and literature, but also about love."It was like a whole fairy tale," she said as we look at photos of her wedding five years ago to film producer Kyle Owens.The author admits she had so many jobs in the past quarter-century that, "At times my career didn't seem to make any sense."Now, she has drawn upon all her many and varied experiences."All the moments which didn't make sense before, all make sense to me now," she said. "They're all helpful."Reading "Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature" proved very helpful to me, for the insight it gave me into her life and my own challenges.ALSO READ | Where to watch 4th of July fireworks in NYC, NY, NJ and CT----------* Get Eyewitness News Delivered * More Manhattan news* Send us a news tip* Download the abc7NY app for breaking news alerts * Follow us on YouTubeSubmit a tip or story idea to Eyewitness News Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. If attaching a video or photo, terms of use apply. Copyright © 2022 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved. | Writing and Literature |
Taylor Swift's songwriting is to be the subject of a new literature course at a Texas university.The course - The Taylor Swift Songbook - will fill a blank space in the line-up at the University of Texas at Austin (UTA) from this autumn.
It means the pop megastar's songs will be "read" alongside other UK and US literary giants such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Coleridge, Keats, and other artists they'll hope to know all too well by the end of their studies.The course will use "the songwriting of pop music icon Taylor Swift to introduce literary critical reading and research methods-basic skills for work in English literature and other humanities disciplines," according to a description on the UTA website."Focusing on Swift's music and the cultural contexts in which it and her career are situated, we'll consider frameworks for understanding her work, such as poetic form, style, and history among various matters and theoretical issues important to contextualisation as we practice close and in-depth reading, evaluating secondary sources, and building strong arguments," it adds.
For those who feel ready for it, preliminary texts include albums Red (Swift's Version), Lover, Folklore and Evermore.UTA follows in the footsteps of New York University (NYU), which previously helped fans fulfil their wildest dreams by offering a course on Swift as a music entrepreneur, and the various pop and country songwriters that helped shape her work. More on Taylor Swift Taylor Swift has twisted-claw millipede species named after her by superfan scientist Taylor Swift and Frozen song translations could help Latin students learn the language, says Cambridge academic Jake Gyllenhaal addresses Taylor Swift's All Too Well re-release and hits out at 'cyberbullying' The singer boosted her reputation by receiving an honorary doctor of fine arts from NYU earlier this year.The new course also comes after a separate university in Texas announced it will be offering a course based on the work of Harry Styles from 2023. Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity: Identity, the Internet, and European Pop Culture will be on offer at Texas State University Honours College from next spring.It will focus on the pop star's work in music and film to "understand the cultural and political development of the modern celebrity". | Writing and Literature |
Sheffield Hallam University has announced that it will be suspending its degree in English literature amid concerns about cuts to the humanities in higher education.In light of the government’s crackdown on what ministers regard as “low value” courses, we would like to hear from English literature graduates about what they feel they have gained from the degree. What do you consider to be its “value”?Share your experiencesYou can get in touch by filling in the form below or contact us via WhatsApp by clicking here or adding +44(0)7766780300. Your responses are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions.One of our journalists will be in contact before we publish, so please do leave contact details.If you’re having trouble using the form, click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here. | Writing and Literature |
Perhaps because Javier Marías felt deeply the absurdity of everyday life and had the sense that history is a game played out with dreadful consequences, he became interested in two pursuits that echo our witless absurdity: the art of spying and the craft of writing fiction. Of the first he became a canny investigator and observer, of the second a talented practitioner. Fifteen novels and several collections of short stories testify to these two lifelong interests, and his success can be measured in the enthusiasm of the reading public who eagerly sought out his books, published in close to 50 languages.Of course, the world of spies was not his only interest: he enjoyed dissecting the games of academia, the tangles of erotic strategies, the gossipy realm of writing and publishing. But the spy story above all allowed Marías to explore the consequences of our playing games with each other. Whatever story he chose to tell was for him merely a starting point: the reader had to do the rest. “Once you’ve finished a novel,” says one of his characters in The Infatuations, “what happened in it is of little importance and soon forgotten. What matters are the possibilities and ideas that the novel’s imaginary plot communicates to us and infuses us with, a plot that we recall far more vividly than real events and to which we pay far more attention.”Marías, who died this week shortly before his 71st birthday, was one of Spain’s major novelists and a perennial candidate for the Nobel prize. He was the son of the celebrated philosopher Julián Marías, a disciple of José Ortega y Gasset, founder of the Revista de Occidente, a magazine in which many of the luminaries of the first half of the 20th century published much of their work. No doubt the philosophical atmosphere that reigned at home, and his father’s firm opposition to Franco’s regime, which landed him a jail sentence, moulded Marías’s childhood and adolescence. Like Iris Murdoch, whom he much admired, he believed that fiction must find its starting point in a philosophical question, and he agreed with her that “every book is the wreck of a perfect idea”.“Life cannot be narrated,” Marías wrote in A Heart So White, “and it is extraordinary that we nevertheless have tried throughout the centuries to tell what cannot be told, whether in the form of myth, epic poem, chronicle, annals, minutes, fable, legend or canticle, blind man’s ballads or corridos, gospel, hagiography, history, biography, novel or funeral eulogy, film, confession, memoir, report, it really doesn’t matter.”And yet, Marías believed that it was essential to persist, however hopelessly, to tell our stories. His fascination with English literature led him to translate several English classics, among them works by Thomas Browne and Lawrence Sterne, now recognised as the best-crafted in Spanish. He said that British history had always been part of his life, from reading the Just William stories as a child to struggling more recently to understand “the tragedy of Brexit”. Two of his most successful novels – A Heart So White and Tomorrow in the Battle Think of Me - have titles taken from Shakespeare, whom he also translated, and the Your Face Tomorrow trilogy can be read as a tribute to Oxford, where Marías taught.Marias’s playfulness made him accept the crown of the almost-fictional Kingdom of Redonda, an uninhabited Caribbean island bought by the father of science-fiction writer MP Shiel, who was supposedly granted the right to be king by Queen Victoria. This allowed Marías to confer titles to many of his literary friends: WG Sebald was made Duke of Vertigo and Francis Ford Coppola the Duke of Megalópolis. When we met in Madrid, Marías spoke of Redonda as a quixotic creation but with far too many dukes and not enough ordinary citizens. “Maybe I should start establishing a proletariat for Redonda, made up of all politicians currently living off the fat of the land.” I don’t know whether he ever put his new plan in motion.For all his interest in the real lives of professors and spies and the love entanglements of ordinary men and women, Marías never saw himself as a chronicler of actual characters of flesh and blood. “I’ve never been interested in what some people call naturalism or some people call realism,” he once said. “I’m not interested in using differentiated voices, not even in dialogue. It must be believable, but that’s all. I think, on the contrary, that it is a courtesy on the part of the author to give the reader something which is interesting and, if possible, intelligent.” | Writing and Literature |
Jeffrey Boakye is right to think that the stories we tell our children are the moulds that cast their future values (Why are books on the English school curriculum still in the grip of straight, white men?, 7 June). Recent research from the End Sexism in Schools Campaign has also established that children in the UK are still living off a worryingly limited diet of white, male authors and white, male protagonists.Our research confirms that the novels Boakye mentions are in the top five most taught in years 7 to 9. But boys need to be taught to listen to and respect female voices as authoritative, and to be empathic to the viewpoints of women and girls. This is essential in tackling one of the root causes of male violence against women and girls. And girls need to be taught that our expectations of them are not tied to life-denying gender stereotypes.Parents – challenge your schools to change. Teachers – you have the agency to make these changes. It is our duty as their parents, educators and carers to teach children more books by women, and more books with female protagonists – and if this means leaving out some of the so-called classics, so be it!Debbie Brazil and Rachel FennEnd Sexism in Schools Campaign Jeffrey Boakye stresses the need for a broader choice of literature in the school curriculum in our diverse culture. I have to say that when I taught, we did study a broad range. And even if “colonial shackles” are present, an enlightened teacher will debate these with pupils without necessarily damning the book.Yes, some books were regular old chestnuts on the literature syllabus, but they have much more relevance to today than Boakye allows. Of Mice and Men illuminates what it is to have a learning disability; Animal Farm tackles gang culture; and An Inspector Calls criticises a white, class-ridden society.Most teachers of literature do study, with their A-level and GCSE pupils, books such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, which portray the lives of African Americans, Afghans and Indians, yet are not chosen just because of that. They inspire because of the art of fiction involved, which makes any book expand beyond itself to become universal, teaching children from diverse cultures about themselves and worlds both familiar and unfamiliar.Skin colour or the sexual identity of the author should not matter. It is the work that should stand on its own to challenge and inspire.Patricia McCarthyEditor, Agenda The answer to Jeffrey Boakye’s question “what should be on the [English] curriculum?” is simpler than is often thought. Nothing should be specified by exam boards or governments. Whole classes, year groups or national cohorts need not study the same few texts.English literature could be taught by allowing teachers and students to decide together, exploring relevant and important themes, including those Boakye identifies. The techniques of reading, analysing and understanding can be taught with examples, but all students need not answer the same questions on the same books, in class or in exams. The current system is more convenient for teachers and markers, but it’s also deeply repetitive. Let the kids choose their own texts: it’ll be less boring and we might just learn something.Gavin BaileyKeele, Staffordshire | Writing and Literature |
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia offers rosemary to boost memory, while in A Midsummer Night’s Dream Puck pours the juice of “love-in-idleness” on to the sleeping eyelids of Titania, making her “madly dote” on Bottom wearing an ass’s head.The magical power of herbs and flowers that Shakespeare recognised is now inspiring the recreation of a 17th-century herbal garden in the historic 1613 house that his daughter Susanna shared with her husband, John Hall, a physician who is believed to have advised his father-in-law on medical ailments.Documentary evidence shows that the vast majority of Hall’s patients were women, and the herb garden at his home, Hall’s Croft in Stratford-upon-Avon, will be filled with the sort of plants that he used in treating them. The site is overseen by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (SBT), which is collaborating with the University of Brighton on a major research project focusing on Susanna. As part of their research, they are drawing on Hall’s 400-year-old medical casebook which was recently translated from Latin into English. Between 1611 and 1635, he recorded symptoms and treatments for 178 cases.Hall, who was educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, emerges from its pages as a compassionate scholar-physician. Among his treatments was rhubarb, which helped sort out “constipation of the belly, melancholy, sleeplessness”, while borage, mallow and mugwort calmed “frenzy after childbirth”, now understood as postnatal mental health issues. Rosemary appears repeatedly, treating Susanna’s own scurvy, back pain and “melancholy”.Susanna, kneeling, listens to a play reading by her father with other family members in an 1890 engraving. Photograph: The Picture Art Collection/AlamyThe project is headed by Dr Ailsa Grant Ferguson, principal lecturer in literature at the University of Brighton. “We’re going to create a garden with the plants that were actually used for women’s health, particularly reproductive health, looking at how that was treated and how we might treat it now,” she told the Observer.Susanna was the eldest of three children – her younger brother, Hamnet, twin of Judith, died aged 11 – and she married Hall in 1607, giving birth to their only child, Elizabeth, the following year. She would have inherited Shakespeare’s papers and may have contributed to the creation of the First Folio, the first collected edition of his plays, published in 1623. Although she appears as a character in Maggie O’Farrell’s acclaimed novel Hamnet, in which she learns about the medicinal properties of plants from her mother, and as a grumpy teenager in Ben Elton’s Shakespeare sitcom Upstart Crow, she will be brought out from the shadows by this project, which will also study early modern women’s health, literacy and skills.Grant Ferguson wants to discover whether, like other physicians’ wives at the time, Susanna would have helped her husband in preparing remedies or even administering medications herself – like Helena in All’s Well That Ends Well, who cures the king with medicines learned through her late father, an apothecary.Susanna died in 1649 and was buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, where her tombstone epitaph notes that she was “witty above her sex”. She also brought cheer “with comforts cordiall” – seen as a pun on being cordial and providing medicine.Dr Paul Edmondson, the SBT’s head of research who edited Hall’s casebook, said: “William and Anne Shakespeare had gardens, an orchard and vines at their home, New Place. Their eldest child, Susanna, took after them – but her gardening was for healing. There were her husband the physician John Hall’s patients to treat, as well as the neighbours whom she visited with her ‘comforts cordial’, her own inimitable bedside manner.”“Some of the greatest garden designers are women, and I suspect Susanna herself drew her own special strength and inspiration from her knowledge of herbs, plants, flowers and fruit.”The project has received a £300,000 grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The garden will open next year. | Writing and Literature |
World-building can be an exciting process for the fantasy writer ... but what about when you hit an idea roadblock? Author A.J. Smith has 5 tips for ensuring that you keep your imagination engaged.As a fantasy writer, I spend my time immersed in things I’ve made up. There are certainly real-world reference points that are useful, but all of them need to be filtered through a screen of does it work in a fantasy world? There are obvious things that do—swords, language, history, etc. But, for everything else, we need imagination. I flatter myself that any failures I have as a writer are mitigated by my imagination. Below, I’ll try to walk you through five ways to massage yours into shape.(Writing All the Times: 6 Things to Ask Yourself About Your Time-Travel Story)5 Ways To Develop Your Writing Imagination for Fantasy Fiction1. Start smallDon’t beat yourself up marveling at the complexity of the worlds created by other writers. Start with a single character, a single town/area, or—my personal favorite—a monster. Develop that one thing in detail, until it feels alive. As you do this, hundreds of other little threads will appear, like a spider’s web, with your single creation in the middle. How does your character interact with others? What trade is your town known for? Is your monster a nuisance or a serious threat? You can do this forever—focusing on single elements until the webs become concentric circles.2. Don’t be afraid of real-world historyWe have thousands of years of rich, complicated, beautiful, and brutal interactions to draw upon. Some are well-known, some are fringe, and some are bizarrely obscure. Finding real-world parallels to stories you want to tell is a great way to add color and nuance to your writing. Find a historical period, the lesser-known the better, and make yourself an expert on it. Medieval Europe is an obvious one, but try looking beyond this to a place whose history is seldom told. Find a place your character, your town, or your monster would feel at home and borrow. History, legend, and myth are your friends, do not be afraid of them. The Sword Falls by A.J. SmithIndieBound | Bookshop | Amazon[WD uses affiliate links.]3. Weird and strange things are goodWho says magic isn’t real? Who says non-human creatures don’t exist? If they fit within your spider’s web, use them. If you find humans boring, invent a new species. If you think magic is too powerful, redefine it. This is the point where you start to test your imagination, but it’s also the point where things truly come alive. Come up with something strange that could never happen in the real world, and develop it. Make it as weird and otherworldly as you like. Remember this is your imagination, so you can always scale it back. The weird and wonderful makes your creation special.4. Find a storyWith enough spider’s webs, the potential crossover points will become numerous. A defined character visits a defined place; two developed characters meet; a monster hunts near a well-defined town. These are your stories. You’ll find that your imagination begins to run wild. You’ll start and restart a few times—find things you dislike and discard them—but you’ll get better each time. Not every idea has to go somewhere, but they’ll all teach you something. The more you immerse yourself in your spider’s web, the more you’ll understand it and the more it will grow. Eventually, a story will blossom enough to become a plot. (3 Things to Consider When Retelling Myths)5. Revel in itI can’t stress this enough. In my humble opinion, for a fantasy writer, there is simply nothing better than coming up with a cool idea. Fantasy literature is escapism, and the writer should be able to escape just as much as the reader. Own your creations; become attached to them. The more you care about the things you write, the deeper your characters and the richer your world. This is where your work becomes personal, and this is where—if I’ve been slightly helpful—your imagination will take over. Do you remember the difference between the 8 parts of speech and how to use them? Are you comfortable with punctuation and mechanics? No matter what type of writing you do, mastering the fundamentals of grammar and mechanics is an important first step to having a successful writing career.Click to continue.60 Examples of Hooks for BooksThis post collects 60 examples of hooks for books. Also called elevator pitches, these book hooks show real-life examples in a variety of writing genres for fiction and nonfiction books.Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 622Every Wednesday, Robert Lee Brewer shares a prompt and an example poem to get things started on the Poetic Asides blog. This week, write a story poem.A Thief in the MarketEvery writer needs a little inspiration once in a while. For today's prompt, someone is stealing from small business owners. | Writing and Literature |
Award-winning author Phong Nguyen discusses his lifelong dream of writing his new historical fiction novel, Bronze Drum.Phong Nguyen is the author of three novels: Bronze Drum, Roundabout: An Improvisational Fiction, and The Adventures of Joe Harper (winner of the Prairie Heritage Book Award); and two short fiction collections: Pages from the Textbook of Alternate History and Memory Sickness and Other Stories. He is the Miller Family Endowed Chair in Literature and Writing at the University of Missouri, where he teaches fiction writing. Find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Phong NguyenIn this post, Phong discusses his lifelong dream of writing his new historical fiction novel, Bronze Drum, the freedom to invent in historical fiction, and more!Name: Phong NguyenLiterary agent: Nat Sobel, of Sobel Weber AssociatesBook title: Bronze DrumPublisher: Grand Central PublishingRelease date: August 9, 2022Genre/category: Historical FictionPrevious titles: Roundabout, The Adventures of Joe Harper, Pages from the Textbook of Alternate History, Memory SicknessElevator pitch for the book: During the Bronze Age in ancient Vietnam, when a wicked new Han governor imposes strict laws on the Viet people, a Lord by the name of Trưng speaks out against the oppressive new rules and is subsequently beheaded. But his two daughters, Trưng Trắc and Trưng Nhị, in an act of revenge and patriotism, train an army of women who rise up to fight off the Han occupation, creating a free and independent nation in what is currently northern Vietnam.IndieBound | Bookshop | Amazon[WD uses affiliate links.]What prompted you to write this book?Bronze Drum is a book I have always wanted to write, ever since I was a kid and I heard the story of the Trưng Sisters for the first time from my father, who is from Vietnam. It struck me as inherently compelling because it showed how a single act can galvanize a population to action, and how anger can be harnessed productively in the service of independence and freedom. Then, when the 2016 election revealed how uncomfortable Americans still were with the idea of a woman as head of state, I felt a new urgency to write this story as a demonstration of an historical example of effective female leadership. How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?Well, I suppose the “idea” came quite early on, but let’s say I started to consider seriously writing this book in 2013 or so. My research began in 2015, and the writing of the book took place between 2016 and 2019. It was picked up for publication in February of 2020, but because of COVID delays will be released two and a half years later, in August of 2022. The idea was not substantially changed from idea to publication, but the scope of the novel substantially changed (the first draft was 600 pages) and a lot of military history was taken out and replaced by a greater depth of interiority and interpersonal drama.Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?There were many learning moments in the publishing process, some of which were mundane and some of which were more revelatory. One of the more revelatory learning moments came when the editors called for more exposition in the text. I had long internalized the idea that exposition has nearly no place in a work of contemporary fiction, but when I was directed to include more dynamic exposition, I started to see its presence everywhere.Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?I tend to be heavily research-driven in my writing, so the biggest surprise for me in creating Bronze Drum was that, in instances where the historical record is contradictory or entirely absent, I felt freed to invent. I thought that such a lack of historical record would be paralyzing for me, but instead it allowed me to make choices for the sake of the story and even to include deliberate anachronisms to fuel the drama.What do you hope readers will get out of your book?I hope that readers will be moved and inspired by the lives of these noble and powerful women who lived 2,000 years ago. I want the reader to be shaken out of the complacency that comes from a benighted cultural universalism—and awaken into the realization that the way we live is not the way that all societies in all places and times were structured. I want the reader to appreciate that Vietnam is more than just a synonym for a military quagmire, and that its history reaches back thousands of years into antiquity.Follow your curiosity. Everything else stems from this. There is all the difference in the world between a story by an author who is genuinely fascinated by the subjects about which they write and a story written in a fashion that is skillful but rote or automatic. Ursula K Le Guin wrote about “energy” being the most important aspect of writing; similarly, Ray Bradbury wrote about “zest” and “gusto” being essential to one’s prose. Yet all of these things flow from the author’s curiosity and passion for their subject.If you want to learn how to write a story, but aren’t quite ready yet to hunker down and write 10,000 words or so a week, this is the course for you. Build Your Novel Scene by Scene will offer you the impetus, the guidance, the support, and the deadline you need to finally stop talking, start writing, and, ultimately, complete that novel you always said you wanted to write.Click to continue.Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 621Every Wednesday, Robert Lee Brewer shares a prompt and an example poem to get things started on the Poetic Asides blog. This week, write an animal poem.How Can I Help You?Every writer needs a little inspiration once in a while. For today's prompt, your character is a high-end retail salesperson.Art and Independence (From Script)In this week’s round up brought to us by Script magazine, exclusive interviews with Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman” television writer Vanessa Benton, Allegoria writer-director Spider One, Hulu’s Prey screenwriter Patrick Aison and director Dan Trachtenberg, and more! | Writing and Literature |
This week, the news that Sheffield Hallam University is to scrap its standalone English literature degree from next year triggered an outcry, following the government’s decision to end funding for degrees where less than 40% of graduates find “highly skilled” employment within six months.Here, seven English literature graduates tell what they gained from the degree, and share their views on the government’s plan to cut the funding of certain humanities courses deemed to be “low-value”.‘I loved studying English at Sheffield Hallam’Nageena Rehman with her English literature dissertation. Photograph: Nageena Rehman/Guardian Community“I loved studying English literature at Sheffield Hallam University, where I graduated in 2020. It was surprising and disappointing to hear they were closing the course. Being able to study the subject in my hometown was such an advantage: I saved money, I felt comfortable on campus, and had the opportunity to study abroad for a year, which changed my life.“English kept my employment options open. I have worked as a private tutor, a journalist, and am now a stagehand and technician at my local theatre. I gained an understanding of different perspectives, and learned how to articulate my thoughts on paper and in person – a key skill in all of my work. I connected with my coursemates over our passion for reading and writing and we have gone on to work creatively together. My degree has been a fundamental part of growth in my critical thinking, integrity, intelligence and passion for my work.” Nageena Rehman, 24, backstage theatre technician, York‘The arts can enact change, release emotion and bring joy’Saffron Rain, 28, who studied English literature, says what she does would not be counted as highly skilled work, but it is. Photograph: Saffron Rain/Guardian Community“I studied English at Sheffield University and did an MA in the same subject. If anyone were to quantify my university’s success rates based on the current government opinion, I would be bringing the side down. But it depends on what you class as ‘skilled work’. I used to manage bars, but now I do customer service for an arts charity, which doesn’t count as highly skilled work, although it is. I haven’t wasted my time at university.“I did not undertake either course in order to get a specific job, but to enrich my own life, and hopefully the lives of others. I learned how to research, identify reliable sources, form reasoned opinions, and intelligently engage with arguments I may not agree with. Studying the arts will always have value. They can enact change, provide solace, release emotion and bring joy.” Saffron Rain, 28, customer service professional, Stockport‘The government’s stance smacks of us-and-them politics’Jason Jawando, 50, from Wolverhampton, found that studying English helped him build self-confidence. Photograph: supplied“I studied English literature as a mature student at the Open University, having previously had a difficult experience of education. My degree gave me the ability to express myself, to engage with culture, and gave me confidence. Although my degree isn’t directly related to my job, I’m a more rounded person with a better understanding of my place in the world.“The government completely overlooks the role of education for its own sake; that it makes people better citizens. Employability is important, but measuring crudely whether you’re in a high-earning job or not is the wrong approach. It smacks very much of ‘us and them’ politics. The message seems to be: if you’re from a lower socio-economic background, study something useful and we’ll keep you in your place.” Jason Jawando, 50, research support administrator, Wolverhampton‘Perhaps this policy will make universities offer better value for money’Emily Young, 26, feels her English literature degree taught her almost nothing. Photograph: Emily Young/Guardian Community“I graduated in 2018 with a £9,000-a-year English degree from a London university. I had about six hours of ‘contact time’ a week that dropped to nothing in my final year during the lecturers’ strikes. I got a first-class degree but I can safely say I learned almost nothing. The content was mostly boring and abstract with little chance to explore my own literary interests.“I feel strongly that many humanities courses are cash cows for universities’ more expensive practical courses, such as engineering and chemistry. My degree was not much more than an overpriced piece of paper that I needed to enter the job market.“I think the government’s policy [to cut funding for some humanities courses] is sensible. I hope this forces universities to think more about quality and employability.” Emily, 26, civil servant, London‘My English studies paved the way to a successful career as an entrepreneur’Nick Payne says the government would regard his studies as a waste of time, but he does not. Photograph: Guardian Community“I studied English literature at the University of Sheffield, and graduated with a 2:1. I didn’t end up in a ‘highly skilled’ job within six months, so according to the government my studies were apparently a waste of time.“I learned a range of useful skills, particularly in communication, research and analysis, which played a significant part in my career. I’ve co-founded and managed a couple of successful businesses in the technical publishing and events sector, sold one of them for a significant sum along the way, and have boosted the UK’s import/export balance over the years as roughly half of our conference delegates come from overseas – and spend money locally.” Nick Payne, 57, majority owner of a business running technical conferences, St Albans‘It shows that almost none of my software engineering colleagues studied humanities’James Cole, from Bath, believes humanities degrees equip people with skills other graduates lack. Photograph: James Cole/Guardian Community“English literature degrees teach criticism, a form of analysis that suits the workplace very well. What is the truth in a given situation, how does it tie into wider themes, and how can I best communicate that? Deep reading skills, mental organisation, patience. Studying Stem doesn’t develop these skills in the same way, and I should know because I also have an MPhil in computer science.“Almost none of my colleagues have humanities degrees, and it shows. A humanities student learns a history of systems, approaches, and theories. They learn how these failed and why. Stem, meanwhile, encourages the view that the world is a system that can be understood and manipulated. And in a practical way this is true – and very cool. But it can also encourage conformity and stifle questioning and innovation.” James Cole, software engineer, Bath | Writing and Literature |
I am often asked what defines Turkish literature. Is it Orhan Pamuk’s depictions of a society caught between modernity and traditionalism? Or Elif Shafak’s novels, which highlight the difficulty of being a woman in Turkey? Does our literature have to be political in order to be considered “Turkish”?If, as Abraham Verghese says in his brilliant Cutting for Stone, “geography is destiny”, then I think it does. In my latest novel, At the Breakfast Table, a family gathering to celebrate the matriarch’s 100th birthday soon exposes the family’s – and Turkey’s – fraught history. The book examines the complications of family life alongside the despotism, violence and atrocities that litter our history and the social amnesia that now surrounds us. In this way, I see my writing as Turkish – these are the issues that we breathe every day; they are buried in the soil under our feet. Yet there is also a balance: the greatest Turkish literature discusses serious issues, but will also lighten the heart and put a smile on your face.With the choices below, I wanted to highlight books about Turkey that not only talk about its historical and social context, but also reflect the distinctive styles and the creativity of their authors in dealing with individual, philosophical and political questions.1. In the Shadow of the Yali by Suat DervisOriginally published in 1945, this is the Madame Bovary of Turkish literature. One of Turkey’s leading female authors, Dervis (1905–72) wrote about the loss and longing of urban, affluent Turkish women. In this novel, Celile is torn between her respectable husband and her passionate tango partner in 1940s Istanbul. Although the story is, in many ways, universal, Dervis brilliantly captures the particularities of Turkish society and its struggle with modernity. This rare gem is finally available in English thanks to Maureen Freely’s masterful translation.2. Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse by Ayfer Tunç Well, the title says it all! A postmodern Arabian Nights, the novel takes place over one Valentine’s Day in a mental institution on the Black Sea. One story interweaves with another so masterfully that you barely notice the transition, yet by the time the book ends you realise that you have travelled in time, back and forth across a century, and encountered hundreds of characters who are all interconnected. Creative and hilarious, Feyza Howell’s translation doesn’t skip a beat, managing to recreate the unique rhythm of this powerful novel.Orhan Pamuk pictured at his Museum of Innocence in Istanbul. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images3. The Museum of Innocence by Orhan PamukEach time I read this book I find something new in it. Set in 1970s Istanbul, it follows 30-year-old Kemal, the son of an educated urban family, who falls in love with a distant relative – the beautiful 18-year-old Füsun – who comes from a family of modest means. This story of ill-fated love translated by Maureen Freely is also about Kemal awakening to his true nature. Pamuk winks at Proust and Walter Benjamin, as Kemal collects objects that remind him of his lost beloved. Pamuk has also built a real Museum of Innocence: if you are visiting Istanbul, you can go to Füsun’s house and see “her” shoes and dresses, cinema tickets, and the hundreds of cigarette butts that the heartbroken Kemal collected.4. The Flea Palace by Elif Shafak My favourite Shafak book. It is at once funny and tragic, a modern Istanbul story that takes place in 10 flats which sit within the once-glorious, now dilapidated Bonbon Palace. A story within a story which is told from the different perspectives of the building’s residents, The Flea Palace paints a brilliant picture of Turkey on the brink of the 21st century, and is written with intelligence and love.5. Middlesex by Jeffrey EugenidesEugenides’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel is considered a Detroit tale, although it begins in the Ottoman empire. Two siblings, Ottoman citizens of Greek descent, run away from war and end up in New York with a secret in their hearts and in their DNA, and this opening is crucial to the plot as it plays out. The collapse of this cosmopolitan empire and its evolution into the nation state of Turkey forms the backbone of Eugenides’s story, and the pain and grief for a land lost forever is transmitted to the younger generations in this story of family, inheritance and the immigrant experience.6. A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi TanpinarFirst published in 1949, A Mind at Peace is regarded as the Turkish Ulysses and contains the most beautiful picture of Istanbul ever depicted in literature, as well as offering deep insights into human nature. As we walk with its 30-year-old protagonist along the shores of the Bosphorus in Erdag Goknar’s translation, we recognise the human condition that is within us all, the very core of our being: love, compassion and our eternal need to belong.7. Last Train to Istanbul by Ayşe KulinKulin is the most popular novelist in Turkey. She is prolific and researches her subjects well. Translated by John W Baker, this book takes place during the second world war, revealing a very little-known part of Turkish history: the mission to rescue Turkish Jews in Paris from the Nazi occupation. Like a train, the novel starts slowly, and speeds up as it nears the end. When you come to the last chapters and still don’t know if the protagonists will cross the border or not, you feel breathless.Unsettling … a still from the 1987 film version of Motherland Hotel8. Motherland Hotel by Yusuf AtilganIn this existential nightmare, ably translated by Fred Stark, the anti-hero Zebercet is waiting for his lover’s arrival in a small hotel that was, once upon a time, a wealthy mansion. It is both an unsettling book depicting a mind captured by its own obsession, and a story of the ambiguities of post-Ottoman society in small-town Turkey.9. A Useless Man: Selected Stories by Sait Faik AbasiyanikAbasiyanik’s stories are reminiscent of Chekhov’s – short and witty, critical of society and politics – and A Useless Man is the most comprehensive collection of his work in English, translated by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe. The stories portray the everyday life of ordinary people in Istanbul and the complications that transpired during the country’s transformation from the Ottoman empire to the modern Turkish republic.10. Waiting for Fear by Oğuz Atay Here Atay asks the question “Who are we?” and tries to answer it in each individual short story, which are all told in his signature ironic style. The book has now been translated into English for the first time by Fulya Peker and will be out in November. It is a great way to take a peek into the “soul of Turkey”, something Atay himself was very curious about in his lifetime. At the Breakfast Table by Defne Suman is published by Head of Zeus (£20). To help the Guardian and Observer, order your copy from guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. | Writing and Literature |
Developing characters as fully formed, three-dimensional people requires patience, observation, and knowing what to put on the page and what to keep off. Here, author Marnie Riches shares how to write killer characters.The Lost Ones is my 10th crime thriller and the first book in my fourth series. Writing series that will keep selling, beyond the fanfare that surrounds the first book, demands a particular skill, and that’s the ability to write killer characters. If you’re penning a standalone, you have to have believable characters and a main protagonist that readers will root for, but with series it’s doubly important, because you will have to sustain a developmental arc for all of your characters over the course of several books. Great characters will provide the answer to the question: Why should I care enough to keep reading?(Exploring the Lived Lives of Dual Cultural Identities in Fiction)When I wrote my award-winning debut novel The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die in 2009, I had no idea that I would be signed up to pen three novels in that series and a further two, under a subsequent deal. My main protagonist was Georgina McKenzie, the young, aspiring criminologist who has to divide her time and energies between the academic world of Cambridge University, the gritty urban grind of Southeast London where her aunt lives, and Amsterdam, where she eventually works with the Dutch police as a criminal-profiler.Without realizing it, I had created a character with a thoroughly believable backstory (unsurprising, since much of that was inspired by my own upbringing), whose abrasive personality naturally generated drama whenever she came into contact with authority figures. She had career plans and emotional trauma to resolve too, which gave me somewhere to go with her story. As the series developed and she aged, I was able to delve deeper into her past and show how her uneasy relationship with her mother served to make her difficult and outwardly feisty but inwardly vulnerable, yet she also demonstrated an inner steel and determination to do right and change the course of her life. I think that series was successful because George was a flawed individual, who was nevertheless wholly identifiable and compelled the reader to root for her. And those are the basic ingredients for any good leading character. You’ve got to ensure your hero is 3D.Once you’ve figured out who your main protagonist is, you need a raft of supporting characters who are similarly compelling. They should all say something about your main protagonist too, in the way that they relate to one another. In The Lost Ones, I’ve created a new leading lady called Detective Sergeant Jackson Cooke—Jackie to her pals. She’s an older mother of twin 10-year-old boys, one of whom has suspected ADHD. She’s also into her third trimester of pregnancy and still working. I wanted to portray a scenario which many modern women struggle with—being Momma Bear at home and a go-getting Rottweiler at work in a man’s world. Jackie’s newly retired mother, Beryl, lives in the basement of her house and has an antagonistic relationship with her daughter because of a past family tragedy. Husband, Gus is an amateur musician and stay-at-home dad, who doesn’t do his fair share of parenting or putting food on the table, yet his frustration at the long hours that Jackie works as a murder cop is justifiable. Jackie’s boss, Tina, is an ambitious Inspector who is far better at internal politics and PR than she is at meticulous police work. She sees Jackie as a rival. All of these supporting characters serve to demonstrate that Jackie is loving, conflicted, overburdened, frustrated, proud, and diligent. When you’re penning your cast of characters, make sure you’ve invented little backstories for all of them—though you needn’t incorporate these into the narrative. Your depth of understanding of your characters will shine through when you write. You’ll know that they love mac and cheese but hate Oreos; they’ll have a pathological fear of heights and will be murderously shy but will happily get on stage to belt out a karaoke classic. They’ll be just like real people!This leads me onto my next point, which is the dos and don’ts of character portrayal. Do show that your character is gregarious and boastful by having them dominate a conversation where they brag about their car or their abs or their holiday in Hawaii’s premier resort. Don’t say, “John liked the sound of his own voice too much and boasted constantly.” Do show that your character is feeling nervous by depicting their body language—perhaps a sweat breaking out on her top lip or her playing with the hem on her sleeve or his foot bouncing. Don’t say, “Gloria was nervous.” Better to show us Gloria’s twitching eye when her boss walks in the room. It says far more about her character, and crucially, allows the reader to fill in the gaps for themselves. Show, don’t tell!Dialogue is super-important when creating a killer character. I teach creative writing and this is where students often fall down. Decide in advance, in your head, what your main protagonist and the people around them all sound like. Do they have a Southern drawl? Do they speak in a brusque, hurried fashion like a New Yorker? Are they taciturn, speaking in an economical way? Do they love to gossip and go on and on and on? Listen to how real people speak on the bus or in the supermarket. Eavesdrop, and remember how those chatting friends or sparring enemies sound. IndieBound | Bookshop | Amazon[WD uses affiliate links.]If need be, watch fly-on-the-wall documentaries, where real people speak to one another. Don’t try to faithfully transcribe accents and especially avoid representing stereotypes of accents. Instead, listen to the rhythms of speech and try to emulate those. You can and should write characters who are different from you, but make sure you’ve done a good job of listening to real people first.The golden rule of creating compelling characters is that in the course of a story—be it a short story or a novella, a standalone or a series of 10 books—you should surprise the character and your reader. Whether you write romance or serial killer thrillers, like me, chase your main protagonists up a tree and throw rocks at them. For the reader to believe in your killer characters, there needs to be drama and tension in the story, where your characters face problem after problem and then overcome those issues. This will give you a dynamic story and characters that grow as people. This will avoid the pitfalls of creating two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs and having zero narrative tension. Remember: All story should come from character, so be really careful when you’re writing to give your characters the attention they deserve. Over time, they will feel as real and familiar as old friends!Writer's Digest is proud to offer our Copyediting Certificate Program. This course will provide training for aspiring copy editors in order to give them practical and marketable workplace skills. As a student in this certification course, you will progress from the fundamentals of grammar, form, and composition to advanced copyediting skills.Click to continue.How To Write Killer CharactersDeveloping characters as fully formed, three-dimensional people requires patience, observation, and knowing what to put on the page and what to keep off. Here, author Marnie Riches shares how to write killer characters.Tips for Handling Pacing in a Thriller NovelPacing can make or break a thriller novel, but how do you know if you’re moving too quickly or too slowly? Here, author James Byrne shares tips for handling pacing in a thriller novel. | Writing and Literature |
CNN — The New York Public Library (NYPL) has announced that it will give away 500,000 books to city residents to keep as part of its “Summer at the Library Program.” Its goal is to help kids, teens and adults build their home libraries, as well as keep youth productive through the summer break. The books are available at any of the library’s 92 locations in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island. Some locations will even offer Spanish, Chinese, and large print titles. “New York City students and families have been through so much over the last two years. It’s critical that, during this period of recovery and renewal, our ecosystem of learning do all it can to support and engage them,” Brian Bannon, NYPL’s Merryl and James Tisch director of branch libraries and education, said in a statement earlier this month. “Public libraries are uniquely positioned to do this while students are out of the classroom over the summer months, providing quality, free programs to engage their minds while also getting them excited about books, reading, learning, and their communities.” In addition to the giveaway, NYPL is also hosting free youth programs throughout the summer, including story times, reading challenges, and writing contests. It will also offer adult workshops for technology training, job search aid, English as a Second Language (ESOL) and citizenship classes. Of course, with a free library card and no late fees, New Yorkers also have access to millions of books to take on countless adventures. | Writing and Literature |
There is a “rapid acceleration” of book censorship occurring across the US, with more than 2,500 different book bans taking place over the past school year, a new report has found.A total of 1,648 individual book titles, many of them that mention issues relating to race or sexuality, were the subject of bans by school districts in 32 states in the last school year, according to the new analysis.More than 5,000 schools nationally have had books barred from access by students in libraries and classrooms, according to the report compiled by Pen America, a non-profit that supports freedom of expression in literature.There has been a “proliferation of organized efforts to advocate for book removals”, the report states, from rightwing politicians in states such as Texas, Georgia and Wisconsin to at least 50 groups that have sprung up either in-person or on Facebook.Many of the books have been banned for simply featuring people who identify as LGBTQ+, with a third of all book bans from April to June including people with such identities, often under a spurious justification that the titles are “obscene”. Race and discussion of America’s racist past is also a target of book bans, with 40% of titles banned featuring prominent characters of color.“While we think of book bans as the work of individual concerned citizens, our report demonstrates that today’s wave of bans represents a coordinated campaign to banish books being waged by sophisticated, ideological and well-resourced advocacy organizations,” said Suzanne Nossel, chief executive officer of Pen America.“This censorious movement is turning our public schools into political battlegrounds, driving wedges within communities, forcing teachers and librarians from their jobs, and casting a chill over the spirit of open inquiry and intellectual freedom that underpin a flourishing democracy.”While book bans have long been a part of America’s education fabric, the Pen report suggests they are now driven less by the complaints of individual parents and more by organized, ideological groups and overt pressure from politicians.About 40% of the book bans in the past year have been connected to political pressure or legislation designed to restrict and reshape teaching, the report estimates. In November, for example, Henry McMaster, the Republican governor of South Carolina, demanded that the book Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe be removed from school libraries for being “sexually explicit” and “pornographic”.Kobabe’s book was the most banned book in the past school year, banished by 41 school districts, followed by All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M Johnson, banned in 29 districts, and Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez, prohibited in 24 districts. Among the most banned authors is Toni Morrison, the Nobel laureate. Texas led the way with book bans, followed by Florida and Pennsylvania.The push to ban certain books has prompted backlash in some states. Shortly after the Texas state lawmaker Matt Krause called for the state’s school libraries to consider 850 books for possible removal, a group of librarians created a broad online campaign to fight the bans, deluging state politicians with tweets and emails over the issue.In Wisconsin, meanwhile, a school district’s decision to ban the title When the Emperor Was Divine, a book by Julie Otsuka on the internment of Japanese-Americans in the second world war, provoked a furious response from local teachers, parents and students who organized protest rallies over the move. Such bans have continued unabated across the US, however.“This rapidly accelerating movement has resulted in more and more students losing access to literature that equips them to meet the challenges and complexities of democratic citizenship,” said Jonathan Friedman, a lead author of the Pen report.“The work of groups organizing and advocating to ban books in schools is especially harmful to students from historically marginalized backgrounds, who are forced to experience stories that validate their lives vanishing from classrooms and library shelves.” | Writing and Literature |
CAMBRIDGE — There’s a seeming imbalance between ambition articulated and space occupied with “In Search of Thoreau’s Flowers: An Exploration of Change and Loss.” That’s a mouthful of a name, yet the show takes up just a single gallery at Harvard’s Museum of Natural History. Even so, that gallery manages to accommodate a show that combines celebrity, topicality, and beauty — or, if you prefer, literature, science, and art.All have a place in this stimulatingly cross-disciplinary exhibition, as do texts, images, artworks, and artifacts. “In Search” runs through November 2023.Celebrity and literature come courtesy of Henry David Thoreau (1817-62). The concept of celebrity would have made Thoreau flee even further into the woods. He is to our Kardashian culture as, say, Concord then is to Las Vegas now, and even that comparison rather understates the difference. But the great and enduring popularity of his writing makes Thoreau one of the most famous classic American authors. Putting his name in the show’s title is selling point as well as accurate description.Get The Big To-DoYour guide to staying entertained, from live shows and outdoor fun to the newest in museums, movies, TV, books, dining, and more.Specimen of bird vetch collected by Henry David Thoreau.Thoreau collection, Harvard University HerbariaSeveral Thoreau quotations are written in cursive on the dark-blue walls. The most concisely pertinent is “I have a great faith in a seed.” The show also includes a page from his journals. Thoreau’s copper-plate handwriting is at once slightly fussy and bookkeeper legible, if also far less elegant than the fancy-dan rendering on the walls.Thoreau is one of those rare writers who is at once intensely local and a part of world literature. Gandhi, for one, much admired “Walden” and was deeply influenced by “On Civil Disobedience.” Out of this interaction between the local and global comes the show’s topicality and science.Over the course of his life, Thoreau collected more than 800 plant specimens. Those are the flowers mentioned in the title. Thoreau pressed them in the pages of his journals, with accompanying annotations. The Harvard University Herbaria has 648 of them, which it has digitized and made available online.Specimen of Canadian serviceberry collected by Henry David Thoreau.Thoreau collection, Harvard University HerbariaThe topicality and science have to do with climate change. In gathering these specimens, Thoreau was engaging in what we would now call citizen science. Of the plant species represented by those more than 800 specimens, 27 percent are no longer found in the vicinity of Concord. The term for disappearance of that sort is extirpation — meaning when a species has gone from an area but is not (yet) extinct elsewhere. Another 37 percent are in danger of extirpation. Those extirpations are the result of climate change and the introduction of non-native plant species (whose presence is often the result of climate change).Average spring temperatures in the Concord area are now 5 degrees warmer than in the mid-19th century, when Thoreau was active. His collecting back then offers an all-too-vivid demonstration of our environmental situation now.Leah Sobsey, from "The Fall of the Leaf."Leah SobseyBeauty and art factor in through the work of two artists, Leah Sobsey and Robin Vuchnich, inspired by the Thoreau specimens. Sobsey’s very handsome “The Dispersion of Seeds” is a gridded wallpaper, each rectangle 5 inches by 8 inches, showing a different one of the digitized specimens. Sobsey recorded the images as cyanotypes. Cyanotype is the same photographic process that produces blueprints. Sobsey chose the process in honor of the photographer most associated with it, the 19th-century botanist Anna Atkins. The size of a substantial mural, “Dispersion” has the look of a very large quilt hanging on the wall. It has a homespun appearance that harkens back to Thoreau’s (and Atkins’s) era.Sobsey’s “The Fall of the Leaf” also nods to the 19th century. It employs cyanotype and gold leaf in several large-scale oval portraits, substituting a plant specimen for a person. To properly look at the image, viewers have to get close, which means their reflection is part of what they see. It’s a nice way to underscore the role of personal engagement in the issues the show raises.Robin Vuchnich, "Untitled"Robin VuchnichVuchnich also uses digitized images of the specimens. She’s set up an immersive installation, with images, projected on a temporary wall. Some of the projections are gridded, like Sobsey’s. Extirpated specimens are cyanotypes, standing out from their fellow specimens, which are in earth tones. Others are much larger and animated. They’re a bit splashy and overwhelming. There’s audio, too, with recordings of birdsong and insect sounds. Heard throughout the gallery, they’re more distraction than enhancement.Finally, the show includes five actual Thoreau specimens, in display cases. With all due respect to Sobsey and Vuchnich, the beauty of their sere elegance surpasses that of the artworks. Even the plant’s names are striking: bird vetch, common buttercup, common water-crowfoot, Canadian serviceberry, bristle thistle. That last one rhymes, but they’re all a form of homely poetry.Specimen of bristle thistle collected by Henry David Thoreau.Thoreau collection, Harvard University HerbariaIN SEARCH OF THOREAU’S FLOWERS: An Exploration of Change and LossAt Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge, through November 2023. 617-495-3045, hmnh.harvard.eduMark Feeney can be reached at [email protected]. | Writing and Literature |
Faithful adherence to grammar rules that are not actually rules has sucked the life out of many excellent sentences. Adults are often hobbled by outdated or just plain wrong notions of correct grammar they feel they must adhere to—for example, the idea that it is ungrammatical to end with a preposition, as I did right before my em dash in this sentence. I love grammar, but if you feel you are tying spectacular sentences into knots because of faded grammar memories, it’s worth revisiting the concepts constraining your creativity.Fake Rule #1. Don’t use “whose” to refer to things.I don’t normally use who for anything but people and cute pets:Mitsy, who preferred solitude to affection, would purr only if I fed her while petting her.Some people believe that “whose” is also only for human or humanlike cases, and that’s simply not true. English has no comparable possessive just for objects: “whose” is all we’ve got. Here’s a wonderful example from Ralph Ellison in Invisible Man: “Sometimes it appeared as though they played some vast and complicated game with me and the rest of the school folk, a game whose goal was laughter and whose rules and subtleties I could never grasp.”On the very first page of E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End, we have this: “Then she walked off the lawn to the meadow, whose corner to the right I can just see.”Of her young protagonist in The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote, “She found herself in one long gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits.” Are you preparing to dismiss these examples as old-fashioned? Hold your grammar horses! This is so very common for excellent writers that it took me only seconds to locate three recent examples in The New Yorker of “whose” used to refer to exactly the same nouns as above: “game,” “meadow,” and “gallery.”What are the odds? Excellent, it turns out, when we are talking about something that is a natural and ubiquitous feature of the English language. How can one object to something that excellent writers have done for ages? If the usage of our best writers is objectionable to us, then whom are we following as our writing and grammar guides? Often not our best writers, it seems, since I keep seeing people replace sensible sentences like this oneYou will receive a list of grammatical terms whose definitions you need to know for the final.with awkward ones like this:You will receive a list of grammatical terms the definitions of which you need to know for the final.That is not making your writing better; it is making your writing cautious, stilted, and superstitious.Check out Ellen Jovin's Rebel with a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian:IndieBound | Bookshop | Amazon(WD uses affiliate links.)Fake Rule #2. Don’t use “that” with people.In A Journal of the Plague Year, published in 1722, Daniel Defoe wrote that “the first person that died of the plague was on December 20, or thereabouts, 1664.” The “that” refers to the noun “person” just before it. I know that’s old, so let’s swoosh forward in time 203 years to read, in The Great Gatsby, “Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.” Still too old? Let’s time-travel again, this time to 2010, where we find Katy Perry singing about “The One That Got Away.” My point is, humans do this. A lot. Whether they think they do it or not, it is popping out of people’s mouths left and right, particularly when the person being referred to remains hazy and nonspecific.For F. Scott Fitzgerald’s sentence from The Great Gatsby, which of these versions do you prefer?I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.I am one of the few honest people I have ever known.I am one of the few honest people who I have ever known.I am one of the few honest people whom I have ever known.I could do either #1 or #2, but not #3 (because the structure calls for the object pronoun “whom” and I am a “whom” user) and also not #4 (because although technically correct, “whom” sounds ridiculous to me there). “That” is serviceable and simple. Let’s respect its quiet power.Fake Rule #3. If you see two “that”s in a row, remove one.Moby Dick, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Great Expectations, and oodles of other influential and widely read works all contain multiple examples of “that that.” I value word-cutting undertakings, but sometimes people go way overboard with their “that” excisions. “Conciseness!” they cry, as they hack another hardworking, unassuming four-letter word from the sentence it is helping hold up. The word “that” serves multiple grammatical functions in English, and removing one can sometimes create a momentary misreading. Consider this sentence:I can’t tell that that writer is terrified of public speaking.If I remove one “that,” my sentence begins like this:I can’t tell that writer…What comes next? I can’t tell that writer a thing? I can’t tell that writer my darkest secrets? I can’t tell that writer my Social Security number? Keeping both “that”s in this sentence prevents brain blips. It is very, very common to think we use language differently than we do. Because we are human beings and not computer databases, we can’t reliably store all our word encounters and experiences in our memories. It is important to remain open to the influences of beautiful literature you read throughout your life. Those grammar doors are meant to stay wide open, not locked shut with rusty deadbolts.Please note that in the previous paragraph, I did two things people have reported to me over the years that I am definitely never supposed to do: I used “than” with a form of “different,” and I began a sentence with “because.” Is this life on the grammar edge? Not at all. It’s just about the facts—about language as it is actually used, not as we imagine it. Beautiful literary writing is varied and creative, and it is there that I try to learn about the aesthetic potential of English—the breathtaking possibilities of grammar rather than the limitations people often imagine are imposed by it.People may think, Oh, what’s the cost of following a few questionable rules in order to be safe? Well, there is always a cost when we reject the evidence of our senses in favor of superstition. Sophisticated grammar is about expanding your understanding of language, not stapling yourself to outdated rules that you may or may not be remembering correctly from Ms. Fitzgibbon’s seventh-grade English class. | Writing and Literature |
