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social media ban

UK To Ban Kids From Social Media, Ministers Lobby With US To Avoid Backlash 

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The UK has announced that they will be banning social media for kids under the age of 16. Some of the world’s biggest technology companies, including Meta, YouTube, and Snapchat, have spoken out against this decision, claiming that it will only work to push teenagers to more harmful platforms. The ban was announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday. 

A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said: “As we’ve seen in Australia, bans risk isolating teens from online communities and information, and driving them to unregulated alternatives that lack built-in protections and parental controls.”

YouTube echoed Meta’s sentiment in their own statement: “Blanket bans push kids out of such curated, supervised, beneficial experiences and towards anonymous, less-safe services.”

And Snapchat said: “Because the majority of time spent on Snapchat is in private messaging between friends and family, an outright ban that disconnects teens from those relationships doesn’t make them safer – it may simply push them to less safe platforms.”

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During Starmer’s announcement at a press conference this week, he said that “social media makes children unhappy, it’s making it easier for billies to harass and abuse them, and it could even be harming their mental health.” He then emphasized the argument that the ban was not anti-tech. 

“I do not accept, and I will never accept, that you can’t be both pro tech and AI, and at the same time say we must protect our children,” he said. 

The plan mimics the one enacted earlier this year in Australia, however, it includes both a ban on all main social media platforms, and separate restrictions on online services such as gaming apps such as removing the option to chat with strangers. 

Under this new ban, kids under the age of 16 will not be able to download Snapchat, YouTube, TikTok, X, Facebook, and Instagram. They also will not be able to livestream. Teenagers under the age of 18 will also not be able to use any romantic chatbots designed to simulate sexual relationships. 

“This is not something I do lightly, and I will not present it as cost-free, as if social media has [brought no] benefits to young people, because clearly that is wrong. But the government is always about choices, and it’s clear to me that a total ban is the right choice,” Starmer said.

In Australia, many teenagers have found ways around the bans, which has even led to lawsuits against certain social media platforms for not doing enough to enforce keeping young teens and children off their apps. While this can obviously happen in the UK as well and it is a concern, Starmer stated that it wasn’t the point behind this objective. 

“We don’t say: ‘Oh, look, a teenager managed to get a drink somehow, so let’s not bother banning alcohol sales for children.’ We don’t do that, do we? I just don’t accept that,” he said. 

“Our laws are rules, but they’re also an expression of our values. They shape the social contract, and so this will change the conversations that parents have, and the expectations of children over time.”

“It will make a huge difference. It will make our children safer. It will make our children happier. It will give them more time, more security, full freedom to grow up, more opportunity, and that, at the end of the day, is what this government is about,” he added. 

The other side to this is combating the giant companies that are widely against these bans, which is intertwined with talking to the US government and president and reassuring them that this isn’t a targeted ploy towards US tech companies. 

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UK ministers have been working on a lobbying operation to prevent backlash from the Trump administration. The administration had previously threatened the UK with “a big tariff” if the government does not drop its digital services tax, so they’re moving extra cautiously when it comes to this ban. 

“I honestly think that across world leaders there has always been a recognition that leaders have to take steps to protect children,” Starmer said. “In relation to President Trump, I spoke to him on Saturday, I’ll see him again this afternoon and, yes, of course, we’ll discuss this and many other issues, and lots of other leaders are very interested in it.”

Elon Musk, who owns X and has worked closely with the president, said “this censorship law is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The real goal is to enable the UK government to track everyone.” 

Ministers are working on every detail of this ban and what it will entail. They’ve announced late-night social media curfews for 16-and-17-year-olds. One of the workarounds that teenagers have used in Australia is using virtual private networks (VPNs) to circumvent geographical internet controls, so the UK is looking into regulating those networks as well. 

This move will have a major impact on young people. In the UK, among 13-to-15-year-olds about 90% have a social media account, and have stated that their main resource for getting the news is YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, according to reports from the Guardian. 

The UK’s technology secretary, Liz Kendall, echoed Starmer’s sentiment regarding the importance of protecting children and their mental health and not having such a focus on how teens can work around the bans. 

“I have no doubt children who are currently on social media, for whom it’s an integral part of their lives, will try and get around the ban, and many will succeed,” she said. 

“But we do think we need to draw this line in the sand, give greater clarity to parents and greater protections for children.”

“I’ve never thought that the ban will be a complete silver bullet … It will be as much about resetting expectations and social norms for children who are seven, eight, nine, 10, now that they won’t be going on social media until they’re 16,” she told the BBC.