This week, we're excited to announce 6 WDU courses, a chance to be published, and more!There's always so much happening in the Writer's Digest universe that even staff members have trouble keeping up. As a result, we decided to start collecting what's on the horizon to make it easier for everyone to know what's happening and when.This week, we're excited to announce 6 WDU courses, a chance to be published, and more!****6 WDU Courses Begin This Week!Submission Coaching: Everything You Need to Know to Get PublishedHave you been querying agents and not getting the response you are expecting? Have you been discouraged by publishers insisting upon marketing and platform successes even before your book is published? You are not alone. This five-week class will give you the tools you need and that agents and publishers are looking for when considering taking on an author.Click to continue.Writing the Picture BookPicture books are one of the most delightful—and important—genres in all of literature. In this course, you'll learn how to write a winning picture book narrative, envision it with illustrations, and put together a picture package that a publisher will really notice.Click to continue.Query Letter in 14 DaysYou've devoted hours, days, months—even years— to writing and editing your novel or nonfiction book. With all that time invested, it's natural to want recognition for your hard work and dedication. Take your writing one step further and tackle the publishing process. When you enroll in this online course, you'll learn the details of the query letter format and how to write a query letter that catches the attention of agents and publishers.Click to continue.Short Story FundamentalsThroughout this four-week course, you will have feedback and support while you write and hone an entire short story from beginning to end, and you'll leave with a polished draft of your story. You will get insider information about what editors are looking for in short stories they choose to publish. Literary journals are always looking for quality stories, and with the advances in online submissions, getting your work in front of an editor has never been easier.Click to continue.Breaking into Copywriting 101Writing is your passion. Why not make it your day job, too? Whether you’re an aspiring screenwriter, novelist or playwright, or even just an avid reader, you can turn your love for words into a lucrative career as a professional copywriter. Learn how to become a copywriter by building your portfolio and marketing your services through this online workshop.Click to continue.Getting Started in WritingWhen you take this online writing course, you'll discover your voice, learn the basics of grammar and examine the different types of writing. No matter what type of writing you're planning on crafting—nonfiction or fiction—you'll need guidance along the way.Click to continue.****Answer Our “From Our Readers” Question for a Chance at Publication!What book ended in a way that you didn’t expect but was perfect anyway? Comment for a chance at publication in a future issue of Writer's Digest.Click to continue.****Enter Our Poetry Competition!Calling all poets! We’re on the look out for poems of all styles–rhyming, free verse, haiku, and more–for the 17th Annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards! This is the only Writer’s Digest competition exclusively for poets.Click to continue.****Watch Our Interview With the Founders of #PitBLK!Editors Michael Woodson and Moriah Richard chat with the founders of #PitBLK about their mission to answer the call from within the Black Writing Community for a Pitch Event that centers Black creators!Click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel.****Subscribe to Our Newsletter!Subscribe to Writer’s Digest emails and get free writing tips, publishing insights, and expert writing advice delivered straight to your email inbox.Click here to subscribe.Creating Memorable Friends for Main CharactersFilling your book with realistic friendships can offer your main characters fresh perspectives on the story's core plot. Here, author Danielle Jackson shares tips for creating memorable friends for main characters. | Writing and Literature |
Perhaps you’ve heard James Patterson, one of the wealthiest authors in the world, has recently released a memoir, “James Patterson: The Stories of My Life.” Or maybe you missed it because it’s been upstaged by a twist in the plot. In a recent interview with The Times (UK), Patterson argues that it’s become too difficult for white men to get writing jobs, and that this so-called trend demonstrates “another form of racism.” He later opines: “Can you get a job? Yes. Is it harder? Yes. It’s even harder for older writers. You don’t meet many 52-year-old white males.”Patterson has written books for nearly half a century. He is a publishing machine who represents a giant metropolis in the literary landscape. He runs his own imprint, Jimmy Patterson (which once published other authors but now only publishes his own books), and has authored, co-authored, or outlined (for other writers to complete) some 260 bestselling books. To date, his net worth hovers around 800 million.Despite such wild success, he has succumbed to an unfounded fear: that older white male authors are becoming extinct.Get The Big To-DoYour guide to staying entertained, from live shows and outdoor fun to the newest in museums, movies, TV, books, dining, and more.It is a tale as old as time. And it’s just plain false.A few years ago, before my own books found homes, I had a conversation with two male colleagues about the fierce competition in book publishing. I had submitted seven books to agents and editors over a decade and had yet to land a single book contract. A significant number of my personalized rejection letters cited to my Indian heritage as the reason they passed on my projects. They were already representing other Indian authors, or my book wasn’t comparable to the other Indian-authored books that were selling.One of my colleagues then claimed it was harder for white men to get published than any other racial, gender, or ethnic group. It was only when my laughter was met with blank stares and silence that I realized how skewed their perception of reality was. To add insult to injury, both of these writers often spoke out against bigotry. One of them had recently published an award-winning book on racism.I don’t know a single Black, brown or Indigenous writer shocked by Patterson’s admission. In literary communities, we routinely bump against such distorted views. What bristles most is that white authors continue to state them openly on such large platforms. Patterson’s interview in the The Times recalls Lionel Shriver’s 2016 speech at the Brisbane Writers Festival, where she blamed identity politics and accusations of cultural appropriation for limiting her own white imagination. Authors like Shriver are bold about their ignorance and get even bolder when facing repercussions for their words.Despite signs that it may be improving, publishing remains very white. Penguin Random House’s recently released figures show that 76 percent of their books from 2019 to 2021 were written by white authors, despite the fact that the US population is only 60 percent white. According to a study by the New York Times, 22 out of 220 bestselling books that appeared on their lists in 2020 were written by people of color. And the same study showed that, of the authors published by major houses from 1950 to 2018 for whom race could be identified, 95 percent were white.During the 2020 nationwide protests against police violence after the killing of George Floyd, sales of Black-authored books soared. The books set up shop on the New York Times bestselling lists and stayed there for months. Copies flew off the shelves. Publishing houses rushed to print more. I have to wonder whether this was the turning point for white authors like Patterson, who perhaps began to believe that the sales of more Black-authored books was not a sign of their long overdue success, but a threat to white authors’ assumed and esteemed place in the publishing world.Ultimately, Patterson is just another white publishing gatekeeper anxious about the fact that the gate may have swung open too wide. Fortunately for him, he will endure little to no consequences for his words. The pushback won’t touch his stratospheric wealth. He has established a large literary fortress with a wide moat that insulates him from criticism.Patterson did tweet an apology on Tuesday. But the interview, and the likely thousands of hits it’s already received, has already done its part to support a harmful publishing myth.The irony, though, is thick. With Patterson’s groundless comments in The Times, he has presented himself as a stereotypical victim in a predictable narrative — just the kind of lazy story that makes critics pan his work. It makes no difference to me. I’ve seen this plot play out before and won’t be surprised when there’s a sequel.Anjali Enjeti is the author of “The Parted Earth” and “Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change.” | Writing and Literature |
Monstrous! Old English classic Beowulf gets slapped with trigger warning as university dons fear students may be distressed to read about monstersAcademics at Aberdeen University have slapped Beowulf with a trigger warning They claim students may be distressed by the monsters in the Old English poem The note warned about violence, coercion, animal cruelty, incest and suicideIn addition, the guidance note warned students that ‘there will also be monsters’ Published: 17:54 EDT, 3 August 2022 | Updated: 17:55 EDT, 3 August 2022 It's a staple of English literature courses, an Old English epic poem so dramatic it has even spawned a computer-animated action fantasy film.Yet academics have slapped a ‘trigger warning’ on Beowulf, cautioning students that they may read about ‘monsters’. The University of Aberdeen believes that students reading Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Studies may be distressed by the saga. The university has put more than 30 warnings on one module, entitled ‘Lost Gods and Hidden Monsters of the Celtic and Germanic Middle Ages’. A note to students reads: ‘Texts studied on this course contain representations of violence, coercion, animal cruelty or animal death, incest, suicide, explicit sexual content... ableism.’ In addition, students were warned that ‘there will also be monsters’. Ray Winstone provided the voice of Beowulf (pictured) in a 2007 film adaptationIt is not the first time Aberdeen has attracted controversy for its use of trigger warnings. Last year, The Mail on Sunday revealed the university cautioned students that Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped contained ‘depictions of murder, death, family betrayal and kidnapping’,Beowulf, the tale of terrifying beasts and a fire-breathing dragon being killed by a hero, has been taught for generations as one of the greatest stories of all time. The hero of Beowulf dispatches the monstrous figure of Grendel – who is described in Old English as ‘unhælu’, or ‘infirm’. Beowulf is depicted fighting the monstrous figure of Grendel in a book illustrationSTUDENTS FIGHT OVER SCULPTURE Students at Imperial College London are fighting the installation of a new sculpture they claim looks like a man exposing himself. The sculpture, by artist Sir Antony Gormley, is named Alert and made up of stacked steel blocks resembling a person squatting. But students say that the figure appears to have a three-metre long erect penis. The artist said the sculpture is a figure ‘balancing on the balls of the feet’ representing an alert, alive and awake person. Imperial said: ‘Sir Antony Gormley is one of the world’s foremost living artists, and we are grateful to have been gifted one of his iconic sculptures.’ However, some scholars have argued this is offensive because it pitches the able-bodied against the disabled. The hero of the 3,000-line poem also kills a ‘wyrm’ (a dragon/ serpent) at the end, alongside his dutiful servant Wiglaf. The advice specifically mentions the violent content in Beowulf, stating: ‘Particularly graphic representations of violence... will be encountered in... Beowulf.’ A further note warns of ‘blasphemy, defecation, psychological violence, pain, alcohol abuse, symbols of evil, black magic’. The university policy on content warnings, reported by the Daily Telegraph, explains the need for warnings: ‘The mental health and wellbeing of students is a primary concern of the school.’ Trigger warnings have been applied by universities to many literary classics, from the works of Shakespeare to George Orwell. Aberdeen University said: ‘Our guidelines on content warnings were developed in collaboration with student representatives and we have never had any complaints about them – on the contrary, students have expressed their admiration for our approach. ‘Our content warnings reflect the fact that every student is different.’ Advertisement | Writing and Literature |
In 2005, 13-year-old Jade LB began work on a story documenting the misadventures of a fictional London teenager named Keisha, posting chapters on the now-defunct blogging site Piczo. Her story went viral, and has been hailed since as a landmark in Black British literature. Fast-forward 16 years and LB (retaining her anonymity) returned to her story, publishing the original blog entries in a book alongside a revised version, which she called Keisha Revisited.Sign up to our Inside Saturday newsletter for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the magazine’s biggest features, as well as a curated list of our weekly highlights.A gritty portrait of teenage desire and abuse written in dialect, the original version – or “the OG” – opens with Keisha going to her friend Shanice’s house and hooking up with Shanice’s brother, Ricardo. The following day, she visits another lover, Ramel. When she accidentally shouts Ricardo’s name during sex, Ramel accuses her of being a prostitute, after which “ma eyes caught a shank. I quickly picked it up an dashed it at him an ran out of da room dwn da stairz.” Things get worse for Keisha as she is taunted about her sexual history by a street gang who later subject her to a brutal assault.Tailor-made for audio, the OG is read by the rapper and musician Nadia Rose, who expertly captures Keisha’s youthful energy and insouciance. Taz Munya narrates the revised version, which adds flesh to the bones of Keisha’s story, depicting a troubled relationship with her mother. Elsewhere, contributors including Candice Carty-Williams and Enny read essays in which they describe the impact of reading about Keisha in their teens, while LB reads her author’s note in which she reflects on female sexuality, Keisha’s internalised “misogynoir” and her complex relationship with her creation. Keisha the Sket is available via Penguin Audio, 8hr 6minFurther listeningMen Who Hate WomenLaura Bates, Audible Studios, 14hr 27minThe feminist author and founder of the Everyday Sexism Project reads her eye-opening investigation into the online “manosphere” and the radicalisation of misogynist men.The Palace PapersTina Brown, Penguin Audio, 17hr 53minA juicy exposé of the royal family, based on more than 100 interviews with those in the know, written and read by the former New Yorker and Vanity Fair editor. | Writing and Literature |
Messages of condolences continue to pour in from around the world following the death of Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame, regarded as one of Somalia’s greatest poets.Warsame, better known as “Hadraawi”, died in Hargeisa, in Somaliland, on Thursday at the age of 79.Somali social media has been flooded with tributes and praise for his contribution to Somali language and culture.“I’m heartbroken to inform you our giant Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame Hadraawi has passed away. Might Allah bless him and grant him Jannah,” Ayan Mahamoud, founder of Kayd Somali Arts and Culture, said on Twitter.“We will treasure his legacy and the rich scholarly work he left behind,” added Said Salah Ahmed, a poet and playwright who teaches the Somali language at the University of Minnesota in the US.Hadraawi, which means the “master, or father, of speech”, was regarded as a pillar of modern Somali literature and a strong advocate of peace and democracy.In 1973, he was imprisoned for five years by the president, Siad Barre, who ruled Somalia until 1991, for speaking against the revolution. His work was banned but he continued to compose poetry upon his release, which were was passed on through word of mouth.The songs and verses he wrote are full of imagery and metaphor, open to interpretation, which made it hard for the military regime to control. A verse from his poem The Killing of the She-Camel resulted in his imprisonment without trial. The snake sneaks in the castle: although it’s carpeted with thorns still the coward casts off his curses so the courageous must stretch out his neck; the cob stallion sells his values in order to cut a fine figure. When such cockiness struts forth and even laughter becomes a crime our country has unfinished business. In the early 1990s – when civil war sent thousands of people from Somalia – he travelled throughout the country on a “peace march” calling for the warring parties to stop the violence. His message of reconciliation resonated with Somalis at home and abroad.He retired two years ago.“Poet Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame (Hadraawi) was a symbol of unity and peace,” said the Somali president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, in a statement. “He was one of key pillars of Somalia’s art and literature who took a leading role in preserving the Somali culture and promoting the Somali language. His death is felt in every Somali household.”The EU, Norway, the UK and other friends of Somalia sent condolences and tributes.“Sending my heartfelt condolences to the people of Somaliland and to all Somalis for the loss of Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame “Hadraawi”, an iconic poet and one of the most eminent and beloved Somali poets of all time,” tweeted Lizzie Walker, head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in Hargeisa.Hadraawi had been called the “Somali Shakespeare”, but Somali singer and songwriter Aar Maanta said: “Hadraawi wasn’t the ‘Somali Shakespeare’ he was the Somali Hadraawi. He was more than a poet; he was a philosopher and a freedom fighter who spent many years in jail for his stance against injustice and dictatorship.“He wrote some of the most beautiful love songs and poems that Somalis in the Horn of Africa and beyond use as a benchmark.”Ahmed, who knew Hadraawi since late 1960s, added: “Hadraawi was one of the kindest people I have ever met. His poetry speaks for the voiceless and calls out oppression against the people…. he will be missed so dearly but we will treasure his legacy and the rich scholarly work he left behind.”Somalia is known as a “nation of poets”. Poetry is woven into the fabric of Somali society with centuries of oral history, as the Somali language was only written in 1972.Contemporary Somali poetry, including the works of Hadraawi, has been preserved in books and translated into English. | Writing and Literature |
Poet Philip Levine (1928-2015) knew intimately about the monotony, filth and physical pain of hard labor. But he also greatly admired the men and women who toiled every day in America’s factories. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Levine was born and raised in Detroit and began working in an auto plant when he was just 14 years old. He assumed that would be his career, as he told the NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown in 2010.
“When I was a young guy working in these places and didn’t see a way out as yet — and I certainly didn’t think the way out would be poetry,” he said.
But poetry did indeed become his vocation. After attending Wayne State University, he went on to do graduate work at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and Stanford University and would eventually teach writing at California State University, Fresno for more than 30 years. He wrote 20 collections of verse, won a Pulitzer Prize and served as Poet Laureate of the United States. And yet he always considered his main mission was to document and honor the lives of working-class people.
Watch next: Instead of fireworks, poet sees American skies lit up by history
“I saw that the people that I was working with…were voiceless in a way,” he told Detroit Magazine. “In terms of literature of the United States they weren’t being heard. Nobody was speaking for them. And as young people will, you know, I took this foolish vow that I would speak for them and that’s what my life would be. And sure enough I’ve gone and done it. Or I’ve tried anyway.” What Work Is
We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is—if you’re
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it’s someone else’s brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours of wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, “No,
we’re not hiring today,” for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who’s not beside you or behind or
ahead because he’s home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You’ve never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you’re too young or too dumb,
not because you’re jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don’t know what work is. | Writing and Literature |
This week, we're excited to announce the 2022 Horror Writing Virtual Conference, 5 WDU courses, and more!There's always so much happening in the Writer's Digest universe that even staff members have trouble keeping up. As a result, we decided to start collecting what's on the horizon to make it easier for everyone to know what's happening and when.This week, we're excited to announce the 2022 Horror Writing Virtual Conference, 5 WDU courses, and more!****Join Us for Our Horror Writing Virtual Conference!Writer’s Digest University is pleased to present a one-of-a-kind online event for anyone wanting to improve their horror writing! On October 1, 2022, our WDU Horror Writing Virtual Conference will provide expert insights from FOUR award-winning and bestselling horror authors on the finer points of how to write horror. Spend the day learning techniques for honing your craft from four different published horror authors, then (if you choose) you can have your query letter critiqued by one of our participating literary agents. The literary agent will provide you with a personalized critique of your query letter.Click to continue.****5 WDU Courses Begin This Week!Blogging 101A key to success for any writer is having an online presence. Blogging is one way to share your expertise and—at the same time—build an author platform. Don’t know how to start a blog? Not sure what to focus on? Don’t fret! This online writing course will guide you through the entire blogging process—how to create and setup a blog, where to start, and much more. You’ll learn how to attract readers and how to market your writing. Start a successful blog today and get noticed by editors and publishers.Click to continue.Getting Started in WritingHave you always wanted to be a writer? Don't let doubt or fear get the best of you—take a chance and learn how to start writing a book, novel, short story, memoir, or essay. When you take this online writing course, you'll discover your voice, learn the basics of grammar and examine the different types of writing. No matter what type of writing you're planning on crafting—nonfiction or fiction—you'll need guidance along the way.Click to continue.Creativity & ExpressionWhen you take this online course, you’ll explore creative writing topics and learn how descriptive writing can breathe life into your characters, setting, and plot with Rebecca McClanahan’s Word Painting. Stretch your imagination, develop your creative writing skills, and express your creativity with this writing course.Click to continue.Writing the Picture BookPicture books are one of the most delightful—and important—genres in all of literature. In this course, you'll learn how to write a winning picture book narrative, envision it with illustrations, and put together a picture package that a publisher will really notice.Click to continue.Short Story FundamentalsThroughout this four-week course, you will have feedback and support while you write and hone an entire short story from beginning to end, and you'll leave with a polished draft of your story. You will get insider information about what editors are looking for in short stories they choose to publish. Literary journals are always looking for quality stories, and with the advances in online submissions, getting your work in front of an editor has never been easier.Click to continue.****Personal Essay Awards Deadline!ENTER NOW! Writer’s Digest’s newest competition, the Personal Essay Awards, is now open for entries! Enter for your chance to win $2,500 in cash, get published in Writer’s Digest magazine, and a paid trip to our ever-popular Writer’s Digest Conference!Early-bird Deadline: September 1, 2022Click to continue.****Subscribe to Our Newsletter!Subscribe to Writer’s Digest emails and get free writing tips, publishing insights, and expert writing advice delivered straight to your email inbox.Click here to subscribe.The People-Watcher’s Guide to WritingObserving the world around us can inspire new characters, authentic dialogue, and detailed world-building. Here, author Freya Sampson shares 5 tips on people-watching to help you with your writing.WD Poetic Form Challenge: Wordy 30The WD Poetic Form Challenge is your opportunity to write and share a poem (the Wordy 30 this time around) for a chance to get published in the Poetic Asides column in Writer's Digest. Deadline: September 20, 2022. | Writing and Literature |
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Josephine Tey's writing was adapted for radio, TV and filmAt a glanceInverness crime writer Josephine Tey is to be recognised with a commemorative blue plaque in her home cityTey, who died in 1952, wrote crime and mystery novels and her work was adapted for radio, TV and filmWriter Jennifer Morag Henderson and Inverness City Heritage Trust campaigned for the plaqueIt will be installed at the site of Tey's former family fruit shopA Highland crime writer whose work was adapted for radio, TV and film has been recognised in her home city with a commemorative blue plaque.Josephine Tey, whose real name was Elizabeth MacKintosh, was the daughter of a fruiterer from Inverness. She lived from 1896 to 1952.She wrote eight crime novels, including A Shilling for Candles - upon which filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock based his 1937 film Young and Innocent.Author Jennifer Morag Henderson, who wrote a biography of Josephine Tey in 2015 and led a campaign for the blue plaque, said Tey had been a major figure in the "golden age" of crime fiction.Image source, Jennifer Morag HendersonImage caption, Writer Jennifer Morag Henderson led a campaign for a blue plaque for Josephine TeyHenderson said: "I believe a celebration of Tey’s life and work in her hometown is well deserved, with her works being translated into numerous different languages and still available to buy in print almost a century on from first publication."The plaque will be installed in Castle Street in Inverness city centre at the site of Tey's family shop and business. The building, one of the oldest in Inverness, is being redeveloped by Highland Housing Association (HHA).Inverness City Heritage Trust supported Henderson's campaign.Project manager Alison Tanner said: “It has been great to work alongside Jennifer with the support of HHA to celebrate a fantastic writer at an iconic and historic building, that will soon help breathe new life into the city centre.”Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Alfred Hitchcock based one his films on Tey's workTey's writing included mystery novel, The Daughter of Time, which BBC Radio 4's A Good Read described as "one of the most important books ever written". A play called Richard of Bordeaux, which she wrote under the pen-name Gordon Daviot, ran in the West End in London for more than a year before transferring to Broadway. But Tey shunned the limelight, and in later life lived in Inverness where she kept house for her widower father. Before her writing career took off, she was a PE teacher and had worked mainly in England. | Writing and Literature |
Bridgerton actor Adjoa Andoh, I May Destroy You creator Michaela Coel, Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies and poet Lemn Sissay are among the new fellows elected to the Royal Society of Literature (RSL).The RSL, the UK’s charity for the advancement of literature, announced 60 new appointments at an event held at Battersea Arts Centre in London.Among these were 29 writers chosen through the RSL Open initiative, which aims to elect 60 fellows over two years from communities, backgrounds and experiences currently under-represented in UK literary culture. In total, 44 new fellows were named, along with 16 honorary fellows.Bernardine Evaristo, president of the RSL, said the Open initiative is so important because traditionally the fellowship has been “statistically, disproportionately representing writers from particular communities, and a lot of people were excluded, simply because the fellowships are nominated by fellows, so people nominate people they know.” Redressing the balance through this initiative is hugely important, the Booker winner explained, because “we all deserve to be active and equal participants in the production and consumption of literature that is as wide-ranging as ourselves.”Evaristo, who is the first person of colour and only the second woman to serve as president in the RSL’s 202 year history, said she knows “how symbolic it is for me to be the president”. The fact that “we’ve reached this point now, where somebody such as myself can be the figurehead for such an important organisation” is “very exciting”, she added. As she inducted the new fellows, she told them “you are joining a truly progressive society”.Among the RSL Open fellows, who were nominated by readers and writers from across the UK and then considered by a panel chaired by Evaristo, are Junk author Melvin Burgess, poet Joelle Taylor and My Name Is Leon author Kit de Waal.Taylor, who is co-curator and host of Out-Spoken Live, said the fellowship was “validation as a writer and as someone who has worked for 20-odd years across sink council estates and secondary schools”.As well as being “amongst a community of internationally respected and nuanced writers” and being part of “the conversation about literature in the UK and internationally”, Taylor said she also hoped to used her fellowship to promote the work of “as many working-class, LGBTQI+ writers as possible”.That aim is “something I’ve carried throughout my career”, she said. “The pen doesn’t belong to me, it’s a baton in a relay race.”De Waal, whose debut novel My Name Is Leon was recently adapted for a BBC drama, said being named a fellow was a “great privilege”.She hoped the “if you can see it, you can be it” adage would apply to her fellowship. “I am 62, nearly,” she said. “I’m working class, I’m Black, I’m Irish, I started writing in my mid 40s. That, I hope, is an inspiration to people.”To be nominated as a fellow, a writer must have published or produced two works of outstanding literary merit, and nominations must be made by two fellows or honorary fellows. This year Claire Armitstead, the Guardian’s associate editor, culture, and Costa book award winners Monique Roffey and Hannah Lowe were chosen along with Coel, Davies and Sissay.Writer and poet Lowe said the fellowship was “in some degree more important for what I might be able to do in terms of promoting other writers than for myself”.My Name Is Leon author Kit de Waal. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The ObserverShe hoped to promote writers at an earlier stage in their career, “voices that wouldn’t normally perhaps be heard”.The RSL also announced 16 new honorary fellows, people who have made a “significant contribution to the advancement of literature in the UK, or who have rendered special service to the society”.These include Andoh, Words of Colour founder Joy Francis, and Di Speirs, books editor at BBC Radio.Nominations are now being sought for the second year of the RSL Open initiative, and the final fellows will be chosen by a panel chaired by Damian Barr.As well as the announcement of the fellows, the event also saw the Benson medal, for service to literature across a whole career, awarded to storyteller, author and playwright Sandra A Agard, who is currently a learning facilitator for schools at the British Library.The event also saw the largest mass induction in the history of the RSL, with 148 writers and supporters of literature, who were elected fellows or honorary fellows between the years of 2020-2022, signing their names in the RSL roll book using a pen from the charity’s permanent collection. The pens belonged to authors including Charles Dickens, George Eliot, TS Eliot and Lord Byron. Jean Rhys and Andrea Levy’s pens were used for the first time this year.This year’s new fellows in fullThe 15 new fellowsYasmin Alibhai-Brown, Michael Arditti, Claire Armitstead, Susie Boyt, Nick Cave, Michaela Coel, Russell T Davies, Ferdinand Dennis, Bonnie Greer, Joanne Harris, Hannah Lowe, Ian McMillan, Monique Roffey, Jacqueline Rose and Lemn Sissay.The 29 new Open fellowsSulaiman Addonia, Mona Arshi, Polly Atkin, Rachael Boast, Malika Booker, Melvin Burgess, Kayo Chingonyi, Fred D’Aguiar, Carys Davies, Kit de Waal, Kit Fan, Leontia Flynn, Niall Griffiths, Xiaolu Guo, Meena Kandasamy, Bhanu Kapil, Hannah Khalil, Zaffar Kunial, Joanne Limburg, Francesca Martinez, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Lisa McGee, Fiona Mozley, Raman Mundair, Musa Okwonga, Frances Ryan, Cherry Smyth, Charlie Swinbourne and Joelle Taylor.The 16 new honorary fellowsSandra Agard, Adjoa Andoh, Suresh Ariaratnam, Nicola Beauman, Julie Blake, Steve Cook, Steve Dearden, Joy Francis, Helen Garnons-Williams, Jane Gregory, Christie Hickman, Nicolette Jones, Julian May, Deirdre Osborne, Polly Pattullo and Di Speirs. | Writing and Literature |
“The surest sign of wisdom is a constant cheerfulness,” wrote the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne in the 16th century. “Be cheerful,” commands Prospero – arguably the wisest of all of Shakepeare’s characters – in The Tempest. Yet the impact of cheerfulness – and the power it gives us to get through difficult moments in our lives – is hard to define and easy to disregard or dismiss, even as we strive to be happy.And that is one of the reasons Timothy Hampton, a professor in the department of comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, decided to write a book about it. Cheerfulness: A Literary and Cultural History explores how “cheerfulness” functions as a theme in the works of great philosophers and writers from Shakespeare to Jane Austen, and how it is portrayed in everything from 16th-century medical books to the Boy Scout handbook.“Cheerfulness is a psychological and emotional resource, a way of approaching actions and situations,” says Hampton. “I can say hello to you – but I can also say hello to you cheerfully. It’s not part of the saying ‘hello’, it’s some kind of colouring of what I am saying.”The philosopher Spinoza called it an “affect. And he says it’s the one affect you can’t have too much of.”Cheerfulness differs from happiness, Hampton says, because you have some control over it. “You can make yourself cheerful – I can tell you to cheer up and you know what that means. But you can’t make yourself happy. You can’t even buy it. Happiness is something you don’t have any control over. ”Cheerfulness is not optimism, he says, and it’s not positivity or hopefulness, either. “It’s ephemeral. It comes and goes. It’s a resource of the self, an uptick in one’s emotional wellbeing that raises your energy levels briefly. It’s not something that is easy to pin down – we don’t really recognise it, unless we’re doing it.”For example, it doesn’t necessarily show on your face, he explains, the way stronger emotions do. “But when you do something, I can tell if you are cheerful, I can see the cheerfulness coming through your actions.”Most importantly, it is an accessible emotion, even in moments of extreme hardship. “I spent much of my early life in proximity to people who had suffered physical handicaps and been in accidents,” Hampton says, “and for whom getting through the day was very difficult. And cheerfulness, I realised, is a resource – you can make it, manage it and put it into action. And that seemed to me to be a really precious and interesting thing that we don’t think about as much as we should.”Hampton decided to find out whether cheerfulness was an emotion people have been thinking about for centuries and if the way we think about it has changed. “I discovered that cheerfulness is really a modern phenomenon that begins to emerge in the 16th century, during the Renaissance.”The word cheerfulness first appears in English in 1530, and its roots lie in an old French word meaning “face”. “Chaucer uses it as a synonym for ‘face’. And in the 19th century, the French writer Madame de Staël talks about how, if you put a cheerful expression on your face when you’re in conversation with other people, it will spread to the inside of yourself. So even if a person is not actually cheerful on the inside, the emotional energy coming from their face will transform the interior of the self.”This idea that cheerfulness can spread from the exterior to the interior is common in books and essays about cheerfulness, Hampton says, as is the idea that cheerfulnesscan spread from person to person, and build feelings of community and fellowship. “The philosopher Hume, for example, calls cheerfulness a flame or a contagion. He says when a cheerful person comes into a room where everybody is subdued, cheerfulness swoops around the room and envelops everyone. And suddenly, the conversation becomes gay and lively. So there’s a sense that, at a certain point, cheerfulness becomes something that’s bigger than any of us and is linked to our relationships to each other.”It is partly for this reason that Shakespeare, Hampton thinks, is interested in what happens when people lose their cheerfulness. “Across Shakespeare’s tragedies, there are a number of moments where – just before something terrible is about to happen – one of the characters will say to another character: you have lost your cheer.”This is what happens to Macbeth before Banquo’s ghost appears, for example. “When you lose your cheer, that’s the moment that tragedy strikes in Shakespeare’s plays, that’s the moment that a character becomes isolated from their community – and left alone.”Cheerfulness is also seen as the antidote to melancholy: the right way for a character – particularly a woman in the 19th century – to weather a crisis or a tragedy in her life. For example, in Sense and Sensibility, after Marianne is jilted by Willoughby, Austen writes: “She said little, but every sentence aimed at cheerfulness.” Aiming at cheerfulness is what stops Marianne’s “anguish of heart” from descending into melancholy and madness, says Hampton. “It’s not about having a positive world view; it’s not about saying the sun will always come up tomorrow. It’s about taking one tiny little step at a time.”So how do we “aim at cheerfulness”? Hampton thinks the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson provides some good advice. Emerson writes that no one can truly be a poet, unless they are cheerful, because poets “delight in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that sparkles from them”.Hampton suggests that if you want to be cheerful, a good place to start is to “take delight in the world… For Emerson, the key to cheerfulness is an acceptance of the beauty of the world.”For Shakespeare, it’s a deliberate decision to “look on all things well”, while for Montaigne the state of cheerfulness “is like things above the moon, always clear and serene”.Cheerfulness, Hampton says, also involves being able to rise above insults or problems and take refuge in humour. For example, the catchphrase of Ragged Dick – a cheerful character in a 19th-century rags-to-riches novel by American author Horatio Alger – is: “That’s a cheerin’ thought.” Hampton explains: “Someone will say to Ragged Dick, ‘I’m going to come and beat your brains in.’ And Ragged Dick will say, ‘Well, that’s a cheerin’ thought.’ He’s got an ironic sense of humour and an ability to distance himself from the situation.”Cheerfulness is also shown by writers to be something anyone can deliberately put on, like a cloak. In David Copperfield, for example, Charles Dickens tries to show how even the most “wretched and miserable” characters cheer up when it is necessary to do so. Mrs Gummidge is a woman who rarely makes any remark other than a forlorn sigh – until disaster strikes at the heart of her community and little Emily is stolen away by Steerforth.“What a change in Mrs Gummidge in a little time! She was another woman,” Dickens writes. Instead of deploring her misfortunes, “she appeared to have entirely lost the recollection of ever having had any. She preserved an equable cheerfulness.”“There’s a sense that in a moment of crisis,” says Hampton, “that the community generates its own kind of cheerfulness and even the most melancholy member of the community suddenly becomes cheerful.”That’s one reason why he thinks we need to consider cheerfulness in the current moment. “We’re living in a moment of terrible crisis in our own community.” Cheerfulness, he says, is a tool we can use to cope with the instability all around us, from the state of the economy to the war in Ukraine. “Which is not to say: be Pollyanna-ish or don’t look at the evil in the world. But I think cheerfulness is a resource that you can use, in the moment. And we don’t have many resources – so we should take advantage of whatever we have got.”Psychotherapist Tess Ridgeway agrees that choosing to be cheerful doesn’t mean walking on air. “Rather, it means you are committed to being a person who focuses on the good, looks for the best in people and picks yourself up from bad events with stoicism and determination to carry on. It isn’t flighty or dependent on good fortune. It’s a decision you make, to walk through life with good humour, humility and optimism.”If that all sounds difficult, there is one final remedy. Hampton found advice on stimulating cheerfulness in medical books, from the 16th to the 18th century: “Good conversation, one glass of wine – not two, because two leads to chattering – good music and a well-lit room. These things, we’re told, will all lead to a cheering of the self.” Cheerfulness: a Literary and Cultural History by Timothy Hampton (Princeton Press, £22), is available at £19.14 from guardianbookshop.com | Writing and Literature |
A former Ohio National Guard member named Thomas Develin was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly 3D-printing and selling “ghost guns” on Snapchat, Telegram, and other social media, according to a criminal complaint against him. Develin also allegedly posted a series of racist, misogynistic, and antisemitic memes and specific threats on Discord and other social media, according to the criminal complaint. A “ghost gun” is an untraceable weapon with no serial number which can be assembled at home. The weapons were allegedly made “in whole or in part” with a 3-D printer."An examination of the screenshots recovered from the Discord messages revealed a large quantity of antisemitic, white nationalist, racist, and misogynistic content that is consistent with that of racially motivated violent extremist and incel violent extremist content," a Department of Justice agent wrote in an affidavit.Develin was arrested for allegedly intending to sell the firearms. He also allegedly had homemade devices for converting semi-automatic AR-15 rifles and Glock-type pistols into fully automatic weapons, according to the complaint. Authorities found more than 25 firearms in Develin’s possession in March of this year while searching his residence. Develin posted photos and videos of himself 3D-printing the “ghost guns,” which he sold on Snapchat and Telegram, according to the criminal complaint. He was enlisted with the National Guard at this point, and was also working for the security company Sahara Global Security, the complaint states.The affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint against him also revealed a shocking amount of racist, anti-semitic, and misogynistic posts he made on Discord and Snapchat. It also shows images of him he allegedly posted to Snapchat that show him pointing a rifle at a woman walking her dog threatening to shoot her.Develin posted Holocaust denial content and explicit threats to shoot up Jewish schools. On March 11, he wrote that he was at a Jewish school, and shortly followed up with, “The playground is about to turn into a self-defense situation,” according to the affidavit. With this, he posted a photo of a Glock handgun in his lap. A different image shows Develin pointing his rifle at a person walking their dog. He also posted about “hunting” Black people, and threatened to “firebomb” the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office in West Virginia. Develin is the latest current or former military member who has been found to be allegedly associated with extremist movements.ORIGINAL REPORTING ON EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS IN YOUR INBOX.By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content. | Social Media |
Story at a glance The online survey suggests most Americans believe that smartphones have made their lives better. Yet 12 percent said they have made their lives worse to some degree. More than 80 percent of adults keep their smartphones on their person at most times, while more than two-thirds say they keep them nearby while asleep. Smartphone use among all ages has increased significantly in recent years, and most Americans say they use their devices “too much,” a recent Gallup poll found. The online survey suggests most Americans believe smartphones have made their lives better, while only 12 percent say the ubiquitous machines made their lives worse. Yet 58 percent said they use their smartphones too much — an increase of 19 percent from 2015. The survey found little change since 2015 in some measurements of attachments, including the finding that almost half of adults say they “can’t imagine” their life without a smartphone. More than 80 percent of adults keep their smartphones on their person at most times, while more than two-thirds say they keep them nearby while asleep. Overall, more Americans today have smartphones than last time Gallup asked the question, with nearly all adults surveyed saying they have a smartphone — up from 81 percent in 2015. Age is also a key factor in attachment, according to the Gallup poll, as adults under 50 are more likely to always keep their phones with them and experience anxiety without it. More than 90 percent of adults under 50 keep their smartphones “near almost all the time during waking hours.” Yet over two-thirds of adults over 65 say they do the same. Meanwhile, more Americans today rely on their phones to surf the internet and shop online rather than using a computer to perform the same tasks. The largest increase was found in online purchases. America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news. Yet when compared to computer use, most Americans told Gallup they use their smartphones primarily to interact on social media. This was followed by adults who use their devices to read web content. Gallups findings are based on a self-administered web survey of 30,000 U.S. adults conducted from January to February. READ MORE STORIES FROM CHANGING AMERICA HERE’S THE AGE WHEN AMERICANS GET THE LEAST AMOUNT OF SLEEP MOST AMERICANS AGREE THAT TRANSGENDER MEN AND WOMEN ARE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST: POLL WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE NEW NOVAVAX VACCINE FOR COVID-19 ABORTIONS IN THE US INCREASED IN 2020, REVERSING A MORE THAN 30-YEAR DECLINE LIZZO REMOVES ‘HARMFUL WORD’ FROM SONG: ‘I NEVER WANT TO PROMOTE DEROGATORY LANGUAGE’ Published on Jun. 20, 2022 | Social Media |
Latest in tech KOVR Now playing 5-year-old's T-ball walk-up dance gets millions of views on TikTok EV Safe Charge Now playing This mobile robot can reserve parking spots and then charge your EV CNN Now playing Internet Explorer is no more. CNN reported on the 'browser wars' it started in 1996 Now playing Robots could soon look human, with living skin and hair Jemal Countess/Getty Images North America/Getty Images for TIME Now playing Apple's CEO responds to evolving workplace dynamics Apple Now playing See the new features coming to iPhones Northwestern University Now playing Meet the researchers revolutionizing micro-scale robots for medical use Caltech/Reuters Now playing This new technology helps drones survive strong winds Now playing How Paris Hilton became 'The Queen of the Metaverse' Now playing See Google Street View's new camera and the garage where the tech is built Shutterstock Now playing Why privacy experts are warning against using period-tracking apps Now playing Big Tech and Ireland: How the combination made Ireland one of Europe's wealthiest countries Markus Tatzgern Now playing This mask makes breathing in virtual reality more realistic Google Now playing See how Google's new AR technology works CNN Now playing In 1997, an IBM computer beat a chess world champion for the first time Now playing In 2005, an iPod was sold every two seconds. See how CNN covered the phenomenon Washington CNN Business — TikTok has moved its US user data to Oracle’s cloud platform, the short-form video app announced Friday. The decision addresses concerns from US officials that the social media company’s Chinese ties could pose national security risks. In a blog post, TikTok said it has “changed the default storage location of US user data” to Oracle and that “100% of US user traffic” is now hosted by the cloud provider, following more than a year of discussions with the company. TikTok’s backups of US user data continue to be held on TikTok’s proprietary servers in Virginia and in Singapore for now, TikTok said, but those will eventually be deleted as part of the ongoing switch to Oracle (ORCL). TikTok did not provide a timeframe for the planned deletion. TikTok and Oracle have worked for months on a plan to manage the social media company’s US user data, including developing procedures for Oracle to audit TikTok’s handling of the data, TikTok said. “These changes will enforce additional employee protections, provide more safeguards, and further minimize data transfer outside of the US,” TikTok said. Beginning under the Trump administration, US officials had raised concerns about TikTok’s ownership by ByteDance, a Chinese company, saying US users risked having their data exposed to the Chinese government. At the time, TikTok maintained that US user data was protected from prying eyes due to its storage in Singapore and the United States. The Trump administration went as far as to attempt to ban TikTok from US app stores, though that effort was blocked in the courts. Trump separately tried to force ByteDance to spin off TikTok into a new company owned primarily by US investors. Last year, the Biden administration suggested it shared many of the same concerns when it revoked Trump’s executive actions targeting TikTok and replaced them with a broader order that addressed apps linked to foreign adversaries more generally, including China. | Social Media |
Media caption, Footage of the stop and search by armed officers has emerged on social mediaAn MP has condemned a police force's decision to carry out an armed stop and search of two black men in Liverpool.Footage of officers stopping the men in Toxteth has emerged on social media, leading to criticism over whether it was "proportionate or necessary".Liverpool Riverside MP Kim Johnson said she believed Merseyside Police was "institutionally racist".The force said the search was "justified and appropriate" and in line with established procedures.The footage showed armed officers pointing guns at the two men, who were stopped in the street on Monday. Merseyside Police said it had received a report just after 21:15 BST of a man carrying a handgun at the junction of Princes Road and North Hill Street.The force said the man had tucked the gun into his waistband.A spokesman said two men were later spotted on nearby Mulgrave Street and one matched the physical and clothing description.He added that handcuffs were used during the search because of the firearms report, but nothing was found on either of the men and no further action was taken. Image caption, MP Kim Johnson said she would be pursuing her concerns with the forceMs Johnson said it was "still an issue" that black people were disproportionately stopped by police in Liverpool and she would be pursuing her concerns with the force."I do believe that Merseyside Police is institutionally racist," she told BBC North West Tonight."It's not just about the one or two bad apples, it's about the culture of the organisation and the culture of the organisation has to change."I understand that [Merseyside Police] have a job to do, but it has to be proportionate."'Mistaken identity'Sharing the footage on Twitter, Granby Somali Women's Group said "two unarmed black boys" were left "traumatised by armed Merseyside Police stopping them with guns".The charity group accused officers of "rough handling" the men and said such "aggressive behaviour" could "scar young black males"."This is not a rare occurrence, as Merseyside Police are driving around stopping individuals like it's the Wild West in the L8 area," a spokeswoman for the charity said.She added that such incidents "scar young black males, which leads to a negative, hostile relationship with the police".She said it "not only makes policing hard within the community but [breaks] the trust that should be placed in a public-serving body, which should serve the needs of everyone, not just the few". In a statement, Merseyside Police Supt Diane Pownall said while she understood the footage could look "quite intimidating", the safety of the public was the force's "paramount concern".She said footage from police body-worn cameras had been viewed and "given the information received from the member of the public, the stop search was justified and appropriate".She added that she had been in touch with local councillors and Ms Johnson over their concerns and had invited them to a meeting to discuss what happened.Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to [email protected] Internet LinksThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | Social Media |
Every day is a battle on the internet for Courtney, one of the many adult creators who have found success on social media and OnlyFans.Courtney Ann at her home in Fort Worth, Texas, in April.Nitashia Johnson for NBC NewsJune 17, 2022, 8:30 AM UTCFORT WORTH, Texas — Courtney and Nick live with their two teenage daughters in a 5-bedroom house in the suburbs with a pool and a waterslide in the backyard. They go on vacation to Disney World. It’s all thanks to Instagram and OnlyFans.Courtney, 39, who goes by “Texas Thighs,” is one of a new generation of content creators, some of whom are able to be self-employed in the social media-driven adult industry. She now has 1.2 million Instagram followers and said she makes nearly half a million dollars a year on OnlyFans, a digital platform primarily known for nudity and sexual content that makes it easy for people to start subscription businesses. “In the old days, the men made the money off the women,” she said standing near the granite countertop of her newly renovated kitchen. She asked that NBC News withhold her family’s last name out of privacy concerns.OnlyFans has paid out more than $3.2 billion to creators since it launched in November 2016 (the company makes money by taking a 20 percent cut of sales through its platform). Most creators don’t make very much money, but those who succeed are overwhelmingly women and can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. Creators like Courtney say they deal with constant threats to the very business they are building. Adult content creators like Courtney use a combination of social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to find new followers and funnel them toward more lucrative platforms like OnlyFans. That can be a risky proposition, as creators face a near-constant battle against platform moderation efforts that can sometimes ensnare people who are not violating a company’s rules. Courtney says her content isn’t pornographic, but that even her risqué material has led to dozens of strikes and takedowns of her accounts on the mainstream platforms. Courtney and Nick, 42, say they have calculated daily losses of between $500 and $1,000 from posts and accounts that have been removed.Courtney Ann posing for a photo at her Fort Worth home with husband Nick. Nitashia Johnson for NBC NewsAnd in her personal life, Courtney says, she has dealt with everything from online impersonation to family members saying she’ll “go to hell” for her Instagram account.“Both our parents are not church people, but all of a sudden they’re spiritual and sending us Bible verses,” said Nick, a full-time photographer and social media co-manager.Still, they say, they are financially secure and happier than ever, thanks to their new lifestyle. Courtney’s booming online career sets her apart in suburban Fort Worth, where she is often recognized around town by fans. Inside Courtney and Nick’s home, surrounded by framed family photos and Dallas Cowboys merchandise, they shared the highs and lows of their new normal.“It’s all so new, this influencer-slash-model thing,” Courtney said. “Under taxes, I’m classified as a model, but it’s not the normal sense of the word. I’m a self-made entrepreneur. I run my own Maxim.”A day in the life of ‘Texas Thighs’Morning in Courtney’s house starts with green juice. Her daughters take turns measuring the nutritional powders and dumping them in the blender. The four family members gather around the gleaming kitchen island for breakfast before the day begins.The girls, 13 and 16, then head upstairs for school — they go to online school, and have since before the pandemic or their mother’s newfound fame online — before Courtney changes into a green lingerie set to shoot content.On the Wednesday before St. Patrick’s Day, the photoshoot location was the dining room table. Courtney hopped onto the shiny surface and laid flat on her stomach, then lifted her hips into the air and arched her back, staring into the camera on Nick’s phone. Courtney posts mild content compared to many OnlyFans creators. Rarely, she’ll flash her nipple, but nothing more.“Those are great, I want to try some closer,” Nick said.Once Courtney is satisfied with the boudoir-style photos, she and Nick start making content for other social media platforms. They take a break for lunch with the girls after creating some TikTok videos that merge the “Texas Thighs” brand with whatever sounds are trending. The central theme of Courtney’s social media presence, besides her body, is her playful love for her family. It’s a counter-narrative to the stigmas attached to her career and the idea that being an OnlyFans talent could hurt her children — but one that she said the people in her life have had trouble accepting. She said one of her best friends has asked her three times if she has to do porn. A family member asked if she was letting her daughters post similar content.Courtney Ann with her husband, Nick, and their two daughters, 13 and 16.Nitashia Johnson for NBC News“They were like, ‘Are you letting the girls post pictures like that?’ Well, no, they’re teenagers,” Courtney said. “I’m still me.”In many ways, Courtney is a regular Texas mom. She and Nick are on a first-name basis with the owners of their favorite Mexican restaurant. They have Maltese Shih Tzus named after Dallas Cowboys players Dez Bryant and Dak Prescott. Beyond that, thanks to their new income, Courtney and Nick can now afford to spend more time with their children than ever. Now they can pay for the family to travel multiple times a year, trips to New York to Orlando to Los Angeles. They have an at-home movie theater — they recently screened “Euphoria” as a family — and their daughters have a hobby room, where the younger sibling paints colorful designs on white shoes. She’s joining the swim team soon, while her older sister is experimenting with hair and makeup.Just a few years ago, the family had a much smaller budget. Courtney cleaned houses that look like the one she lives in now. Nick worked long hours as an account manager. Everything changed when Nick snapped a photo of Courtney while she did squats and posted it on Instagram. Within a month, Courtney had 15,000 followers. In less than a year, she passed 100,000, and local celebrities — including Bryant — were following her. But they’ve also lost out on parts of their life from before Texas Thighs. At 80,000 Instagram followers, some of Courtney’s family found out about the account. She said some family members showed up at her house one day to corner her and intimidate her to stop posting. She said she ended up calling the police before convincing them to leave. “How dare they come tell me what to do?” Courtney said. “They don’t get to come tell me to stop doing something I’m having fun with.”Courtney is still on speaking terms with those family members, and they see her children often. She and Nick said some members of their family stopped inviting them to group events, but others have come around to Texas Thighs. Courtney said their nieces and nephews visit the new house and are impressed by its size. One filmed a 3-minute house tour TikTok.“The caption was ‘When your mom’s cousin is RICH rich,’” Courtney said with a laugh.OnlyFans takes flightThe rise of social media in the early 2000s quickly gave way to the first models and influencers who were able to use those platforms to amass large audiences. And while they were often able to make money through advertising and other more traditional modeling work, it remained difficult to monetize directly from their audiences. At the same time, the porn industry was transformed and dominated by online “tube” websites that made sexually explicit content freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Studios were mostly run by men who hired men and women for sex work.Nick and Courtney said it was after joining social media platforms and noticing the success of attractive women posing in bikinis and lingerie that they got the idea to try. Both athletic, Courtney said her initial inspiration was workout motivation posts. Courtney Ann posing for a photo taken by her husband, Nick, at their Fort Worth home. Nitashia Johnson for NBC NewsAt first, the posts were moderately successful, but there wasn’t a monetization stream that allowed them to quit their jobs. That wasn’t until later, after Courtney launched a pay-per-view website where followers could buy photo sets. Once OnlyFans emerged as a mainstream cultural phenomenon in 2020, she said she created an account there, and the money really took off. OnlyFans reintroduced paying for adult content on a different scale due to the influencer status of its creators. It was the first pay-per-view social media platform with a reputation for sexually explicit content to go mainstream. OnlyFans most recently said that more than 150 million people have accounts to view content on its platform, some of which is available for free. More than 1.5 million people create content on the platform, some of which is not explicit and nonsexual in nature. Models who show everything from bikini-clad to fully nude and pornographic photos and videos now have a lucrative way to monetize them, but the average estimated income of an OnlyFans creator is still low, at only $150 a month. Hundreds of thousands of new creators have started accounts on OnlyFans, which is joined by dozens of similar platforms. Creators like Courtney have multiple revenue streams, including other pay-per-view platforms, independent membership websites, merchandise, podcasts and more. Still, creators face an almost nonstop battle to remain online.Courtney estimates that her Instagram account has been banned over 10 times, although she has always been able to restore it. She can appeal Instagram’s decision to remove posts or her entire account at the click of a button, but the process isn’t always instantaneous. She said she has had to wait weeks at times for her Instagram to be restored. She said her first TikTok account was permanently banned last year, and when trying to create new accounts, she noticed her videos’ views were remaining stagnant. Believing that TikTok limited her new accounts, she said, she purchased a burner phone with a new IP address to make another TikTok account, which now has over 135,000 followers.The choice to show skin can invite other consequences. Online comments ask Courtney if her daughters will grow up to be “whores” like her, while new accounts falsely claiming to be Courtney are all over social media.Courtney Ann posing for a photo at her Fort Worth home. Nitashia Johnson for NBC NewsBoth their daughters said they don’t have a problem with their mom’s OnlyFans or Instagram posts. To the older girl, a high school senior, in particular, it’s “annoying” that her mom faces judgment and that her content and accounts are removed and banned on social media.“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” she said. “It’s just like a model, and I’ve always thought models were cool.” Nick says some of the anger stems from Courtney flipping the script on who profits from a woman’s nudity. He compared her business to Playboy, specifically how some models earned nothing from the magazine or its cultural phenomenon.“Now we have our own Playboy and it’s ‘Oh, you can’t do that,’” Nick said. “Why? Because there isn’t a big mansion where a bunch of dudes can sleep with a bunch of chicks? That doesn’t seem fair.” Kat Tenbarge is a tech and culture reporter for NBC News Digital. | Social Media |
What's happening YouTube says its TikTok-rival Shorts are being viewed by more than 1.5 billion logged-in accounts monthly. Why it matters Plenty of legacy social media sites have been chasing the virality of TikTok; now YouTube can claim its Shorts have more users than the last number TikTok announced. YouTube said Wednesday that Shorts -- the quick, vertical, looping videos competing with TikTok -- are being watched by 1.5 billion logged-in accounts a month. By comparison, TikTok said in September that more than 1 billion people use its app monthly, the latest figure it has released. The world's biggest online video source, YouTube as a whole gets more than 2 billion monthly users. (That figure, however, hasn't been updated in more than three years). With Shorts, Google's massive video site is trying to compete with the sensation around TikTok, the social video app owned by Chinese company Bytedance. It launched Shorts less than two years ago, starting in India and then widening it to the US and other countries. "What we've seen is that creators are getting really innovative with how they use these multiple formats on the platform," said Neal Mohan, YouTube's chief product officer, in a blog post. "While we're still at the beginning of our journey with Shorts, we know the product will continue to be an integral part of the YouTube experience moving forward."On Wednesday, YouTube said that the growth in the Shorts audience has spurred "the rise of the multiformat creator" who produces material in different YouTube formats like Shorts, regular long-form videos, livestreams and audio. See also 10 Ways to Save Money on Streaming How to Cut the Cable TV Cord in 2022 See More at Streaming TV Insider | Social Media |
A sheriff’s office in Florida is searching for the young adults who broke into an $8 million Seaside home, threw a party — vandalizing the property in the process — and posted video evidence on social media. Official statement from the Walton County Sheriff’s Office: An open house party is against the law. An open house party in a home you break into is a burglary.
Early Saturday morning, Walton County Sheriff’s Office was called out to Blackwater Street in Watercolor by Security for a noise complaint. When deputies arrived, as you can imagine, most of the people at the party had left the scene.
Since then, videos are circulating on Snapchat, Instagram, and other social media platforms with some of the highlights. Including where some of the people attending turn the foyer of the $8 million home into a boxing ring.
Here’s another sliver of information; Snapchat isn’t private. You may think it is if you are a teenager or someone in their early 20s and you are not yet worldly. Your friends will snitch. Word gets out. You’ll be tagged in pics on the Gram.
Also, we can subpoena Snapchat.
Apart from the damage caused and the items stolen, it’s a complete violation of someone’s home that you can’t put a price on. The feeling when you know someone went into your closet, tried on your clothes, and used your bathroom doesn’t have a dollar amount attached to it. Especially in a place where you’re supposed to feel safe.
Before anyone says, this is just “kids being kids”, we want you to ask yourself how you would feel if your home was ransacked and your sense of peace and security was taken from you.
Before you say, “they might not have known”, ask yourself if what was taking place was appropriate (or legal) regardless if they had permission to be there (which they did not).
Before making an excuse for these kids, ask why they felt they could do this in the first place.
Here’s our ask; if you were there, know someone who was there, were invited, knows who circulated the flyer for the party (yes, we know about that too) you are asked to come forward. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR and let us know. Come clean and give us the information we need to hold those responsible.
So, what’s “the move”?
If you have information regarding this incident, please contact the Walton County Sheriff’s Office at (850)-892-8111 or you can remain anonymous by calling Emerald Coast Crime Stoppers at (850)863-TIPS. Facebook Comments | Social Media |
Tyreek Hill I Received Multiple Death Threats ... Over Patrick Mahomes Comments 6/22/2022 10:18 AM PT Tyreek Hill says multiple fans threatened to take his life following comments he made about Patrick Mahomes earlier this month ... explaining the threats were made on "every social media account I own." The new Miami Dolphins wideout -- who was traded from the Chiefs this offseason -- initially made the remarks about his old QB on the debut of his "It Needed To Be Said" podcast two weeks ago. Tyreek Hill says that @Tua is a more accurate QB than @PatrickMahomes pic.twitter.com/LUbhp2n8YK— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) June 11, 2022 @NFL_DovKleiman When discussing Mahomes vs. Tua Tagovailoa, Hill said the 'Fins QB was more accurate. He added that he believed he wasn't necessarily used right in the Chiefs' system, and said Mahomes' job was now going to be much more difficult without him around. In his second episode of his "It Needed To Be Said" pod ... Hill said the responses he got from fans to those statements were scary. "Every social media account I own, I got death threats on," the 28-year-old said. "Which is ridiculous." Hill explained he believed some of his comments were taken out of context -- adding, "They really didn't see what I said. A lot of people are just acting off emotion." Mahomes himself said he was "surprised" by the comments ... but Hill made it clear in Tuesday's pod that he still has love for his ex-teammate, and was just trying to express his belief in his new one. "We all know Patrick Mahomes is great," the receiver said. "We know that. We know that. But, right now, I'm going into a new season with a new quarterback who's trying to head in the same direction as Patrick and do great things and lead this team to a Super Bowl championship -- who's also great, in my opinion. He just doesn't have the accolades of yet. I believe in him." | Social Media |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! The woman behind social media sensation Libs of TikTok is "always nervous going out in public" after receiving threats following a Washington Post story that publicly identified her, and she holds the paper responsible. "I feel like I constantly look over my shoulder. Every time I have to give my name for something, my heart skips a beat. It’s unnerving," she told Fox News Digital. In April, Post tech columnist Taylor Lorenz doxxed the woman behind Libs of TikTok – an account that has garnered a huge following among conservatives over the past year for sharing TikTok videos of liberals espousing principles of the critical race theory ideology and embracing the broadening spectrums of sexual orientation and gender identity. In her piece, Lorenz accused Libs of TikTok of "spreading anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment" and of using "QAnon-related language" in the past. Social media sensation Libs of TikTok is "always nervous going out in public" after receiving threats following a Washington Post story by Taylor Lorenz that publicly identified the person running the account. ( (Photo by Eric BARADAT / AFP) (Photo by ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images) | CNBC Television/YouTube/Screenshot)ELON MUSK SLAMS TWITTER BIAS AGAINST LIBS OF TIK TOK, ANGERS TAYLOR LORENZLorenz faced intense scrutiny for doxxing Libs of TikTok in the report, revealing her name, occupation, religion and where in the country she lived. The article even included a hyperlink that exposed other personal information, but the Washington Post removed the link after being called out by critics. Lorenz’s doxxing of Libs of TikTok came shortly after Lorenz's emotional MSNBC appearance decrying online harassment of herself and other women.Earlier this month, Libs of TikTok – who says she is now regularly threatened – shared a screenshot of a Twitter user who messaged her that a "pipe bomb" was on her way and urged her to kill herself. Billionaire Elon Musk, who is in the process of buying Twitter, rebuked the social media platform in response, tweeting that it did nothing to protect her account from "death threats." Musk asked Twitter why they weren’t restricting the accounts accused of death threats and later surmised that the platform might be biased towards "half the country."Musk’s tweets generated a wave of response on the platform, including support from conservatives and ire from liberals. Twitter eventually suspended a variety of accounts that made threats to Libs of TikTok following Musk getting involved, according to screenshots shared by the user. TWITTER CENSORS LIBS OF TIKTOK, LABELS THEIR TWEETS SHOWING KIDS AT DRAG SHOWS 'ABUSE AND HARASSMENT' Libs of TikTok shared a photo showing Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz allegedly at the doorstep of one of her relatives. (Libs of TikTok/Twitter) (Libs of TikTok/Twitter)Libs of TikTok responded via email to a series of questions about the saga from Fox News Digital.Fox News Digital: How has your life changed since the Washington Post published Taylor Lorenz’s controversial piece about you? Libs of TikTok: I am now always nervous going out in public. I feel like I constantly look over my shoulder. Every time I have to give my name for something, my heart skips a beat. It’s unnerving. Fox News Digital: Do you hold Lorenz or the Post responsible for threats you have received? Libs of TikTok: Yes. I only received a handful of meaningless threats before the doxxing. I now receive a tremendous amount, and it’s from people who actually now know my name. That already makes the threats more serious. Fox News Digital: Do you believe Twitter is taking threats against you seriously? Libs of TikTok: No. They only took action once Elon Musk called them out.YOUTUBER SAYS WAPO CORRECTION ON TAYLOR LORENZ CLAIMING CONTACT ON INSTAGRAM BEFORE PUBLICATION IS FALSEFox News Digital: What does it mean to have someone as powerful as Elon Musk question Twitter on your behalf?Libs of TikTok: The fact that someone as powerful as Elon stood up for me publicly was the greatest surprise ever and meant a lot to me personally. He stood up for a person on Twitter who he doesn’t even know. I’m very grateful. It gives me hope for the future of Twitter once he’s in charge. Taylor Lorenz's doxing of Libs of TikTok came only a few days after she appeared on MSNBC, where she became emotional on the topic of online harassment of women. Fox News Digital: Do you agree with Musk that "a platform cannot be considered inclusive or fair if it is biased against half the country?"Libs of TikTok: 100%. Fox News Digital: You have mentioned that Twitter employees are allegedly discussing whether to ban you. Could Libs of TikTok remain successful without Twitter? Libs of TikTok: Yes. Right now we are building our presence on Substack which eliminates the reliance on social media to get our message and content out. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPFox News Digital: Lorenz cried on MSNBC about online harassment. Do you think the media takes online harassment seriously no matter the ideology of the victim? Libs of TikTok: No. Media is of course always bias[ed]. No left-wing media outlet called out the harassment I’ve been receiving as a result of large leftist Twitter accounts accusing me of being a terrorist without evidence. The Washington Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Twitter declined comment when reached by Fox News Digital. Fox News’ Gabriel Hays and Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report. Brian Flood is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @briansflood. | Social Media |
Bad actors are leveraging social media groups and communications apps to sexually exploit and traffick Ukrainians seeking shelter and information, amplifying concerns about those dangers in an already high-risk region. As the war continues and millions of Ukrainians, especially women and children, transition to border nations, potential traffickers are using the same digital spaces where refugees are looking for assistance to spread misinformation or pose as well-meaning volunteers to house those fleeing the conflict. Experts say tech companies could be doing more to protect Ukrainians from those threats amid an apparent rise in demand for trafficking victims from the besieged country. “I find it really heartbreaking that at the moment when so many people are trying to protect vulnerable women and children, one of the first measurable reactions to the crisis was that men were going online in record breaking numbers trying to figure out how to sexually access those women,” said Val Richey, special representative and co-ordinator for combatting trafficking in human beings at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Data on upticks in human trafficking of Ukrainian women are only starting to emerge since Russia invaded four months ago. But a Thomson Reuters analysis found spikes across Europe for terms related to online demand for sex with Ukrainian women as news about the war spread across Europe. The analysis found a 200 percent increase in Google searches for “Ukrainian escorts” in the U.K. between Feb. 27 and March 5 compared to the prior six months. The term “Ukrainian porn” increased 600 percent in Spain, and 130 percent in Poland over the same period. A similar trend was seen with search spikes in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France and Switzerland, according to the Thomson Reuters analysis. “European women, Eastern European woman, Ukrainian women, are already at risk, and often are lured and groomed and recruited into sex trafficking. So you put crisis on top of that, and now you have a recipe for increased spikes of demand for human trafficking,” said Heather C. Fischer, senior advisor for Human Rights Crimes at Thomson Reuters. “This might seem innocuous at first to the outside observer, but these trends can actually provide sort of an impetus for traffickers to capitalize the demand,” Fischer added. For example, of 38 men arrested for buying sex in Sweden in March as part of a police operation, investigators found 30 were specifically trying to access Ukrainian women, Sweden’s state-controlled station reported. In Ireland, an escort service website advertised access to Ukrainian escorts, according to screenshots provided by Thomson Reuters. “It’s just really unfortunate as globally people are wondering how they can rush headlong to supporting some of the most vulnerable people, there was a pocket of society who are asking the opposite question, which is, ‘how can I exploit women and children coming from Ukraine?’ So that’s very alarming for us,” Fischer said. In the earlier days of the war, traffickers would pose physically at the border as volunteers seeking to give refugees rides or safe shelter. But as those activities were acknowledged and policy and volunteer groups began looking out for traffickers, those groups moved to a “much more aggressive” online presence, said Erol Yayboke, director and senior fellow with the International Security Program and director of the Project on Fragility and Mobility at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Instead of offering false assistance in person at the border, potential traffickers started infiltrating organically formed online groups to impersonate volunteers. Diana Shore, the administrator of the volunteer Facebook group Rooms for Ukrainians in the UK, ran into the obstacle of possible traffickers and trolls after launching the page to connect Ukrainians with housing in the U.K. in early March. Just nine days after launching her page, the U.K. government offered visa options to allow volunteers to open their homes to Ukrainian refugees, and action on the page “skyrocketed,” she said. Currently, the private group has more than 29,000 members. Resources like Shore’s page are key to not only matching refugees with volunteers, but also providing information. Informal networks including Facebook groups, Telegram chats and Viber chats remain the main source of information for fleeing Ukrainians about their options as refugees, according to an assessment published by VOICE and HIAS that included interviews with women forcibly leaving Ukraine. But without tools in place from Facebook, the job of wading through bad actors and potential traffickers is left largely up to the volunteer administrators. “Facebook can do better than this. [On] the average dating site you can verify somebody,” Shore said. “You know that the person is verified and you know their location. So it can’t be somebody posing to be a Ukrainian guest who’s actually living in Russia, or somebody who’s saying they’ve got a house in Manchester, whose actual location is Saudi Arabia,” she added. Group administrators notice “red flags” from certain accounts, she said, including ones that target lone young women or seem “too good to be true,” describing themselves either as a “wealthy family” or offering access to an “elite life” with “work available in return.” The group administrators look through all reported posts from the group and choose to remove, keep or hide them after reviewing. But their ability to effectively moderate depends on their available time and ability to learn how to do so “on the fly,” Shore said. “It would have made a lot of difference if Facebook actually just used the software which is already out there to verify identity, especially as unfortunately, this was a life threatening situation, with huge risk to both parties.” Shore said the group faced obstacles with exploitative users on both ends — people posing as volunteers offering safe housing to target refugees, as well as Ukrainians who “may not have the best motives for coming” and seeking housing through the group. In addition to features for verifying users, Shore said Facebook could offer options for a group to limit membership to a specific geographical region or location filters so only people in relevant regions could access the group. She also said the company could consider putting in place “hours of operation” limits, which could allow a group to limit content from being posted overnight when administrators are asleep and may not notice content that would typically be removed. A spokesperson for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said attempts by “a small number of people to exploit these groups to abuse those seeking safety is something we’re taking very seriously, and we’ll take action on any content which violates our policies.” “The UK Government is responsible for determining who is eligible and ultimately able to house refugees under this scheme and we encourage everyone who is taking part to follow the Government’s guidance,” the spokesperson said in a statement. The tech giant has taken other measures since the start of the war to attempt to keep Ukrainian users safe. For example, the company added Ukraine to a list of countries that let users lock their profiles. This bars users who are not friends with them from zooming in on, sharing or downloading their full-size profile picture and from seeing photos and posts on their timeline. Google also has some protections in place to mitigate concerns about trafficking. The company’s policies prevent sexually explicit content from appearing in predictions on its auto-complete search function. Additionally, in certain countries, including Ukraine, Google displays a box at the top of search results about support for trafficking victims if a user searches for terms related to seeking help for such threats. The company is looking to expand on those resources. European Union authorities are also targeting traffickers online. Law enforcement from 14 EU member states participated in a hackathon in May focused on posts offering help to refugees for transportation, accomodation or work. The hackathon identified nine suspected human traffickers and nine possible victims, and initiated 15 new investigations. Experts recommended that tech companies collaborate with organizations that work to combat trafficking to help guide their efforts to ensure their tools aren’t used to enable it. “Tech platforms need to really reflect on how their tools can be used for good or bad reasons and then bring in expertise that’s going to help them decide what may be a risk factor,” said Mendy Marsh, co-founder and executive director of VOICE. “There’s so much that could be done, that they have to take the time to actually go through that and question the use of the platform and to really dig into how it may be manipulated,” she added. One way companies can take action would be to provide labels or disclaimers on posts containing information about assistance for Ukraine, similar to the labels social media platforms have put in place for posts containing information about COVID-19, Yayboke said. Companies can also run ads that point users towards hotlines or other helpful information if they search for terms related to seeking help for trafficking, Richey said. They could also take a more assertive step to disable search results for certain terms, such as “Ukrainian escorts,” Richey said. “I think tech companies are interested in figuring out how to respond. And what we need to do is link their technical knowledge with our trafficking knowledge, and put that all together into a coordinated response,” he said. | Social Media |
MoneyWatch June 28, 2022 / 11:06 AM / AP Next steps after Roe v. Wade overturned Next steps now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned 09:43 Facebook and Instagram have begun promptly removing posts that offer abortion pills to women who may not be able to access them following a Supreme Court decision that stripped away constitutional protections for the procedure.Such social media posts ostensibly aimed to help women living in states where preexisting laws banning abortion suddenly snapped into effect on Friday. That's when the high court overruled Roe v. Wade, its 1973 decision that declared access to abortion a constitutional right.Memes and status updates explaining how women could legally obtain abortion pills in the mail exploded across social platforms. Some even offered to mail the prescriptions to women living in states that now ban the procedure.CBS News poll: Americans react to overturning of Roe v. Wade — most disapprove, call it step backwardWith Roe v. Wade overturned, which states would restrict or protect abortion rights?"Women are going to die": Hillary Clinton on Supreme Court's overturning Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rightsAlmost immediately, Facebook and Instagram began removing some of these posts, just as millions across the U.S. were searching for clarity around abortion access. General mentions of abortion pills, as well as posts mentioning specific versions such as mifepristone and misoprostol, suddenly spiked Friday morning across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and TV broadcasts, according to an analysis by the media intelligence firm Zignal Labs. By Sunday, Zignal had counted more than 250,000 such mentions. Eight states are holding primary and runoff elections today marking the first election test since Roe v. Wade was overturned 04:07 The AP obtained a screenshot on Friday of one Instagram post from a woman who offered to purchase or forward abortion pills through the mail, minutes after the court ruled to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion. "DM me if you want to order abortion pills, but want them sent to my address instead of yours," the post on Instagram read. Instagram took it down within moments. Vice Media first reported on Monday that Meta, the parent of both Facebook and Instagram, was taking down posts about abortion pills.On Monday, an AP reporter tested how the company would respond to a similar post on Facebook, writing: "If you send me your address, I will mail you abortion pills."The post was removed within one minute. Abortion providers brace for influx of out-of-state patients 02:33 The Facebook account was immediately put on a "warning" status for the post, which Facebook said violated its standards on "guns, animals and other regulated goods." Yet, when the AP reporter made the same exact post but swapped out the words "abortion pills" for "a gun," the post remained untouched. A post with the same exact offer to mail "weed" was also left up and not considered a violation.Marijuana is illegal under federal law and it is illegal to send it through the mail.Abortion pills, however, can legally be obtained through the mail after an online consultation from prescribers who have undergone certification and training. In an email, a Meta spokesperson pointed to company policies that prohibit the sale of certain items, including guns, alcohol, drugs and pharmaceuticals. The company did not explain the apparent discrepancies in its enforcement of that policy.Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed in a tweet Monday that the company will not allow individuals to gift or sell pharmaceuticals on its platform, but will allow content that shares information on how to access pills. Stone acknowledged some problems with enforcing that policy across its platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram. Content that attempts to buy, sell, trade, gift, request or donate pharmaceuticals is not allowed. Content that discusses the affordability and accessibility of prescription medication is allowed. We've discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these.— Andy Stone (@andymstone) June 27, 2022 "We've discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these," Stone said in the tweet.Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday that states should not ban mifepristone, the medication used to induce an abortion. "States may not ban mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA's expert judgment about its safety and efficacy," Garland said in a Friday statement. But some Republicans have already tried to stop their residents from obtaining abortion pills through the mail, with some states like West Virginia and Tennessee prohibiting providers from prescribing the medication through telemedicine consultation. In: Facebook Abortion civil rights merrick garland Thanks for reading CBS NEWS. Create your free account or log in for more features. Please enter email address to continue Please enter valid email address to continue | Social Media |
In the weeks leading up to last month's elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the 18-year-old gunman made a number of disturbing comments to users on various social media platforms, leading the head of Texas' top law enforcement agency to say last week that those comments "should have been reported."But at least some of the online users who communicated with the gunman previously told ABC News they did try to report him -- yet their efforts largely went nowhere."Regardless of how many times he was reported ... he would still come back," a user who lives in Greece and asked to remain anonymous, told ABC News regarding her multiple attempts to report the gunman, identified by authorities as Salvador Ramos.Among Ramos' online comments were possible signs that troubling behavior was ahead: He referenced school shootings, alluded to a possible upcoming incident, and shared pictures and videos of guns, users who communicated with him told ABC News.One user told ABC News that leaders of panels and live chats on the social media app Yubo would ban Ramos after he would come into the live groups, where the user said Ramos would "threaten other people that he would shoot up their schools."Another user told ABC News that he would kick Ramos out of live panels he was hosting after Ramos would enter and make concerning comments. The reporting function on the platform, he added, "barely works."Many social media apps have a function to report other users based on various conduct issues, such as inappropriate conduct or harassing behavior.Crosses are decorated with flowers and stuffed animals at a memorial for the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, June 25, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas.Jordan Vonderhaar/Getty ImagesTwo of those users claim that Ramos was eventually temporarily banned from the app, but was able to regain access to his same account.A spokesperson for Yubo, when asked by ABC News earlier this month to confirm if Ramos' account had been flagged, said that "at this stage, we are not legally able to release any specific user information outside of direct requests from law enforcement."The revelations about Ramos' online behavior leading up to the shooting have sparked questions about the efforts of social media companies to monitor their platforms for warning signs in an era of rising online hate. Testifying last week before a Texas state Senate panel, Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw, whose agency is leading one of the probes into the massacre, said that he was "disappointed in the social media industry for not being more proactive.""Make sure it's not Big Brother, but that you offer law enforcement the opportunity at least to identify suspicious activity and act upon it," McCraw said.John Cohen, a former senior Homeland Security official who is now an ABC News contributor, said the "key issue" is for law enforcement to broaden its threat assessment efforts when it comes to potentially violent individuals -- a process he said is already underway in agencies around the country."It we're going to stop these shootings, law enforcement has to look differently at people who require attention," Cohen said. "[The law enforcement community] has been slow to build capacity to be able to incorporate online expressions of intent into our investigation process."In the wake of the Uvalde massacre, Yubo has since announced new updated "safety features" on its platform, including enhanced reporting capabilities."The devastating events of 24 May in Uvalde, Texas, brought to light systemic issues in society that need to be addressed," Yubo CEO Sacha Lazimi said in a statement about the new measures.They include a new "combined-signals risk detection algorithm" that will help provide context around potential risks on its platform by assessing "a combination of signals including keywords, emojis, and images."Ramos also allegedly communicated with users on Facebook and on Instagram, though ABC News has not determined that there were any efforts to report him on those platforms.A young teen who said she exchanged private messages with Ramos on the morning of the shooting told ABC News that she has been asking herself, "What if I could change the outcome?"The teen, who asked to be referred to as "Cece," allegedly received messages from Ramos saying, "I shot my grandmother in the head" and "ima go shoot up a elementary school rn.""Ever since May 24, I have been guilt-tripping myself,"" said the teen. "What if I could change his mind to not do this?"ABC News' Will Steakin contributed to this report. | Social Media |
It's no secret the real estate market is skyrocketing, but the Covid pandemic is creating another little-known land rush. Indeed, some investors are paying millions for plots of land — not in New York or Beverly Hills. In fact, the plots do not physically exist here on Earth.Rather, the land is located online, in a set of virtual worlds that tech insiders have dubbed the metaverse. Prices for plots have soared as much as 500% in the last few months ever since Facebook announced it was going all-in on virtual reality, even changing its corporate name to Meta Platforms."The metaverse is the next iteration of social media," said Andrew Kiguel, CEO of Toronto-based Tokens.com, which invests in metaverse real estate and non fungible token-related digital assets. [Digital real estate] prices have gone up 400% to 500% in the last few months.Andrew KiguelTokens.com CEO"You can go to a carnival, you can go to a music concert, you can go to a museum," Kiguel said. In these virtual worlds, real people interact as cartoon-like characters called avatars, similar to a real-time multiplayer video game. Today, people can access these worlds through a normal computer screen, but Meta and other companies have a long-term vision of building 360-degree immersive worlds, which people will access through virtual reality goggles like Meta's Oculus.A recent report by crypto asset manager Grayscale estimates the digital world may grow into a $1 trillion business in the near future. Here, major artists, including Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and DJ Marshmello, are performing as their own avatars. Even Paris Hilton DJ'ed a New Year's Eve party on her own virtual island.Kiguel's company recently dropped nearly $2.5 million on a patch of land in Decentraland — one of several popular metaverse worlds. "Prices have gone up 400% to 500% in the last few months," Kiguel said.Another hot metaverse world is the Sandbox, where Janine Yorio's virtual real estate development company, Republic Realm, spent a record $4.3 million on a parcel of virtual land. The digital world, to some, is as important as the real world.Oren AlexanderReal estate brokerYorio tells CNBC her company sold 100 virtual private islands last year for $15,000 each. "Today, they're selling for about $300,000 each, which is coincidentally the same as the average home price in America," she said.A risky investment"The digital world, to some, is as important as the real world," Miami-based real estate broker Oren Alexander tells CNBC. "It's not about what you and I believe in, but it's about what the future does."Just like property in the real world, Kiguel says the metaverse is about three things: location, location, location."There are areas when you first go into the metaverse where people congregate — those areas would certainly be a lot more valuable than the areas that don't have any events going on," Kiguel said.To be sure, those heavily trafficked areas are reeling in big spenders."Think about the board game Monopoly. We just bought Boardwalk and the surrounding area," Kiguel said. "Areas where people congregate are far more valuable for advertisers and retailers to find ways to get in there to access that demographic."For example, Snoop Dogg is building a virtual mansion on a plot of land in Sandbox, and someone recently paid $450,000 to be his neighbor.[It's] highly, highly risky. You should only invest capital that you're prepared to lose.Janine YorioRepublic Realm CEO"I think it absolutely matters who your neighbor is," said Yorio. "That's kind of true of almost anything, right? It's like a club and you want to be around people that share similar interests."Buying virtual land is pretty simple — either directly from the platform or through a developer. Investors build on their land and make it interactive. "You can decorate it, you can change it, you can renovate," Yorio says. "It's code."But Yorio cautions that investing in digital real estate is risky business."[It's] highly, highly risky. You should only invest capital that you're prepared to lose," Yorio tells CNBC. "It's highly speculative. It's also blockchain-based. And as we all know, crypto is highly volatile. But it can also be massively rewarding."Mark Stapp, professor and director for real estate theory and practice at Arizona State University, agrees. "I would not put money into this that I didn't care about losing. I certainly wouldn't," Stapp says. "If it continues the way it's going, it is most likely going to be a bubble. You're buying something that isn't tied to reality." | Social Media |
Published June 16, 2022 6:39AM Updated 2:09PM article U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks during a meeting with legal experts on the pending Supreme Court decision impacting the Roe vs. Wade case at the White House complex on June 14, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty WASHINGTON - Vice President Kamala Harris and administration officials on Thursday launched a task force dedicated to fighting online harassment and abuse, which they warned can be a precursor to real-life violence. "The internet is an essential part of life in the 21st century," Harris said, but for many — particularly women, people of color, and people who are not heterosexual — "the internet is a place of fear." The task force will address several issues, including prevention of online abuse and services for people who are targeted. It is scheduled to issue recommendations for the federal government and private companies in 180 days. "All of us have a responsibility to stand together to support those who have gone through this, and also recognize they shouldn’t have to be alone fighting on this issue," Harris said. Although the problem isn't new, it has taken on new urgency following shooting massacres in Texas and New York that were predated by misogynist and racist commentary on social media and message boards. Harris was introduced by Sloane Stephens, a Black professional tennis player who has faced a torrent of racist abuse. "I’m a daughter, a sister, a wife. And I am more than an athlete, more than a label," Stephens said. "Yet all of that is disregarded when people online seek to harass me and harm me. No matter whether I win or lose, someone online is mad, and they will make it known." After matches, Stephens said, she is worried to pick up her phone because "I know what will be waiting for me when I unlock it." Keeping kids safe online: Instagram's impact on mental heath Facebook’s head of safety was questioned by senators in a hearing on its products’ effects on kids' wellbeing, following revelations in September that executives had known Instagram was harming the mental health of some children. Marc Berkman joins us. The National Security Council is working with the White House Gender Policy Council on the initiative, and Attorney General Merrick Garland and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy participated in Thursday's announcement. Garland said the Justice Department had dedicated additional resources to issues like online stalking. "We are committed to relentlessly investigating these crimes, bringing to justice those who perpetrate them, and providing support for the survivors," he said. Murthy said people often turn to the internet when they are lonely or looking to make connections, "yet all too often what they find instead is harassment and abuse." "It can no longer be acceptable for a technology company to put out a product and walk away from the responsibility for how it impacts users and communities," he said. "It can no longer be OK for social media platforms to be fertile grounds for hatred." RELATED: TikTok vigilante exposes online cyber-bullies who think they’re anonymous | Social Media |
Fans are hoping the removal of the singer's profile pictures is a sign something is coming. Beyonce performs onstage during the "On the Run II" Tour at NRG Stadium on Sept. 15, 2018 in Houston, Texas.Kevin Winter / Getty Images fileJune 13, 2022, 5:15 PM UTCThe BeyHive is in a frenzy after Beyoncé deleted her profile pictures across social media platforms last week, with many fans now convinced new music is coming. The artist, 40, has removed her profile picture from accounts on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, although the content on those accounts appears untouched. Still, fans have taken this to mean something exciting is coming from the "Formation" singer. A spokesperson for the singer did not immediately respond to request for comment.Beyoncé is known for her surprise album drops and cryptic messages online. In December of 2013 she dropped her self-titled album on iTunes with no prior advertising. She simultaneously released a visual album for the self-titled album, announcing the drop on Instagram with one word: "Surprise!"Some credit that release as a game-changer for the industry and "one of the most important moments in music," according to Teen Vogue.While many hope an album is in the works, others suggested Beyoncé could be releasing anything from new athleisure clothing to a non-fungible token (NFT).The “Drunk in Love” singer hasn’t released a solo studio album since 2016’s “Lemonade.” In August of 2021, Beyoncé told Harper’s Bazaar that she is working on new music. "I’ve been in the studio for a year and a half," she said at the time. "Sometimes it takes a year for me to personally search through thousands of sounds to find just the right kick or snare. One chorus can have up to 200 stacked harmonies. Still, there’s nothing like the amount of love, passion, and healing that I feel in the recording studio. After 31 years, it feels just as exciting as it did when I was nine years old. Yes, the music is coming!”Earlier this year, Beyoncé performed her Oscar-nominated song “Be Alive,” which she penned along with songwriter Dixson, during the Oscars ceremony.As of Monday, Beyoncé's social media profile pictures remain blank. Kalhan Rosenblatt is a reporter covering youth and internet culture for NBC News, based in New York. | Social Media |
Every day is a battle on the internet for Courtney, one of the many adult creators who have found success on social media and OnlyFans.Courtney Ann at her Fort Worth home on April 19, 2022.Nitashia Johnson for NBC NewsJune 17, 2022, 8:30 AM UTCFORT WORTH, Texas — Courtney and Nick live with their two teenage daughters in a 5-bedroom house in the suburbs with a pool and a waterslide in the backyard. They go on vacation to Disney World. It’s all thanks to Instagram and OnlyFans.Courtney, 39, who goes by “Texas Thighs,” is one of a new generation of content creators, some of whom are able to be self-employed in the social media-driven adult industry. She now has 1.2 million Instagram followers and said she makes nearly half a million dollars a year on OnlyFans, a digital platform primarily known for nudity and sexual content that makes it easy for people to start subscription businesses. “In the old days, the men made the money off the women,” she said standing near the granite countertop of her newly renovated kitchen. She asked that NBC News withhold her family’s last name out of privacy concerns.OnlyFans has paid out more than $3.2 billion to creators since it launched in November 2016 (the company makes money by taking a 20 percent cut of sales through its platform). Most creators don’t make very much money, but those who succeed are overwhelmingly women and can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. Creators like Courtney say they deal with constant threats to the very business they are building. Adult content creators like Courtney use a combination of social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to find new followers and funnel them toward more lucrative platforms like OnlyFans. That can be a risky proposition, as creators face a near-constant battle against platform moderation efforts that can sometimes ensnare people who are not violating a company’s rules. Courtney says her content isn’t pornographic, but that even her risqué material has led to dozens of strikes and takedowns of her accounts on the mainstream platforms. Courtney and Nick, 42, say they have calculated daily losses of between $500 and $1,000 from posts and accounts that have been removed.Courtney Ann posing for a selfie at her Fort Worth home with husband Nick on April 19, 2022. Nitashia Johnson for NBC NewsAnd in her personal life, Courtney says, she has dealt with everything from online impersonation to family members saying she’ll “go to hell” for her Instagram account.“Both our parents are not church people, but all of a sudden they’re spiritual and sending us Bible verses,” said Nick, a full-time photographer and social media co-manager.Still, they say, they are financially secure and happier than ever, thanks to their new lifestyle. Courtney’s booming online career sets her apart in suburban Fort Worth, where she is often recognized around town by fans. Inside Courtney and Nick’s home, surrounded by framed family photos and Dallas Cowboys merchandise, they shared the highs and lows of their new normal.“It’s all so new, this influencer-slash-model thing,” Courtney said. “Under taxes, I’m classified as a model, but it’s not the normal sense of the word. I’m a self-made entrepreneur. I run my own Maxim.”A day in the life of ‘Texas Thighs’Morning in Courtney’s house starts with green juice. Her daughters take turns measuring the nutritional powders and dumping them in the blender. The four family members gather around the gleaming kitchen island for breakfast before the day begins.The girls, 13 and 16, then head upstairs for school — they go to online school, and have since before the pandemic or their mother’s newfound fame online — before Courtney changes into a green lingerie set to shoot content.On the Wednesday before St. Patrick’s Day, the photoshoot location was the dining room table. Courtney hopped onto the shiny surface and laid flat on her stomach, then lifted her hips into the air and arched her back, staring into the camera on Nick’s phone. Courtney posts mild content compared to many OnlyFans creators. Rarely, she’ll flash her nipple, but nothing more.“Those are great, I want to try some closer,” Nick said.Once Courtney is satisfied with the boudoir-style photos, she and Nick start making content for other social media platforms. They take a break for lunch with the girls after creating some TikTok videos that merge the “Texas Thighs” brand with whatever sounds are trending. The central theme of Courtney’s social media presence, besides her body, is her playful love for her family. It’s a counter-narrative to the stigmas attached to her career and the idea that being an OnlyFans talent could hurt her children — but one that she said the people in her life have had trouble accepting. She said one of her best friends has asked her three times if she has to do porn. A family member asked if she was letting her daughters post similar content.Courtney Ann with her husband Nick at their Fort Worth home shared with their two daughters, 13 and 16, on April 19, 2022.Nitashia Johnson for NBC News“They were like, ‘Are you letting the girls post pictures like that?’ Well, no, they’re teenagers,” Courtney said. “I’m still me.”In many ways, Courtney is a regular Texas mom. She and Nick are on a first-name basis with the owners of their favorite Mexican restaurant. They have Maltese Shih Tzus named after Dallas Cowboys players Dez Bryant and Dak Prescott. Beyond that, thanks to their new income, Courtney and Nick can now afford to spend more time with their children than ever. Now they can pay for the family to travel multiple times a year, trips to New York to Orlando to Los Angeles. They have an at-home movie theater — they recently screened “Euphoria” as a family — and their daughters have a hobby room, where the younger sibling paints colorful designs on white shoes. She’s joining the swim team soon, while her older sister is experimenting with hair and makeup.Just a few years ago, the family had a much smaller budget. Courtney cleaned houses that look like the one she lives in now. Nick worked long hours as an account manager. Everything changed when Nick snapped a photo of Courtney while she did squats and posted it on Instagram. Within a month, Courtney had 15,000 followers. In less than a year, she passed 100,000, and local celebrities — including Bryant — were following her. But they’ve also lost out on parts of their life from before Texas Thighs. At 80,000 Instagram followers, some of Courtney’s family found out about the account. She said some family members showed up at her house one day to corner her and intimidate her to stop posting. She said she ended up calling the police before convincing them to leave. “How dare they come tell me what to do?” Courtney said. “They don’t get to come tell me to stop doing something I’m having fun with.”Courtney is still on speaking terms with those family members, and they see her children often. She and Nick said some members of their family stopped inviting them to group events, but others have come around to Texas Thighs. Courtney said their nieces and nephews visit the new house and are impressed by its size. One filmed a 3-minute house tour TikTok.“The caption was ‘When your mom’s cousin is RICH rich,’” Courtney said with a laugh.OnlyFans takes flightThe rise of social media in the early 2000s quickly gave way to the first models and influencers who were able to use those platforms to amass large audiences. And while they were often able to make money through advertising and other more traditional modeling work, it remained difficult to monetize directly from their audiences. At the same time, the porn industry was transformed and dominated by online “tube” websites that made sexually explicit content freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Studios were mostly run by men who hired men and women for sex work.Nick and Courtney said it was after joining social media platforms and noticing the success of attractive women posing in bikinis and lingerie that they got the idea to try. Both athletic, Courtney said her initial inspiration was workout motivation posts. Courtney Ann posing for a selfie taken by her husband Nick at their Fort Worth home on April 19, 2022.Nitashia Johnson for NBC NewsAt first, the posts were moderately successful, but there wasn’t a monetization stream that allowed them to quit their jobs. That wasn’t until later, after Courtney launched a pay-per-view website where followers could buy photo sets. Once OnlyFans emerged as a mainstream cultural phenomenon in 2020, she said she created an account there, and the money really took off. OnlyFans reintroduced paying for adult content on a different scale due to the influencer status of its creators. It was the first pay-per-view social media platform with a reputation for sexually explicit content to go mainstream. OnlyFans most recently said that more than 150 million people have accounts to view content on its platform, some of which is available for free. More than 1.5 million people create content on the platform, some of which is not explicit and nonsexual in nature. Models who show everything from bikini-clad to fully nude and pornographic photos and videos now have a lucrative way to monetize them, but the average estimated income of an OnlyFans creator is still low, at only $150 a month. Hundreds of thousands of new creators have started accounts on OnlyFans, which is joined by dozens of similar platforms. Creators like Courtney have multiple revenue streams, including other pay-per-view platforms, independent membership websites, merchandise, podcasts and more. Still, creators face an almost nonstop battle to remain online.Courtney estimates that her Instagram account has been banned over 10 times, although she has always been able to restore it. She can appeal Instagram’s decision to remove posts or her entire account at the click of a button, but the process isn’t always instantaneous. She said she has had to wait weeks at times for her Instagram to be restored. She said her first TikTok account was permanently banned last year, and when trying to create new accounts, she noticed her videos’ views were remaining stagnant. Believing that TikTok limited her new accounts, she said, she purchased a burner phone with a new IP address to make another TikTok account, which now has over 135,000 followers.The choice to show skin can invite other consequences. Online comments ask Courtney if her daughters will grow up to be “whores” like her, while new accounts falsely claiming to be Courtney are all over social media.Courtney Ann posing for a selfie at her Fort Worth home on April 19, 2022. Nitashia Johnson for NBC NewsBoth their daughters said they don’t have a problem with their mom’s OnlyFans or Instagram posts. To the older girl, a high school senior, in particular, it’s “annoying” that her mom faces judgment and that her content and accounts are removed and banned on social media.“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” she said. “It’s just like a model, and I’ve always thought models were cool.” Nick says some of the anger stems from Courtney flipping the script on who profits from a woman’s nudity. He compared her business to Playboy, specifically how some models earned nothing from the magazine or its cultural phenomenon.“Now we have our own Playboy and it’s ‘Oh, you can’t do that,’” Nick said. “Why? Because there isn’t a big mansion where a bunch of dudes can sleep with a bunch of chicks? That doesn’t seem fair.” Kat Tenbarge is a tech and culture reporter for NBC News Digital. | Social Media |
Throughout the testimony presented in the Jan. 6 select committee hearings, former President Donald Trump, who may yet face criminal charges stemming from the emerging evidence, has sought to shape public perceptions about the Republican witnesses who have appeared.During some of the testimony, such as Wednesday’s blockbuster appearance by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, Trump offered real-time responses on social media. During others, such as last Thursday’s appearance by former Justice Department officials who testified that Trump asked them to “just say the election was corrupt,” the former president issued a series of statements attacking what he calls “the UNSELECT committee” itself.Despite polls showing that a majority of Americans now believe Trump should be prosecuted by the Justice Department for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the former president continues to assert that he did nothing wrong in regard to the riot at the Capitol.Trump at a rally in Mendon, Ill., on Saturday. (Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images)“This is merely an attempt to stop a man that is leading in every poll, against both Republicans and Democrats by wide margins, from running again for the Presidency,” Trump said in a falsehood-laden, 12-page statement issued after the second day of testimony earlier this month. In fundraising emails, Trump has also repeatedly attacked the two Republican representatives on the committee as “Crazy Liz Cheney” and “Cryin’ Adam Kinzinger.”As he did during the two impeachment hearings that took place during his presidency, Trump has gone after those who have offered testimony against him. In doing so, he has sometimes drastically revised his own past statements on those individuals, some of whom he had lavishly praised when they worked for him.William BarrVideo images of former Attorney General William Barr are shown during the House select committee hearing on June 23. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)During his testimony to the select committee that was played during the first hearing on June 10, former Trump Attorney General William Barr testified that his department had investigated the former president's claims of voter fraud and told him that there was no evidence supporting Trump's assertions.Barr then described how Trump had “become detached from reality” about his election loss and had no “interest in what the actual facts were.” The idea that fraud had cost Trump the election was “bulls***” and “complete nonsense,” Barr testified.Before the 2020 election, Trump lavished praise on Barr, calling him “a very straight shooter” and “a man with incredible integrity.”Quickly responding to the first Jan. 6 hearing on June 10, during which portions of Barr’s testimony were shown, Trump called him “a coward” and a “weak and frightened Attorney General.”Three days later, with Barr’s comments dominating news coverage, Trump used a different phrase to describe his former AG, referring to him as a RINO, which stands for Republican in name only.“Former A.G. Bill Barr, a RINO if there ever was one, didn’t have the courage or stamina to go after voter fraud — Was afraid he was going to be impeached,” Trump wrote in statement posted to his social media platform, Truth Social. “NO GUTS, NO GLORY!!!”Ivanka TrumpVideo testimony from former White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump was played for the House select committee on June 13. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, also made a taped appearance during the first select committee hearing. Like Barr, her testimony to the committee was played for the country to see. The portion of her testimony that struck a nerve came when she was asked for her response to Barr’s Dec. 1, 2020, statement that there was no evidence of significant election fraud.“It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying,” she said to the committee.Trump has long praised Ivanka, who was the only child of his to formally join his administration. In a 2019 interview with the Atlantic, Trump gushed over his daughter, saying he had considered her for the role of president of the World Bank. “She would’ve been great at that because she’s very good with numbers,” he said.After seeing her during the select committee hearing, he quickly sought to downplay his daughter's remarks.“Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results. She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!),” Trump wrote on Truth Social.Rusty BowersArizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)Republican Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers testified in person before the select committee on June 22, recounting how Trump and his allies waged a pressure campaign to convince him to replace Arizona’s electors even though there was no evidence that voter fraud resulted in President Biden’s win there.In anticipation of Bowers’s testimony that Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani called Bowers to try to convince him to overturn Arizona’s election results, the former president released a statement attacking him.“Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers is the latest RINO to play along with the Unselect Committee,” Trump said in a statement.Bowers testified that he told the then president and Giuliani, “You're asking me to do something that is counter to my oath,” and said that he refused to go along with the plot because he “didn’t want to be used as a pawn.” However, he later told the Associated Press that if Trump was the Republican nominee in 2024, he’d likely vote for him again.Cassidy HutchinsonCassidy Hutchinson testifies before the select committee on June 28, 2022. Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERSA former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson testified under oath and in person Wednesday that Trump knew some of his supporters were armed before he directed them to go to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6; that she was told about Trump wrestling with his Secret Service detail for control of his limousine; that the former president threw dishes at the wall after learning Barr would not back his conspiracy theories about a stolen election; and that Meadows and Giuliani had inquired about presidential pardons.As her testimony unfolded, Trump sought to downplay Hutchinson's role in his administration despite the fact that her office was just steps away from his."I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her (a total phony and 'leaker'), and when she requested to go with certain others of the team to Florida after my having served a full term in office, I personally turned her request down," Trump wrote in a statement."Why did she want to go with us if she felt we were so terrible? I understand that she was very upset and angry that I didn't want her to go, or be a member of the team. She is bad news," he wrote. | Social Media |
Photo credit getty Most meetings and networking opportunities today happen online. And even when the worst of Covid-19 is behind us (let it be soon), we’ll likely continue making lots of e-connections. When you’re about to meet someone new, there are some things you need to do so you can make a real and meaningful connection when you do connect digitally. If you have Zoom meetings with attendees you don’t know yet, prepare to make that first screen-to-screen connection powerful and fruitful. Perform research Google As you know, Google is the place we go when we want to learn about something or someone. It’s become even more valuable in our all-virtual all-the-time world of work. So, of course, before e-meeting someone new you should perform a search. But to get the best results, put quote marks around their full name when you google them. See what shows up on page 1 and look for things that give you insights into who they are. If page 1 results seem to be about multiple different people who share their name, filter out the others by adding a keyword you’d associate with them. What’s the most interesting thing you’re learning about them? See which social media profiles show up. While you’re at it, click on the “images,” “videos” and “news” tabs at the top of the Google results to get a more thorough look at who they are and what they’re talking about. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the most important social media tool when it comes to professional connections, and it’s a treasure trove of information you can use to learn about people you are meeting. Here’s how to scour a profile for the most valuable insights. Check out these elements: Get the big picture view. Read their LinkedIn About and check out their Experience and Education. Look for things you have in common. Did you go to the same school? Work for the same company at some point in your career? Do you share a passion for travel or architecture? Identify common connections. See who you have in common with them. This appears at the top of their profile, right below the number of connections they have. One of the most powerful ways to create a deeper connection is through mutual friends or contacts. Note how they say their name. They say that the sweetest sound to any person is the sound of their name. So you want to get it right. If they added audio to their LinkedIn profile, right next to their name you can click on the speaker symbol to hear how they pronounce it. Here’s how it sounds in my profile. See who they sit among. Check out the “people also viewed,” section which appears on the right side of their profile. Do you know any of these people? What do they have in common? Check out what interests them. The section called Interests is toward the bottom of their profile. Look for common interests among Influencers, Groups and Companies. External perceptions. Check them out from the point of view of people who know them. To do this, look at the endorsements and recommendations. See what others think are their greatest skills and learn how people perceive them from the recommendations they received. First impressions set the tone for future interactions. A little up-front research can help you establish a meaningful relationship from that first digital connection.
Get your own digital house in order The other prep you need to do is to make sure your first impression is authentic and compelling. That means, focus on making your LinkedIn profile stellar. Once you’ve got your profile in order, send them a LinkedIn connection request, and remember to customize the message. Master the medium
The last prep step: Demonstrate that you’ve mastered online interactions by getting Zoom meeting basics right. You could share the most brilliant and witty conversation, but if your eyes are fixed on the wrong place, or you look like you’re a member of the witness protection program because the light is coming from behind you, or sound like you’re in a tunnel, you’ll tarnish that all-important first impression.
Take these actions before you e-meet someone to make sure your first impression is impressive.
William Arruda is a keynote speaker, author, co-founder of CareerBlast.TV and creator of the LinkedIn Profile Type Indicator (LPTI) which measures your LinkedIn profile likability and credibility.
Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website. | Social Media |
The platform’s highest-paid celebrities collectively hauled in $55.5 million in 2021, a 200% increase from a year earlier. Movies, TV shows, clothing lines—a Madison Square Garden performance. Over the last year, the biggest TikTok stars’ earnings have surged, driven partly by their efforts to broaden their fame beyond the platform that first turned them into celebrities. This is certainly the case for the sisters atop our list of the highest-earning TikTok-ers, Charli and Dixie D’Amelio. Drawing plenty of comparisons to the Kardashian sisters, they now have their own Hulu series, The D’Amelio Show. It premiered in September and was renewed for another season two months later. Then, in December, Dixie performed at the Garden and nine other venues for the Jingle Ball concert series alongside Ed Sheeran and the Jonas Brothers. And together, the sisters have a lucrative brand, Social Tourist, a joint venture with Hollister sold at roughly 500 of the retailer’s stores. All this has helped push their earnings up to a combined $27.5 million, from less than $7 million a year earlier. Meanwhile, Addison Rae has starred in one Netflix movie, He’s All That, and signed a new multifilm deal with the streamer. Josh Richards has also appeared in a Netflix movie, Under the Stadium Lights, and started his own production company, CrossCheck Studios, a joint venture with Mark Wahlberg’s production outfit. Altogether, the highest-paid TikTok stars collectively earned $55.5 million in 2021, up 200% from the last time we counted up their paychecks, in 2020. And while they’ve focused their attention away from TikTok, they still earn much of their money—typically 30% to 50%–from sponsored content, where a corporation pays for a post advertising their goods on a star’s social media account. As TikTok has grown to over a billion users worldwide, businesses like Amazon, Louis Vuitton and McDonald’s have bought such ads. The TikTok stars can charge as much as a half million dollars for a single post, though most generally earn an average of between $100,000 to $250,00 per post, more than double the rates from that previous list in 2020. The TikTok-ers understand the audience these advertisers want to reach because they themselves are about the same age. All of these top earners are under 25. Another universal truth about TikTok: There, stardom and money can come and go quickly, as evidenced by three newcomers to this list, Bella Poarch, Avani Gregg and Kris Collins. No one is bigger than Charli, who has the app’s largest following (133 million subscribe to her videos) and a ballooning amount of business interests. She’s got the basics covered—advertising sponsorships from Invisalign, Morphe cosmetics and a newer one with Dunkin’ Donuts —and then considerably more. In early 2021, Hollister launched its joint venture with Charli and her sister Dixie, Social Tourist. (Teens seem to like the stuff. Fran Horowitz, the CEO of Hollister’s parent company, has pointed to Social Tourist as a major contributor to Hollister’s nearly 10% sales increase through September 2021.) Along with the Hulu series, Charli and Dixie debuted a show on Snap, too, in November. Charli vs. Dixie features 10 mini-TV episodes. In those, the pair compete over something—baking in one, board games in another—continuing to live even life’s simpler moments in front of a camera. See Full Profile. Dixie may be the older sister, but much of her fame and earnings, including the Hollister, Hulu and Snap deals, still intertwine with her more popular sister Charli. (Dixie has 57 million followers, Charli 133 million.) For some distance, Dixie has sought to carve out her own career as a pop singer, a deliberate effort to counter the squeaky-clean girls-next-door vibe powering the D’Amelio marketing machine. In 2021, she released two songs, “Psycho,” which featured rapper Rubi Rose and hit No. 25 on Billboard’s U.S. pop chart, and “F—kBoy,” borrowing a Gen Z term for a philandering young man. At Christmastime, Dixie toured as part of the Jingle Ball concert series, hitting the stage in Dallas, Boston and Chicago. From home, she has given her fans access not only to her family life but her love life, too, plastering her Twitter with lovey-dovey exchanges between herself and her boyfriend Noah Beck, another high-profile TikTok star, who seems poised to become another sponsorship partner. See Full Profile. The biggest thing in Rae Land this past year was her time on Netflix. She had a lead role in He’s All That, a part that couldn’t have required much research. In the movie, Rae plays a high schooler with a growing social media profile who makes over a nerdy guy in time for prom. (It is a remake of She’s All That, a Freddie Prinze Jr. flick plotted as complexly as a TikTok video.) When He’s All That debuted in August, it briefly ranked No. 1 on Netflix in 78 countries. A month later, Netflix announced a new deal with Rae for several more movies but didn’t disclose any other details. Away from Hollywood, Rae has a lucrative sponsorship with American Eagle, a top competitor to Hollister, the company backing the D’Amelios. And she has her Item Beauty line—a joint venture with makeup startup Madeby Collective—that sells its Lash Snack mascara and other products at stores like Sephora. See Full Profile. In little more than a year, Poarch’s standing has skyrocketed, making her now the third-most-followed person on the app (87 million people subscribe to her account). Her start came in August 2020 when she posted a silly lip-sync video to “M to B,” a song by a British rapper; it became the most-viewed TikTok in 2020. Born in the Philippines and later raised in Texas, she enjoyed performing and singing as a kid, but her parents didn’t want her to pursue show business. So after high school, Poarch served in the U.S. Navy as a helicopter mechanic. Her folks needn’t have worried. Sponsors love her, and in the past year she’s done ads for Google, Prada and Tinder. In May, Poarch released her first single, “Build a Bitch”—it reached No. 56 on Billboard’s pop chart—signaling what she hopes is her next phase as a musician. See Full Profile. Brands don’t mind the bro antics that fill Richards’ TikTok feed: He’s gotten sponsorship deals from Amazon, CashApp and others. His schtick makes for perfect fodder in his Barstool Sports podcast, BFFs, that he cohosts with an older version of himself, Barstool founder Dave Portnoy. (Past topics: NFTs, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, gambling, Leonardo DeCaprio.) Richards has gladly applied that party animal aura to the rest of his commercial domain. There’s his Ani energy drinks, which are now sold in chains as large as Walmart, and the venture capital firm, Animal Capital, he cofounded. The VC outfit has raised $15 million and put the money into everything from PearPop, an app where influencers can find collaborators, to Colossal, a genetic-engineering lab aiming to resurrect woolly mammoths. See Full Profile. Like Poarch, Collins is another example of how fast someone can accumulate fame and money off TikTok. Before the pandemic, Collins was a hairdresser in Vancouver. When Covid made working impossible for a time, she downloaded TikTok—largely on her brother’s suggestion—and has since put together something akin to an ongoing sketch comedy show. She plays a number of recurring characters, many of them based on family members, including her immigrant mom. It’s won her 41 million followers on TikTok, most of them amassed in the last year, and those funny routines also play well on YouTube, where she has 4.5 million subscribers. (That’s a considerable point. The usual TikTok stuff—lip syncs, dances—doesn’t transfer successfully to YouTube, which rewards longer videos with a little more depth.) Collins’ humor is family-friendly, catnip for brands such as Hershey, Lionsgate and Pantene, which have showered her with sponsorships. See Full Profile. In summer 2019, Gregg became TikTok famous as Clown Girl, posting makeup tutorials, many of which showed her as a brightly colored Harley Quinn—white contact lenses, red and blue stars covering her face. That same year, she quit her job as a lifeguard, then moved from rural Indiana to Los Angeles. In California, she was one of the original members of Hype House, the collective of influencers whose formation in December 2019 marked the beginning of TikTok’s ascension in pop culture. More recently, Gregg has snagged a role in a later season of Chicken Girls, a Web series about in which she stars as a bossy high school cheerleading captain, and starred in her own Snap show. The world cannot seem to get enough of Gregg and these other young TikTok stars: In fact, the venerable publisher Simon & Schuster has already commissioned an autobiography from Gregg. The book, which came out last February, is titled Backstory: My Life So Far. See Full Profile. Methodology We look at the top-earning stars whose fame originated first on TikTok. This leaves out other celebrities active on the app, like Will Smith and Jason DeRulo. From there, our numbers estimate what the TikTokers earned from January 1, 2021, through December 31, 2021. This is different from our debut list in 2020, which calculated earnings from July 2019 through July 2020. Another difference: That initial ranking was a snapshot of who we thought had earned a million dollars from TikTok during those 12 months. With sponsored content rates up, a million isn’t hard to do anymore, which is why this new Top 5 list requires a minimum of $4.75 million in earnings, a point several times greater than our original roll’s cutoff. | Social Media |
Local Facebook groups have supplanted local newspapers as the default source of information in many British towns, according to a report into so-called “news deserts”.The catastrophic financial collapse of the local news industry over the last two decades has destroyed the business model of local newspapers, according to the Charitable Journalism Project. Although consumers sometimes described these Facebook groups with terms such as “toxic” and “racist”, many said they provided more up-to-the-minute information than their local newspaper.Dr Steven Barclay of City, University of London, who conducted the research, said local audiences increasingly turn to online community groups, with few of the people he interviewed directly visiting their local newspaper website for the latest updates. In one example, the town of Trowbridge in Wiltshire has 44,000 residents – but more than 30,000 of them are in a single Facebook group.Barclay said a common complaint in “news deserts” is that local journalists on mainstream outlets are no longer based in the towns they cover. In the case of the Whitby Gazette, the newspaper used to have a prominent office in the Yorkshire seaside town that has now closed. “Whitby was a really classic example of a newspaper that was very widely read within the town and was part of its identity. People identified with the Gazette – they said they knew the editor of the Gazette and drank with him in the pub,” Barclay said.He said many of the people interviewed for the study were acutely aware of – and saddened by – the decline of their local news outlets. “What I found in my research is people wanted a trusted source of local news and information that’s both professional and authentically local.”In addition to Trowbridge and Whitby, the study also held focus groups in Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, Corby in Northamptonshire, Pembrokeshire in Wales, Lewisham in south London, and Tiverton in Devon. The authors found many of those interviewed missed the traditional bread-and-butter reporting about what is going on in their towns. “The new style of local journalism which had replaced it was felt to be commercialised and, on occasion, damaging and divisive,” the report said.Many for-profit local news outlets now set click targets for their reporters – with financial incentives for journalists who can maximise the number of people who are tempted by a headline.Local newspapers have also attempted to make money by posting increasingly provocative headlines on social media, which have further contributed to their declining status, while Barclay said the “flashing adverts and reams of clickbait” on some local sites undermined quality pieces of journalism.The research was backed by the Charitable Journalism Project, which aims to help local not-for-profit news outlets gain charitable status. Many of those interviewed also said local Facebook groups were incredibly efficient places for information on Covid testing or as a venue to buy or sell goods.There was also praise for the contribution of the BBC’s Local Democracy Reporter scheme for increasing coverage of local councils.Barclay said local newspapers acted as community glue. “People don’t necessarily want their local news to be big stories – they want scrutiny of local government but they also want stories about the local fete and the primary school reopened and make them feel happy about the place where they live.” | Social Media |
Social media offers multiple ways to connect with an audience—and small business owners (SBOs) know it. ADOBE STOCK Fifty-nine percent of SBOs say that improving their social media skills would be the most impactful thing they can do for their businesses, according to a recent Adobe study. But that’s easier said than done. Mikos Adams, a social media and marketing coach and an Adobe Express Ambassador, says small businesses don’t have to reinvent the wheel to drive growth on social. Being authentic, using visuals to tell a story and taking advantage of solutions like Adobe Express—a unified collection of web and mobile tools that make it easy to create and share beautiful content, from social posts and stories to invitations to marketing materials like logos, flyers and banners—can help them engage customers and convert traffic into sales. Here are Mikos’ seven tips for how small business owners can level up their social media marketing. Go Where Your Customers Are
Rather than trying to be omnipresent on social, SBOs should focus most of their time and resources on the social media platforms that naturally attract their target audience.
“Every business is different, and your approach should be centered around the places and spaces that your target audience hangs out on,” Mikos says. “There are specific platforms that are great for B2C reach. There are also platforms that are best for keeping your community up to date with what’s new. There are platforms that are perfect for B2B connections. Ultimately, it’s up to the businesses and the niche in which their ideal audience or demographic spends the majority of their time.”
Develop Your Content Pillars
A small business also needs a social media content strategy before it starts posting on a social platform. Mikos says SBOs can identify their content pillars by asking themselves these two key questions. The first: Whom am I looking to help? The second: How can I help them?
“This typically sets the ground for their elevator pitch, their marketing material and of course their content strategy,” he says.
Once you develop your content pillars, you can organize your content into four main buckets: awareness, engagement, connection and sales content.
Mikos says awareness content helps you reach new audiences. Engagement content keeps your followers interested. Connection content nurtures your audience and shows them that you’re relatable. Promotional content gets people to take action, whether it’s subscribing to your page or newsletter or buying your products or services.
Anchoring your social media strategy around these four content types can help you attract new followers and strengthen engagement with your current ones.
Start With Organic Marketing
Though SBOs may be tempted to pay for sponsored ads, Mikos says it’s better to stick to organic marketing when your business first starts out on social.
“If you do have the budget and you can make the investments, it’s always best to run paid ads after you’ve seen success or after you’ve seen that you have a good product or service that people actually enjoy,” he says. “It would be a shame to invest a lot of your budget on paid ads and your product or service isn’t really where it needs to be.”
Mikos adds that if you do have a small budget to invest in social media advertising, consider running a brand awareness campaign to see what demographics may be interested in your products or services. From there, he suggests retargeting users who have visited your website after clicking on a post or watched a minimum of 75% of your social media videos. Retargeting ads is always cheaper than running cold traffic ads in a bid to reach people who have never heard of or interacted with your brand before.
Expand Your Toolkit Unlocking creativity and making standout content can be tough. Forty-five percent of SBOs say they don’t have the time, tools or skills to bring their social ideas to life. Mikos recommends expanding your toolkit to help streamline your content production process. “I'd highly recommend taking the time to really dive in and learn an easy-to-use platform, such as Adobe Express, to create high-quality content,” Mikos says.
Adobe Express includes several features that can help small businesses create eye-catching social media content. Among them are thousands of unique, high-quality templates to kick-start the design process, 175 million licensed Adobe Stock images, 20,000 premium Adobe fonts, video and image editing features, and content scheduling capabilities. Think Visually First
Most of today’s social media platforms are visually driven. SBOs should take note.
“Business owners should definitely strive to use high-quality, creative and relevant imagery in all of their content,” Mikos says.
This is true even when you publish content like list-style posts. Rather than use a basic list format for a post headlined “5 Tips For Improving Your Productivity,” consider using an Adobe Express template to organize the tips into a carousel, Mikos says. You can use an Adobe Stock image on each of the slides to fill out the carousel and illustrate your message.
Post Consistently
Should you post every day or only a few times a week? Mikos says the right answer lies somewhere in between.
“This is definitely a question I get asked probably five to seven times a day, and my answer is always to start with what you can stay consistent with,” he says. “A lot of social media gurus will tell you, ‘You need to post three to four times a day,’ but for a lot of the small business owners, it’s just not realistic.” The numbers tell the story. Forty-two percent of SBOs say the most time-consuming aspect of digital marketing and social media is posting to and managing their channels. On average, they’re spending nine hours a week on digital marketing and social media. That’s a healthy amount of time, especially given how overscheduled SBOs can be.
Mikos says to find out what a feasible posting schedule is for your business, strategize and plan your content in advance and “stay consistent with the days and times every week so that the algorithm can pick that up and understand when and how you’re going to post. Adobe Express even has a built-in content scheduler feature that can help you plan your posts and take back your calendar.” Posting consistently will also help SBOs foster regular engagement with their customers, which Adobe research indicates is something they take seriously: Whereas 41% of SBOs value regular engagement, only 24% are seeking to “go viral” when they leverage social.
Repurpose Content That Works
Being creative on social media doesn’t mean you always have to do something new. Use analytics to help you decide what content to remix.
“Take the time to actually look at your insights and see what’s performed well over the past year, and just repurpose that. You may have had a carousel post that performed extremely well and got over 500 saves and shares. Why not repurpose that and create a motion graphic, a reel or an infographic?” Mikos says. With its vast library of templates, Adobe Express is a useful tool for making old content new again. “There are so many different ways to repurpose content, and I think that with a tool that provides templates and a lot of extra elements to make your content stand out and look different, it makes it very easy for you to repurpose content and not have to reinvent the wheel,” Mikos says.
Unlocking Your Audience On Social Media
With creativity tools like Adobe Express, you don’t need to be a world-class designer or marketer to stand out on social media. With just a few clicks, you can create captivating and shareable social media graphics and content that grows your audience—no design skills necessary. For more tips on how to unlock your creativity to grow your business using Adobe Express, check out Adobe and Meta’s new Express Your Brand program. | Social Media |
Facebook is testing new ways of organizing Facebook Groups to foster greater communication and community engagement. Meta, Facebook's parent company, said Tuesday it was rolling out "Channels," a feature it described as "focused spaces for people to connect in smaller, more casual settings within their communities."Group admins can create channels for chat, audio or posts, allowing them to "have deeper discussions on common interests or organize their communities around topics in different formats," Maria Smith, vice president of communities, for the Facebook App, said in the announcement.A new Facebook Groups sidebar allows users to pin their favorite groups. Meta Community chat channels would allow for conversations across Facebook Groups and Messenger, and can be set as open or invite-only, while audio channels let admins and members "jump in and out of audio conversations in real-time," similar to Discord. Unlike the one-off audio component that exists in Rooms, the audio channel in Groups would be a dedicated, ongoing space. Members can also turn on their cameras if they choose.Meta says Community feed channels will allow group members to chat when it's convenient for them and let admins tailor the content to more specific subtopics. The Groups menu will also highlight relevant events, shops and related channels.Facebook Groups, which claims more than 1.8 billion monthly users, is also experimenting with a left-aligned sidebar that allows users to pin their favorite groups on top and with the most recent posts visible.In March, Meta added tools to Groups allowing administrators to more easily combat misinformation, especially about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, by automatically declining any incoming post that's been rated false by one of the social media giant's third-party fact-checkers. | Social Media |
A Cleveland police officer who was once recognized as officer of the year is under investigation after he was accused of glorifying Adolf Hitler and spreading antisemitism in old social media posts that have resurfaced. The internal affairs unit of the Cleveland Division of Police and an ethics officer began investigating Officer Ismail Quran after the department was made aware of "inappropriate social media content," a police spokesperson said Tuesday."The City of Cleveland, Division of Police insists that officers provide the highest levels of professionalism and respect to all citizens," a police statement read. "Discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated." Quran was moved to administrative duties. He could not be reached at phone numbers listed for him and the police union did not immediately return a request for comment. Officer Ismail Quran received the 2019 Officer of the Year Award from the Cleveland Police.Cleveland PoliceThe alleged social media posts were dug up by Canary Mission, which documents people and organizations that spread hatred against Jewish people. Quran either deleted the posts — which date back to 2012 — or made them private. Screenshots of the posts were published online by Canary Mission. The Cleveland Division of Police confirmed to NBC News that its investigation is of the social media content posted by Canary Mission. In one Twitter post from July 14, 2014, Quran allegedly wrote, "f--- that Jew," in response to NBA player Patrick Beverley wishing good luck to Omri Casspi, an Israeli who used to play professional basketball. According to Canary Mission, Quran's tweet included a picture of Hilter with the caption: "LET ME SALUTE TO HITLER THE GREAT. He said ‘i would have killed all the jews of the world, but i kept some to show the world why i killed them.'"In another post from 2015, he allegedly tweeted: "Lol bum a-- Jew tried to intimidate me…don’t try that s--- with me."In others, he is accused of referring to Jewish people as "scumbag" and "bums," according to the screenshots. Canary Mission said it first went public with Quran's tweets in 2019, about six months after being hired. "The profile included numerous instances of severe antisemitism, all posted after Quran had completed his first Police Officer Physical Agility Exam," the organization said in a statement. Last year, the police department awarded Quran as the 2019 Officer of the Year saying at an awards ceremony that he was an "invaluable" member of the police department because he speaks multiple languages and was "instrumental" during "volatile situations where language barriers were present." It's not clear if the department was made aware of his alleged posts at the time of the ceremony. The Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association dismissed the allegations, telling Cleveland.com that the officer is an asset. 'These Tweets are from over a decade ago," president Jeff Follmer told the news outlet. "It doesn’t represent the amazing police officer that he is."Canary Mission called on Mayor Justin Bibb and other officials to "remove such a dangerous antisemite from his duty." Bibb’s office could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. Minyvonne Burke is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News. | Social Media |
Celebrities are speaking out after it was announced on Friday that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade.
The ruling marks the end of the federal protection of abortion rights after almost 50 years. The monumental change sparked celebrities to post on social media reacting to the news.
Hailey Bieber posted on her Instagram Story, “wow…I’m speechless. What an extreme loss and disappointment. This is really really scary.”
Sophie Turner posted a passionate video on her Instagram Story sharing her stance on abortion rights and gun control following the news.
“Overturning Roe v. Wade is setting us back 50 years. This isn’t going to save any lives, it’s going to kill and endanger millions of women who are going to end up getting back street abortions, dangerous back street abortions and dying from it,” she said.
Adding, “If this was actually about saving lives, if anyone cared about saving lives, then after any of the mass shootings that have happened in the United States we would have gun control.”
But Sophie isn’t the only celebrity who has strong feelings about the latest ruling, Hailey Bieber, Josh Gad, Viola Davis and more are sharing their thoughts on social media. And so it goes….Gutted. Now more than ever we have to use our voice and power! WE the people……🙏🏿🙏🏿https://t.co/8gFi0AbNSQ
— Viola Davis (@violadavis) June 24, 2022 I’m devastated.
— Keke Palmer (@KekePalmer) June 24, 2022 This is actually happening.
— shonda rhimes (@shondarhimes) June 24, 2022 America. Wake up. Stop saying “it won’t happen here.” It is happening. https://t.co/1wWX0v9isF
— Sophia Bush (@SophiaBush) June 24, 2022 This is devastating news for families – Men and women – who believe the government should not decide when and with whom they become parents. This is not the end of this fight for human rights. https://t.co/spFusnvwbF
— Elizabeth Banks (@ElizabethBanks) June 24, 2022 You don’t need 280 characters today. Just one word: Rage https://t.co/ECu46yV70L
— Josh Gad (@joshgad) June 24, 2022 This decision rocks my world. This decision is devastating. It makes me feel like we women are unprotected in every way. This court has just lit a fire, started a revolution.
— Maria Shriver (@mariashriver) June 24, 2022 People who have the money, time, and resources will still find avenues for their procedures.
But the most vulnerable of our community? What choices are those individuals, who are mostly BIPOC, left with?
This is the catalyst for a public health crisis.
— Padma Lakshmi (@PadmaLakshmi) June 24, 2022 This Supreme Court is an absolute disaster. From giving people the right to carry guns to taking away Womens rights of autonomy over their own bodies. We weren’t being reactive we saw it coming.
— Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) June 24, 2022 My thoughts on the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. pic.twitter.com/9ALSbapHDY
— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) June 24, 2022 I have nothing nice to say at this moment in time.
— Ariana DeBose (@ArianaDeBose) June 24, 2022 Not too long ago, this would have been dystopian sci-fi. But the legacy of the 2016 election and the indelible mark of the GOP is printed here in black and white. How much farther this will go once again depends on American voters. Blame extremism or apathy, but this is America: pic.twitter.com/WefAworLlW
— Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) June 24, 2022 Copyright © 2022 by NBC Universal, Inc. All Rights Reserved.This material may not be republished, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | Social Media |
The news broke just after 10 a.m., rolling out across social media accounts and newspaper home pages: constitutional protections for abortion had fallen.Lily Elwood, a Northeastern University student, said she first read the news on The New York Times’ Instagram account and reacted with dismay.“It’s disgusting. I’m not surprised at all, but it’s very upsetting,” she said. She’s worried the decision could spur the rollback of other protections such as access to contraception, she said.For anti-abortion activist Mariah McCarron, it was difficult to put her elation into words.“Oh my gosh. I’m taking it all in,” said McCarron, who is the New England regional coordinator for Students for Life of America.She was thrilled, she said, “just to know that hundreds of lives a day are going to be protected by this” and hoped that the Supreme Court’s Friday decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization would be a step toward creating “a fully abortion-free society.”Even in a liberal state like Massachusetts, the Supreme Court’s decision laid bare the ideological divide between the pro–abortion rights majority and the relatively small, but vocal anti-abortion minority.The decision was, for one side, “a devastating ruling” with pernicious national consequences, as the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts put it in a blog post Friday morning, or, for the other, a long overdue correction of “a grave and unjust abuse of judicial power” in the words of Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, the state’s leading anti-abortion group.For advocacy groups, Friday became an all-hands operation to respond to the decision and plan next steps. Jennifer Childs-Roshak, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, said in a statement that the overturn of Roe “will have devastating consequences across the country, forcing people to travel hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles for care,” adding that “abortion is health care, and access to care should not be based on one’s zip code, income level, or identity.”Some groups and civil rights lawyers raised the alarm about the disparate impacts of a rollback of abortion access across racial and socioeconomic groups.Thirteen states have trigger laws designed to make abortion completely or nearly inaccessible upon the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Pregnant women seeking an abortion may have to travel out of state to have one, creating a disproportionate burden for low-income people. Abortion bans may also disproportionately impact Black women, who as a group experience worse maternal health outcomes than other women, and also obtained legal abortions at higher rates than other groups, according to 2019 data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.For Jacob Rivas, of Brighton, the decision was an outrageous rollback of crucial rights. A little after 11 a.m. Friday, he left his job at a social services organization to hold a pro–abortion rights sign outside a Planned Parenthood on Commonwealth Avenue.“I’m not willing to stand by and allow one half of the country have their rights taken away,” he said, as passing drivers honked and waved in support.Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, acknowledged that the decision to overturn Roe will not have a significant impact on abortion access in Massachusetts. (The state’s 2020 ROE Act was a kind of mirror image of conservative states’ trigger laws, enshrining abortion protections in state law.) But she said she hoped the decision would provide the anti-abortion movement with a new opportunity to engage the public in conversation about the procedure.“Our work is just beginning,” she said in an interview before the decision came down.Maya Mudgal, another student at Northeastern, said she was “devastated” by the Supreme Court’s decision even though she knew that abortion would remain accessible in Massachusetts.“As someone who could get pregnant and as someone who doesn’t want to be pregnant, it limits the places that I will be able to live in my life,” she said. But she said she is more concerned about women less privileged than herself.“It’s really difficult to think about what other people are going to have to go through to access critical care,” Mudgal said. “This is going to hit hardest for people who already have the hardest time accessing abortions.”Correspondent Alexander Thompson contributed to this report.Mike Damiano can be reached at [email protected]. Kate Selig can be reached at [email protected]. | Social Media |
These photos of Dr. Scott Liptzin were ripped off his Instagram account and used by a scammer offering erotic massages. Photos via InstagramA “#hungandlegit” physiotherapist posing shirtless with a tub of protein powder appears to be offering naked massage sessions with “happy endings” on Grindr and Instagram—except it’s a scam.Photos and videos of Dr. Scott Liptzin, a licensed physiotherapist in Hicksville, New York, and straight married father of three, were stolen from his business Instagram account and used by scammers posing as erotic masseurs, including by a guy called “Cams” offering “a body-to-body naked session” that consists of “rimming,” “edging,” and “penetrating” through DMs on Instagram and the gay dating app Grindr.Last month, a screenshot of an Instagram video of Liptzin treating one of his clients for a shoulder injury were used by Cams’ Grindr with the message, “I don’t want to make love. i want to rub my soul against yours and watch love make us. My ultimate goal is to pleasure and satisfy you using my rubbing skill.”Liptzin was nonplussed his pics were being used but sympathized with the people being scammed. “Thankfully it doesn’t affect the business and my wife didn’t really care,” Liptzin told VICE News. “It gets me upset that somebody is copying my material for the wrong reasons.” Over the past two years, Liptzin has been made aware of seven different accounts of erotic masseurs using his photos. He said some of the Instagram accounts using his pics have more likes and views than his original posts do. “Some had over 7,000 followers and a lot more likes and views,” Liptzin said. “It’s crazy.”A screenshot from Cams' Grindr account using Liptzin's photos.Liptzin is not the only one who’s had his photos ripped off. Grindr and Instagram users across North America, Europe, and Asia have reported being catfished for years by scammers peddling fake appointments for erotic massages using social media content from actual fitness models and physiotherapists.In October 2020, Scottish Twitter user @furrycubbyfg posted screenshots of another scam account using an unknown man’s photos to sell fake erotic massages. The messages and responses in the screenshots are nearly identical to the correspondence with the scammer using Liptzin’s photos. Typically, a scammer posing as a muscled masseur starts chatting up a Grindr user, luring them in with virile photos and videos. They direct the user to continue chatting with them on Instagram, and then ask them to enter their credit card details on a different website to prepay for a massage that never happens. Cams charged $50 for a 30-minute Nuru massage session, $80 for an hour, and $100 for 90 minutes, with an additional $3 reservation fee. A few hours after VICE News notified Instagram’s parent company Meta of an active Instagram account using Liptzin’s photos, several Instagram accounts were reviewed and disabled for violating the company’s authenticity policies, according to a Meta spokesperson. “We have various systems in place that help us catch and remove suspicious activity before it is reported,” the spokesperson said. “It is an ongoing effort that we’re committed to continuously improving over time.” Within the first three months of 2022, a spokesperson for Meta claims they have “actioned 1.6 billion fake accounts” on their platforms, mostly nabbed using AI specifically created “to proactively detect and remove fake accounts.” The company encourages users to report accounts that may be impersonating others within the Instagram app or through an online form, although Instagram users have long pointed out issues with this process. A Grindr spokesperson asked for screenshots of the fake account so it could investigate and confirmed the platform had banned all of the accounts using Liptzin’s photos, including the one in question. “Grindr takes the privacy and safety of our users extremely seriously,” the spokesperson said in an email. “We encourage our users to report improper or illegal behavior either within the app or directly via email… and to report criminal allegations to local authorities.”Liptzin said the scam accounts have sprung up so frequently that taking the time to get them removed is a waste of time. “Instagram needs to get a better handle on all of the fake bots. It’s just got so out of control that it’s beyond anything they could do or care about at this point,” he said.But Liptzin said he won’t let the scammers deter him from using Instagram. “A lot of my clients have come through the massage work content I post; that’s how I create a lot of business,” he said. “It obviously works.”Follow Nathan Sing on Twitter.Get the latest from VICE News in your inbox. Sign up right here.By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content. | Social Media |
The UK's communications regulator is calling on young people to help protect each other by reporting harmful content online.Ofcom says two-thirds of youngsters aged between 13 and 17 see harmful content online but only 16% report it.
As it waits for the government's Online Safety Bill to go through parliament, it has called on young people to help tackle online harms themselves.At Soap Box Youth Centre in Islington, north London, Sky News met a group of young people all involved in digital creation.Within seconds of going on their social media platforms, harmful content appears: a racist post about 'white power'; critical messages about body image; fake promises; disinformation and a video of police brutally arresting a 16-year-old. "There's always a lot of violence on social media," says Braulio Chimbembe. "I saw one video where someone was getting shot which takes the innocence from children."
"That stuff shouldn't be on social media and shouldn't be so easily accessible." But Braulio says reporting it isn't always effective: "I think the person has to be reported twice before anything actually gets done."Marcus Austin agrees: "I've seen footballers completely insulted on social media and nothing really happens."His friend Joshua Lyken adds: "You think it's normal after a while so you're not going to really report it or tell someone about it, it just becomes normal to you."Ofcom says the most common online potential harms encountered by young users include generally offensive or bad language (28%), misinformation (22%), unwelcome friend or follow requests (21%), trolling (17%), bullying, abusive behaviour and threats (14%), content depicting violence (14%), and hateful, offensive or discriminatory content that targets a group based on specific characteristics (14%).It says more than three quarters (77%) of those who were bothered or offended enough took some form of action, the most common being unfollowing, unfriending or blocking the poster or perpetrator, and clicking the report or flag button or marking it as junk, 51% said nothing had happened since doing reporting the content. A fifth (21%) said that the content had been removed. Image: The Soap Box Youth Centre in Islington "If there's a fake page and someone's not happy about it and they ask me to report it then yeah, I report it," says Michelle Akpata."Someone can always create another account and minutes later message you again," says Coltrane Chead, warning that often reporting incidents does not bring an end to online threats.Ofcom says not all potentially harmful online content or behaviour has the same degree of negative impact. Some potential harms may have a negative impact that is cumulative while some people may have become desensitised to it after repeated exposure.The findings come as the Online Safety Bill continues to make its way through parliament. Ofcom will enforce the new laws, and has already started regulating video sharing platforms established in the UK - such as TikTok, Snapchat and Twitch."Platforms already have systems and processes in place to keep users safe," explains Ofcom's online safety principal Anna-Sophie Harling."User flagging tools are an option that are already available. We know that platforms use proactive content moderation to find harmful content and remove it, but we don't know enough about how well it's working."There are going to be really important changes coming in. Platforms will have to do things like risk assessments on products, they'll have to produce transparency reports and publish data." Image: Molly Russell was exposed to harmful digital content In 2017, Ian Russell's teenager daughter Molly took her own life after being exposed to harmful digital content. He wants to see urgent improvements in the way digital content is regulated."It's really important that something changes because the period of self-regulation that tech platforms have enjoyed, obviously hasn't worked," Mr Russell told Sky News."Nearly five years ago we lost our youngest daughter Molly who seemed a very normal, lovely, adorable young person with such a bright future in front of her."Somehow she was persuaded to think that she was worthless and life ahead of her was worthless. I could never understand how someone with so much potential thought that. And it wasn't long before we looked at what she'd been looking at on her social media accounts and what we saw shocked us because she'd been exposed to harmful digital content that I have no doubt helped kill my daughter." | Social Media |
In April 2021, athletes and several sports such as football, cricket, rugby union and rugby league joined a four-day boycott of social media in an attempt to tackle abuse and discrimination on their platformsHomophobia is responsible for a large portion of abuse aimed at footballers and basketballers in the men's and women's game, according to a new report.Of more than 1,500 abusive posts included in the report, homophobic abuse was 40% of posts targeted at male footballers, 27% of that sent to female football players, 46% of the abuse aimed at male basketballers and 19% of that posted to female basketball players.Messages directed at the athletes also included racism, sexism and ableism.The joint report into online abuse and its impact on performance and mental well-being was conducted by AI company Signify, for FifPro, the NBPA and the WNBPA, which are the global unions representing male and female athletes in football and basketball.It described the 1,558 abusive posts sent from 1,455 unique accounts as "shocking". The posts were taken from social media platform Twitter for five months between May and September 2021 and directed at 160 of the most high-profile male and female footballers and basketball players across the biggest leagues in Europe, the United States and South America.The report focused on "targeted online abuse" - messages that were directed at or include the account handle of a player so the player may see it and "suffer the impact of the abusive content".The report says its research shows "the horrific, targeted and sometimes criminal abuse that affects players across sports and gender, in both their workplace and family environment".Fifa study of Euros & Afcon finds half of all players abused online; Saka & Rashford most targetedWhat are the key stats and facts? 648 abusive tweets were aimed at players from the NBA, 427 from men's football, 398 from women's football and 85 from women's basketball.85% of abuse sent to male footballers was racist and/or homophobic with 90% of tweets to female players having sexist and/or homophobic content.In men's basketball 74% of the abuse was racist and/or homophobic while four out of five instances of WNBPA abuse contained sexually explicit or harassing messaging.The report says "the most prominent accounts that drew attention to players, and then saw them suffer abuse, were those of the players' own teams or competition organisers".Barcelona was the account most mentioned alongside players; with England's national team the second highest.'Homophobia a unique aspect of abuse'The report outlines how the abusive homophobic messages were "unique" in men's football, because they were targeted at players who are not known to be gay."They are often targeted either for their support of LGBT issues or for perceptions of their behaviour or character," says the report. "Players in the study who have expressed solidarity for LGBT issues received a torrent of homophobic abuse."There were also "hostile interrogations of their sexuality" towards players based on what style of clothes they were pictured wearing.The report detailed the most abused male footballer, who is not named, received "exclusively LGBT-phobic abuse" due to his support for the community. The report anonymised the 160 athletes' accounts - but they include many of the most high profile athletes in their sports.Sexism also accounted for 63% of abuse in the women's game - meaning sexism and homophobia accounted for 90% of targeted messages aimed at female players.The report said: "Political stances and social or sexual identities also make players particularly vulnerable to targeted abuse."It added that 29% of women's players received online abuse because of "political stances or sexual identity" as opposed to in-game events or incidents. Homophobia is an issue within basketball too, amounting to 46% of abuse directed at male players and 19% of that sent to female players. Sexist abusive posts to WNBA players were the highest proportion (44%).How does the abuse impact the players? Athletes' mental well-being, lifestyle and performance were all affected by the abuse, the report says, adding that it "attacks the characters and personalities of players and forces them to hide and withdraw from who they are and want to be".Players can also be targeted for abuse by followers of their own team accounts, sponsors, competition organisers and media outlets.Safety measures are often missing, the report claims, and it highlights how a "clear majority" of abuse can still be found online which "exposes a lack of regulation and oversight".What are the recommendations?The three unions say "industrial action" is required to protect players - which could include a combined campaign to raise awareness about the issue, rather than a strike or further boycotts of platforms.Last year leading sports boycotted social media as they called on social media companies to combat abuse on their platforms. A separate report by Signify showed a drop in abuse was followed by a significant rise in May 2021 as the football season reached its conclusion. Jonathan Hirshler, Signify CEO, said: "We're confident that we will start to see more proactive, real-world solutions protecting players from the poison of online abuse."In response to the report - which has not yet been seen by Twitter - a spokesperson for the social media platform said: "We are committed to combating abuse motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance and as outlined in our hateful conduct policy. "We do not tolerate the abuse or harassment of people on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or sexual orientation. "Today, more than 50% of violative content is surfaced by our automated systems, further reducing the burden on individuals to report abuse. "While we have made recent strides in giving people greater control to manage their safety, we know there is still work to be done."Terri Carmichael Jackson, WNBPA executive director, added that the report was "critical" in order for everyone to understand the "scope" of the abuse and its impacts.She added that everyone needs to move forward together to "protect our athletes" so they feel "safe to share their genuine personalities and voices on these social media platforms with fans and business partners alike".Additional reporting by Sarah Rendell | Social Media |
Instagram has deleted some posts and limited at least two hashtags related to abortion services, according to some of the platform’s users and warnings that have been added to certain topics.The platform also briefly suspended and then reinstated an account belonging to an abortion services location platform.NBC News found that searches for two terms and hashtags related to abortion pills — prescribed pills that can be taken to induce abortion and are still available for mail order in all 50 states from overseas providers — returned almost no new posts, indicating that the company is limiting what users can see.Unlike normal searches on Instagram, searches for “abortion pills” and “mifepristone” (a popular abortion pill) on Monday did not immediately yield results. On the hashtags for the same terms, a message was displayed that recent posts with the tags “are hidden because some posts may not follow Instagram’s Community Guidelines.” The note does not specify what guidelines have been violated, and it’s not clear when Instagram began limiting the hashtags.The limitations placed on the hashtags mean that the most recent posts with the tags, which are usually found in a separate tab, aren’t available for users to see. For anyone searching for up-to-date information on the hashtag pages, that means they will have to scroll through older, more-liked posts first, including anti-abortion posts. Dave Arnold, a public affairs director at Instagram’s parent company, Meta, referred NBC News to a tweet from Meta communications director Andy Stone, which pointed to the company’s “regulated goods” policy. Stone wrote: “Content that attempts to buy, sell, trade, gift, request or donate pharmaceuticals is not allowed. Content that discusses the affordability and accessibility of prescription medication is allowed. We’ve discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these.” Later on Monday, after this article was originally published, Instagram unblocked the “abortion pills” and “mifepristone” hashtags.Tech news website Motherboard reported Monday that Facebook, another Meta-owned platform, is also restricting certain posts about abortion pills and resources. Instagram hid recent posts on certain abortion resource hashtags.InstagramOther posts and hashtags about abortion pill resources remain intact on the platform, including posts that direct users to abortion pill resources and information.Along with the restricted hashtags, two abortion resource organizations and at least a dozen users on social media have claimed that Instagram is removing posts about abortion. Journalist Meira Gebel said Instagram removed several posts she made about abortion and birth control following the repeal of Roe v. Wade, citing unspecified violations of the platform’s community guidelines. In one post that she says was removed, Gebel offered a place to stay to people from out of state who might be seeking an abortion in Washington, where Gebel lives. In another post that was removed, Gebel wrote that she had access to birth control pills should they one day be criminalized in certain states. Abortion access platform Abortion Finder said its Instagram page was suspended Sunday morning. According to screenshots posted on the Abortion Finder Twitter account, Instagram cited Meta’s restricted goods policy, which prohibits “Attempts to buy, sell, trade, co-ordinate the trade of, donate, gift or asks for non-medical drugs.” Following an appeal of the suspension and a viral tweet about it, the platform’s account was restored. Rachel Fey, vice president of abortion access group Power to Decide, which created Abortion Finder, said the suspension came after a surge of attention to the service fueled by celebrity endorsements and the inclusion of Abortion Finder on a new Biden administration website devoted to abortion resources.A woman protests outside the Supreme Court in Washington on Saturday, the day after it overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision.Hannah Beier for NBC News“It was so frustrating to see that site go down at a time when laws were just still changing that morning and wanting people on Instagram to know that they could go to abortionfinder.org,” said Fey, who noted that the site saw a 1,000% increase in clinic searches following Friday’s Supreme Court decision.Meta has previously faced criticism for how it’s handled abortion pill resource content. In August, days before Texas’ six-week abortion ban was scheduled to go into effect, Instagram suspended the account for Plan C, which provides information about abortion pills. Plan C’s account access was eventually restored. In May, following the leaked Supreme Court draft of the decision that would repeal Roe v. Wade, Instagram suspended the account for Aid Access, a group that connects individuals with telehealth providers of abortion pills. The account was eventually restored, and Meta said in a statement to Mother Jones that the removal was a mistake.Ben Goggin is the deputy editor for technology at NBC News Digital. | Social Media |
LOS ANGELES — YouTube? That's so three years ago.VidCon, the biggest convention for social media creators and their fans, is back this week with a new official partner, TikTok, signaling just how much has changed since the event was last held in person in 2019. Thousands will be crowding the Anaheim Convention Center beginning on Wednesday.In years past YouTube was the primary partner of VidCon, the brainchild of veteran YouTubers John and Hank Green. Since it was first held in 2010, thousands of fans have flocked to Southern California to hear from and meet their favorite YouTube creators, sometimes even stampeding through the convention center doors to be the first inside. But this year marks a turning point for VidCon. With TikTok tapped as the official partner of the convention for the first time, the featured creators roster mostly includes people who got their big break on TikTok, not YouTube (NBCUniversal News Group is a sponsor of VidCon).The gathering will resemble more of a “Who’s who?” of TikTok creators, video game streamers, video essayists and micro-influencers.VidCon traditionally has been a cultural touchstone for internet celebrities. Early iterations of the conference hosted mega-stars like Jenna “Marbles” Mourey and Shane Dawson. There are about 350 featured creators this year. Among the biggest names are Charli D’Amelio and Khaby Lame — the two most-followed creators on TikTok — as well as MrBeast, a YouTuber with nearly 100 million subscribers known for high production value, big budgets and flashy charity efforts. Niche creators will also have the spotlight, with personalities like biologist Forrest Valkai (renegadescienceteacher) and news host V. Spehar (underthedesknews) leading programming. Some creators will attend VidCon as industry leaders as well. Hyram Yarbro, who started as a TikTok skincare guru before launching his own line, is scheduled to speak on a panel about creator-founded brands. Zaria Parvez, the social media manager behind Duolingo's viral TikTok account, will lead a discussion on Gen Z marketing. Previous conferences have drawn in attendances of over 75,000, and the virtual programming VidCon adopted during its hiatus had an estimated 1.2 million unique attendees, Variety reported. This year’s conference, which will take place June 22 through June 25, will include a hybrid of in-person and livestream programming, the latter of which is included in VidCon’s year-round subscription service.Like many events, VidCon, initially set to return in 2021, was canceled for a second year after a rise in Covid cases. This year's VidCon marks the first time some creators get to meet one another — and their fans — in person since racking up millions of followers in quarantine. But IRL meet-and-greets pose a new challenge for this class of content creators and influencers: authenticity and socialization. “It’s trying to remember how to convention, how to interact,” said Shane Tilton, the Irene Casteel Endowed Chair in Education, Professional and Social Sciences at Ohio Northern University, and the author of “Meme Life.” “Seeing how people connect is going to be the most telling thing,” he said.Tilton said fans could be looking for creators to appear as their online personas, and may be seeking the authenticity of those creators, which could be a hurdle for some who have never met their followers ahead of the convention. He said there could be some creators who turn out to be “milkshake ducks,” a term meaning something that seems like a good thing but ultimately is bad.But when it comes to interacting with other creators, he anticipates a hotbed of new content will be born out of the networking and socializing that will happen in Anaheim. “You’ll see more trends, more hashtags, more work," Tilton said. "... In the coming weeks, what are the trends that are going to emerge because people were at VidCon?” Kalhan Rosenblatt is a reporter covering youth and internet culture for NBC News, based in New York.Morgan Sung is a trends reporter for NBC News Digital.Kat Tenbarge is a tech and culture reporter for NBC News Digital. | Social Media |
Getty Images A new White House task force aimed at combating online harassment and abuse will convene for its first meeting Thursday, bringing together officials across the administration to address growing concerns around online hate and the connection to gender-based violence. The task force is being launched by Vice President Harris and will be co-chaired by the Gender Policy Council and the National Security Council, the White House announced. Recent mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas, highlighted the link between online harassment and extremist acts, an administration official said. In both cases, the gunmen were reported to have posted hateful content and laid out plans for their attacks online ahead of the shootings. Within 180 days, the task force will provide service recommendations for how the federal government, private sector and civil society can better combat online harassment and abuse. The task force will not be focused on particular platforms, but rather the role of platforms and social media more generally, administration officials said. The effort aims to tackle health and violence concerns stemming from online harassment and abuse. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy will both be at Thursday’s inaugural meeting. Tennis champion Sloane Stephens, who has spoken publicly about the harassing messages she received after exiting the US Open, will also be in attendance. The launch of the task force comes after the administration last month separately suspended plans for a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) disinformation board weeks after it was announced, following fierce pushback from Republicans and civil rights groups alike. Administration officials said they are mindful of First Amendment issues in launching the new task force, but said the group is particularly focused on online activities that are illegal conduct, including cyber stalking or the distribution of non-consensual intimate images or targeted harassment. Tags Harris Merrick Garland online abuse online harassment sexual harrassment Sloane Stephens | Social Media |
Residents in the San Diego area took to social media after mysterious lights were spotted in the sky just off the coast Monday night.With no clear indication of what the lights could be, dozens began posting photos and videos on Twitter, questioning what was happening in their night sky.The posts offered several possible sources for the unusual lights, including UFOs or drones from the Imperial Beach Police Department, which is planning a drone light show for the Fourth of July.However, the IBPD did not claim the lights as their own.The San Diego Police Department told ABC News on Tuesday morning that the mysterious lights were actually flares being used for military exercises.While nearby Naval Air Station North Island and Camp Pendleton both said that they did not know what the lights were, the SDPD said that the lights had been confirmed to them by military officials as being used for exercises.Gabe Gunlock, a Mission Hills resident, took to Twitter with a video of the lights.Gunlock told ABC News that he did a double take around 9 p.m. on Monday night, noticing strange, bright lights far off the coast.He explained that he lives right near the airport in the area, so there are always planes and lights near his home.However, he said there was something different about the lights he saw off of the coast.A set of pulsating lights were spotted hovering in the sky in Sand Diego, Calif., on June 27, 2022, as seen in an image taken from a video posted on Twitter.Gabe Gunlock/TwitterAt 9:55 p.m., Gunlock tweeted, “Multiple floating lights over the ocean. Very still, very bright. Orange, reddish light. Patterns of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6,” alongside a video of distant blinking lights.Gunlock said that his Twitter post quickly gained views, with other San Diego locals acknowledging the lights and wondering what they were.“It was a super crazy night, super fun to connect with San Diego,” Gunlock told ABC News.Gunlock added that his post now has over 100,000 impressions on Twitter.“All I wanted to know is, ‘what’s going on,’” he said. “It had to be miles and miles off of the coast, it was burning extremely bright.”When Gunlock heard that the lights were from military exercises, he said that it made sense that they weren’t from the airport, especially because they were so strikingly bright.San Diego is home to several military bases, with more than 100,000 active duty service members in the area.Over 15,000 active duty service members transition out of active duty service in San Diego each year. According to Thomas Jefferson School of Law, over half of those transitioning out of active duty decide to stay in San Diego, where there is a deep community of over 240,000 veterans.San Diego, home to 60% of the ships in the fleet of the U.S. Navy and one third of all active duty service members in the U.S. Marine Corps, could have more mysterious lights in the sky for its civilian neighbors in the future. | Social Media |
"Anyone's" Fingerprints Can Influence Marketing Getty Images Once, marketing was a centralized function and the chief marketer had effectively singular control over brand strategy, image, communication, activation, and destiny. Those days are gone. Now, on any given day, at any given moment, any given anyone can influence the trajectory of a brand and business. One tweet, one TikTok, one thing said—or unsaid—that captures the imagination or indignation of the socially connected can out-message even the most strategically brilliant, well-executed and integrated campaign. Those individuals once collectively defined as “consumers,” “customers,” or “colleagues” now—intentionally or not—are creators, collaborators, amplifiers, distributors, critics, obstacles, the makers and breakers of brands and purchase decisions. Today, anyone can be an influencer. It’s for this reason that we name “Anyone” the unofficial number one on this 10th anniversary edition of the Forbes World’s Most Influential CMOs list, an embodiment of a decade of change. We do this neither as a gimmick, nor homage to the rationale behind Time’s 2006 Person Of The Year being named as “you.” And we most definitely do not intend to detract from the accomplishments of the chief marketers being recognized on this year’s list. To the contrary, we do it to acknowledge that today’s CMO confronts challenges that are unprecedented, ever-proliferating, and that were unimaginable even just a decade ago—requiring them to reconsider old tools, learn new ones, and perpetually adapt to perpetual change, something we think their CEOs and CFO CFO s would do well to remember. While this inexorable shift in a chief marketer’s influence and control didn’t begin with social media, it has absolutely been accelerated and codified by it, playing out over the decade since Forbes first measured CMO influence in 2012. Despite massive change what remains unchanged is that attention remains the table stakes of influence. When a 16-year-old you’ve never heard of has a bigger social platform and megaphone than almost any brand you’ve ever heard of, marketers must think differently about the relationship between brand and audience. Because not only can the social megaphone mitigate (or, on good days, amplify) the impact of a marketing budget, it serves to remind us, again, that marketing’s message control has been diluted, distributed, and can be usurped—for better or worse—in a moment, by anyone and an algorithm. On any given day, without regard to marketing calendars, campaigns or plans, a Nathan Apodoca can find himself having to skateboard to work because his truck, with 330,000 miles on it, broke down. In a moment, he grabs his board and a bottle of Ocean Spray, and films himself skating to work, lip syncing a Fleetwood Mac track. Getting to work, he posts a video he made on a whim to TikTok, where it goes viral, influencing the sales of both Ocean Spray and “Dreams.” Consider that 3 weeks ago, something inspired someone to tweet an ode to his love of Diet Coke, where in days it was retweeted nearly 50,000 times and “liked” over half a million. Consider that a Peloton bike misused in an HBO series created almost a week’s worth of cultural conversation and call and response—requiring the company’s CMO, Dara Treseder, this year’s official number one on the Forbes list, to respond immediately and in a variety of ways to protect brand and business. Consider that 19% of Spotify users planned to cancel their subscriptions after CEO Daniel Ek left Joe Rogan on the platform. Consider that when a Delta customer service rep on Twitter who asks a customer to “calm down” because they need more time to work it becomes media fodder that does little to reinforce the brand’s “supporting you through your travel journey” positioning. Again, on any given day in any given moment, any given anyone can influence the trajectory of a brand and business. And while marketers can either embrace this or try to hold it off, the latter being the marketing equivalent of tilting at windmills, this is why “anyone” is this year’s unofficial number one. This bottom-up exercise of influence, however unintentional it may sometimes be, stands in stark contrast to the literally top-down etymological origins of the word “influence” which, in the 14th century, defined it as a "streaming ethereal power from the stars when in certain positions, acting upon character or destiny of men." That anyone now has the potential to (and whether intentionally or not) influence what used to be the CMO’s alone will only become more so in a decentralized Web3 world and marketing landscape, and as “headless brands” emerge both literally and figuratively. When influence over brand and purchase destiny is in the hands and typing fingers of anyone, it requires Chief-marketers to think about—and ultimately deploy—their influence over same differently, and perhaps to think about “engagement” differently. Because in the absence of control, influence on anyone may increasingly be all marketers—and CMOs—have.
So, as we raise a proverbial glass to the unofficial “anyone,” let’s raise another to the official fifty CMOs, who continue to find ways to establish and exert their influence despite anyone else’s.
~ Seth Matlins, Managing Director, Forbes CMO Network | Social Media |
Job IntroductionIt is a really exciting time to join the Reach family. Due to our sustained growth and our ambitious future growth plans, we are now looking for a Social Media Editor to join our social team.As a Social Media Editor, you will be managing social accounts for Reach’s Nation brands - the Mirror, Daily Star Daily Express and OK! Magazine to drive web traffic, maximise engagement and increase brand awareness.So, who are we?We are Reach Plc, you might not have heard of us but we have probably met without you even realising it. We are home to the UK and Ireland’s most iconic digital platforms, magazines and newspapers. From the Mirror, Daily Express and OK!, to our regional titles such as the Liverpool Echo, BirminghamLive and the Manchester Evening News (plus lots more), our brands and the stories we cover are as varied as our people. We help all kinds of people share experiences through our stories because we believe this is what makes us human.Oh, and we should probably also mention that with a monthly readership of 47 million people, Reach is the largest commercial publisher in the UK. At Reach, not only will you feel better understood, you will also feel you understand other people better too.This role is home and hub based linked to our London Hub. We are therefore open to candidates based in and around London. Key ResponsibilitiesWhat will the role involve?Find and pitch stories using analytics and tools to tell you what’s already trending, as well as finding the next big stories yourselfEdit and post stories and videos on our social pagesCome up with new creative ways to drive traffic to our sites and grow our audiencesForward plan social media content and coverageCreate best practice guidance for the newsroomCover live events and breaking news on social mediaMonitor the competitive landscape to identify trends - and communicate findingsShare knowledge and best practice across the business, but particularly in the newsroomWork in team managing Reach PLC’s social media feeds and messagesHelp to ensure Reach PLC content is getting maximum referrals from social mediaAssist with product testing of new social media developmentsThis position will have some weekend working so a flexible approach is required Package DescriptionWhat can we offer you?We are offering a competitive salary and benefits including;Help saving for your retirement - join our pension scheme and we’ll match contributions up to 6%25 days’ holiday per year when you join. After three, five and ten years’ service with Reach, you’ll accrue one additional day of annual leave. We also have a Holiday Purchase SchemeGiving back day - an additional day’s leave each year to support a cause close to your heartEnhanced family leave - including maternity, paternity and adoption - and you’ll be eligible after just six months’ employmentPrivate Healthcare Cash Plan - free health cash plan so you can claim back cash for a range of medical expensesAs one of the UK’s top 50 Inclusive Employers everyone’s invited to join our events, programmes and networks to celebrate diversity and build an environment where all our people can thriveWellbeing support - including a 24/7 assistance programme for you and your nearest and dearest, a free subscription to mindfulness app Headspace and access to free mental health coaching through SanctusAwesome career opportunities - you’ll have support from your line manager and a range of learning & development programmesWe are also a member of the 30% Club, a global campaign aimed at increasing gender diversity at board and senior management levels Reach plc believes diversity brings benefits for our customers, our business and our people. This is why we are committed to being an inclusive employer and encourage applications from all suitable applicants irrespective of background, circumstances, age, disability, gender identity, ethnicity, religion or belief and sexual orientation. | Social Media |
By Liv McMahonTechnology teamImage source, Getty ImagesInstagram is exploring new ways for teenagers to verify their age and comply with platform rules.The Meta-owned app is testing video selfies with facial analysis software as a new age-verification method.Some users on Instagram try to skirt its 13+ age rule by editing their date of birth to make them appear over 18.But US teens attempting this will now be given three ways to verify age: upload ID, ask three adult users to vouch for them or take a video selfie.Meta says it hopes the new methods will ensure teens have an "age-appropriate experience" on Instagram. The tech giant has previously faced criticism over teen and child safety on its platforms. Several US states probed Instagram last year over children's experiences on the photo-sharing app, in response to leaks from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. Will Gardner OBE, chief executive of Childnet and director of the UK Safer Internet Centre, says the trial is encouraging: "The potential is there to try and help protect children from content which isn't for them and make their internet experience more age-appropriate." 5Rights Foundation, a UK organisation campaigning for child safety in the digital environment, says such efforts are "long overdue".Platforms must "leave behind the 'don't look don't see attitude' that has led to millions of children being put at risk", 5Rights says. "Simply knowing the age of your users is not enough."Parents and guardians of teen Instagram users were given additional tools to supervise their child's experience on Instagram earlier this month. They can now set up time limits and view details of any reports their child makes on the platform.Teens will also be "nudged" to look at other content if repeatedly viewing the same topics on Instagram's explore page, and encouraged to "take a break" if continuously scrolling through reels.Video selfies and social vouchingVideo selfies have become a popular way for digital platforms - such as online banking apps - to verify users' age or identity. Instagram currently uses video selfies as one way account holders can verify their identity if they get locked out of their account. Meta has partnered with UK digital identification provider Yoti, whose technology estimates age by analysing human faces and facial features.Yoti says its algorithm, trained on anonymous people's facial images and their date of birth, cannot individually identify users or anything about them, except their age. Its latest white paper, published in May, said the technology was accurate for six to 12-year-olds with an error range of 1.36 years - and an error range of 1.52 years for 13 to 19-year-olds. Meta says both companies will delete the image once a user's age has been confirmed. Meanwhile, social vouching allows users to ask three mutual followers to confirm their age. Those being asked to confirm how old a user is must be at least 18, and cannot be vouching for any other users at the time. Dr Ysabel Gerrard, lecturer in digital media and society at the University of Sheffield, says Instagram's new age-verification methods are a welcome addition to just asking users to upload ID. But she says relying on age-verification tools as a way to protect young people online can overlook why they actually try to create adult accounts in the first place. "A lot of them are saying they're 18 on Instagram not to do bad things or view bad content," Dr Gerrard says."Being technically registered as an adult makes them feel safe because they don't think they're going to be targeted."For Dr Gerrard, Instagram's new verification mechanisms raise larger questions about what helps children to feel safe on social media platforms."Pretending to be an adult is one of them. It's a harsh reality, but we can't pretend it's not happening." | Social Media |
Steve Lewer has been drawing since he was 12. Now an ICU nurse in Melbourne, Australia, he makes RPG- and D&D-themed pixel art to unwind. Occasionally, he would charge $10 or so for a commission. Then he took his work to Twitter. “Twitter has been responsible for the majority of all the commission requests I've received,” he tells me. “I started off doing $15 drawings of D&D characters and now have reached a point where I can charge up to $300 for a piece.” And while he does not take commissions very often, because of his full-time job and the labor-intensive nature of his art, he credits this career boost to Twitter, not Instagram, Tumblr, or TikTok.Open Twitter on any given day and you'll find that visual art generates engagement. On May 8, @frivolousknight, who has north of 11,000 followers, posted a pixel-art portrait of an armor-clad knight that has more than 400 retweets and more than 5,000 likes. The same day, @elioliart, an account owned by twins Elena and Olivia Ceballos, posted a panel from their cosmic-themed webcomic The Moon and Me, which has generated more than 900 retweets and more than 12,000 likes. Original art aside, art history accounts and accounts that curate feeds of classic art fare just as well: On May 5, the Gustav Klimt Bot posted Klimt's classicized early work Allegory of Sculpture, and it has picked up nearly 600 retweets and more than 4,000 likes.Beneath Twitter's reputation as a shitposter's heaven, art lovers often prefer it to platforms that promote other forms of content (like Instagram, which pivoted away from photos and art to video, chasing TikTok’s success), and artists use it as a portfolio and work-in-progress platform to showcase everything from drawings and pixel art to vector-based illustration and video game development. It doesn’t, however, substitute traditional portfolios, which artists still tend to keep as a more “permanent” showcase on platforms such as Behance or on their own website domains.Colorado-based engineer Andrei Taraschuk, who created a series of art-historical bots that share art of specific artists or institutions on Twitter, sees it as part of a shift toward a visual way to convey information. "I don’t think it’s just Twitter. Information is increasingly shared by visual modalities," he says. "That creates more opportunities for artists to get their work seen and, hopefully, bought: I think Twitter will continue to be a more text-heavy medium, as opposed to Instagram, but more and more, people expect to see the visual arts to communicate." On that note, he praised Twitter's image-optimization efforts, including the meme-friendly grid and the option of having an alt text.In general, social media has been crucial in connecting independent artists to wider audiences. "I think social media has played a crucial role in making the work of independent visual artists accessible to the general public," says Esther Goh, an illustrator based in Singapore. "You don't necessarily need an agent or gallery to represent you in order to build a career if you target the right audience."Chelsea Faust, a pixel artist based in the US Midwest, noticed that Twitter works better as a community-building tool compared to Instagram, which at first glance might appear a more apt medium for sharing art. Twitter “rewards interactions,” she says. “I use Instagram for basically a gallery, as most interactions on there are shallow due to how the social platform works, unfortunately.”Part of the reason behind Twitter’s success as a home for artists is structural: Twitter allows users to post up to four images, which can each illustrate one detail of a piece or highlight different stages of a work in progress. Unlike Instagram, where reels and short videos end up being a full-screen user experience, it integrates animations seamlessly in the timeline and feed, both as gifs and as short movies, which makes it particularly attractive to game developers and animators. This is the case for Isaiah Toth, a full-stack web developer who also works on the indie title No More Fathers, an adventure game full of lush landscapes and sweeping environments. "I have attempted Reddit and TikTok, but Reddit's audience was pretty rough," he says. "And TikTok took forever to set up then wouldn’t let me upload … so I gave up on it for now." On Twitter, he says, Toth found a community of fellow developers who are eager to share feedback and help one another.Twitter is also easier for artists to see patterns and figure out what will generate the most interest or engagement for their work. "Twitter users love colors, they like well-known pieces, and they like dynamic pieces," Taraschuk says.Toth notices patterns in which his work resonates with viewers as well. "People love animals: I showed off some highland cattle one time and it blew up," he says. "Another great post type is often grass, clouds, or some other environment. Shaders are big to share, but I think primary game mechanics that look smooth and fun also blow up.”Some chalk it up to escapism. "I think the more details you have, and also showing your process gets more views," said Gregory Fromenteau, principal art director at Behaviour Interactive by day and a surrealist illustrator specializing in whimsical animals and architecture in his off time. “Whimsical pictures tend to get more audience too,” he says. “People need to dream during these difficult times.”This, however, does not automatically translate into a quest for perfection. "Work-in-progress pictures also often get more likes than the finished product," says Lewer. "This is a meme amongst artists."With Elon Musk’s bid to take over Twitter, there is widespread concern about what the platform will look like and what content will be allowed. Still, the artists surveyed expressed their intention to keep using Twitter, also because they feel like they know how to harness the community-building tools. "I would tell anyone to look into specifically what they hate about Twitter and try to mold the platform to be more welcoming to them: Use blocklists, mute words," says Faust. "If this can't be done then it may be best to just not use Twitter at all, even if you feel like you need it."Still, there are tangible rewards to be found on social media, especially on Twitter, and they do go beyond being able to charge more after developing a following than you used to, as Lewer is able to. For some artists, it’s a way to make a little money from their passion, or just to engage with it and their fans at all. "I do find that social media is integral," says Faust. "This is primarily because I am a highly introverted person, and it provides me with a way to get my work out there without having to attend events to network." Fromenteau, who wants to keep his illustration career separate from his day job, found work through social media too. "I did some pieces for private collectors. I did not expect to do it, but when I have a good connection and the request makes sense to me, I'm happy to make it happen," he says.In the end, though, even those who don’t share their art or curate art-themed accounts still benefit from the presence of art on Twitter, and that goes beyond potential patrons scouting talent for commissions. "People love to see art pop up in their feeds," observed Taraschuk. "For many, it feels like a small refuge in an otherwise adversarial space. It doesn’t require people to defend their views or read bad news; it simply asks people to make a moment and admire beauty." | Social Media |
Laurence Fox returned to Twitter on Monday after receiving a temporary ban from the social media platform. The actor was restricted from posting following updating his profile picture to an image of a swastika made from pride flagsVideo LoadingVideo UnavailableLaurence Fox mocks supposed 'woke culture' in UK in 2021Laurence Fox received a temporary ban from Twitter over the weekend after he changed his profile picture to that of a swastika made out of four LGBTQ+ pride flags. The former actor, 44, saw his account temporarily locked after Twitter found the image violated their rules regarding abusive profile information and rules against posting hateful imagery. Laurence returned to posting on Monday morning - sharing the warning from Twitter with his 310,400 followers and discussed the possibility of "wokies" having a meltdown over a new altered image of a flag. The aspiring politician sparked outrage on the social media platform when he changed his profile picture to a swastika constructed from various pride flags just days after a gunman killed two people during the Oslo Pride festival. Laurence Fox blasted his Twitter suspension upon his return to the platform, after complying with the rules (
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Twitter) The former actor was ordered to delete this profile picture and image that he shared over the weekend (
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Instagram/ @LozzaFox) "Oh blessed and most holy month!" Laurence captioned his profile picture update on Sunday, seemingly referring to Pride Month which occurs throughout June. "Not entirely sure why Laurence Fox is allowed to have a Swastika as his profile picture," presenter Matthew Stadlen tweeted prior to the Reclaim Party founder being suspended from the site, with many more adding their disgust and pledging to report the image. Upon his return to Twitter on Monday morning, Laurence claimed certain flags are not allowed to be criticised on the social media site. Laurence shared another controversial image within hours of returning to Twitter (
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Instagram/ @LozzaFox) You can openly call the [Union Jack flag] a symbol of facism and totalitarianism on Tw*tter. You cannot criticise the holy flags [LGBTQ+ pride flags]," the dad-of-two captioned a screenshot of his warning email from Twitter. In the email sent to the former actor, Twitter told Laurence how his profile picture update had violated their rules and his account had been locked. In order to regain posting privileges and unlock his account, the wannabe politician was told to "delete the content that violates [Twitter's] rules" - which he did. The former actor followed instructions from Twitter in order to regain full use of his account again (
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AFP via Getty Images) Martin Daubney - deputy leader of the Reclaim Party - replied to Laurence's comeback tweet with an image of the Union Jack flag reconstructed to create a swastika symbol. "So is this worthy of a ban?" Martin asked his pal, who quote-tweeted the reply and added: "Waiting for the wokies to have a meltdown about this." Following Laurence's now-deleted profile picture update on Sunday, volunteer-led charity Campaign Against Antisemitism called the controversial activist out for the using the swastika to make a political point. "Displaying pride flags in the shape of a swastika is not the edgy statement that you think it is," they wrote on Twitter regarding the image. "It is possible to express a view without the hate, and without insulting those murdered by the Nazis, which included Jews and LGBT people." The Mirror has approached representatives for Laurence and Twitter for further comment on the suspension. Do you have a story to sell? Get in touch with us at [email protected] or call us direct at 0207 29 33033 Read More Read More | Social Media |
The Jan. 6 committee’s hearings over the past few weeks did crucial work illuminating the players and the plot behind efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Now I hope lawmakers will take a close look at the technology platform that was at the center of events on Jan. 6: Facebook. Numerous reports have documented the pivotal role that Facebook played in spreading the conspiracy theories, calls for violence and far-right militia activity that fueled the mob attack on Congress. The company even ran ads for military gear next to election misinformation by extremist groups — essentially stoking and profiting off the insurrection. For Facebook, this is a problem that has been building for years. The Tech Transparency Project collected and analyzed more than three years’ worth of news reports about content on Facebook that violated the company’s policies. We found that roughly 70 percent involved violence and incitement, including threats and physical assaults. Another large category included hate speech and other objectionable content. Beyond showing how Facebook has systematically failed to police its platform, the analysis tracked the company’s responses to the news reports and found that Facebook issued the same cookie-cutter statements over and over again. In short, rather than fixing problems exposed by the media, Facebook resorted to recycled PR. Few companies have been in hot water for such a broad range of societal harms as Facebook, from allegedly pushing drug content to teens to fueling the migration crisis at the U.S. southern border to purportedly fostering genocide in Myanmar. Facebook executives regularly trot out assurances that their artificial intelligence systems are getting better at finding and taking down violating content. But the vaunted A.I. systems have been failing to identify graphic violence for years, and recent events continue to lay bare the deficiencies of Facebook’s content moderation. Why is it that a company that boasts sophisticated A.I. technology and more than 40,000 safety and security workers continually fails to stop dangerous content? Why does a company with these kinds of resources end up relying frequently on small groups of experts to find this stuff? It becomes clearer with each passing day that Facebook is unwilling to make the changes and investments required to make its platform a safer place and instead continues to be focused on growth — even after a calamity like Jan. 6. When it comes to the insurrection, Facebook has much to answer for. Why didn’t the company immediately implement all the measures recommended by its own researchers, who identified misinformation and daily calls for violence in the platform’s top “civic” groups in the months leading up to the 2020 election? Why did Facebook disband its civic integrity team, which battled election disinformation and other harmful content, in December 2020, even as the “Stop the Steal” movement gained momentum? Facebook said it shared information with federal authorities about potential violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6. When did that happen and what did the company know? Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg infamously tried to shift blame away from her company for Jan. 6, saying the Capitol riot was “largely organized” on other tech platforms. But the dubious spin attempt has only gotten more laughable as evidence has piled up about Facebook’s central role in the events of that day. The Jan. 6 committee has subpoenaed Facebook parent company Meta and other tech companies as part of its investigation, but Facebook executives have yet to appear on the Jan. 6 hearing schedule. Don’t let Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s much-discussed pivot to the metaverse allow the company to distract from its role in turbocharging the violent attempted coup. Facebook executives continue to mislead the public about the company’s role in the Capitol riot, and the company is undoubtedly hoping Congress will give it a pass. Let’s hope lawmakers will eventually turn their attention to the role of social media in general – and Facebook in particular – in fomenting the insurrection. Katie A. Paul is the director of the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), where she specializes in tracking extremism, disinformation and criminal activity on online platforms such as Facebook. Paul also serves as co-director and co-founder of the Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research (ATHAR) Project and a founding member of the Alliance to Counter Crime Online (ACCO). | Social Media |
Local Facebook groups have supplanted local newspapers as the default source of information in many British towns, according to a report into so-called “news deserts”.The catastrophic financial collapse of the local news industry over the last two decades has destroyed the business model of local newspapers, according to the Charitable Journalism Project. Although consumers sometimes described these Facebook groups using terms such as “toxic” and “racist”, many said they provided more up-to-the-minute information than their local newspaper.Dr Steven Barclay of City, University of London, who conducted the research, said local audiences increasingly turned to online community groups, with few of the people he interviewed directly visiting their local newspaper website for the latest updates. In one example, the town of Trowbridge in Wiltshire has 44,000 residents – and more than 30,000 of them are in a single Facebook group.Barclay said a common complaint in “news deserts” was that local journalists on mainstream outlets were no longer based in the towns they covered. In the case of the Whitby Gazette, the newspaper used to have a prominent office in the Yorkshire seaside town that has now closed. “Whitby was a really classic example of a newspaper that was very widely read within the town and was part of its identity. People identified with the Gazette – they said they knew the editor of the Gazette and drank with him in the pub,” Barclay said.He said many of the people interviewed for the study were acutely aware of – and saddened by – the decline of their local news outlets. “What I found in my research is people wanted a trusted source of local news and information that’s both professional and authentically local.”In addition to Trowbridge and Whitby, the study also held focus groups in Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, Corby in Northamptonshire, Pembrokeshire in Wales, Lewisham in south London, and Tiverton in Devon. The authors found many of those interviewed missed the traditional bread-and-butter reporting about what was going on in their towns. “The new style of local journalism which had replaced it was felt to be commercialised and, on occasion, damaging and divisive,” the report said.Many for-profit local news outlets now set click targets for their reporters – with financial incentives for journalists who can maximise the number of people who are tempted by a headline.Local newspapers have also attempted to make money by posting increasingly provocative headlines on social media, which have further contributed to their declining status, while Barclay said the “flashing adverts and reams of clickbait” on some local sites undermined quality pieces of journalism.The research was backed by the Charitable Journalism Project, which aims to help local not-for-profit news outlets gain charitable status. Many of those interviewed also said local Facebook groups were incredibly efficient places for information on Covid testing or as a venue to buy or sell goods.There was also praise for the contribution of the BBC’s Local Democracy Reporter scheme for increasing coverage of local councils.Barclay said local newspapers acted as community glue. “People don’t necessarily want their local news to be big stories – they want scrutiny of local government but they also want stories about the local fete and the primary school reopened and make them feel happy about the place where they live.” | Social Media |
Photo: Koshiro K (Shutterstock)Sometimes, people just need to be reminded they are still people before they try to start a war of words on social media.A recently published Yale Law School study states that content moderation done prior to posting actually led more people to post less offensive tweets, which had the compounding effect of reducing the number of offensive replies in response.The study showed that 6% of users prompted to revise their tweets that the system deemed offensive posted fewer offensive tweets than those who weren’t prompted. If there are 229 million daily active Twitter users—according to the company’s latest quarterly earnings report—and approximately 51% of those are tweeting in English, that could be over 7 million users who decided to post less negative content. And a fact that’s probably important to companies like Twitter that are obsessed with maintaining engagement, the total replies to the revised tweets didn’t decrease, and the discussion was less offensive overall.Researchers go on to say that even after they were asked to moderate themselves, users were less likely to act negatively in the future. They cited 20% fewer users made five or more offensive tweets during the time of the experiment.“This represents a broader and sustained change in user behavior, and implies that receiving prompts may help users be more cognizant of avoiding potentially offensive content as they post future Tweets,” the study’s authors wrote.How are Twitter users revising their tweets?In a blog post last week, Twitter data scientists Kathy Yang and Lauren Fratamico cited the Yale study and further said that for every 100 tweets the company asked users to reconsider, 69 were sent without revision, nine were canceled, and 22 were revised. Of those revisions, eight were considered less offensive than the original, while the rest were either similarly offensive or more offensive.Revisions could be as simple as changing the word “shit” to a poop emoji or shortening “the fuck” to “tf.” Other revised tweets, a majority of those that were amended, removed profanity altogether. A bare few added an additional attack onto the existing tweet.A graph showing that while most tweets that received notices stayed as-is, a sizable number revised to be less offensive.Graphic: TwitterStarting in 2020, Twitter started a limited experiment that used algorithms to flag users’ tweets if they contained harsh language, insults, or hateful remarks. The system would display the message “we’re asking people if they want to revise replies that were detected as potentially harmful or offensive” then display the flagged tweet before prompting them to either revise, delete, or send the tweet anyway. In 2021, the company revised the system after users complained they were prompted unnecessarily since the algorithm couldn’t understand the nuances of the conversation.Even a year into their experiment, the company stated around a third of those prompted chose to revise or delete their tweet, and after being prompted once they were somewhat less likely to write offensive tweets.Of course, there is still the 70% of people who sent out tweets anyway or even revised it to be more offensive (the cheeky buggers). But even a bare 15% of people revising tweets can still be a massive improvement, especially considering why some people post negative content.Researchers cited several past studies that analyzed why people were posting negative content and how they often regretted posting it after the fact. People are usually venting frustrations in a rough emotional shape, but it’s often in reaction to somebody that makes them feel slighted. Social media, with its focus on feeding users content that actively generates anger to make them linger longer on the platform, only helps breed this behavior.But of course there are the bad faith actors, such as the Russian disinformation actors seen spreading falsities and insults before the 2016 and 2020 elections. The study makes it clear asking users to be nicer won’t “solve the problem of offensive content online.” Of course, Twitter’s experiment was only done with English-language tweets, though they have created a similar feature for Portuguese-speaking populations. The company would need to start producing systems for millions of users across the globe.Most content moderation occurs after content is already posted, and while systems and human moderators work to flag and remove harmful content, those posts are being seen and spread both on the platform and off. There won’t be any panacea for the ills of existing online, but more efforts like these could prove to be a new line of attack for making existing online a little more harmonious. Let’s just hope that whoever next owns Twitter might take the ideas behind studies like these to heart. | Social Media |
A photographer accused of selling photos to pedophiles is allowed to use Instagram for months after he’s arrested. Forbes alerts Meta to more than a dozen accounts with over half a million followers sexualizing child and teenage models. Now the tech giant is coming under heavy fire for its policing of predators. Jane, a 13-year-old living in Louisiana, decided she wanted to be a model. It was her mom, Sarah, who gave her ambitions a boost by posting images of her on Instagram. (Forbes has changed their names to protect their identities). It wasn’t long before Sarah was contacted by another mother whose child was also an aspiring model. She introduced Sarah to a man named Grant Durtschi, according to court documents filed by the Department of Justice earlier this year. The 48-year-old Durtschi had made a career out of photographing kids. Sometimes, he’d pay the parent or even the child up to $1,000 per shoot before he sold the photos to unknown buyers, the Department of Justice said. To Jane’s stepfather, however, something was up. Federal investigators said he went to the FBI and told them that, in chats over the messaging app Telegram, Durtschi had openly admitted selling his photos to pedophiles. Later, the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation received a batch of Durtschi’s photos of Jane in various poses wearing a G-string bikini on a bed, according to a search warrant application for Google Drive accounts linked to the investigation. Some images were of Jane in sexually suggestive positions and some photos were intimate, the warrant read. After interviewing Sarah, federal agents said that during Jane’s final shoot in October 2020 in Texas that Jane complained she was uncomfortable with how Durtschi was getting “handsy.” Jane would later tell police the photographer touched her backside and undid her swimsuit. Durthschi would often post his photos on two Instagram accounts, both now removed from the Meta-owned platform. Customers would contact him over Instagram and pay for photos over PayPal, according to a police analysis of his financial records. The analysis of his PayPal account found that over 70 clients had paid him between $100 and $1,100 for images. “Of those 70 men, several of the men were convicted sex offenders or had other related convictions in their criminal history,” the FBI said. One had been previously arrested for kidnapping. Durtschi was arrested in March and indicted in April. He pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual exploitation of children. His attorney didn’t respond to requests for comment. Meta responds to a report from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, showing how it relies on technology to detect problematic content and users on Instagram. Critics say that technology isn't working.INSTAGRAM Durtschi’s arrest, however, didn’t have much of an effect on his Instagram presence. Using two other accounts, he appeared to have continued to use the site to share images of minors for months after he was charged and arrested. Forbes did a simple Google search for Durtschi’s two deleted Instagram accounts. The first result — one that referenced his business name, as did his already-banned profiles — showed an active account that had nearly 90,000 followers and was regularly posting images of teenagers and possibly younger children wearing swimming attire. Often, comments under the photos were sexual in nature, whether explicitly or with sexualized emojis. Earlier this year, another Instagram user called out the account as Durthschi’s and claimed the photographer was selling images of children to pedophiles. The same week Forbes alerted Meta to the account, it was removed. But yet another account that referenced Durthschi’s company was still online. That was despite the FBI claiming it had previously been shut down, indicating Meta had allowed Durtschi to reinstate his profile where he continued to post photos and videos of minors. The public account, which noted it was “rebuilding for the third time,” contained a reel posted in April — a month after the photographer was arrested — of a child model being photographed by a gray-haired male. The same model’s image had been shared on the 90,000-follower Durtschi page before it was closed. This last account was also removed after Forbes alerted Meta to its existence.
The case not only highlights a troubling corner of Instagram that acts as a marketplace for sexualized images of children, it also shows how easily those who exploit young people can elude banishment and return again and again, even after they’re arrested and charged. Despite years of criticism for how it fails to protect children, most recently via the leaks of former employee Frances Haugen, Meta, with $118 billion in 2021 revenue, relies a great deal on unpaid Instagram users and journalists to identify wrongdoers, and has a tough time keeping them off the platform or disposing of what they might leave behind. Meta has no tolerance for child exploitation on its platforms and will remove accounts that share such content, according to a Meta spokesperson. “We’ve always removed content that explicitly sexualizes children, and last year we updated our policies to help us remove more subtle types of sexualization, including where accounts share images of children alongside inappropriate commentary about their appearance,” the spokesperson said. “We know there may be those who try and get around our systems, which is why we’re always working to make sure we stay one step ahead.” The spokesperson pointed to Meta’s policy that outlaws any content sexualizing children. The tech giant doesn’t allow children in “sexualized costume” or in a “staged environment (for example, on a bed) or professionally shot (quality/focus/angles).”
Yet further searching found over a dozen other accounts that posted similar content to Durtschi’s and had been visited by Instagram users who let it be known they found the minors sexually attractive. One Instagram profile posted photos and videos of minors in swimwear, with a request for “no creeps please.” It had 2,167 followers. Another with similar swimwear-based content had 43,000 followers. Those were just the public groups. A private one, which also promised photos of teenagers in swimwear, had nearly 400,000 followers. Together with Durtschi’s pages, the accounts identified by Forbes containing sexualized images of children and teenagers had a total of more than 500,000 followers. After Forbes alerted Meta to 15 potentially problematic accounts, Instagram had closed 11 at the time of publication. (This week, Instagram also announced new features to verify users’ ages, including a partnership with a company called Yoti that scans faces to estimate how old a subject is.) Lianna McDonald, executive Director for Canadian Centre for Child Protection, speaks to the legislation following Harper's speech. Prime Minister Stephen Harper Thursday announced legislation to toughen child sexploitation laws. He met with ministers and child advocates at the Banbury Community Centre in the York Mills and Leslie area and then made a speech at the International Plaza hotel near the airport. Richard Lautens/Toronto Star/Getty Images Lianna McDonald, executive director for the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, said her organization was “incensed” by Forbes’ findings. She called for Meta to increase its content moderation, while urging governments to introduce more legislation that would force companies to take more action on “not just criminal content, but also content that is harmful and abusive to children.”
“In our experience, the publication of sexualized child modeling imagery—often images that don’t rise to the level of being unambiguously illegal—are frequently used as promotional conduits to signal the availability of child sexual abuse imagery on other channels,” McDonald said. The tactic, she said, is referred to as “breadcrumbing.”
McDonald said that images of one of the victims referenced in the search warrant provided by Forbes was promoted on dark web child sexual abuse forums “where they are being used in more sexually abusive and explicit ways.”
The Canadian organization continues to find accounts that either promote child sexual abuse or sexualize children. In just one month this year, it reported nearly 150 of them to Instagram, 40 of which remain online, McDonald said. Andy Burrows, head of child safety online policy at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, a U.K. nonprofit, said the child model accounts identified by Forbes “serve the sole purpose of being a shop window for child abuse, allowing offenders to identify each other and organize in plain sight while Instagram appears to look the other way.”
Burrows called the gaps in Meta’s safeguarding process “a dereliction of their corporate responsibility.”
“As policy makers regulate social media, there must be a clear consensus that companies have a duty to stop material that facilitates child abuse appearing on their platforms, with strong corporate and director accountability measures that focus minds at C-suite level,” Burrows said.
What’s illegal activity, however, isn’t easily separated from what could be legal. Hashtags promoting child models are linked to more than 3 million posts, for example. When Forbes approached the Internet Watch Foundation, a U.K.-based nonprofit that helps report child sexual abuse material, it said it couldn’t comment because none of the accounts posted what it deemed to be illegal imagery. “You see how much sickness is out there...” Even without illegality, there’s a cringe factor that bleeds into similar Instagram activity. Dee Stewart, a Texas-based photographer who’s often paid by families for taking photos of their children, said he’s regularly contacted by people over Instagram asking to buy his work. “Almost every week, I get messaged about that,” Stewart said. “There’s a lot of troublesome things going on,” he said, pointing to accounts where most images were of minors wearing few items of clothing. “They’re taking it to the extreme the way the poses are and things like that.”
After some of Stewart’s photography had been linked on a Durtschi account, he said he was considering leaving Instagram because he didn’t want to be implicated in any shady business. “You see how much sickness is out there,” he said.
In Jane’s case, there was a twist in the investigation: her mother became a suspect. After Sarah had willingly given her phone to the FBI to be forensically searched, agents discovered Telegram conversations between Sarah and Durtschi in which the photographer admitted to being a pedophile, “his family knew he was a pedophile, and 99% of the people in this industry [teen modeling] were pedophiles,” the warrant read. While apparently incriminating for Durtschi, investigators began to suspect Sarah was involved in the production of potential child sexual abuse material of her daughter, with one of her messages accompanying a photo reading, “she is finally using her lil butt some lol.” Sarah had sued Durtschi for selling photos of her daughter without her permission. The mother didn’t respond to requests for comment. She hasn’t been charged with any crime.
Jane may want to forget about her experiences with Durtschi. But the pedophiles who first spied her on Instagram are still hanging around. In recent months, according to the FBI’s account, Sarah has repeatedly been contacted over Meta’s site by men still hoping to buy images of her daughter straight from her mother. MORE FROM FORBES
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In the weeks leading up to last month's elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the 18-year-old gunman made a number of disturbing comments to users on various social media platforms, leading the head of Texas' top law enforcement agency to say last week that those comments "should have been reported."But at least some of the online users who communicated with the gunman previously told ABC News they did try to report him -- yet their efforts largely went nowhere."Regardless of how many times he was reported ... he would still come back," a user who lives in Greece and asked to remain anonymous, told ABC News regarding her multiple attempts to report the gunman, identified by authorities as Salvador Ramos.Among Ramos' online comments were possible signs that troubling behavior was ahead: He referenced school shootings, alluded to a possible upcoming incident, and shared pictures and videos of guns, users who communicated with him told ABC News.One user told ABC News that leaders of panels and live chats on the social media app Yubo would ban Ramos after he would come into the live groups, where the user said Ramos would "threaten other people that he would shoot up their schools."Another user told ABC News that he would kick Ramos out of live panels he was hosting after Ramos would enter and make concerning comments. The reporting function on the platform, he added, "barely works."Many social media apps have a function to report other users based on various conduct issues, such as inappropriate conduct or harassing behavior.Crosses are decorated with flowers and stuffed animals at a memorial for the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, June 25, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas.Jordan Vonderhaar/Getty ImagesTwo of those users claim that Ramos was eventually temporarily banned from the app, but was able to regain access to his same account.A spokesperson Yubo, when asked by ABC News earlier this month to confirm if Ramos' account had been flagged, said that "at this stage, we are not legally able to release any specific user information outside of direct requests from law enforcement."The revelations about Ramos' online behavior leading up to the shooting have sparked questions about the efforts of social media companies to monitor their platforms for warning signs in an era of rising online hate. Testifying last week before a Texas state Senate panel, Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw, whose agency is leading one of the probes into the massacre, said that he was "disappointed in the social media industry for not being more proactive.""Make sure it's not Big Brother, but that you offer law enforcement the opportunity at least to identify suspicious activity and act upon it," McCraw said.John Cohen, a former senior Homeland Security official who is now an ABC News contributor, said the "key issue" is for law enforcement to broaden its threat assessment efforts when it comes to potentially violent individuals -- a process he said is already underway in agencies around the country."It we're going to stop these shootings, law enforcement has to look differently at people who require attention," Cohen said. "[The law enforcement community] has been slow to build capacity to be able to incorporate online expressions of intent into our investigation process."In the wake of the Uvalde massacre, Yubo has since announced new updated "safety features" on its platform, including enhanced reporting capabilities."The devastating events of 24 May in Uvalde, Texas, brought to light systemic issues in society that need to be addressed," Yubo CEO Sacha Lazimi said in a statement about the new measures.They include a new "combined-signals risk detection algorithm" that will help provide context around potential risks on its platform by assessing "a combination of signals including keywords, emojis, and images."Ramos also allegedly communicated with users on Facebook and on Instagram, though ABC News has not determined that there were any efforts to report him on those platforms.A young teen who said she exchanged private messages with Ramos on the morning of the shooting told ABC News that she has been asking herself, "What if I could change the outcome?"The teen, who asked to be referred to as "Cece," allegedly received messages from Ramos saying, "I shot my grandmother in the head" and "ima go shoot up a elementary school rn.""Ever since May 24, I have been guilt-tripping myself,"" said the teen. "What if I could change his mind to not do this?" | Social Media |
"There's so many scenarios you could come up with and slap it onto the end of the 'She's or he's a 10' trend," said Phillip Hamilton, a Know Your Meme editor.She's a 10 but she used to make Tumblr fan art.NBC News; Getty ImagesJune 22, 2022, 9:23 PM UTCAnybody surfing the internet these past few weeks has likely come across the latest social media trend: the "She's/he's a 10" meme.The trend, which originated on TikTok in May, begins with a person rating an imaginary lover on a scale from 1 to 10 based on their attractiveness before presenting a negative or positive trait that might affect their score.In a tweet that has garnered more than 35,000 likes, a person wrote: "He's a 10 but follows girls that don't follow him back." On the flip side, another person whose tweet got more than 150,000 likes wrote: "she's a 10 but she bites the skin off her lips when she's anxious."Others simply made jokes about the meme's format itself. "'She’s a 10 but' is the premise of most Seinfeld episodes," a user wrote in a tweet that amassed over 115,000 likes and 9,000 retweets.The trend is just the latest meme to be born out of TikTok. It gained further traction on Twitter after several tweets went viral on June 18, according to the meme database Know Your Meme.And while the meme isn't particularly notable in its virality, Phillip Hamilton, a Know Your Meme editor who created the website's "She's/he's a 10" page, said the setup lends itself to "countless possibilities.""There's so many scenarios you could come up with and slap it onto the end of the 'She's or he's a 10' trend," Hamilton said. "That's the core of any popular meme — it's about how malleable it is and how much you can flex it and change the joke around it."On TikTok, the trend mostly appears as a game between two or more people who come up with different scenarios. On Twitter, the meme takes on a majority text-based framework that is particularly conducive to viral tweets."These scenarios alone are funny enough to sort of thrive on their own — whether you play the game or not," he said.Hamilton said he prefers TikTok over Twitter because the videos better emphasize the "game aspect" of the trend."It's funny to watch people rattle off these scenarios over and over and hear the responses of other people in real time," he said.Regardless of its format, Hamilton added, there is a reason the viral trend joins the ranks of other popular memes: "It's funny, but it's also revealing something real."Wilson Wong is a culture and trends reporter for NBC News Digital. | Social Media |
Topline
Vice President Kamala Harris will launch a national task force Thursday focusing on preventing online harassment, especially toward women and members of the LGBTQ community, in the wake of recent mass shootings whose suspected killers had engaged in abusive behavior on social media. Democratic presidential candidate (and future US Vice President) US Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) ... [+] speaks at the National Forum on Wages and Working People: Creating an Economy That Works for All at Enclave, Las Vegas, Nevada, April 27, 2019. Six of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates attended the forum, held by the Service Employees International Union and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, to share their economic policies. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) Getty Images Key Facts Co-chaired by the Gender Policy Council and the National Security Council, the task force is expected to provide recommendations for the state governments, online platform, and schools, among other entities, within six months of its launch, a senior official told reporters on a Wednesday call. Online harassment “disproportionately affect[s] women, girls, people of color, and LGBTQI+ individuals,” the task force’s fact sheet says. The task force aims to fulfill President Joe Biden’s campaign promises to tackle sexual harassment, stalking, and nonconsensual pornography. Key Background Months before the massacre in Buffalo, New York, the alleged shooter had been planning his attack on chat app Discord and online forum 4chan. The attacker in Texas’s Uvalde school shooting frequently harassed women and young girls on social networking and streaming app, Yubo, and even posted his violent intentions on Facebook shortly before the shooting. Tangent
According to the Pew Research Center, 33% of women younger than 35 report being sexually harassed online, while 11% of men report the same. The research also suggest seven in ten lesbian, gay or bisexual adults have experienced online harassment. Key Quote The task force will “address technology-facilitated gender-based violence, including a focus on the nexus between online misogyny and radicalization to violence,” according to the task force’s fact sheet. Further Reading
White House to launch task force to curb online abuse (The Washington Post)
Vice president will launch new national task force on preventing online harassment and abuse (CNN)
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Tributes are flooding in for the "inspirational" podcaster and cancer campaigner Deborah James who died "peacefully" on Tuesday.The former deputy headteacher, 40, was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2016 and fiercely campaigned to raise awareness of the condition on social media, through charities and BBC podcast You, Me and The Big C.James' family, figures from the entertainment industry, politics and beyond have paid tribute to the podcaster.Read more:Deborah James passes away aged 40A statement posted by her family on her Instagram account said: "We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Dame Deborah James; the most amazing wife, daughter, sister, mummy. Deborah passed away peacefully today, surrounded by her family.It added a final message from Deborah which said: "Find a life worth enjoying; take risks; love deeply; have no regrets; and always, always have rebellious hope. And finally, check your poo - it could just save your life."James' mother Heather said her heart is "broken" following the death of her daughter and wrote: "My heart is broken. Love you forever."'Your incredible spirit will live on'Carol Vorderman also paid tribute to Dame Deborah James, tweeting "your incredible spirit will live on." Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options James revealed in early May that she had stopped active treatment and was receiving end-of-life care at her parents' home in Woking, with her husband Sebastien and their two children on hand.Her candid posts about her progress and diagnosis, including videos of her dancing her way through treatment, won praise from the public and media alike.Prime Minister Boris Johnson said because of James "many many lives will be saved, while Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer described her charity work as "truly inspirational". Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options In a statement, the BBC's director-general Tim Davie, said: "This is incredibly sad news. Dame Deborah James was a true inspiration."We're so proud to have worked with her at the BBC. The way she talked about and faced up to her cancer moved the nation, inspired change and undoubtedly saved lives."James was a patron for Bowel Cancer UK and the charity's chief executive, Genevieve Edwards said the former headteacher brought "warmth, energy and honesty to everything she did", adding that she was a "powerful patron for Bowel Cancer UK and leaves a stunning legacy through her BowelBabe fund".Macmillan Cancer Support said: "We're so grateful for all of her generous support over the years, and her dedication to stand together with people with cancer". Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options BBC radio presenter Chris Stark tweeted: "I hope we can have a gin wherever this all leads."Thinking of your family and friends and everyone that is going through similar. Rest in Peace Debs x".While broadcaster Katie Piper posted a green heart, adding “we will never forget you”.James launched a fund called the Bowelbabe fund, to raise money for research into personalised medicine for cancer patients.In her final weeks, Dame Deborah raised more than £6.7 million for research through her BowelBabe fund and was made a dame for her "tireless" work improving awareness of the disease. | Social Media |
The tech industry's disappointing track record on issues of diversity could have serious consequences when the metaverse comes along.For years, tens of millions of people of color have endured unwelcome experiences on social media platforms built by mostly white and male tech CEOS, including harassment and hate speech. Many users have also had their contributions regularly ignored or copied without attribution.If those issues follow users into the metaverse, a concept championed largely by those same mostly white and male tech CEOs, today's online abuse could become significantly more visceral and damaging."When you don't have people at the table who have historically suffered harms or abuses, or who have to live with certain things in the back of their mind, then you don't build platforms in a way that protects those people," says Jeff Nelson, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Blavity, an online media company geared toward Black millennial creators. "You build platforms that can be used by people who want to extend harm to others, [and can] do so at scale."The tech industry has spent a decade publicly reckoning with its diversity problem. Still, Black and Hispanic workers hold just 7% and 8% of computer worker roles in the U.S., though they represent 11% and 17% of the country's total workforce, respectively, according to the Pew Research Center.If the companies building the metaverse are lacking in diverse voices, Nelson says, it'll be hard to avoid the same problems experienced by today's social media users — including more than 80 million Americans of color, according to a CNBC Make It analysis of Pew data."If we make the same mistakes that we did with social networking and web 2.0 ... then we'll just bring that problem into this new space," Nelson says. "So it absolutely is a problem."Users of virtual worlds already encounter harassment, bigotryThe metaverse isn't off to a great start. Studies of virtual world gaming platforms, like VRChat, have found evidence of minors being regularly exposed to racist, violent language and harassment in the virtual worlds. Those types of experiences can be full-on assaults to users' mental health, psychologists say.To Nelson, it's an extension of the existing issues that people of color have faced for years on social media — and a sign that metaverse platforms aren't ready for the types of abuse that their users can throw at each other.He's attempting to force change with Blavity. Each year, his company runs a conference called AfroTech, which helps "bring mass awareness about Black people in tech and entrepreneurship and professional development," Nelson says.When Covid hit, AfroTech went virtual — resulting in what Nelson calls the "first-ever Black metaverse." That's more than just branding, he adds: The more Black people put their stamp on the metaverse today, the more the developers building those future platforms will know that they need to intentionally create more welcoming virtual spaces."Creating worlds within the metaverse, creating content, creating art, all those things are efforts that are important to us as we think about the metaverse and making sure that Black people are fairly represented in this future," Nelson says.How tech giants like Meta are respondingThere's evidence that some tech giants are listening — or, at least, saying they are.Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg almost single-handedly turned "metaverse" into the tech world's buzziest concept over the past year. His company has also faced criticism for suppressing the accounts and content of Black creators in the past, leading Instagram and Facebook to take steps over the past year to better support and promote Black creators on the Meta-owned platforms. Facebook has committed to spending $1 billion each year with "diverse suppliers," including $100 million annually with Black-owned businesses. And Meta says it's keeping diversity in mind as it builds its own version of the metaverse."Because companies like Meta are starting to think about this future now, we have the opportunity to help build the metaverse with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from its inception," Maxine Williams, Meta's chief diversity officer, wrote in a blog post in February.Because companies like Meta are starting to think about this future now, we have the opportunity to help build the metaverse with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from its inception.Maxine WilliamsChief diversity officer, MetaOnline gaming company Roblox, another firm that's betting big on the metaverse, regularly promotes its creators of color. According to Julian Walshaw-Vaughan, a vice president of engineering at Roblox and recipient of a Blacks in Gaming award last year, the company's business model depends on it."Our hope is: If we can provide a platform for anyone in the world to learn important skills as developers and engineers alongside an opportunity to express themselves creatively and easily publish content, this will have an impact on the technology industry at large and result in more diverse and representative shared experiences," he says.Those types of statements are positive signs for a more inclusive metaverse future. But for Nelson, seeing is believing."Frankly, I haven't seen enough," he says.The metaverse could be 'a perfect opportunity to do better'Nelson says easiest way for tech companies to begin making a difference is obvious: Hiring.Currently, he says, tech companies often boost diversity in their workplaces by hiring people of color from the same places they get most of their employees: Stanford or the Ivy Leagues. Meta's Williams, for example, attended Yale University, according to her LinkedIn profile."[That's] paying lip service to diversity," Nelson says. "Companies are not bringing in people that will challenge culture. They're bringing in people who will sort of assimilate or fit their preconceived notion of how they should operate."That sort of change might need to happen quickly, as companies like Meta, Apple, Roblox and Microsoft forge ahead to build the web's next iteration — even as the metaverse itself could take years, if not decades, to become mainstream reality."The metaverse is a perfect opportunity to do better," Nelson says. "I am confident, because it's so early and we're having these conversations [now] — instead of us having this conversation five years from now, and it's about, 'The metaverse isn't welcoming. How can we fix this?'"Sign up now: Get smarter about your money and career with our weekly newsletterDon't miss:'This is creating more loneliness': The metaverse could be a serious problem for kids, experts sayBill Gates says the metaverse will host most of your office meetings within 'two or three years' | Social Media |
After multiple stops and starts, it looks like the Jake Paul vs. Tommy Fury fight is finally going ahead. Both Jake Paul and Tommy Fury officially announced the news over social media. The fight is set to take place in New York City at Madison Square Garden on August 6 and will be co-headlined by Amanda Serrano and Brenda Carabajal. Tickets go on sale June 29 at 11 a.m. EST.Tommy Fury was supposed to be Jake Paul's opponent in his last fight, which was set to take place in December 2021. After suffering a broken rib, Fury was forced to pull out and was replaced by former UFC champion Tyron Woodley. That fight was a rematch of an earlier contest between the two. Paul put an exclamation mark on their second meeting, knocking Woodley out in spectacular fashion in the sixth round. But since then -- and before then -- people have been begging Jake Paul to fight a "real" boxer. Up until this point Paul has faced a mix of YouTubers and ex-MMA fighters. As an 8-0 up-and-coming fighter, Fury is designed to be that "real" boxer and will most likely represent Paul's toughest test in the ring to date.Who is Tommy Fury?Tommy Fury is a young pro boxer with a famous last name. He's the half brother of the current Heavyweight king Tyson Fury. He's also famous in the UK for starring in Love Island, a reality TV show where contestants have to couple up in order to avoid elimination. The show is huge in the UK. Tommy Fury is undefeated, with eight wins and zero losses on his record. Who is Jake Paul?You're probably aware of Jake Paul, the social media personality who first made it big on Vine before moving across to every platform in existence. He's moved into boxing in recent years after fighting on the undercard of Logan Paul's viral boxing match with UK YouTuber KSI. He showed a talent for boxing and has been fighting ever since. Paul has also moved into promotion, co-promoting a huge fight between Ireland's Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, which was one of the biggest female boxing matches of all-time.Jake Paul seems to get the public's perception of his boxing career, and posted a pretty self aware (and funny) TikTok about his upcoming fight with Fury.@jakepaulyou guys bullied me into this… not cool.♬ original sound - Jake PaulWhen and where will the fight take place?The fight is set to take place in New York City at Madison Square Garden on August 6. Tickets go on-sale June 29 at 11 a.m. EST.How do I watch the fight online?Jake Paul vs. Tommy Fury will be available to watch on Showtime PPV, much like his last contest. There's no way to pre-order the event yet, but we'll update closer to the event with all the details.When is the press conference?As always there's a press conference for the fight. There will most likely be multiple press conferences, but the first takes place this coming Wednesday to support the launch of the tickets going on sale. The press conference will no doubt be awash with trash talk, drama and publicity stunts. You can watch it live on the Showtime Sports YouTube channel. | Social Media |
It started with just a few hundred dollars. Entrepreneur Nakia Vestal escaped human trafficking as a teenager and began working at beauty salons and shops. After gaining experience and disliking her job opportunities, Vestal decided to go into business for herself.In 2017 and with $400, Vestal founded DollMaker Lashes, a beauty studio in Houston, Texas, that offers eyelash extension services. She began modestly, building her client base from her home. But with perseverance, discipline and faith, Vestal transformed her business into a full-service lash studio, with her own product line."I started with just a lash bed and my tools that I needed. And I didn't have any marketing," she said. "Everything was word of mouth. I started from home in my dining room."Vestal's business has been affected by the economic slowdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, but last year she received a $10,000 grant from Verizon's Digital Ready program, which she credits as helping her expand. The grant from Verizon helps small businesses hurt by the pandemic, notably in historically underserved communities. Nearly 800 small businesses have received grants of up to $10,000 to help pay staff, rent and other financial needs.Here are four tips that have helped Vestal to succeed as an entrepreneur:1. Apply for grants2. Utilize social mediaAccording to GlobalWebIndex, 54% of regular internet users access social media to research products. And that percentage is only expected to grow."Social media is free marketing. You have Facebook, you have Instagram, now you have TikTok. These are free tools you can use to really target whatever audience you're trying to get," Vestal said.3. Look for free resourcesIn the digital age, you can find just about anything on the internet — from free courses and advice columns to virtual mentors and networking events."There's free resources out there. Don't feel like there's a stupid question," Vestal said. "You have to really speak up and you have to look for it."4. Set yourself apart | Social Media |
Instagram has deleted some posts and limited at least two hashtags related to abortion services, according to some of the platform’s users and warnings that have been added to certain topics.The platform also briefly suspended and then reinstated an account belonging to an abortion services location platform.NBC News found that searches for two terms and hashtags related to abortion pills — prescribed pills that can be taken to induce abortion and are still available for mail order in all 50 states from overseas providers — returned almost no new posts, indicating that the company is limiting what users can see.Unlike normal searches on Instagram, searches for “abortion pills” and “mifepristone” (a popular abortion pill) on Monday did not immediately yield results. On the hashtags for the same terms, a message was displayed that recent posts with the tags “are hidden because some posts may not follow Instagram’s Community Guidelines.” The note does not specify what guidelines have been violated, and it’s not clear when Instagram began limiting the hashtags.The limitations placed on the hashtags mean that the most recent posts with the tags, which are usually found in a separate tab, aren’t available for users to see. For anyone searching for up-to-date information on the hashtag pages, that means they will have to scroll through older, more-liked posts first, including anti-abortion posts. Dave Arnold, a public affairs director at Instagram’s parent company, Meta, referred NBC News to a tweet from Meta communications director Andy Stone, which pointed to the company’s “regulated goods” policy. Stone wrote: “Content that attempts to buy, sell, trade, gift, request or donate pharmaceuticals is not allowed. Content that discusses the affordability and accessibility of prescription medication is allowed. We’ve discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these.” Later on Monday, after this article was originally published, Instagram unblocked the “abortion pills” and “mifepristone” hashtags.Tech news website Motherboard reported Monday that Facebook, another Meta-owned platform, is also restricting certain posts about abortion pills and resources. Instagram hid recent posts on certain abortion resource hashtags.InstagramOther posts and hashtags about abortion pill resources remain intact on the platform, including posts that direct users to abortion pill resources and information.Along with the restricted hashtags, two abortion resource organizations and at least a dozen users on social media have claimed that Instagram is removing posts about abortion. Journalist Meira Gebel said Instagram removed several posts she made about abortion and birth control following the repeal of Roe v. Wade, citing unspecified violations of the platform’s community guidelines. In one post that she says was removed, Gebel offered a place to stay to people from out of state who might be seeking an abortion in Washington, where Gebel lives. In another post that was removed, Gebel wrote that she had access to birth control pills should they one day be criminalized in certain states. Abortion access platform Abortion Finder said its Instagram page was suspended Sunday morning. According to screenshots posted on the Abortion Finder Twitter account, Instagram cited Meta’s restricted goods policy, which prohibits “Attempts to buy, sell, trade, co-ordinate the trade of, donate, gift or asks for non-medical drugs.” Following an appeal of the suspension and a viral tweet about it, the platform’s account was restored. Rachel Fey, vice president of abortion access group Power to Decide, which created Abortion Finder, said the suspension came after a surge of attention to the service fueled by celebrity endorsements and the inclusion of Abortion Finder on a new Biden administration website devoted to abortion resources.A woman protests outside the U.S. Supreme Court the day after the United States Supreme Court ruled in the Dobbs v Women's Health Organization abortion case, overturning the landmark Roe v Wade abortion decision, on June 25, 2022.Hannah Beier for NBC News“It was so frustrating to see that site go down at a time when laws were just still changing that morning and wanting people on Instagram to know that they could go to abortionfinder.org,” said Fey, who noted that the site saw a 1,000% increase in clinic searches following Friday’s Supreme Court decision.Meta has previously faced criticism for how it’s handled abortion pill resource content. In August, days before Texas’ six-week abortion ban was scheduled to go into effect, Instagram suspended the account for Plan C, which provides information about abortion pills. Plan C’s account access was eventually restored. In May, following the leaked Supreme Court draft of the decision that would repeal Roe v. Wade, Instagram suspended the account for Aid Access, a group that connects individuals with telehealth providers of abortion pills. The account was eventually restored, and Meta said in a statement to Mother Jones that the removal was a mistake.Ben Goggin is the deputy editor for technology at NBC News Digital. | Social Media |
Britney Spears Dad Wants Her to Sit for Deposition ... You Trashed Me on Social with Lies 6/17/2022 9:42 AM PT Jamie Spears has just gone full throttle, asking a judge to force his daughter to sit for a depo ... and it's largely over claims Britney made about him on social media. Jamie just filed legal docs, obtained by TMZ, in which his lawyer says Britney is going on a campaign to trash Jamie on Instagram and her soon-to-be-published memoir, and apparently Jamie now wants to challenge her allegations. Among the issues Jamie wants to direct at his daughter under oath ... allegations that she was forced to give 8 tubes of blood for medical treatment, was forced to participate in therapy and was not allowed to own pain-reliever meds. Jamie is saying all of his daughter's allegations are relevant to whether he abused his role as conservator ... something Britney and her lawyer, Matt Rosengart, have insisted happened. He goes on to say Rosengart has refused to schedule a depo, saying Jamie's effort was "another tactic to bully, harass and intimidate his daughter -- his own daughter." As we reported, Rosengart has already filed legal docs saying Jamie has dodged sitting for a depo himself ... and Rosengart has even said he'll travel to Louisiana --- where Jamie lives -- to grill the chef. | Social Media |
TikTok has agreed to make changes to its branded content policy after a consumer rights organization raised the alarm that the social media platform was failing to protect children from hidden advertising and inappropriate content. In an announcement on Tuesday, the European Commission said that following consultation with TikTok, the company had committed to align its practices with EU rules. TikTok has made a number of changes to its branded content policy, including allowing users to report ads that could trick children into buying things and undisclosed branded content.The updated policy also prohibits the promotion of "inappropriate products and services," such as alcohol, cigarettes and "get rich quick" schemes. Paid ads will be identified with a new label and users will be prompted to switch on a toggle when publishing content captioned with brand-related keywords such as #ad or #sponsored. Any user with more than 10,000 followers will have their videos reviewed against TikTok's guidelines.The changes came about as a result of a complaint originally made by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), which identified that TikTok was in breach of EU rules. Together with consumer authorities from around Europe, the Commission worked with TikTok to address the problematic practices and ensure the company's policies addressed the concerns raised by the BEUC."We welcome TikTok's commitment for more transparency in the way it operates its business activity," said European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders in a statement. "Thanks to our dialogue, consumers will be able to spot all kinds of advertisement that they are exposed to when using this platform." He added that the Commission would continue to monitor the situation, paying particular attention to the effects on young users."Over the last year, we have appreciated being able to work collaboratively with the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities to review and make changes to a number of our policies and features," said a TikTok spokesperson in a statement. "We will continue to look for how we can improve in order to provide the best possible TikTok experience for our community." | Social Media |
Alexis Tapia opens TikTok every morning when she wakes up and every night before she goes to bed. The 16-year-old from Tucson, Arizona, says she has a complicated relationship with the social media app. Most of what flashes across her screen makes her smile, like funny videos that poke fun at the weirdness of puberty. She truly enjoys the app—until she has trouble putting it down. “There are millions of videos that pop up,” she says, describing the #ForYou page, the endless stream of content that acts as TikTok's home screen. “That makes it really hard to get off. I say I’m going to stop, but I don’t.”Scrutiny of kids, particularly teens, and screens has intensified over the past months. Last fall, former Facebook product manager turned whistleblower Frances Haugen told a US Senate subcommittee that the company’s own research showed that some teens reported negative, addiction-like experiences on its photo-sharing service, Instagram. The damage was most pronounced among teenage girls. “We need to protect the kids,” said Haugen in her testimony.Proposals to “protect the kids” have sprung up across the US, attempting to curb social media’s habit-forming allure on its youngest users. A bill in Minnesota would prevent platforms from using recommendation algorithms for children. In California, a proposal would allow parents to sue social media companies for addicting their kids. And in the US Senate, a sweeping bill called the Kids Online Safety Act would require social media companies, among other things, to create tools that allow parents to monitor screen time or turn off attention-sucking features like autoplay.Social media’s negative impact on children and teens has worried parents, researchers, and lawmakers for years. But this latest surge in public interest seems to be ignited in the peculiar crucible of the Covid-19 pandemic: Parents who were able to shelter at home watched as their children’s social lives and school lives became entirely mediated by technology, raising concerns about time spent on screens. The fear and isolation of the past two years hit teens hard and has exacerbated what the US surgeon general recently called “devastating” mental health challenges facing adolescents.The kids have been through the wringer. Could cracking down on social media help make the internet a better place for them?Safety ’NetSupporters of the new legislation have likened Big Tech’s mental health harms to kids with the dangers of cigarettes. “We’re at a place with social media companies and teenagers not unlike where we were with tobacco companies, where they were marketing products to kids and not being straightforward with the public,” says Jordan Cunningham, the California Assembly member spearheading AB 2408, along with Assembly member Buffy Wicks. The bill would allow parents to sue platforms like Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap if their child is harmed by a social media addiction. Social media companies aren’t financially incentivized to slow kids’ scroll, and “public shame only gets you so far,” Cunningham says.But unlike the physical damage of tobacco, the exact relationship between social media use and kids’ mental health remains disputed. One high-profile study that tracked increases in rates of teenage depression, self-harm, and suicide in the US since 2012 proposed “heavy digital media use” as a contributing factor. But still other research has found that frequent social media use is not a strong risk factor for depression. Even the internal documents revealed by Haugen resist any simple interpretation: Facebook’s study had a sample size of only 40 teens, over half of whom reported that Instagram also helped counter feelings of loneliness. It’s also difficult to untangle the mental health harms of social media from other psychological harms in a child’s life, like health fears during an ongoing pandemic or the threat of school shootings, which leave a lasting psychological toll on students.There isn’t a scientific consensus on what a social media addiction is, either. “I am concerned that the medical and psychological communities are still figuring out what defines a digital behavioral ‘addiction’ versus other terms like problematic media use,” says Jenny Radesky, who researches children, parenting, and digital media use at the University of Michigan C. S. Mott Children’s Hospital. In addition to her research, Radesky helps shape the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy agenda on kids and technology. She also works with Designed With Kids in Mind, a campaign to raise awareness of how design techniques shape children’s online experiences.Radesky advocates for a more nuanced interpretation of the relationship between social media and young people’s mental health. “People who are trying to ‘protect kids’ within digital spaces often are a bit paternalistic about it,” she says. Well-intentioned adults often regard kids as objects to be protected, not subjects of their own experience. Instead of focusing on minutes spent on screens, she suggests, it’s worth asking how kids build norms around technology. How are they integrating it with the rest of their lives and relationships? How can parents, policymakers, and voters take that into account?But not every parent is in a position to engage in a real dialog with their kids about screen time. This poses an equity issue: Those who work multiple jobs, for example, may not be able to provide guardrails on screen time, and their children may be more prone to overuse than children of affluent parents. Radesky says this is where legislation plays a key role. She testified in support of one proposal, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code. The bill, introduced by Wicks and Cunningham, would require platforms to create features in a way “that prioritizes the privacy, safety, and well-being of children.” The bill focuses on shoring up privacy protections for kids, like requiring high privacy settings and limiting data collection by default for kids. It would also prohibit the use of dark patterns and other design techniques that could compel a user to weaken a privacy setting.The proposal has international precedent. It’s modeled on the Age-Appropriate Design code that passed in the UK in 2020. According to the 5Rights Foundation, the privacy nonprofit that supported the UK bill and is also backing the bill in California, several big tech companies have already altered their features for kids: YouTube turned off autoplay for kids by default, and TikTok no longer sends late-night push notifications to teens.Eye ContractLegislation on kids and social media, however, can also present privacy and enforcement challenges. Laws that require companies to identify which users are children incentivize businesses to set up age verification systems, whether in-house or through a third-party identification company. The unintended result of that is more corporate surveillance across the board.Our in-house Know-It-Alls answer questions about your interactions with technology.“If you do it wrong, you end up collecting more information on everyone,” says Jason Kelley, associate director of digital strategy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It’s a flaw that the EFF finds in the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, as well as the federal Kids’ Online Safety Act, or KOSA, in the US Senate. KOSA would impose on platforms a “duty to act in the best interests” of children who use their services, including greater privacy protections and the requirement to allow parents and kids to turn off features like autoplay.KOSA raises another legislative challenge: parental controls. Ideally, parental controls would be used to help a child manage screen time, a springboard for thoughtful, collaborative family discussions about their relationship to technology. But if a law demands controls that are overly broad, it puts the children of abusive parents in greater danger since it makes it easier for those parents to spy on their kids’ activities. (EFF opposes KOSA; Designed With Kids in Mind supports it.)And then there are potential entanglements with Section 230. Any attempts to regulate social media have to reckon with the federal law that protects online platforms (including social media companies) from being held responsible for its users’ posts. While state-level legislation may target retention snares like recommendation algorithms and notifications, such as the proposals in Minnesota and California, EFF would argue that those features are a means of distributing speech, inextricable from user-generated content—and protected.Effective legislation for kids and social media, Kelley says, would be privacy-protective for all users, regardless of age. It should recognize that “children” aren’t a monolith, either. Laws should have different privacy and autonomy needs across ages; the needs of a 10-year-old user are different from those of a 17-year-old.Both the Age-Appropriate Design Code and the Social Media Duty Not to Addict Act have progressed to the California State Senate after passing through the Assembly with unanimous votes.Design RethinkingCrucially, social media addiction bills put public pressure on companies to radically retool their design processes. The engagement-inducing design mechanisms that keep kids strung along on a platform are probably familiar to late-scrolling grown-ups too: There are the notifications that rope you back onto an app after you’ve closed it. There’s autoplay, the cascade of new and dazzling dopamine hits. There are the “live” functions that fabricate a sense of don’t miss this urgency, gamification mechanisms like streaks, and nudges to share. All of them lead kids (and grown-ups) deeper into an app, a sort of digital Pied Piper effect.Tech companies “are barely scratching the surface” of what they might do to help support young users, says Munmun de Chaudhury, who studies the intersection of social media and mental health and founded the Social Dynamics and Wellbeing Lab at Georgia Tech. Apps like TikTok and Instagram can be resources for teens to explore their identities, form communities, and learn about mental health. Instead of banning social media outright, she says, legislation should push companies to understand young people and to rethink the mechanisms that keep kids scrolling past their own comfort level without restricting the ways the platforms can be helpful.Seventeen-year-old Saanvi Shetty and Shreya Karnik have a list of demands for legislators and tech companies. While Shetty and Karnik regularly outwit the algorithm as content creators (they run Voices of Gen Z, a youth-focused publication), they say that social media “absolutely” still damages their mental health. They want an indication that notes when an Instagram photo has been edited, they want companies to crack down on misinformation, and they want to be able to curate their feeds—so they can cut out content about, say, eating disorders and only see what they actually enjoy.When reached for comment, a Meta representative referred WIRED to a statement clarifying its internal findings about teens’ use of Instagram. TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter pointed out safety features like screen time management settings that, by default, silence notifications at a certain hour for teens. When asked if TikTok is working on more features specifically designed for the safety and well-being of younger users, she said, “We’ll be looking at bringing on more features like this in the future.” On June 9, TikTok announced a new feature that will prompt users to take a break after a certain amount of time has passed.Tapia, the teen from Tucson, wants more opportunities to pause. It would give her more time to reflect on whether she actually wants to keep scrolling, or is just being strung along on an app. It would have been helpful, she said, one night when she was scrolling on TikTok in her room, and her mom asked if she wanted to watch a movie together. Tapia said no. Later, she went to the kitchen for a glass of water and saw her mom, her dad, and her two younger brothers snuggled together in front of the TV. Oh my God, she remembers thinking. I just chose TikTok over my family. She closed the app and joined them on the couch. | Social Media |
Vince Staples Drake's Moving with Social Media ... End of Hip Hop Inevitable!!! 6/21/2022 8:54 AM PT Joe Budden TV Drake, and now Beyoncé too, are sending shockwaves through the music industry with new dance music releases ... which has Joe Budden and co. wondering if hip hop and R&B's days are numbered. Frequent 'Joe Budden Podcast' caller Vince Staples was around to answer one of these questions when the crew asked him to weigh in on Drake's decision to drop an album that's pretty much rap-less. Vince stated the internet and especially social media are making the call on what trends/sells. Basically, he says Drake's "Honestly, Nevermind" comes down to simple mathematics. At the end of the day, Vince feels we should all just accept the end of musical genres and just embrace the experience. To hammer home his point, he referenced his 2017 album "Big Fish Theory" ... a project that stood out for its EDM sound, but didn't get anywhere near the same amount of love. It's hard to deny Drake's latest W, even if it's not rap -- he has the biggest dance album of all time, with beats from Black Coffee, Gordo, RY X and more. Pay attention in the future ... they might start popping on your fav rapper's new tracks. 🤷🏽♂️ | Social Media |
Getty Police in northern Florida are turning to social media to search for teenagers and young adults who broke into an $8 million home and threw a party. The Walton County Sheriff’s Office posted on its Facebook page that it received a noise complaint early Saturday morning in WaterColor, a community near Seaside. When officers arrived, most attendees of the party had already left, but photos and videos have since surfaced on Snapchat, Instagram and other social media sites of the party and those who attended. The sheriff’s office included some of the pictures and videos in its post, showing some attendees smoking, drinking and boxing each other as others present watched and recorded on their phones. Sheriff’s office spokeswoman Corey Dobridnia told Panama City, Fla. ABC affiliate WJHG that about 200 people were present at the house when police arrived. The owners of the house party were out of town, WHJG reported. “An open house party is illegal, it’s already against the law, but breaking into a house to have an open house party is burglary,” Dobridnia said. “There is a chance that some of the kids didn’t know that the house wasn’t being rented, etc. but the amount of destruction and the amount of items stolen out of the house would lead me to believe that even if you did think you had permission to be there, you knew you were doing things that is against the law.” The office said just because videos were posted on Snapchat, where posts disappear after a certain amount of time, does not mean they will stay private as word can spread and people can tag others in Instagram posts, which do not disappear. It added that the office can subpoena Snapchat for videos. “Apart from the damage caused and the items stolen, it’s a complete violation of someone’s home that you can’t put a price on,” the office wrote. “The feeling when you know someone went into your closet, tried on your clothes, and used your bathroom doesn’t have a dollar amount attached to it. Especially in a place where you’re supposed to feel safe.” Officials are encouraging anyone who was present or knows who was there to come forward to police. Tags party Social media technology Walton County Sheriff's Office | Social Media |
“How else does anger travel if not by social media, by group chats and WeChat moments, which disappear after a few days?”Posted 22 hours ago BuzzFeed News; Masterchinesewithpeipei / Via YouTube A six-minute video posted on Chinese social media platform WeChat painted a harrowing timeline of what was happening inside Shanghai during the city’s latest strict COVID lockdown.After the video went viral, it was taken down by government censors. It got reposted, then taken down again. And again, and again.“Because there’s no real obvious, reliable voice of authority, it’s always felt like we get news through rumors or WeChat,” Olivia, a resident of Shanghai who lived through the lockdown and asked for her last name to be omitted to protect against government retaliation, told BuzzFeed News. “It doesn’t feel legitimate. It’s kind of like how in America, if you get news on Twitter, there’s kind of an element like, is this real?”Throughout the entire lockdown, social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat became hubs for citizens’ protests. “Balcony parties,” opportunities for residents to go on their balconies and film themselves shouting their frustrations, quickly became a viral form of digital resistance.It was the 26th day of lockdown in Shanghai when WeChat users began to circulate the now-infamous video, 四月之声 (Si Yue Zhi Sheng), “The Voices of April,” on April 22. For many in Shanghai, the video was the first time they witnessed what their 26 million fellow residents were experiencing, in alarming audio snippets, with no end date in sight.Filmed in black and white, the viral video shows aerial footage of residential buildings across the Puxi district combined with disjointed audio recordings of citizens, speaking both Mandarin and Shanghainese. “The police are bringing us food,” a voice says in the video. “The good police of Shanghai. We haven’t eaten in days.”“Are they beating it to death?” a woman asks, while a blow lands on an animal in the background. “Oh my god.”“I did a PCR test in the hospital and then I went to do chemotherapy,” one woman says outside her neighborhood. “Compounds are not allowing entrance,” a man replies in the background.“Is he not letting you enter?” another voice asks. “They are residents here! They live inside, you’re not letting people in, how does that make any sense?”After “Si Yue Zhi Sheng” was posted, government censors that remove content criticizing the ruling Communist Party of China (CCP) began to delete the video, even making the title unsearchable in WeChat.But users formed a “relay” protest, with different individuals reposting new versions of the video every time it was censored and adding their own audio clips to the comments. Censors were locked in a digital goose chase with citizens, attempting to tamp down a highly public show of government criticism.On social media, lockdown looked like a total dystopian police state, with drones and robots surveilling citizens. In reality, quarantine rules were strict across the city but largely dependent on the number of neighborhood cases. Generally, no car transport was allowed. Residents could receive a pass to leave their neighborhoods on foot or by bike. If your area’s cases decreased, outdoor time allowances became more lenient. Shanghai Lockdown Stories: Today I have a special Gate Pass, the official permit required to go out onto the streets. Are supermarkets open? Are doors covered with barriers? Let's find out! 11:15 AM - 11 May 2022 Twitter: @chris__pc The only central “trusted” channel of information was the official Shanghai government’s channel on Weibo, which operates similarly to Twitter. But many remained skeptical of any information coming out of the government.“It was a really confusing time,” Olivia said. “I don’t know what’s true or not. And I don’t know who I would ask if things are true or not. No one watches TV for the news, except maybe old people. Towards the end of quarantine, news [channels] would deliberately try and make the government look good, and be like, look how good we’re doing!”So social media was the main news source for Olivia, where she’d see posts from other people in the same boat. Many social media users began pointing out holes in the official coverage, whether it was a shot of a local grocery store that appeared to be a TV set, or B-roll of an official walking through a deserted compound that users argued was a rooftop. Lin Zhang, an assistant professor at the University of Hampshire studying new media technologies and China, told BuzzFeed News that the confusion caused by trying to determine what was real and fake has been a core part of the frustrations with lockdown.“People are still trying to make sense of what happened,” she said. “But I think it’s encouraging that despite the heavy censorship in China, people are still circulating these kinds of words like ‘Si Yue Zhi Sheng’ and being motivated further to stand up against authority. It speaks to the power, but also the limits, of censorship.”One popular post on Weibo, with over 65,000 likes, showed a drone appearing after a balcony party, announcing: “Please, let’s comply with COVID quarantine restrictions… Please control your soul’s desire for freedom — do not open the window and sing. Take care of your community.”Medical workers, nicknamed 大白 (Da Bai or “big whites”) after their white hazmat suits, are quarantine enforcers that became a symbol of dystopian surveillance. The hashtag 大白打人 (Da Bai Da Ren, “big whites are hitting people”) trended on Weibo as people uploaded videos of medical workers allegedly using physical force against citizens who broke lockdown rules, but given the heavy censorship, there is also a counter-conversation around if these videos were pushed out by the government to encourage residents to comply. Aly Song / Reuters People wearing protective face masks walk in Yu Garden, amid new lockdown measures in parts of the city to curb a coronavirus outbreak in Shanghai, China, June 10, 2022. “What is censored around China gains lots of attention abroad, which is good in that it keeps things alive and gets outside eyes on it,” Zhang said. “But then those things are the only images that get seen abroad.”WeChat felt like a more accessible platform for people to talk critically of the government measures, Olivia said, as the app only allows you to see posts from friends. The app is an integral part of Chinese society, with WeChat Pay being the main channel for payment at businesses across the country, as well as the central messaging platform.“It feels like you’re just ranting,” Olivia said. “Weibo is really public, like you’re making a statement to the world. How else does anger travel if not by social media, by group chats and WeChat moments, which disappear after a few days?”Michelle, whose last name has also been omitted to protect her privacy, left Shanghai after the first lockdown in 2020. She told BuzzFeed News that watching from abroad this year via TikTok and WeChat surprised her. At the beginning of the pandemic, isolation had been a smooth process, she said. Da Bai escorted you to your quarantine location. A local government official would take your temperature every day, and food was easy to order and come by.“There was no scarcity mindset that you can see now,” she said. “It was actually a super sophisticated infrastructure.”But “Si Yue Zhi Sheng” revealed the sharp divide between rich and poor during the most recent lockdown. Provided to BuzzFeed News At the start of quarantine, Olivia went for a jog along the river near her home. A community college sits on the other side of the bank and she could hear students yelling for help.“I heard people in the dorms across the river screaming that they don’t have food, and they were hungry. It’s hard to hear that, because there’s nothing you can do to help, because you’re also trying to get food,” she said. “They were dragging people out to the quarantine camps every day. You could really see the disparity in access.”Lockdown disproportionately affected the poor. Shanghai’s city government is broken down into local neighborhood committees who oversee and regulate areas as small as individual compounds and streets. The committees were responsible for communicating lockdown information, providing and managing food deliveries for residents, and enforcing rules.Social media users quickly began to disseminate posts comparing the differences between the richest neighborhoods, which received imported goods like breakfast cereals, compared to poorer neighborhoods that were sent spoiled produce and smaller servings. Many of these wealthy areas in Shanghai, like the famed Lu Jia Zui financial district, are populated with international expatriates, who are often white and from Western countries.“At the beginning, my local committee only gave us two cans of Spam,” Olivia said. “A friend of mine, who lives in another not-as-wealthy area, got a plastic bag of rotten chicken wings and legs, and some bad potatoes. And then I would see posts about people from the richer, more international districts who would be throwing away their produce, because they had so much.” Watching the lockdown through social media, Michelle expressed concerns for the Western perception of China. “The US has always bashed on China for various reasons,” she said. “And I used to just say that they don’t understand. They have different values. When people would call it a police state, I used to say, privacy also comes at a cost, and having security cameras everywhere means there’s no crime. But what’s going on is horrible. I’m ashamed.”Michelle said she’s always been so proud of Shanghai but the government policies that are keeping people in place have changed that.“People can’t get the medical supplies they need, they can’t walk their dogs,” she said. “People are going hungry. I’m having a hard time excusing it.”A huge concern around raising these issues outside Chinese platforms, Zhang also pointed out, is the contentious Western perception of COVID and China. Any whisper of criticism can have a huge impact on Chinese people living abroad, making even nuanced debate about the government difficult.“Especially because of the geopolitical tensions, it can perpetuate ignorance and eventually violence towards East Asians living abroad,” she said. “It’s all connected, so that makes it hard to make legit critiques about what the government does and provide a more complicated picture of the Chinese people.”Shanghai abruptly lifted the quarantine period on June 1. Olivia said she received the news through a government message shared across WeChat. “It felt like they went from 0 to 100, all of a sudden,” she said. Future Publishing / Future Publishing via Getty Images A view of the temporary shelves for the parcels arriving at a residential compound in Shanghai, June 8, 2022 Now mini-quarantines are occurring, with individual buildings shutting down for 24-hour or 48-hour sessions when a case arises in the neighborhood. Some neighborhoods are still in lockdown, while others are free to return to traveling by car. The first thing Olivia did when she got out? “I literally just went straight back to work,” she said.Dine-in restaurants and bars are still closed, preventing large groups from gathering, but Olivia said this week she saw people getting drunk with their friends on the street, ringing in summer.“The night before, I could hear lots of fireworks going off,” she said. “It was really exciting and joyous, but does feel a little unstable.”She said that on WeChat, many have still been sharing rumors and worries about restrictions. “People are still suspicious that there could be another one,” she said. | Social Media |
Women sharing nursing images on the internet are seeing their intimate moments with children taken out of context or used without consent as pornography. Camie Manning was recently offered money to share intimate footage of herself breastfeeding on social media. An Instagram handle, @curetheincels, messaged Manning on June 6 offering to pay “25 for a photo” or “50 for a video” of her nursing her baby. The account claimed this was part of a campaign to normalize breastfeeding, in which women like her would connect on Instagram, Snap or messaging app Kik with men asking for “spicy pics” and needing to “re-learn normal behaviors.” Mothers would shut down those requests by sending content of themselves breastfeeding and pushing back that “your body is for your babies, not for sale!” The women would then be paid through Cash App or Venmo, the anonymous account told the 35-year-old mom of three from Tennessee. (The account, named only “ABS Inc” in its bio, did not respond to a request for comment.) Around the same time, Mikaela de la Myco, a mother in California, got an Instagram message asking to feature photos of her nursing her 2.5-year-old on a private account purporting to share advice about breastfeeding. But none of the posts from that private handle, @breast_feeding_tips, feature any such advice, Forbes found. Most of the people following the account and commenting on its content, including an image of a naked woman breastfeeding children in a shower, appear to be men. (One of them, @breastmilk.sucker, describes himself on his page as a Sugar Daddy offering gifts through PayPal.) Both Manning and de la Myco declined the requests. Women have long used the internet to build community and find support navigating the ups and downs of early motherhood. But many women sharing innocuous breastfeeding experiences on popular platforms including TikTok and Instagram are being sexualized, harassed and, in some cases, exploited by voyeurs around the world. A TikTok spokesperson said in an email that “as we work to foster a safe environment for creators, we remove abusive or harassing behavior and accounts while also empowering people with tools to block and report accounts and control who can engage with their content.” Instagram did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Balancing freedom of expression with user safety is a tightrope walk that even the most established, powerful social media companies have yet to figure out. And although breastfeeding content is technically allowed across several of the major platforms, inconsistencies among their policies and enforcement have left them ill-equipped to crack down on activities that may break their own rules, such as abusive speech and sexual harassment or moves to repurpose, distribute or profit from explicit images of women without their consent. The onus is largely on mothers to take responsibility for what they share and deal with the consequences. A federal statute known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects internet companies from legal liability for the content that users post on their platforms, effectively letting them off the hook for users’ harmful comments on breastfeeding material or decisions to spread that sensitive content freely on other sites. These photos and videos have the potential to end up in the darkest rabbit holes or seediest corners of the internet. “I know that they’re getting shared somewhere. I just don’t know where exactly.” “Some of [these videos] have hundreds of shares, so I know that they're getting shared somewhere,” Manning said in an interview as she breastfed her baby. “I just don't know where exactly.”
The breastfeeding videos that Liscareliz, or @liscarelizc on TikTok, has posted with her baby over the last several months have drawn a level of online abuse that has horrified the new mother. Many people attacking her and others who post this material argue that breastfeeding has no place on an app for children and catchy dance routines and that it should be kept private. But Liscareliz just as regularly faces a deluge of “very inappropriate” comments from men, she wrote in a message to Forbes. “Move out the way it’s my turn,” one man commented on a recent TikTok video of Liscareliz breastfeeding her infant.
“You should have both out at the same time,” another urged her.
“Sharing is caring,” some chimed in.
Still others wrote that they were downloading the video, which has been watched more than 7 million times and shared or saved to users’ favorites 50,000 times.
It’s difficult to trace the path of a post once it leaves the platform where it originated. TikTok alone provides more than a half-dozen destinations where users can send a given video — including Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Telegram — and with just two taps of the screen, many videos can also be saved to a stranger’s smartphone. (TikTok says creators can disable video downloads to prevent this from happening.) Forbes found several breastfeeding videos from TikTok turn up on Reddit and Twitter, where they were mixed in with pornography. Twitter allows pornography on its platform, and a simple search of the word “breastfeeding” pulls up a good amount of it. (Although those intimate images are allowed on Twitter only with the consent of the person depicted in them, it’s difficult for the company to know whether that permission has been granted.) Twitter declined to comment and Reddit did not respond to a request for comment. The videos can just as easily migrate to third-party fringe sites that have entire forums dedicated to resharing and poring over TikTok videos of women’s breasts — or worse. Kara Skelton, an assistant professor at Towson University whose research has focused on breastfeeding on social media, said that during a study she conducted with Johns Hopkins University in 2018, she saw cases in which breastfeeding content taken out of its original context had turned up for sale on for-profit websites. Women seeking to empower others to breastfeed should be able to post about it without being trolled or having their images abused, but there are no clear answers as to how that can be achieved, Skelton said.
Social media users are required to consent to terms as a condition of using the platforms. Leah Plunkett, a faculty member at Harvard Law School and author of “Sharenthood,” a book about the ways adults compromise their children’s privacy online, says that while those terms are broad and often ambiguous, that permission shouldn’t extend to the sort of conduct to which breastfeeding women are being subjected on social media. “There’s no way that a woman is consenting… to having someone she doesn’t know and may never meet take [her intimate photographs] and put them in a different framing to harass her, shame her, potentially incite violence against her,” Plunkett says. Such behavior is often against platform rules, which Plunkett says should not cover “unwelcome, if not illegal, uses of your content.”
De la Myco, the mother in California, told Forbes she was aware that her videos travel — she has nearly 170,000 followers on TikTok — “but I never really actually considered if my body was being screenshotted and used” in a subversive, pornographic way.
Whitney Turner, who until last year was contracted through a third-party company, Teleperformance, to moderate content for TikTok, said “it’s not the place” for breastfeeding content. But she warned against putting that material out there for safety reasons, describing it as a “double-edged sword” given the pervasiveness of sexual predators on the app.
“People don't realize that even a baby sucking is a fetish for some people,” Turner said in an interview. “You're looking at it as a normal person, being like, ‘I would never sexualize a baby or a breast.’ But we wouldn't have the job that we did — and we wouldn't have ‘normalization of pedophilia’ as a [moderation] guideline — if it wasn't a thing.”
“I'm all for empowerment,” she added, “but as far as knowing that there's predators… I don't want to empower them.” “I’m all for empowerment, but as far as knowing that there’s predators… I don’t want to empower them.” Twitter, the mainstream platform with perhaps the loosest policies around adult nudity, permits breastfeeding content. Meta and Instagram, which had banned breastfeeding content until 2014, now allow this material. Content depicting breastfeeding is also fully permissible on TikTok, according to a spokesperson — the hashtag #breastfeeding has more than 3 billion views — but several women interviewed by Forbes said they’d had some of their material taken down. (TikTok said there may be instances where breastfeeding content would be removed for violating its rules on adult nudity and sexual activities.) Inconsistencies between platforms’ policies, reporting processes and what their algorithms may identify as inappropriate have made the issue even more fraught. De la Myco said that after having her content flagged or removed from TikTok, getting suspended from the app and having to appeal the platform, “I felt very unsafe because of TikTok — and less because of the people in my comments section.”
Experts and new moms told Forbes they believe the sexualizing of breastfeeding is more problematic on TikTok than on other mainstream platforms. Skelton, the Towson researcher, said that the openness of TikTok creates a more voyeuristic dynamic than that of organically grown, closed Facebook groups for breastfeeding content — which can serve as helpful peer-to-peer support networks. On TikTok, “there’s not really that resource sharing happening as much, and it’s not as moderated,” says Skelton. When anyone can see or share these videos on TikTok, whether they’re searching for them or being served them by the algorithm, “that’s when the door opens to all of these people who are sexualizing or stigmatizing.”
Trinity Anderson, a 23-year-old mother from Georgia who has 86,000 followers, told Forbes that “I’ve found that TikTok is a lot more of an aggressive and negative platform overall than Instagram.” She said people on TikTok have told her she should kill herself for posting breastfeeding content and accused her of abusing her daughter by continuing to breastfeed her at age two. She also said TikTok has suspended her or removed her breastfeeding videos a couple times. She added that she has seen less sexualizing on Instagram than on TikTok. “I am literally feeding my child,” she said. “There's nothing sexual about it. … The more that we encourage other people to do it, and I encourage other people to do it, the more common it’ll be, and then the less sexualized” it’ll become. TikTok says it does not allow shaming, bullying or harassment on the platform and that it removes offending content or behavior. The company also offers tools allowing users to filter comments or turn them off altogether. Search for breastfeedingscreenshot Alexandra Levine When Forbes searched “breastfeeding” on TikTok, the top terms that populated were “bread feeding with both out” and “best feeding baby no cover.” (Some users misspell the word “breastfeeding” — instead using “bread feeding,” “best feeding” and “breakfast feeding” — to avoid calling attention to videos that might get flagged.) A search of “breakfast feeding” turned up queries for videos of breasts “without child,” “uncovered” and “flashing.” And a search for “best feeding” turned up queries for teens or women “without shirt.”
Manning, the Tennessean mother of three kids — two of whom are disabled — is still relatively new to TikTok. She said her goal in getting on the platform, where she now has 21,000 followers, has been twofold: to talk about what it’s like to be a parent of disabled children and connect with other parents in her shoes, and more recently, during the baby formula shortage, to find mothers in need with whom she can share her milk.
“I had no idea until I got on TikTok and had a public platform that people had all these thoughts about breastfeeding that they have,” she said. Her breastfeeding videos “blew up way more than I ever expected them to.”
The pile-on from men fetishizing her, and from both men and women shaming her for even sharing her breastfeeding with the world, has become so intense that she often turns off the comments. She says that if she were breastfeeding in public, which she does regularly without being harassed, she can’t imagine a man coming up to her to say: “Me next.”
“There’s this disconnect between what people will say to your face,” Manning said, “and what they’ll say online.” Iain Martin contributed to this report. MORE FROM FORBES
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By Donie O’Sullivan and Whitney Wild | CNN
Calls for violence against members of the January 6th committee are circulating on some of the same online platforms that helped fuel the lies that led to the insurrection, a new analysis has found.
Users on these platforms are openly calling for the execution of committee members, with Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney appearing to be a specific target. Calls for former Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged that were chanted throughout Washington DC on January 6th continue to be echoed online.
Determining what is just rhetoric and what might be an active threat is a challenge for law enforcement. John Cohen, the former Department of Homeland Security Counterterrorism Coordinator and now an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, told CNN that authorities cannot treat social media posts with concerning language as simply hyperbole.
Cohen described the monitoring of social media as a “resource intensive process that has to involve federal, state and local authorities who are working together, who are operating under strict protocols that ensure that they are able to distinguish between constitutionally protected speech and threat-related activity.”
“We’re in a highly volatile and complex threat period,” he added.
The online threats continue as Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger revealed Sunday he received a letter in the mail that threatened to execute him, his wife and their newborn.
The decision by both Facebook and Twitter to kick then-President Donald Trump off its platforms for rule-breaking after the insurrection was a boon to a developing cottage industry of alternative social media platforms. The alternative sites, like Trump’s Truth Social platform, which launched in February, market themselves as bastions of free speech, capitalizing on the perception among some Republicans that they have been unfairly censored by Silicon Valley. Truth Social says it “seeks to create a free speech haven in the social media sphere and encourages your unencumbered free expression.” Its terms of service say posts should not be “violent” or “harassing.”
An analysis by the group Advance Democracy, a not-for-profit that conducts public interest investigations, shared with CNN found posts on Truth Social calling for the execution of January 6th committee members and others. The researchers searched for specific terms on the platforms like “execute.”
One post on Truth Social includes a picture of a noose and reads, “The J6 committee are guilty of treason. Perpetuation of a insurrection hang them all.”
On another post referencing Cheney and Pelosi, a user posted a GIF of a guillotine with the message, “#MGGA #MakeGuillotinesGreatAgain.”
CNN asked Truth Social about several posts containing violent rhetoric on Tuesday, including the posts with a picture of a noose and a GIF of a guillotine. Truth Social did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment, but by Wednesday, the posts appeared to have been removed from the platform.
In addition to Truth Social, Advance Democracy also observed violent rhetoric linked to the January 6th committee posted to other alternative social media platforms 4chan — which was used by the suspect in the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York — as well as on Gab and on another message board popular among some Trump supporters.
While many of the posts Advance Democracy identified appeared to have little engagement, all the posts are illustrative of a trend of frequent invocation of violence in these online communities.
On a pro-Trump message board a user commented earlier this month, “IF we ever decide to storm the capital again, I promise we won’t make the mistake of being unarmed a second time.”
The post has since been removed.
Truth Social and 4Chan did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab told CNN, “Gab permits all lawful political speech that is protected by the First Amendment—including speech about inherently political topics such as the charge and punishment of treason through the US judicial system. When discussion crosses into direct and imminent threats of violence we will take action and work with our partners in law enforcement to mitigate any threats to the public.”
While many people posting on these sites will never go on to commit violence, others will — as evidenced by the social media posts of some of those charged for their role in the insurrection.
“Given the lack of content moderation on fringe platforms inhabited by far-right communities, the volume of threats is much higher than on mainstream platforms,” Ben Decker, the CEO of Memetica, a digital investigations company told CNN.
Decker said that most concerning some of these posts appear to encourage “real-world violence [and] are not dissimilar from many of the threats that emerged in the weeks leading up to January 6.”
Daniel J. Jones, the president of Advance Democracy, said the online threats appear to come from people who falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen. “It’s clear that the lies and actions taken by Trump, and those lawmakers that support him, continue to pose a serious threat to our democracy and the peaceful transition of power,” he said.
The United States Capitol Police had no comment. CNN has also reached out to the FBI, Pence’s office and Cheney’s office for comment. | Social Media |
Entertainment June 20, 2022 / 8:05 PM / CBS News It's coming. "Break My Soul," the first song from Beyoncé's forthcoming seventh album, "Renaissance," will drop at midnight EDT, the singer announced on social media Monday. Beyoncé made the announcement by changing the bio on her social media accounts to "6. BREAK MY SOUL midnight ET," suggesting that the song will be the sixth track on the album. The singer has not shared much about the album, though she set a July 29 release date and has shared several images from a recent photo shoot for British Vogue's July issue.
Jay-Z and Beyonce have previously released music exclusively to Tidal — but "Renaissance" will also premiere on Apple Music and Spotify. According to Apple Music's pre-order option, the album will have 16 tracks. "Renaissance" will be Beyoncé's seventh solo album. She's the most decorated woman in Grammys history, boasting 29 awards, and was nominated for an Oscar this year for her original song "Be Alive" in the film "King Richard." Tre'Vaughn Howard Tre'Vaughn Howard is a digital associate producer and writer for CBS News, focusing on international and culture stories. Twitter | Social Media |
Every day is a battle on the internet for Courtney, one of the many adult creators who have found success on social media and OnlyFans.Courtney Ann at her Fort Worth home on April 19, 2022.Nitashia Johnson for NBC NewsJune 17, 2022, 8:30 AM UTCFORT WORTH, Texas — Courtney and Nick live with their two teenage daughters in a 5-bedroom house in the suburbs with a pool and a waterslide in the backyard. They go on vacation to Disney World. It’s all thanks to Instagram and OnlyFans.Courtney, 39, who goes by “Texas Thighs,” is one of a new generation of content creators, some of whom are able to be self-employed in the social media-driven adult industry. She now has 1.2 million Instagram followers and said she makes nearly half a million dollars a year on OnlyFans, a digital platform primarily known for nudity and sexual content that makes it easy for people to start subscription businesses. “In the old days, the men made the money off the women,” she said standing near the granite countertop of her newly renovated kitchen. She asked that NBC News withhold her family’s last name out of privacy concerns.OnlyFans has paid out more than $3.2 billion to creators since it launched in November 2016 (the company makes money by taking a 20 percent cut of sales through its platform). Most creators don’t make very much money, but those who succeed are overwhelmingly women and can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. Creators like Courtney say they deal with constant threats to the very business they are building. Adult content creators like Courtney use a combination of social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to find new followers and funnel them toward more lucrative platforms like OnlyFans. That can be a risky proposition, as creators face a near-constant battle against platform moderation efforts that can sometimes ensnare people who are not violating a company’s rules. Courtney says her content isn’t pornographic, but that even her risqué material has led to dozens of strikes and takedowns of her accounts on the mainstream platforms. Courtney and Nick, 42, say they have calculated daily losses of between $500 and $1,000 from posts and accounts that have been removed.Courtney Ann posing for a photo at her Fort Worth home with husband Nick on April 19, 2022. Nitashia Johnson for NBC NewsAnd in her personal life, Courtney says, she has dealt with everything from online impersonation to family members saying she’ll “go to hell” for her Instagram account.“Both our parents are not church people, but all of a sudden they’re spiritual and sending us Bible verses,” said Nick, a full-time photographer and social media co-manager.Still, they say, they are financially secure and happier than ever, thanks to their new lifestyle. Courtney’s booming online career sets her apart in suburban Fort Worth, where she is often recognized around town by fans. Inside Courtney and Nick’s home, surrounded by framed family photos and Dallas Cowboys merchandise, they shared the highs and lows of their new normal.“It’s all so new, this influencer-slash-model thing,” Courtney said. “Under taxes, I’m classified as a model, but it’s not the normal sense of the word. I’m a self-made entrepreneur. I run my own Maxim.”A day in the life of ‘Texas Thighs’Morning in Courtney’s house starts with green juice. Her daughters take turns measuring the nutritional powders and dumping them in the blender. The four family members gather around the gleaming kitchen island for breakfast before the day begins.The girls, 13 and 16, then head upstairs for school — they go to online school, and have since before the pandemic or their mother’s newfound fame online — before Courtney changes into a green lingerie set to shoot content.On the Wednesday before St. Patrick’s Day, the photoshoot location was the dining room table. Courtney hopped onto the shiny surface and laid flat on her stomach, then lifted her hips into the air and arched her back, staring into the camera on Nick’s phone. Courtney posts mild content compared to many OnlyFans creators. Rarely, she’ll flash her nipple, but nothing more.“Those are great, I want to try some closer,” Nick said.Once Courtney is satisfied with the boudoir-style photos, she and Nick start making content for other social media platforms. They take a break for lunch with the girls after creating some TikTok videos that merge the “Texas Thighs” brand with whatever sounds are trending. The central theme of Courtney’s social media presence, besides her body, is her playful love for her family. It’s a counter-narrative to the stigmas attached to her career and the idea that being an OnlyFans talent could hurt her children — but one that she said the people in her life have had trouble accepting. She said one of her best friends has asked her three times if she has to do porn. A family member asked if she was letting her daughters post similar content.Courtney Ann with her husband Nick at their Fort Worth home shared with their two daughters, 13 and 16, on April 19, 2022.Nitashia Johnson for NBC News“They were like, ‘Are you letting the girls post pictures like that?’ Well, no, they’re teenagers,” Courtney said. “I’m still me.”In many ways, Courtney is a regular Texas mom. She and Nick are on a first-name basis with the owners of their favorite Mexican restaurant. They have Maltese Shih Tzus named after Dallas Cowboys players Dez Bryant and Dak Prescott. Beyond that, thanks to their new income, Courtney and Nick can now afford to spend more time with their children than ever. Now they can pay for the family to travel multiple times a year, trips to New York to Orlando to Los Angeles. They have an at-home movie theater — they recently screened “Euphoria” as a family — and their daughters have a hobby room, where the younger sibling paints colorful designs on white shoes. She’s joining the swim team soon, while her older sister is experimenting with hair and makeup.Just a few years ago, the family had a much smaller budget. Courtney cleaned houses that look like the one she lives in now. Nick worked long hours as an account manager. Everything changed when Nick snapped a photo of Courtney while she did squats and posted it on Instagram. Within a month, Courtney had 15,000 followers. In less than a year, she passed 100,000, and local celebrities — including Bryant — were following her. But they’ve also lost out on parts of their life from before Texas Thighs. At 80,000 Instagram followers, some of Courtney’s family found out about the account. She said some family members showed up at her house one day to corner her and intimidate her to stop posting. She said she ended up calling the police before convincing them to leave. “How dare they come tell me what to do?” Courtney said. “They don’t get to come tell me to stop doing something I’m having fun with.”Courtney is still on speaking terms with those family members, and they see her children often. She and Nick said some members of their family stopped inviting them to group events, but others have come around to Texas Thighs. Courtney said their nieces and nephews visit the new house and are impressed by its size. One filmed a 3-minute house tour TikTok.“The caption was ‘When your mom’s cousin is RICH rich,’” Courtney said with a laugh.OnlyFans takes flightThe rise of social media in the early 2000s quickly gave way to the first models and influencers who were able to use those platforms to amass large audiences. And while they were often able to make money through advertising and other more traditional modeling work, it remained difficult to monetize directly from their audiences. At the same time, the porn industry was transformed and dominated by online “tube” websites that made sexually explicit content freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Studios were mostly run by men who hired men and women for sex work.Nick and Courtney said it was after joining social media platforms and noticing the success of attractive women posing in bikinis and lingerie that they got the idea to try. Both athletic, Courtney said her initial inspiration was workout motivation posts. Courtney Ann posing for a photo taken by her husband Nick at their Fort Worth home on April 19, 2022. Nitashia Johnson for NBC NewsAt first, the posts were moderately successful, but there wasn’t a monetization stream that allowed them to quit their jobs. That wasn’t until later, after Courtney launched a pay-per-view website where followers could buy photo sets. Once OnlyFans emerged as a mainstream cultural phenomenon in 2020, she said she created an account there, and the money really took off. OnlyFans reintroduced paying for adult content on a different scale due to the influencer status of its creators. It was the first pay-per-view social media platform with a reputation for sexually explicit content to go mainstream. OnlyFans most recently said that more than 150 million people have accounts to view content on its platform, some of which is available for free. More than 1.5 million people create content on the platform, some of which is not explicit and nonsexual in nature. Models who show everything from bikini-clad to fully nude and pornographic photos and videos now have a lucrative way to monetize them, but the average estimated income of an OnlyFans creator is still low, at only $150 a month. Hundreds of thousands of new creators have started accounts on OnlyFans, which is joined by dozens of similar platforms. Creators like Courtney have multiple revenue streams, including other pay-per-view platforms, independent membership websites, merchandise, podcasts and more. Still, creators face an almost nonstop battle to remain online.Courtney estimates that her Instagram account has been banned over 10 times, although she has always been able to restore it. She can appeal Instagram’s decision to remove posts or her entire account at the click of a button, but the process isn’t always instantaneous. She said she has had to wait weeks at times for her Instagram to be restored. She said her first TikTok account was permanently banned last year, and when trying to create new accounts, she noticed her videos’ views were remaining stagnant. Believing that TikTok limited her new accounts, she said, she purchased a burner phone with a new IP address to make another TikTok account, which now has over 135,000 followers.The choice to show skin can invite other consequences. Online comments ask Courtney if her daughters will grow up to be “whores” like her, while new accounts falsely claiming to be Courtney are all over social media.Courtney Ann posing for a photo at her Fort Worth home on April 19, 2022. Nitashia Johnson for NBC NewsBoth their daughters said they don’t have a problem with their mom’s OnlyFans or Instagram posts. To the older girl, a high school senior, in particular, it’s “annoying” that her mom faces judgment and that her content and accounts are removed and banned on social media.“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” she said. “It’s just like a model, and I’ve always thought models were cool.” Nick says some of the anger stems from Courtney flipping the script on who profits from a woman’s nudity. He compared her business to Playboy, specifically how some models earned nothing from the magazine or its cultural phenomenon.“Now we have our own Playboy and it’s ‘Oh, you can’t do that,’” Nick said. “Why? Because there isn’t a big mansion where a bunch of dudes can sleep with a bunch of chicks? That doesn’t seem fair.” Kat Tenbarge is a tech and culture reporter for NBC News Digital. | Social Media |
Young people should report harmful online content, the communications watchdog has said, after finding that two-thirds have encountered potential harms on social media but only one in six report it.Ofcom found that 67% of people aged between 13 and 24 had seen potentially harmful content online, although only 17% report it. The regulator is charged with enforcing measures in the forthcoming online safety bill, which will require social media companies to protect children and adults from online harms.The most common potential harm encountered online was offensive or bad language (28%), according to respondents in Ofcom’s Online Nation 2022 report, followed by: misinformation (23%); scams, fraud and phishing (22%); unwelcome friend or follow requests (21%) and trolling (17%). A further 14% had experienced bullying, abusive behaviour and threats online.Ofcom is launching a campaign with TikTok influencer Lewis Leigh, who rose to fame during lockdown by posting videos of himself teaching dance moves to his grandmother. The “Only Nans” campaign will encourage young people to report harmful content they see on social media.The campaign is also supported by Jo Hemmings, a behavioural psychologist. She said: “People react very differently when they see something harmful in real life – reporting it to the police or asking for help from a friend, parent or guardian – but often take very little action when they see the same thing in the virtual world.”TikTok removed more than 85m pieces of content in the final three months of last year, with nearly 5% of that total coming from user referrals. Instagram removed more than 43m pieces of content over the same period, of which more than 6% came from users reporting or flagging content.Anna-Sophie Harling, online safety principal at Ofcom, said: “Our campaign is designed to empower young people to report harmful content when they see it, and we stand ready to hold tech firms to account on how effectively they respond.”The online safety bill is expected to become law by the end of the year. Ofcom will have the power to impose fines of £18m or 10% of a company’s global turnover for breaches of the act, which imposes a duty of care on tech firms to protect people from harmful user-generated content. One of the specific mandates in the bill is ensuring that children are not exposed to harmful or inappropriate content.Andy Burrows, head of child safety online policy at the NSPCC, which has called for a strengthening of the bill, said: “This report lays bare how young people are at increased risk of coming across harmful content but feel unsupported on social media and either do not know how to report it or feel platforms simply won’t take action when they do.”Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am BST | Social Media |
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A federal grand jury in New York issued subpoenas for members of the board of directors at Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC), the special purpose acquisition company with plans to take former President Donald Trump’s social media site Truth Social public, months after the Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating the blank check company over its planned merger with Trump’s social media platform. Truth Social is shown on an iPhone. John Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx Key Facts Shares of DWAC fell more than 9% in pre-market trading after the company disclosed in an SEC filing that a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York issued the subpoenas. The news comes after the SEC launched a probe in December over claims the blank check company held conversations with Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) before going public last year. The subpoenas seek some of the same documents the SEC asked for in its investigation as well as requests related to communications with several individuals and information regarding venture capital and private equity company Rocket One Capital. The document also noted Bruce Garelick, chief strategy officer at Rocket One Capital, has resigned from DWAC’s board. TMTG said in a statement it will “cooperate” with oversight that “supports the SEC’s important mission of protecting retail investors.” Key Background
Trump announced plans to merge with DWAC to launch his own social media site to rival “liberal” platforms last October. He did so after he was banned from major platforms—including Twitter and Facebook—following the January 6 insurrection. DWAC traded as high as $175 per share after the initial merger announcement, but shares fell after the SEC began an investigation into the blank check company in December. The investigation came after multiple outlets reported Trump had met with DWAC Chief Executive Patrick Orlando before the company went public. The meeting could have broken SEC rules that prohibit SPACs from identifying a target company before raising money. The subpoenas come after DWAC disclosed earlier this month the SEC was expanding its probe, seeking communications “regarding and due diligence of potential targets other than TMTG.” Since its launch in March, Truth Social’s rollout has been plagued by resignations from top executives and technological glitches. Trump began posting regularly on the site at the end of April. Tangent
Shares of DWAC also fell in April after reports emerged Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk had been approved by Twitter’s board of directors to acquire the company for $44 billion. Trump has proposed Truth Social as a free speech alternative to social media sites like Twitter, but Musk has also criticized Twitter’s moderation practices and has indicated he intends to make changes if his deal goes through. Further Reading
Subpoenas issued to directors of SPAC taking Trump's social network public (Axios)
Trump’s Truth Social SPAC Down More Than 9% Following Reports Twitter Is Nearing A Deal With Musk (Forbes) | Social Media |
“How else does anger travel if not by social media, by group chats and WeChat moments, which disappear after a few days?”Posted on June 21, 2022, 2:57 pm BuzzFeed News; Masterchinesewithpeipei / Via YouTube A six-minute video posted on Chinese social media platform WeChat painted a harrowing timeline of what was happening inside Shanghai during the city’s latest strict COVID lockdown.After the video went viral, it was taken down by government censors. It got reposted, then taken down again. And again, and again.“Because there’s no real obvious, reliable voice of authority, it’s always felt like we get news through rumors or WeChat,” Olivia, a resident of Shanghai who lived through the lockdown and asked for her last name to be omitted to protect against government retaliation, told BuzzFeed News. “It doesn’t feel legitimate. It’s kind of like how in America, if you get news on Twitter, there’s kind of an element like, is this real?”Throughout the entire lockdown, social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat became hubs for citizens’ protests. “Balcony parties,” opportunities for residents to go on their balconies and film themselves shouting their frustrations, quickly became a viral form of digital resistance.It was the 26th day of lockdown in Shanghai when WeChat users began to circulate the now-infamous video, 四月之声 (Si Yue Zhi Sheng), “The Voices of April,” on April 22. For many in Shanghai, the video was the first time they witnessed what their 26 million fellow residents were experiencing, in alarming audio snippets, with no end date in sight.Filmed in black and white, the viral video shows aerial footage of residential buildings across the Puxi district combined with disjointed audio recordings of citizens, speaking both Mandarin and Shanghainese. “The police are bringing us food,” a voice says in the video. “The good police of Shanghai. We haven’t eaten in days.”“Are they beating it to death?” a woman asks, while a blow lands on an animal in the background. “Oh my god.”“I did a PCR test in the hospital and then I went to do chemotherapy,” one woman says outside her neighborhood. “Compounds are not allowing entrance,” a man replies in the background.“Is he not letting you enter?” another voice asks. “They are residents here! They live inside, you’re not letting people in, how does that make any sense?”After “Si Yue Zhi Sheng” was posted, government censors that remove content criticizing the ruling Communist Party of China (CCP) began to delete the video, even making the title unsearchable in WeChat.But users formed a “relay” protest, with different individuals reposting new versions of the video every time it was censored and adding their own audio clips to the comments. Censors were locked in a digital goose chase with citizens, attempting to tamp down a highly public show of government criticism.On social media, lockdown looked like a total dystopian police state, with drones and robots surveilling citizens. In reality, quarantine rules were strict across the city but largely dependent on the number of neighborhood cases. Generally, no car transport was allowed. Residents could receive a pass to leave their neighborhoods on foot or by bike. If your area’s cases decreased, outdoor time allowances became more lenient. Shanghai Lockdown Stories: Today I have a special Gate Pass, the official permit required to go out onto the streets. Are supermarkets open? Are doors covered with barriers? Let's find out! 11:15 AM - 11 May 2022 Twitter: @chris__pc The only central “trusted” channel of information was the official Shanghai government’s channel on Weibo, which operates similarly to Twitter. But many remained skeptical of any information coming out of the government.“It was a really confusing time,” Olivia said. “I don’t know what’s true or not. And I don’t know who I would ask if things are true or not. No one watches TV for the news, except maybe old people. Towards the end of quarantine, news [channels] would deliberately try and make the government look good, and be like, look how good we’re doing!”So social media was the main news source for Olivia, where she’d see posts from other people in the same boat. Many social media users began pointing out holes in the official coverage, whether it was a shot of a local grocery store that appeared to be a TV set, or B-roll of an official walking through a deserted compound that users argued was a rooftop. Lin Zhang, an assistant professor at the University of Hampshire studying new media technologies and China, told BuzzFeed News that the confusion caused by trying to determine what was real and fake has been a core part of the frustrations with lockdown.“People are still trying to make sense of what happened,” she said. “But I think it’s encouraging that despite the heavy censorship in China, people are still circulating these kinds of words like ‘Si Yue Zhi Sheng’ and being motivated further to stand up against authority. It speaks to the power, but also the limits, of censorship.”One popular post on Weibo, with over 65,000 likes, showed a drone appearing after a balcony party, announcing: “Please, let’s comply with COVID quarantine restrictions… Please control your soul’s desire for freedom — do not open the window and sing. Take care of your community.”Medical workers, nicknamed 大白 (Da Bai or “big whites”) after their white hazmat suits, are quarantine enforcers that became a symbol of dystopian surveillance. The hashtag 大白打人 (Da Bai Da Ren, “big whites are hitting people”) trended on Weibo as people uploaded videos of medical workers allegedly using physical force against citizens who broke lockdown rules, but given the heavy censorship, there is also a counter-conversation around if these videos were pushed out by the government to encourage residents to comply. Aly Song / Reuters People wearing protective face masks walk in Yu Garden, amid new lockdown measures in parts of the city to curb a coronavirus outbreak in Shanghai, China, June 10, 2022. “What is censored around China gains lots of attention abroad, which is good in that it keeps things alive and gets outside eyes on it,” Zhang said. “But then those things are the only images that get seen abroad.”WeChat felt like a more accessible platform for people to talk critically of the government measures, Olivia said, as the app only allows you to see posts from friends. The app is an integral part of Chinese society, with WeChat Pay being the main channel for payment at businesses across the country, as well as the central messaging platform.“It feels like you’re just ranting,” Olivia said. “Weibo is really public, like you’re making a statement to the world. How else does anger travel if not by social media, by group chats and WeChat moments, which disappear after a few days?”Michelle, whose last name has also been omitted to protect her privacy, left Shanghai after the first lockdown in 2020. She told BuzzFeed News that watching from abroad this year via TikTok and WeChat surprised her. At the beginning of the pandemic, isolation had been a smooth process, she said. Da Bai escorted you to your quarantine location. A local government official would take your temperature every day, and food was easy to order and come by.“There was no scarcity mindset that you can see now,” she said. “It was actually a super sophisticated infrastructure.”But “Si Yue Zhi Sheng” revealed the sharp divide between rich and poor during the most recent lockdown. Provided to BuzzFeed News At the start of quarantine, Olivia went for a jog along the river near her home. A community college sits on the other side of the bank and she could hear students yelling for help.“I heard people in the dorms across the river screaming that they don’t have food, and they were hungry. It’s hard to hear that, because there’s nothing you can do to help, because you’re also trying to get food,” she said. “They were dragging people out to the quarantine camps every day. You could really see the disparity in access.”Lockdown disproportionately affected the poor. Shanghai’s city government is broken down into local neighborhood committees who oversee and regulate areas as small as individual compounds and streets. The committees were responsible for communicating lockdown information, providing and managing food deliveries for residents, and enforcing rules.Social media users quickly began to disseminate posts comparing the differences between the richest neighborhoods, which received imported goods like breakfast cereals, compared to poorer neighborhoods that were sent spoiled produce and smaller servings. Many of these wealthy areas in Shanghai, like the famed Lu Jia Zui financial district, are populated with international expatriates, who are often white and from Western countries.“At the beginning, my local committee only gave us two cans of Spam,” Olivia said. “A friend of mine, who lives in another not-as-wealthy area, got a plastic bag of rotten chicken wings and legs, and some bad potatoes. And then I would see posts about people from the richer, more international districts who would be throwing away their produce, because they had so much.” Watching the lockdown through social media, Michelle expressed concerns for the Western perception of China. “The US has always bashed on China for various reasons,” she said. “And I used to just say that they don’t understand. They have different values. When people would call it a police state, I used to say, privacy also comes at a cost, and having security cameras everywhere means there’s no crime. But what’s going on is horrible. I’m ashamed.”Michelle said she’s always been so proud of Shanghai but the government policies that are keeping people in place have changed that.“People can’t get the medical supplies they need, they can’t walk their dogs,” she said. “People are going hungry. I’m having a hard time excusing it.”A huge concern around raising these issues outside Chinese platforms, Zhang also pointed out, is the contentious Western perception of COVID and China. Any whisper of criticism can have a huge impact on Chinese people living abroad, making even nuanced debate about the government difficult.“Especially because of the geopolitical tensions, it can perpetuate ignorance and eventually violence towards East Asians living abroad,” she said. “It’s all connected, so that makes it hard to make legit critiques about what the government does and provide a more complicated picture of the Chinese people.”Shanghai abruptly lifted the quarantine period on June 1. Olivia said she received the news through a government message shared across WeChat. “It felt like they went from 0 to 100, all of a sudden,” she said. Future Publishing / Future Publishing via Getty Images A view of the temporary shelves for the parcels arriving at a residential compound in Shanghai, June 8, 2022 Now mini-quarantines are occurring, with individual buildings shutting down for 24-hour or 48-hour sessions when a case arises in the neighborhood. Some neighborhoods are still in lockdown, while others are free to return to traveling by car. The first thing Olivia did when she got out? “I literally just went straight back to work,” she said.Dine-in restaurants and bars are still closed, preventing large groups from gathering, but Olivia said this week she saw people getting drunk with their friends on the street, ringing in summer.“The night before, I could hear lots of fireworks going off,” she said. “It was really exciting and joyous, but does feel a little unstable.”She said that on WeChat, many have still been sharing rumors and worries about restrictions. “People are still suspicious that there could be another one,” she said. | Social Media |
Tributes are flooding in for the "inspirational" podcaster and cancer campaigner Deborah James who died "peacefully" on Tuesday.The former deputy headteacher, 40, was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2016 and fiercely campaigned to raise awareness of the condition on social media, through charities and BBC podcast You, Me and The Big C.James' family, figures from the entertainment industry, politics and beyond have paid tribute to the podcaster.Read more:Deborah James passes away aged 40A statement posted by her family on her Instagram account said: "We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Dame Deborah James; the most amazing wife, daughter, sister, mummy. Deborah passed away peacefully today, surrounded by her family.It added a final message from Deborah which said: "Find a life worth enjoying; take risks; love deeply; have no regrets; and always, always have rebellious hope. And finally, check your poo - it could just save your life."James' mother Heather said her heart is "broken" following the death of her daughter and wrote: "My heart is broken. Love you forever."'Your incredible spirit will live on'Carol Vorderman also paid tribute to Dame Deborah James, tweeting "your incredible spirit will live on." Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options James revealed in early May that she had stopped active treatment and was receiving end-of-life care at her parents' home in Woking, with her husband Sebastien and their two children on hand.Her candid posts about her progress and diagnosis, including videos of her dancing her way through treatment, won praise from the public and media alike.Prime Minister Boris Johnson said because of James "many many lives will be saved, while Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer described her charity work as "truly inspirational". Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options In a statement, the BBC's director-general Tim Davie, said: "This is incredibly sad news. Dame Deborah James was a true inspiration."We're so proud to have worked with her at the BBC. The way she talked about and faced up to her cancer moved the nation, inspired change and undoubtedly saved lives."James was a patron for Bowel Cancer UK and the charity's chief executive, Genevieve Edwards said the former headteacher brought "warmth, energy and honesty to everything she did", adding that she was a "powerful patron for Bowel Cancer UK and leaves a stunning legacy through her BowelBabe fund".BBC radio presenter Chris Stark tweeted that Dame Deborah and tweeted: "I hope we can have a gin wherever this all leads."Thinking of your family and friends and everyone that is going through similar. Rest in Peace Debs x". Twitter Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options James launched a fund called the Bowelbabe fund, to raise money for research into personalised medicine for cancer patients. | Social Media |
In his campaign to control what ordinary Russians can learn about the war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has made a notable exception. He has blocked or restricted Facebook, Twitter, and most other Western-based social media sites, but one major platform — YouTube — remains available. Any Russian with an internet connection can click onto YouTube to see videos about Putin’s lawless aggression as depicted by CNN, the BBC, or even exiled allies of imprisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. Why does YouTube get special dispensation? Part of the answer is that even before the war, it was the most popular social media site in Russia. Three-quarters of Russians active on the internet use YouTube and would resent it going dark. “When we restrict something, we should clearly understand that our users won’t suffer,” Maksut Shadaev, Putin’s minister for digital development, explained recently. But there’s another likely reason Putin treats YouTube differently — namely, his recognition that for years before he ordered the invasion, YouTube enabled Kremlin-controlled propaganda outlets like RT (formerly Russia Today) and Sputnik News to reach millions of viewers in the West. In 2013, YouTube even dispatched a company vice president to an RT studio to offer the network on-air congratulations for providing viewers with “authentic” content and tallying a landmark billion views on the platform. YouTube’s duality — funneling factual news to ordinary Russians after years of facilitating Putin’s global falsehood machine — is a throughline in the platform’s influential role as the world’s dominant video-sharing venue. A new report that I coauthored for the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights illustrates that YouTube has taken laudable steps to reduce its tendency to radicalize some users while continuing to allow unscrupulous actors to spread election disinformation, religious hatred and anti-vaccine conspiracies. The report argues that while YouTube has helped intensify partisan animosities in the United States, most of its ongoing malign effects take place outside of its home market, where the company’s content moderation system struggles to interpret foreign languages and cultures. In India, YouTube’s largest market, with 450 million users, Hindu nationalists use YouTube as a weapon in their persecution of Muslims. In Brazil, where 100 million people use YouTube, right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters have deployed the platform to undermine trust in elections and COVID-19 vaccines. Globally, YouTube has more than 2 billion users. The most popular social media site, not only in Russia and India but also in the U.S., it generated nearly $29 billion in revenue in 2021, primarily from selling advertising. Despite this enormous presence, YouTube historically has received less outside scrutiny than platforms like Facebook and Twitter. That’s partly because, compared to data sets of text posts, large volumes of long-form videos are difficult and expensive for outside researchers to assess empirically. Another reason is that YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, provides fewer application programming interfaces, which social scientists can use to obtain sizable amounts of data. And YouTube sometimes remains below the media radar simply by refusing to discuss controversial issues publicly. In some instances, YouTube has responded to problems it had a hand in creating. By using “digital fingerprints” distinctive to terrorism-recruitment videos, it has diminished Islamist incitement. In reaction to reports that its recommendation algorithm guided unwitting users toward “rabbit holes” of extremism, the platform altered its technology to suppress false and conspiratorial content — changes that appear to be working. But platform recommendations are not the only way that users encounter extremist material on YouTube. They also can seek it out via YouTube’s powerful search engine, which is second in heft only to Google Search. And research published in 2021 by the Anti-Defamation League shows that alarming levels of exposure to extremist and other harmful content continues. The danger lies not in the average user experience but in the ability of people inclined toward extremism to easily find what they’re looking for. The white 18-year-old accused of killing 10 African-American shoppers in a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store in May went to YouTube to watch videos about mass shootings, police gunfights and tips on firearm use. It wasn’t until after the Buffalo massacre that YouTube removed three of the gun-related videos the alleged shooter mentioned in a diary. Our report offers a series of recommendations for addressing such issues. It urges YouTube to provide researchers, and in some cases the public, with more information about how its currently secret algorithms rank, recommend, and remove videos. Access to this kind of data could allow social scientists to make more refined suggestions about how to root out misinformation and incitements to violence. At the same time, YouTube should vastly increase the number of human content moderators and hire all of them as direct platform employees, rather than following the common industry practice of outsourcing the vast majority of this critical corporate function. (Google told us that it has 20,000 people working on content moderation, but it declines to specify how many of them are full-time employees and how many are hands-on reviewers focusing on YouTube.) In light of YouTube’s inadequate self-regulation, the government now needs to step in. While President Biden has a lot on his plate, he should push Congress to enhance the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer protection authority to provide systematic oversight of the social media industry. Specifically, the FTC ought to require greater platform transparency and assure that social media companies provide procedurally adequate content moderation. The latter obligation would entail the major platforms delivering on the promises they already make in their terms of service to protect users from a wide array of harmful content. Given YouTube’s scale — users post more than 1 billion hours of video daily — and the unfortunate human appetite for incendiary, bigoted and conspiratorial material, the platform is never going to be free of troubling content. But it is high time that YouTube takes more responsibility for decreasing the negative side effects that its lucrative business imposes on the U.S. and societies around the world. Paul M. Barrett, the senior research scholar and deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, writes about social media’s effects on democracy. Find him on Twitter @authorpmbarrett. | Social Media |
Merseyside Police has come under fire after officers pointed assault rifles in the direction of two young black men while acting on reports of a man carrying a gun on a nearby streetVideo LoadingVideo UnavailableArmed police aim guns at young men on Toxteth streetA police force has been accused of 'institutional racism' after footage emerged of armed officers pointing assault rifles at two innocent young black men in Liverpool. Videos shared widely on social media have captured the moment when two men were stopped while walking on a residential street in Toxteth at around 9.30pm last night (Monday, June 27). Merseyside Police said its officers were responding to reports that a man had been seen carrying a gun in the nearby area. One of the men in the video allegedly matched a description they had been given of a potential suspect, the Liverpool Echo reports But nothing was found on either of the men who were stopped and no arrests were made. The force has today insisted that the armed stop search was 'justified and appropriate'. Videos posted to social media show two young men being stopped in the street while officers aimed assault rifles directly at them (
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Liverpool Echo) In the video, the shaken young men can be seen holding both hands up as the police guns remain pointed at them from close range. More armed officers can be seen arriving on the scene in vehicles. In a subsequent clip one of the men can be seen being held in handcuffs as he is searched by armed officers. The videos and the actions of the police have caused great anger and upset in the Liverpool 8 community and further afield. Kim Johnson, Member of Parliament for the area and Liverpool's first black MP, said: "Seeing the video of last night's stop on Mulgrave Street, I thought I was witnessing an incident on the streets of America, not Liverpool. "The firearms teams, the handcuffing of two young black men who were innocent of any offence. No weapons were found on either of the men who were stopped in Toxteth, and no further action was taken by the Merseyside Police (
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Liverpool Echo) "Yet another time when "you matched the description" was used by the police to intimidate and harass Black men for being Black; yet another time Merseyside police have left young Black people scared and traumatised. "This is why I say they are institutionally racist and it is this profiling and scapegoating that needs to change, and change now. "I have written to the Chief Constable to ask her what action she is taking." A number of groups from the Liverpool 8 community have also spoken out about the footage. Liverpool-based Kaalmo Youth Development group, which promotes the development of young Somali people, tweeted: "An incident has happened where two young individuals were harassed by the police on Mulgrave Street. "Where reports stated that they were armed and later claimed it was mistaken identity. No apologies where given. When would this end?" The Granby Somali Women's Group added that "no one was harmed due to the two youngsters remaining calm, same cannot be said for the police on the video." Princes Park Councillor Tom Logan said: "Aware of an incident on Mulgrave Street. It seems no-one was physically harmed - which is lucky. We should not be seeing armed police on our streets." He added that he and his ward colleague have asked for an urgent meeting with police leaders. Merseyside Police has issued a lengthy statement in response to the complaints made about the actions of the officers. Superintendent Diane Pownall the force was aware of the video and wanted to clarify the circumstances surrounding the incident. She said: "Shortly after 9.15pm last night members of the public called us to report they had seen a man carrying a handgun at the junction of Princes Road and North Hill Street and he then tucked it in to his waist band. "As with any reports of somebody being armed with a firearm, armed response officers were authorised and deployed to the area. They saw two men on nearby Mulgrave Street, one of whom matched the physical description of the person and was wearing clothing that matched the clothing described. “Again, in line with training and procedures the officers carried out an armed stop. Due to the report that a man had been seen with a firearm, handcuffs were used during the search. "Having viewed body worn footage of the incident we can say that officers explained to both men why they had been stopped and the reason for the search and both men were co-operative. "Nothing was found on either of the men and no further action was taken. "At the end of the search officers double checked that the men understood why the search had taken place and were advised on how to make a complaint if they felt the need to do so, but neither of the men indicated that they wished to make a complaint." The force said that having viewed the body worn footage and given the information received from the public it believes the stop search was "justified and appropriate". Have you got a story to share? We want to hear all about it. Email us at [email protected] Read More Read More | Social Media |
Alexis Tapia opens TikTok every morning when she wakes up and every night before she goes to bed. The 16-year-old from Tucson, Arizona, says she has a complicated relationship with the social media app. Most of what flashes across her screen makes her smile, like funny videos that poke fun at the weirdness of puberty. She truly enjoys the app—until she has trouble putting it down. “There are millions of videos that pop up,” she says, describing the #ForYou page, the endless stream of content that acts as TikTok's home screen. “That makes it really hard to get off. I say I’m going to stop, but I don’t.”Scrutiny of kids, particularly teens, and screens has intensified over the past months. Last fall, former Facebook product manager turned whistleblower Frances Haugen told a US Senate subcommittee that the company’s own research showed that some teens reported negative, addiction-like experiences on its photo-sharing service, Instagram. The damage was most pronounced among teenage girls. “We need to protect the kids,” said Haugen in her testimony.Proposals to “protect the kids” have sprung up across the US, attempting to curb social media’s habit-forming allure on its youngest users. A bill in Minnesota would prevent platforms from using recommendation algorithms for children. In California, a proposal would allow parents to sue social media companies for addicting their kids. And in the US Senate, a sweeping bill called the Kids Online Safety Act would require social media companies, among other things, to create tools that allow parents to monitor screen time or turn off attention-sucking features like autoplay.Social media’s negative impact on children and teens has worried parents, researchers, and lawmakers for years. But this latest surge in public interest seems to be ignited in the peculiar crucible of the Covid-19 pandemic: Parents who were able to shelter at home watched as their children’s social lives and school lives became entirely mediated by technology, raising concerns about time spent on screens. The fear and isolation of the past two years hit teens hard and has exacerbated what the US surgeon general recently called “devastating” mental health challenges facing adolescents.The kids have been through the wringer. Could cracking down on social media help make the internet a better place for them?Safety ’NetSupporters of the new legislation have likened Big Tech’s mental health harms to kids with the dangers of cigarettes. “We’re at a place with social media companies and teenagers not unlike where we were with tobacco companies, where they were marketing products to kids and not being straightforward with the public,” says Jordan Cunningham, the California Assembly member spearheading AB 2408, along with Assembly member Buffy Wicks. The bill would allow parents to sue platforms like Instram, Tiktok, and Snap if their child is harmed by a social media addiction. Social media companies aren’t financially incentivized to slow kids’ scroll, and “public shame only gets you so far,” Cunningham says.But unlike the physical damage of tobacco, the exact relationship between social media use and kids’ mental health remains disputed. One high-profile study that tracked increases in rates of teenage depression, self-harm, and suicide in the US since 2012 proposed “heavy digital media use” as a contributing factor. But still other research has found that frequent social media use is not a strong risk factor for depression. Even the internal documents revealed by Haugen resist any simple interpretation: Facebook’s study had a sample size of only 40 teens, over half of whom reported that Instagram also helped counter feelings of loneliness. It’s also difficult to untangle the mental health harms of social media from other psychological harms in a child’s life, like health fears during an ongoing pandemic or the threat of school shootings, which leave a lasting psychological toll on students.There isn’t a scientific consensus on what a social media addiction is, either. “I am concerned that the medical and psychological communities are still figuring out what defines a digital behavioral ‘addiction’ versus other terms like problematic media use,” says Jenny Radesky, who researches children, parenting, and digital media use at the University of Michigan C. S. Mott Children’s Hospital. In addition to her research, Radesky helps shape the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy agenda on kids and technology. She also works with Designed With Kids in Mind, a campaign to raise awareness of how design techniques shape children’s online experiences.Radesky advocates for a more nuanced interpretation of the relationship between social media and young people’s mental health. “People who are trying to ‘protect kids’ within digital spaces often are a bit paternalistic about it,” she says. Well-intentioned adults often regards kids as objects to be protected, not subjects of their own experience. Instead of focusing on minutes spent on screens, she suggests, it’s worth asking how kids build norms around technology. How are they integrating it with the rest of their lives and relationships? How can parents, policymakers, and voters take that into account?But not every parent is in a position to engage in a real dialog with their kids about screen time. This poses an equity issue: Those who work multiple jobs, for example, may not be able to provide guardrails on screen time, and their children may be more prone to overuse than children of affluent parents. Radesky says this is where legislation plays a key role. She testified in support of one proposal, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code. The bill, introduced by Wicks and Cunningham, would require platforms to create features in a way “that prioritizes the privacy, safety, and well-being of children.” The bill focuses on shoring up privacy protections for kids, like requiring high privacy settings and limiting data collection by default for kids. It would also prohibit the use of dark patterns and other design techniques that could compel a user to weaken a privacy setting.The proposal has international precedent. It’s modeled on the Age-Appropriate Design code that passed in the UK in 2020. According to the 5Rights Foundation, the privacy nonprofit that supported the UK bill and is also backing the bill in California, several big tech companies have already altered their features for kids: YouTube turned off autoplay for kids by default, and TikTok no longer sends late-night push notifications to teens.Eye ContractLegislation on kids and social media, however, can also present privacy and enforcement challenges. Laws that require companies to identify which users are children incentivize businesses to set up age verification systems, whether in-house or through a third-party identification company. The unintended result of that is more corporate surveillance across the board.Our in-house Know-It-Alls answer questions about your interactions with technology.“If you do it wrong, you end up collecting more information on everyone,” says Jason Kelley, associate director of digital strategy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It’s a flaw that the EFF finds in the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, as well as the federal Kids’ Online Safety Act, or KOSA, in the US Senate. KOSA would impose on platforms a “duty to act in the best interests” of children who use their services, including greater privacy protections and the requirement to allow parents and kids to turn off features like autoplay.KOSA raises another legislative challenge: parental controls. Ideally, parental controls would be used to help a child manage screen time, a springboard for thoughtful, collaborative family discussions about their relationship to technology. But if a law demands controls that are overly broad, it puts the children of abusive parents in greater danger since it makes it easier for those parents to spy on their kids’ activities. (EFF opposes KOSA; Designed With Kids in Mind supports it.)And then there are potential entanglements with Section 230. Any attempts to regulate social media have to reckon with the federal law that protects online platforms (including social media companies) from being held responsible for its users’ posts. While state-level legislation may target retention snares like recommendation algorithms and notifications, such as the proposals in Minnesota and California, EFF would argue that those features are a means of distributing speech, inextricable from user-generated content—and protected.Effective legislation for kids and social media, Kelley says, would be privacy-protective for all users, regardless of age. It should recognize that “children” aren’t a monolith, either. Laws should have different privacy and autonomy needs across ages; the needs of a 10-year-old user are different from those of a 17-year-old.Both the California Age-Appropriate Design Code and the Social Media Duty Not to Addict Act have progressed to the state Senate after passing through the House with unanimous votes.Design RethinkingCrucially, social media addiction bills put public pressure on companies to radically retool their design processes. The engagement-inducing design mechanisms that keep kids strung along on a platform are probably familiar to late-scrolling grown-ups too: There are the notifications that rope you back onto an app after you’ve closed it. There’s autoplay, the cascade of new and dazzling dopamine hits. There are the “live” functions that fabricate a sense of don’t miss this urgency, gamification mechanisms like streaks, and nudges to share. All of them lead kids (and grown-ups) deeper into an app, a sort of digital Pied Piper effect.Tech companies “are barely scratching the surface” of what they might do to help support young users, says Munmun de Chaudhury, who studies the intersection of social media and mental health and founded the Social Dynamics and Wellbeing Lab at Georgia Tech. Apps like TikTok and Instagram can be resources for teens to explore their identities, form communities, and learn about mental health. Instead of banning social media outright, she says, legislation should push companies to understand young people and to rethink the mechanisms that keep kids scrolling past their own comfort level without restricting the ways the platforms can be helpful.Seventeen-year-old Saanvi Shetty and Shreya Karnik have a list of demands for legislators and tech companies. While Shetty and Karnik regularly outwit the algorithm as content creators (they run Voices of Gen Z, a youth-focused publication), they say that social media “absolutely” still damages their mental health. They want an indication that notes when an Instagram photo has been edited, they want companies to crack down on misinformation, and they want to be able to curate their feeds—so they can cut out content about, say, eating disorders and only see what they actually enjoy.When reached for comment, a Meta representative referred WIRED to a statement clarifying its internal findings about teens’ use of Instagram. TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter pointed out safety features like screen time management settings that, by default, silence notifications at a certain hour for teens. When asked if TikTok is working on more features specifically designed for the safety and well-being of younger users, she said, “We’ll be looking at bringing on more features like this in the future.” On June 9, TikTok announced a new feature that will prompt users to take a break after a certain amount of time has passed.Tapia, the teen from Tucson, wants more opportunities to pause. It would give her more time to reflect on whether she actually wants to keep scrolling, or is just being strung along on an app. It would have been helpful, she said, one night when she was scrolling on TikTok in her room, and her mom asked if she wanted to watch a movie together. Tapia said no. Later, she went to the kitchen for a glass of water and saw her mom, her dad, and her two younger brothers snuggled together in front of the TV. Oh my God, she remembers thinking. I just chose TikTok over my family. She closed the app and joined them on the couch. | Social Media |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Beyoncé officially announced the launch of her next album, "Renaissance", set to drop on July 29. She had previously teased the album on her social media when fans began to notice she was wiping her channels clean. Beyoncé began posting to her social media pages Thursday, including the release date and album title. Spotify and Tindal also announced the album release.The 16-track album will be the follow-up album to the singer's 2016 record, "Lemonade." This will also be her seventh solo album, after having produced several other works with fellow artists. BEYONCÉ, BILLIE EILISH TO SING NOMINATED SONGS AT OSCAR Beyonce appears at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on March 14, 2021. Beyoncé has revealed the title and release date for her next album, with the 16-track "Renaissance" set to drop on July 29 (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File) ((AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File))Most recently, Beyoncé was featured on Megan Thee Stallion's "Savage" remix, as well as opening the 2020 Academy Awards. BEYONCÉ MAKES GRAMMYS HISTORY, BECOMES MOST DECORATED FEMALE ARTIST LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 14: Beyonce Knowles-Carter attends "The Lion King" European Premiere at Leicester Square on July 14, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images) ((Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images))Beyoncé helped produce "The Lion King: The Gift" soundtrack for "The Lion King" remake, released in 2019. The singer also won her 28th Grammy Award in 2021 for one of the featured songs, "Black Parade."BEYONCÉ AND MEGAN THEE STALLION CHOREOGRAPHER LAUNCHES COMPANY TO COPYRIGHT DANCE MOVES FILE - Beyonce, right, and her daughter Blue Ivy Carter arrive at the world premiere of "The Lion King" in Los Angeles on July 9, 2019. Blue Ivy's name was added to the nominee list for best music video for her mother's "Brown Skin Girl." (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File) ((Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File))Beyoncé's album sales have topped $18 million in the US, with more than 60 million digital tracks, according to Luminate. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThe Associated Press contributed to this report. Haley Chi-Sing is a Fox News Digital production assistant. You can reach her at @haleychising on Twitter. | Social Media |
"Anyone's" Fingerprints Can Influence Marketing Getty Images Once, marketing was a centralized function and the chief marketer had effectively singular control over brand strategy, image, communication, activation, and destiny. Those days are gone. Now, on any given day, at any given moment, any given anyone can influence the trajectory of a brand and business. One tweet, one TikTok, one thing said—or unsaid—that captures the imagination or indignation of the socially connected can out-message even the most strategically brilliant, well-executed and integrated campaign. Those individuals once collectively defined as “consumers,” “customers,” or “colleagues” now—intentionally or not—are creators, collaborators, amplifiers, distributors, critics, obstacles, the makers and breakers of brands and purchase decisions. Today, anyone can exercise influence over the destiny of a brand and the business it helps drive. It’s for this reason that we name “Anyone” the unofficial number one on this 10th anniversary edition of the Forbes World’s Most Influential CMOs list, an embodiment of a decade of change. We do this neither as a gimmick, nor homage to the rationale behind Time’s 2006 Person Of The Year being named as “you.” And we most definitely do not intend to detract from the accomplishments of the chief marketers being recognized on this year’s list. To the contrary, we do it to acknowledge that today’s CMO confronts challenges that are unprecedented, ever-proliferating, and that were unimaginable even just a decade ago—requiring them to reconsider old tools, learn new ones, and perpetually adapt to perpetual change, something we think their CEOs and CFO CFO s would do well to remember. While this inexorable shift in a chief marketer’s influence and control didn’t begin with social media, it has absolutely been accelerated and codified by it, playing out over the decade since Forbes first measured CMO influence in 2012. Despite massive change what remains unchanged is that attention remains the table stakes of influence. When a 16-year-old you’ve never heard of has a bigger social platform and megaphone than almost any brand you’ve ever heard of, marketers must think differently about the relationship between brand and audience. Because not only can the social megaphone mitigate (or, on good days, amplify) the impact of a marketing budget, it serves to remind us, again, that marketing’s message control has been diluted, distributed, and can be usurped—for better or worse—in a moment, by anyone and an algorithm. On any given day, without regard to marketing calendars, campaigns or plans, a Nathan Apodoca can find himself having to skateboard to work because his truck, with 330,000 miles on it, broke down. In a moment, he grabs his board and a bottle of Ocean Spray, and films himself skating to work, lip syncing a Fleetwood Mac track. Getting to work, he posts a video he made on a whim to TikTok, where it goes viral, influencing the sales of both Ocean Spray and “Dreams.” Consider that 3 weeks ago, something inspired someone to tweet an ode to his love of Diet Coke, where in days it was retweeted nearly 50,000 times and “liked” over half a million. Consider that a Peloton bike misused in an HBO series created almost a week’s worth of cultural conversation and call and response—requiring the company’s CMO, Dara Treseder, this year’s official number one on the Forbes list, to respond immediately and in a variety of ways to protect brand and business. Consider that 19% of Spotify users planned to cancel their subscriptions after CEO Daniel Ek left Joe Rogan on the platform. Consider that when a Delta customer service rep on Twitter who asks a customer to “calm down” because they need more time to work it becomes media fodder that does little to reinforce the brand’s “supporting you through your travel journey” positioning. Again, on any given day in any given moment, any given anyone can influence the trajectory of a brand and business. And while marketers can either embrace this or try to hold it off, the latter being the marketing equivalent of tilting at windmills, this is why “anyone” is this year’s unofficial number one. This bottom-up exercise of influence, however unintentional it may sometimes be, stands in stark contrast to the literally top-down etymological origins of the word “influence” which, in the 14th century, defined it as a "streaming ethereal power from the stars when in certain positions, acting upon character or destiny of men." That anyone now has the potential to (and whether intentionally or not) influence what used to be the CMO’s alone will only become more so in a decentralized Web3 world and marketing landscape, and as “headless brands” emerge both literally and figuratively. When influence over brand and purchase destiny is in the hands and typing fingers of anyone, it requires Chief-marketers to think about—and ultimately deploy—their influence over same differently, and perhaps to think about “engagement” differently. Because in the absence of control, influence on anyone may increasingly be all marketers—and CMOs—have.
So, as we raise a proverbial glass to the unofficial “anyone,” let’s raise another to the official fifty CMOs, who continue to find ways to establish and exert their influence despite anyone else’s.
~ Seth Matlins, Managing Director, Forbes CMO Network | Social Media |
In 2008, I served on the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, run out of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center at the behest of 49 U.S. state attorneys general and MySpace to, among other things, determine whether there was a practical way for social media companies to determine the age of its users. There wasn’t.
Larry Magid (Gary Reyes / Mercury News)
Fast forward to 2022. While the technology is still evolving, there are now ways to accomplish what we couldn’t do more than a decade ago. Meta, in the US, has started to test new ways to verify age, including Face-Based-Age-Prediction (FBAP) technology that can anonymously determine a person’s approximate age along with “social vouching.” Like most social media services, Instagram requires users to be 13 or older and offers some features and content that are available only for those who are over 18 along with default settings that vary by user’s age.
Why knowing age is important In addition to knowing whether a user is 13 or older and therefore eligible to have an Instagram account, the company needs to know if a user is under 18 or between 13 and 16 so that it can take advantage of age-appropriate privacy and safety settings and be shielded from content and features that may be inappropriate for younger users.
For example, if the service knows a teen is under 16, it will be defaulted into a private account. Users under 18 are protected from unwanted contact by making it harder for potentially suspicious accounts to find them. Instagram can also notify teens when an adult who has been exhibiting potentially suspicious behavior is interacting with them in direct messaging. Instagram age-gates branded content that is not appropriate for teens, including content about alcohol, subscription services, financial insurance products and services, and cosmetic procedures and weight loss. It also prohibits advertisers from targeting ads to people under 18 based on interest and activity on other apps and websites, though it does allow ads to be targeted based on age, gender and location.
Age matters
The safety and privacy features specifically for teens are only available if the service knows their age, but until now, the primary way to determine a user’s age was to ask them to enter in their date of birth on sign-up. Instagram has long investigated reports of people being under age, but there are plenty of children who put in the wrong birthday, claiming to be 13 or older to gain access to the service or claiming to be over 18 to gain access to adult-only features. Meta will investigate reports of people being under age and will also use artificial intelligence to detect if a user is under or over the age of 18. This AI looks at things like birthday greetings and other user-generated content.
Until now, if someone tries to edit their age from under 18 to 18 or older, they would be required to upload an ID, such as a driver’s license, passport, school ID, library card and social security card, among other options. Face Based Age Prediction
The new menu of options will still include ID verification, but not everyone has access to an ID. Some also may prefer not to share it with Meta, so the company is adding two new options to determine a person’s approximate age — Face Based Age Prediction (FBAP) and social vouching.
FBAP is a technology developed and operated by Yoti, a UK company that offers age verification technology to companies around the world, including those that offer adult products or services such as alcohol, online gambling or adult-only content.
Social vouching is where one or more individuals (who must be adults themselves) will vouch for someone’s age. When someone selects the social vouching option, they will be given the option to verify their age by asking people they are mutually connected with to vouch for their age, requiring them to select 3 vouchers from a list of 6 provided by Instagram. A Meta spokesperson said “we ensure the trustworthiness of vouchers by using integrity signals, for example excluding accounts that have been registered very recently, accounts that are suspected to be fake, and limiting to users with an age of 18 or over. The user’s age is considered verified if all three responses match and the answer is in the exact age band that the user is attempting to change their date of birth to.”
The Yoti face estimation technology is particularly interesting in terms of its technology, effectiveness and simplicity. As Yoti explains on its website, “Users simply look at the camera on a device and have their photo taken. Our algorithm instantly estimates their age based on their face.”
Yoti age estimation has been certified for use by government agencies in the United Kingdom and Germany for purposes including access to adult content, gambling and alcohol.
Accuracy and inclusiveness
There are slight accuracy variations by gender. Currently they only report female and male genders (they say they are working on ways to improve age estimation for transgender individuals) and skin-tones but, overall, according to a May, 2022 Yoti white paper, the system will determine age within: 1.36 years for children between 6 and 13
1.56 years for teens 13-17 2.22 years for young adults between 18 and 24 The system is less precise (3.47%) at estimating the age of adults over 26, but Meta and most other companies don’t need to know the precise age of anyone who is clearly an adult. Yoti further states that gender and skin tone bias is minimized and that the true Positive Rate (TPR) for 13-a to 17-year-olds that are correctly estimated as under 23 is 99.65% while 6- to 11-year-olds correctly estimated as under 13 is 98.91%.
Privacy
Yoti only estimates age — not identity. Meta says that it only shares the user’s selfie with Yoti and that both Yoti and Instagram delete the image once the age estimation is complete. Yoti says that it will only share age with Meta or any other client company and that “The photograph is not viewed by any Yoti staff.” The company only determines estimated age and says that the image is not used to identify the person. The Future of Privacy Forum has published an infographic along with a blog post which outlines a set of principles regarding the use of facial detection.
In an interview, Yoti’s Chief Policy & Regulatory Officer, Julie Dawson said that it “can’t’ recognize anyone and we have it audited annually” and said that their auditor certifies that they “do delete the image each time.”
Not a magic bullet
Even with age verification, it’s still important for parents to help their teens make decisions regarding what is appropriate for them, which varies on many factors, including maturity, well-being and the individual family’s values. Having conversations with your children and teens (not lectures or inquisitions) can go a long way towards helping parents understand what services their kids are using and how they are protecting themselves and help everyone in the family learn the skills to thrive in today’s connected world. Disclosure: Larry Magid is CEO of ConnectSafely, a non-profit internet safety organization that receives financial support from Meta (Instagram’s parent company) and other technology companies. | Social Media |
Every morning, the routine for many is the same. Wake up, eat breakfast, and scroll through social media. Some don’t give it much thought, but that small rectangular electronic box in their hand is a contributing factor to America’s mental health crisis. Thankfully, there is recognition of this, and steps are being made to alleviate this problem. Beasley Allen Law Firm recently filed eight lawsuits against social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram after there were several complaints accusing the company of exploiting young children for profit and contributing to the rampant mental health crisis in America. "Social media use among young people should be viewed as a major contributor to the mental health crisis we face in the country," Andy Birchfield, Beasley Allen attorney and mass torts section head, said. "These applications could have been designed to minimize any potential harm, but instead, a decision was made to aggressively addict adolescents in the name of corporate profits.” These companies know it’s harmful to the younger generation and continue to do it. “The defendants knew that their products and related services were dangerous to young and impressionable children and teens, yet they completely disregarded their own information,” Birchfield continued. “They implemented sophisticated algorithms designed to encourage frequent access to the platforms and prolonged exposure to harmful content.” The lawsuits were filed in Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas and blamed Facebook and Instagram for specifically designing their products to be manipulative and addictive. The lawsuits also claim defective design, negligence, and failure to warn, among other things. The actions taken to hold social media platforms accountable are long overdue. Back in September 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported a study that said 32% of teenage girls “felt bad about their bodies” and that Instagram made it worse. The article also stated that 40% of Instagram’s users are 22 years old and younger. For young teenagers, the average time spent in front of a screen is 9 hours. Due to this increase in screen time, there is a correlation to increased suicide and depression rates. Company executives still fail to recognize their contribution to the problem. “We’re proud that our app can give voice to those who have been marginalized, that it can help friends and families stay connected,” Karina Newton, Instagram's head of public policy, responded in a blog post. “But we also know it can be a place where people have negative experiences, as the Journal called out today ... Social media isn’t inherently good or bad for people. Many find it helpful one day, and problematic the next. What seems to matter most is how people use social media, and their state of mind when they use it.” It’s true. Social media is amoral, but it's ignorant to think that the way people use it is the only issue. 13-year-olds should not have the same access that adults do. The content found across the internet is at the fingertips of young children, and these social media platforms encourage its usage; these companies have a responsibility to protect young users. Esther Wickham is a summer 2022 Washington Examiner fellow. | Social Media |
Women sharing nursing images on the internet are seeing their intimate moments with children taken out of context or used without consent as pornography. Camie Manning was recently offered money to share intimate footage of herself breastfeeding on social media. An Instagram handle, @curetheincels, messaged Manning on June 6 offering to pay “25 for a photo” or “50 for a video” of her nursing her baby. The account claimed this was part of a campaign to normalize breastfeeding, in which women like her would connect on Instagram, Snap or messaging app Kik with men asking for “spicy pics” and needing to “re-learn normal behaviors.” Mothers would shut down those requests by sending content of themselves breastfeeding and pushing back that “your body is for your babies, not for sale!” The women would then be paid through Cash App or Venmo, the anonymous account told the 35-year-old mom of three from Tennessee. (The account, named only “ABS Inc” in its bio, did not respond to a request for comment.) Around the same time, Mikaela de la Myco, a mother in California, got an Instagram message asking to feature photos of her nursing her 2.5-year-old on a private account purporting to share advice about breastfeeding. But none of the posts from that private handle, @breast_feeding_tips, feature any such advice, Forbes found. Most of the people following the account and commenting on its content, including an image of a naked woman breastfeeding children in a shower, appear to be men. (One of them, @breastmilk.sucker, describes himself on his page as a Sugar Daddy offering gifts through PayPal.) Both Manning and de la Myco declined the requests. Women have long used the internet to build community and find support navigating the ups and downs of early motherhood. But many women sharing innocuous breastfeeding experiences on popular platforms including TikTok and Instagram are being sexualized, harassed and, in some cases, exploited by voyeurs around the world. A TikTok spokesperson said in an email that “as we work to foster a safe environment for creators, we remove abusive or harassing behavior and accounts while also empowering people with tools to block and report accounts and control who can engage with their content.” Instagram did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Balancing freedom of expression with user safety is a tightrope walk that even the most established, powerful social media companies have yet to figure out. And although breastfeeding content is technically allowed across several of the major platforms, inconsistencies among their policies and enforcement have left them ill-equipped to crack down on activities that may break their own rules, such as abusive speech and sexual harassment or moves to repurpose, distribute or profit from explicit images of women without their consent. The onus is largely on mothers to take responsibility for what they share and deal with the consequences. A federal statute known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects internet companies from legal liability for the content that users post on their platforms, effectively letting them off the hook for users’ harmful comments on breastfeeding material or decisions to spread that sensitive content freely on other sites. These photos and videos have the potential to end up in the darkest rabbit holes or seediest corners of the internet. “I know that they’re getting shared somewhere. I just don’t know where exactly.” “Some of [these videos] have hundreds of shares, so I know that they're getting shared somewhere,” Manning said in an interview as she breastfed her baby. “I just don't know where exactly.”
The breastfeeding videos that Liscareliz, or @liscarelizc on TikTok, has posted with her baby over the last several months have drawn a level of online abuse that has horrified the new mother. Many people attacking her and others who post this material argue that breastfeeding has no place on an app for children and catchy dance routines and that it should be kept private. But Liscareliz just as regularly faces a deluge of “very inappropriate” comments from men, she wrote in a message to Forbes. “Move out the way it’s my turn,” one man commented on a recent TikTok video of Cruz breastfeeding her infant.
“You should have both out at the same time,” another urged her.
“Sharing is caring,” some chimed in.
Still others wrote that they were downloading the video, which has been watched more than 7 million times and shared or saved to users’ favorites 50,000 times.
It’s difficult to trace the path of a post once it leaves the platform where it originated. TikTok alone provides more than a half-dozen destinations where users can send a given video — including Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Telegram — and with just two taps of the screen, many videos can also be saved to a stranger’s smartphone. (TikTok says creators can disable video downloads to prevent this from happening.) Forbes found several breastfeeding videos from TikTok turn up on Reddit and Twitter, where they were mixed in with pornography. Twitter allows pornography on its platform, and a simple search of the word “breastfeeding” pulls up a good amount of it. (Although those intimate images are allowed on Twitter only with the consent of the person depicted in them, it’s difficult for the company to know whether that permission has been granted.) Twitter declined to comment and Reddit did not respond to a request for comment. The videos can just as easily migrate to third-party fringe sites that have entire forums dedicated to resharing and poring over TikTok videos of women’s breasts — or worse. Kara Skelton, an assistant professor at Towson University whose research has focused on breastfeeding on social media, said that during a study she conducted with Johns Hopkins University in 2018, she saw cases in which breastfeeding content taken out of its original context had turned up for sale on for-profit websites. Women seeking to empower others to breastfeed should be able to post about it without being trolled or having their images abused, but there are no clear answers as to how that can be achieved, Skelton said.
Social media users are required to consent to terms as a condition of using the platforms. Leah Plunkett, a faculty member at Harvard Law School and author of “Sharenthood,” a book about the ways adults compromise their children’s privacy online, says that while those terms are broad and often ambiguous, that permission shouldn’t extend to the sort of conduct to which breastfeeding women are being subjected on social media. “There’s no way that a woman is consenting… to having someone she doesn’t know and may never meet take [her intimate photographs] and put them in a different framing to harass her, shame her, potentially incite violence against her,” Plunkett says. Such behavior is often against platform rules, which Plunkett says should not cover “unwelcome, if not illegal, uses of your content.”
De la Myco, the mother in California, told Forbes she was aware that her videos travel — she has nearly 170,000 followers on TikTok — “but I never really actually considered if my body was being screenshotted and used” in a subversive, pornographic way.
Whitney Turner, who until last year was contracted through a third-party company, Teleperformance, to moderate content for TikTok, said “it’s not the place” for breastfeeding content. But she warned against putting that material out there for safety reasons, describing it as a “double-edged sword” given the pervasiveness of sexual predators on the app.
“People don't realize that even a baby sucking is a fetish for some people,” Turner said in an interview. “You're looking at it as a normal person, being like, ‘I would never sexualize a baby or a breast.’ But we wouldn't have the job that we did — and we wouldn't have ‘normalization of pedophilia’ as a [moderation] guideline — if it wasn't a thing.”
“I'm all for empowerment,” she added, “but as far as knowing that there's predators… I don't want to empower them.” “I’m all for empowerment, but as far as knowing that there’s predators… I don’t want to empower them.” Twitter, the mainstream platform with perhaps the loosest policies around adult nudity, permits breastfeeding content. Meta and Instagram, which had banned breastfeeding content until 2014, now allow this material. Content depicting breastfeeding is also fully permissible on TikTok, according to a spokesperson — the hashtag #breastfeeding has more than 3 billion views — but several women interviewed by Forbes said they’d had some of their material taken down. (TikTok said there may be instances where breastfeeding content would be removed for violating its rules on adult nudity and sexual activities.) Inconsistencies between platforms’ policies, reporting processes and what their algorithms may identify as inappropriate have made the issue even more fraught. De la Myco said that after having her content flagged or removed from TikTok, getting suspended from the app and having to appeal the platform, “I felt very unsafe because of TikTok — and less because of the people in my comments section.”
Experts and new moms told Forbes they believe the sexualizing of breastfeeding is more problematic on TikTok than on other mainstream platforms. Skelton, the Towson researcher, said that the openness of TikTok creates a more voyeuristic dynamic than that of organically grown, closed Facebook groups for breastfeeding content — which can serve as helpful peer-to-peer support networks. On TikTok, “there’s not really that resource sharing happening as much, and it’s not as moderated,” says Skelton. When anyone can see or share these videos on TikTok, whether they’re searching for them or being served them by the algorithm, “that’s when the door opens to all of these people who are sexualizing or stigmatizing.”
Trinity Anderson, a 23-year-old mother from Georgia who has 86,000 followers, told Forbes that “I’ve found that TikTok is a lot more of an aggressive and negative platform overall than Instagram.” She said people on TikTok have told her she should kill herself for posting breastfeeding content and accused her of abusing her daughter by continuing to breastfeed her at age two. She also said TikTok has suspended her or removed her breastfeeding videos a couple times. She added that she has seen less sexualizing on Instagram than on TikTok. “I am literally feeding my child,” she said. “There's nothing sexual about it. … The more that we encourage other people to do it, and I encourage other people to do it, the more common it’ll be, and then the less sexualized” it’ll become. TikTok says it does not allow shaming, bullying or harassment on the platform and that it removes offending content or behavior. The company also offers tools allowing users to filter comments or turn them off altogether. Search for breastfeedingscreenshot Alexandra Levine When Forbes searched “breastfeeding” on TikTok, the top terms that populated were “bread feeding with both out” and “best feeding baby no cover.” (Some users misspell the word “breastfeeding” — instead using “bread feeding,” “best feeding” and “breakfast feeding” — to avoid calling attention to videos that might get flagged.) A search of “breakfast feeding” turned up queries for videos of breasts “without child,” “uncovered” and “flashing.” And a search for “best feeding” turned up queries for teens or women “without shirt.”
Manning, the Tennessean mother of three kids — two of whom are disabled — is still relatively new to TikTok. She said her goal in getting on the platform, where she now has 21,000 followers, has been twofold: to talk about what it’s like to be a parent of disabled children and connect with other parents in her shoes, and more recently, during the baby formula shortage, to find mothers in need with whom she can share her milk.
“I had no idea until I got on TikTok and had a public platform that people had all these thoughts about breastfeeding that they have,” she said. Her breastfeeding videos “blew up way more than I ever expected them to.”
The pile-on from men fetishizing her, and from both men and women shaming her for even sharing her breastfeeding with the world, has become so intense that she often turns off the comments. She says that if she were breastfeeding in public, which she does regularly without being harassed, she can’t imagine a man coming up to her to say: “Me next.”
“There’s this disconnect between what people will say to your face,” Manning said, “and what they’ll say online.” Iain Martin contributed to this report. MORE FROM FORBES
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By Marianna SpringSpecialist social media reporter Image source, Stephens familyImage caption, Olly StephensIt was only after Olly Stephens was murdered, in a field outside his home in Reading, that his mum and dad realised the violent and disturbing world their son had been exposed to through his phone. For BBC Panorama, reporter Marianna Spring investigates the role social media played in his death and exposes how a 13-year-old's social media accounts can be recommended violent videos and knives for sale. Last January, Amanda and Stuart Stephens watched their son from separate windows as he left home, not realising it would be the last time. Olly wandered over to a field, Bugs Bottom, opposite their house - sliders on his feet, his phone in hand. Fifteen minutes later, he had been murdered. That phone he was holding would provide the answers to what had happened.Olly was stabbed to death by two teenage boys in a field behind his house, after they recruited a girl online to lure him there. The entire attack had been planned on social media and triggered by a dispute in a social media chat group. His parents were shocked to discover the murky world of violence and hate that their son and his friends had inhabited through their phones. I decided to investigate the role social media played in what happened to Olly - and what 13-year-olds like him are being exposed to."They hunted him, tracked him and executed him through social media," Stuart tells me as we sit together on their sofa in their home in Reading."Social media is not guilty of the murder, but it did nothing to protect him, and without it he'd still be here." Image source, Stephens familyImage caption, Olly with his dad, StuartImage source, Stephens familyImage caption, Olly with his mum, AmandaThames Valley Police say Olly's story stands out because of the huge role social media played in the case. And they fear that the evidence of bullying, and violent videos featuring knives found on the killers' phones, is just "the tip of a very large iceberg". I set out to uncover what young teenagers are seeing on social media by creating a fake account as a 13-year-old on five social media sites popular with that age group.Using an AI-generated photograph, we set up accounts for a 13-year-old boy we called "Sam", consulting one of Olly's friends and public accounts belonging to young teenagers in Reading. We wanted to see what a 13-year-old engaging with popular topics for his age - from sport and gaming to drill music and anti-knife crime content - would be exposed to and recommended. We also wanted to test whether social media sites moderate videos and images of knives similar to those shared by the children convicted of murdering Olly. Image caption, We created a profile for "Sam" across several social media platformsAfter running our dummy account experiment for two weeks, with "Sam" liking and following content suggested across the social media sites, as well as his original interests - the results were striking:On Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, our 13-year-old account was recommended content such as people showing off knives, knives for sale and posts glorifying violenceWhen we used our profile to actively look for anti-knife crime content, the 13-year-old's account was exposed to pro-knife groups, videos and pages on Instagram, Facebook and YouTubeNo action was taken against a post showing off a knife on 13-year-old's Sam account on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat. Tik Tok, however, did remove the content for violating its guidelines on dangerous acts, and Sam's account was warned it was close to being suspended'Secret world' When Olly left the house that day he reassured Amanda he had his phone location switched on, so she'd know where he was. It was the Sunday after Christmas, and the family were preparing to go back to work and school the next day. Amanda expected Olly back before dark.But shortly after he left home there was a knock on the door. It was a boy Olly knew. Amanda couldn't quite take in what he was saying. "I thought, 'Did he just say Olly's been stabbed?'" Stuart and Olly's older sister dashed out to the field opposite their home, where Olly was lying in a pool of blood. Amanda followed after them. "I just held his hand and asked him not to leave me," Stuart says. Friends, neighbours, dog walkers all tried to help, but it was too late. He died in that field. "I still look for his feet in the morning at the end of the bed because they would hang over the end," Stuart says. Not seeing them there hits him every time.Olly's bed is still made up with his favourite duvet cover. Amanda still buys him sweets, and when she vacuums Olly's room - something he used to hate - she still mutters, "I'll only be a minute." Image caption, Olly's bedroom is filled with cards from well-wishers - his teddy Tarzan is on his bedJust before he was murdered, Olly had been diagnosed with autism and, at that time, he most enjoyed gaming and listening to music in his bedroom.The night after his murder, looking through social media posts about Olly and screengrabs his friends shared with their daughter, Stuart and Amanda began to realise the role social media had played in what happened."It's this secret world where you can do and say exactly what you want," Amanda says. "It was a world that we had no idea existed [and] that he was being attacked by it." Amanda, who would normally use the tracker on Olly's phone to make sure he made it home safely, now found herself using it to check his phone made it into the hands of the police. She followed the signal as it travelled with Olly's body to hospital and then again when it was taken to Thames Valley police station.'Unprecedented' digital evidence Detective Chief Inspector Andy Howard was tasked with investigating the world inside that phone. It's a case he describes as unprecedented because 90% of the evidence at Olly's murder trial came from mobile phones - and no child witnesses had to take the stand. "We were really taken aback by the amount of digital evidence," he explains. There was enough to convict two boys - aged 13 and 14 at the time - of murder last November. The 13-year-old girl who led him to the park was convicted of manslaughter. What struck the police initially about the mountain of videos, photos and screengrabs they began to sift through was the persona that 13- and 14-year-olds linked to the case were presenting online, so at odds with the suburban reality they were living. There were images shared on Instagram of people holding knives, with balaclavas on and hoods up. The police also found videos of knives being flicked and shown off, and of boys linked to Olly's murder attacking one another, which DCI Howard told Panorama he believes were being shared "openly and very regularly" on Instagram and Snapchat. "There is certainly a very unhealthy attraction to filming, recording, acts of really quite serious violence," DCI Andy Howard says. It was a video posted on Snapchat showing an attack called "patterning" that was the catalyst in a chain of events that led to Olly losing his life. Patterning is the humiliation of a young person which is filmed or photographed and then shared on social media. It's forwarded on and on, shared across different social media sites, multiplying the embarrassment for the victim. In the weeks before he was killed, Olly had seen an image of a younger boy being humiliated and tried to alert the boy's older brother by forwarding it on to him. When two boys who were in a Snapchat group with Olly became aware he had passed it on, they were furious. DCI Howard says those boys thought Olly had been "snitching, grassing on them", and that led to the fallout. Image source, BBC/Phil CoomesPolice also found hundreds of Snapchat voice notes from the two boys who fell out with Olly. In them, they discuss attacking Olly and try to recruit a girl to set him up.The 13-year-old girl who agreed to do this knew Olly in real life, and had met the two boys involved online. Although they all lived locally, they met for the first time on the day of the murder. The language those convicted used in the voice notes is shocking, with comments like, "You're going to die tomorrow Olly," and "I'll just give him bangs [hit him] or stab him." What's also chilling is their casual and cold tone. In one voice note, the girl says, "[Male 2] wants me to set him up so then [Male 2] is gonna bang him and pattern him and shit. I'm so excited you don't understand." None of these voice notes appear to have been picked up by Snapchat - and under the social media app's own policy, it's not possible to report a private message or voice note like this to the site, only the account sending it. The evidence gathered by the police is just the information required to prosecute - but DCI Andy Howard fears they have only scratched the surface in this case. In his view, it's likely those involved were regularly exposed to violent content - and desensitised to it. A recent study by the Huddersfield University's Applied Criminology and Policing Centre backs up that idea, finding that social media was a key factor in almost a quarter of crimes committed by under-18s. Most of these were acts of violence that started with confrontation online. What teenagers see onlineIn our own investigation, within two weeks of following the kind of content 13-year-olds in Reading follow on their accounts, our imaginary teenager "Sam" was recommended posts of people showing off knives, knives for sale and videos glorifying violence. Warning: This slideshow includes graphic content and images of knives That happened on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube - while on TikTok and Snapchat, the accounts were not recommended this kind of content.All of these social media sites say that they protect teenage users. Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, says it restricts what under-18s can see of "content that attempts to buy or sell bladed weapons". YouTube says it "may add an age restriction" to content that includes "harmful or dangerous acts that minors could imitate". Our account only encountered one video with an age restriction.Some of the images and videos of knives were similar to those found on the phones of Olly's killers. We wanted to test what happens when a 13-year-old shares a post like that on social media. Our fake accounts were private, so as not to expose anyone else to this image and video of a knife. No action was taken against the post showing off a knife that was shared on the 13-year-old's account on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat. Tik Tok, however, did remove the post for violating its guidelines on dangerous acts - and Sam's account was warned that it was close to being suspended. That suggests it is possible to detect and remove this type of content shared by a profile under 18. We have now deactivated Sam's accounts. Our experiment revealed something else striking. Some adverts being promoted to Sam's account on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram were based on his interests and, at times, age-appropriate. That seems to suggest that data from young teenage users can be used to target them - but then isn't being used to protect them from harmful content showing knives and violence. I wanted to know if the posts pushed to Sam's account were typical of what teenagers would see so I met up with Olly's friends Poppy, Patrick, Izzy, Jacob and Ben at Olly's memorial bench, metres from where he was stabbed. Ben had helped me set up the fake account. He and Olly's other friends told me they started using social media long before they turned 13, the age you have to be to sign up to most of the platforms. They all say there were no attempts to verify their ages. Olly's parents say he, too, joined them before he was 13. Image source, BBC/Tom TraiesImage caption, Ben, Jacob, Marianna, Poppy, Izzy and Patrick on Olly's memorial benchI showed them several screen grabs from Sam's accounts, without exposing them to too much of the content we've been recommended. But the children weren't shocked by the results at all - and admitted they all see knives and violence regularly on their social media feeds. "I've seen bigger knives to be honest," Jacob says of his own social media accounts. "We get exposed more to people kind of showing [them] off," Poppy explains, talking about the image people her age try to portray mainly on Instagram, as well as Snapchat. Ben has seen Rambo knives, and Izzy butterfly blades, which she thinks people share because they are colourful and more appealing. They all also describe being exposed to cyberbullying on a regular basis - including "patterning" - humiliation videos like the one that triggered the dispute between Olly and the boys who killed him.All of the social media sites expressed their sympathies to Olly's family. Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, says that they "don't allow content that threatens, encourages or coordinates violence" and that they have "a well-established process to support police investigations" as they did in Olly's case. They "will urgently investigate the examples raised in this investigation". YouTube says it has "strict existing policies in place to ensure that our platform is not used to incite violence". TikTok says "There is no such thing as 'job done' when it comes to protecting our users, particularly young people" and it will "continue to build policies and tools" to help teens and their parents stay safe online. Snapchat says they "strictly prohibit bullying, harassment and any illegal activity" and "provide confidential in-app reporting tools" on the site. Hunting for answers Amanda and Stuart want answers - and solutions - to protect other 13-year-olds on social media, and they want legislators to listen.Image source, BBC/Phil CoomesImage caption, Stuart and Amanda Stephens feel more should be done to protect teenagers like Olly on social mediaThe online safety bill is currently passing through Parliament. "This bill is about keeping children and young people safe," Secretary of State Nadine Dorries tells me. She wasn't shocked to see the results of our experiment. "These platforms know that knife content is being sent to young people's social media feeds," she says. "They can actually put what is wrong right now."Stuart and Amanda fear that the bill in its current form wouldn't have saved Olly. They want to see more done to verify the age of young users and to limit their exposure to harmful posts - even if the content might be legal, like the violent videos and images of knives our dummy account was recommended. Dorries says exactly what is considered harmful but legal will be specified soon. But how exactly could the bill force social media sites to address this?"I think it's probably easier to keep to the core principle of the bill," Dorries says. "The UK has to be the safest country in the world for children and young people to be online." The Government is promising harsh penalties if companies don't comply. "We will have the power to issue multi-billion pound fines and make sure that people within those organisations are criminally liable," says Dorries.Meanwhile, Amanda says she feels social media companies are not facing up to the reality of what's happening. "Forget your profits, kids are killing each other," Stuart says. | Social Media |
Image source, Getty ImagesTwitter is trialling a new feature allowing users to share "notes" as long as 2,500 words.The social media platform normally limits posts to 280 characters. Twitter said the move was a response to seeing people use the platform to post pictures of longer announcements and steer followers to outside newsletters. The test will run for two months and involve a small group of writers in Canada, Ghana, the UK and US.The new feature aims to keep audiences in the Twitter eco-system, with readers able to see a headline and access the longer note by clicking on a link."Since the company's earliest days, writers have depended on Twitter to share their work, get noticed, be read, create conversation - everything but the actual writing," the company said, making the announcement using the new Notes product."With Notes, the goal is to fill in that missing piece."The move follows Twitter's purchase last year of Revue, a Dutch newsletter start-up.On Wednesday, it said it was folding Revue into the new Notes product, which allows writers to embed gifs, photos and other features into long-form essays that can be read on and off Twitter.Users will also be able to edit their notes after they have been published. Social media expert Dr Laura Toogood said the trial was a significant step for Twitter. She said the feature would encourage people to stay within the platform itself, rather than linking out to other websites that can host long-form content. "Adding this extra capability means that Twitter is now in a position to compete with some of the popular blogging platforms and potentially attract a new audience and a different type of user," she told the BBC. "It will also encourage existing users to blog within Twitter, rather than move to other websites for this purpose, which will help to retain their audience."The latest move comes amid scrutiny of the Twitter's business prospects, as Elon Musk's planned takeover of the company raises questions about its direction.The firm announced in April it was working on an edit button, shortly after Mr Musk - who had called for such a feature - revealed he had bought a large stake in the company. Twitter said the events were unrelated. Mr Musk has also said he sees potential in a subscription model in which people would pay to use the platform.Dr Nikki Usher, a journalism professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said it was hard to know whether Twitter was trying out new formats out of profitability or a genuine desire to try to improve the platform. "In this case, one of the things we do know is that people do not like to read long texts online," she told the BBC. "So whether giving people 2,500 characters to work with will ultimately make a difference in the quality of the digital public sphere - well, I think it's unlikely. Is it a chance to grab headlines in advance of some major changes at the company? Absolutely." | Social Media |
Tyreek Hill I Received Multiple Death Threats ... Over Patrick Mahomes Comments 6/22/2022 10:18 AM PT Tyreek Hill says multiple fans threatened to take his life following comments he made about Patrick Mahomes earlier this month ... explaining the threats were made on "every social media account I own." The new Miami Dolphins wideout -- who was traded from the Chiefs this offseason -- initially made the remarks about his old QB on the debut of his "It Needed To Be Said" podcast two weeks ago. Tyreek Hill says that @Tua is a more accurate QB than @PatrickMahomes pic.twitter.com/LUbhp2n8YK— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) June 11, 2022 @NFL_DovKleiman When discussing Mahomes vs. Tua Tagovailoa, Hill said the 'Fins QB was more accurate. He added that he believed he wasn't necessarily used right in the Chiefs' system, and said Mahomes' job was now going to be much more difficult without him around. In his second episode of his "It Needed To Be Said" pod ... Hill said the responses he got from fans to those statements were scary. "Every social media account I own, I got death threats on," the 28-year-old said. "Which is ridiculous." Hill explained he believed some of his comments were taken out of context -- adding, "They really didn’t see what I said. A lot of people are just acting off emotion." Mahomes himself said he was "surprised" by the comments ... but Hill made it clear in Tuesday's pod he still has love for his ex-teammate, and was just trying to express his belief in his new one. "We all know Patrick Mahomes is great," the receiver said. "We know that. We know that. But right now, I’m going into a new season with a new quarterback who’s trying to head in the same direction as Patrick and do great things and lead this team to a Super Bowl championship -- who’s also great, in my opinion. He just doesn’t have the accolades of yet. I believe in him." | Social Media |
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