“This is a huge statement of our values, who we are as a country, and it’s a way of actually bringing our country together,” Starmer said.

grok

Media Regulator Opens Formal Investigation Into X For Oversexualized AI Image Generation 

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The investigation specifically regards the site’s Grok AI tool which is now being used to manipulate preexisting images of women and children to remove their clothes and create inappropriately oversexualized AI images. 

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Elon Musk Touts Grok 4 as ‘Smarter Than Grad Students’ Days After AI’s Nazi Meltdown

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Elon Musk’s announcement of Grok 4’s debut arrived with all the bravado and drama one might expect from the tech mogul, complete with celebratory music, delayed streaming, and lofty claims of world-changing potential. But amid the flash and fanfare, controversy loomed large after the AI assistant’s tumultuous week.

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Brazil’s Supreme Court Agrees To Hold Social Media Companies Liable For Unethical And Illegal User Content 

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Brazil’s Supreme Court justices have set a new standard, with a majority of them all agreeing to hold social media companies accountable for illegal and unethical postings by their users. This move was made during a time where social media is so vast that there’s a large population of users that are able to get away with posting illegal content without being punished. 

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The court made a ruling on two different cases in order to reach this understanding. The rise in reports from social media companies containing posts that involve fraud, violence among underage individuals, and child pornography.

Critics are claiming that this move could infringe on users freedom of speech, which is one of the biggest reasons that social media platforms struggle when it comes to censoring or removing content and reporting users. 

To combat the freedom of speech argument, the court has moved to hold the companies as a whole liable for the content, rather than just the individual poster. According to AP, Gilmar Mended became the sixth of the court’s 11 justices to vote for companies such as Meta, X, and Microsoft to be sued and pay fines for illegal content. 

While the voting is still ongoing, having a basic majority is all that’s needed for the overall measure to pass. 

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Justice André Mendonça has been the only dissenting voice so far, stating that “free speech on social media is key for the publication of information that holds powerful public institutions to account, including governments, political elites and digital platforms.”

Justice Flávio Dino cited recent cases in which school shootings in Brazil were simulated on social media and read out posts from a user who stated he was “happy watching families of dead children weeping, bleeding, dying.” 

“I think social media has not made humanity closer to what it has produced in best fashion,” he said.

This proposal can become law once the voting is finalized, however, Brazil’s Congress could pass a law to reverse the measure. Current legislation in Brazil says that social media companies can only be held liable if they do not remove content after a court order.

“Platforms need to be pro-active in regulating content. They need to adopt certain precautions that are not compatible with simply waiting for a judge to eventually issue a decision ordering the removal of that content,” said Alvaro Palma de Jorge, a law professor at the Rio-based Getulio Vargas Foundation.

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Meta to End Fact-Checking Across Its Platforms, Including Facebook and Instagram

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Meta is revising its content review policies, eliminating fact-checking across its platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. Instead, the company will introduce user-generated “community notes,” akin to the approach taken by Elon Musk’s X.

Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced the changes on Tuesday, stating, “Fact-checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created.”

“We’re going to simplify our content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse. What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”

Zuckerberg admitted that this decision is expected to also increase harmful content on the platform.

“The reality is this is a tradeoff. It means that we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”

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Following allegations that it had not been able to prevent foreign actors from using its platforms to disseminate false material and foment dissension among Americans, the corporation started an independent fact-checking program in 2016.

It has since still struggled with the proliferation of heated issues on its platform, including hate speech, violence, anti-vaccination posts, and election-related disinformation.

According to CNN, Meta informed Trump’s team that the change was coming beforehand. In addition to Zuckerberg’s efforts to strengthen his connection with Trump before the president-elect takes office later this month, the move coincides with a larger apparent ideological tilt to the right inside Meta’s upper echelons.

The Real Facebook Oversight Board, an outside accountability organization comprised of academics, lawyers, and civil rights advocates, including early Facebook investor Roger McNamee, said in a statement that the policy changes represent Meta going “full MAGA.”

“Meta’s announcement today is a retreat from any sane and safe approach to content moderation. Censorship is a manufactured crisis, political pandering to signal that Meta’s platforms are open for business to far-right propaganda. Twitter’s shift from fact-checking has turned the platform into a cesspool; Zuckerberg is joining them in a race to the bottom.”

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Following his acquisition of X, formerly known as Twittter, Elon Musk implemented a similar policy. After dissolving the company’s fact-checking teams and partnerships, Musk enforced using user-generated “community notes” as the only means of fact-checking on the platform.

The automatic systems that check for policy infractions, which Meta claims have led to “too much content being censored that shouldn’t have been,” will also be modified. Now, the algorithms will exclusively look for unlawful and “high-severity” infractions, such as drug usage, terrorism, child sexual exploitation, fraud, and scams.

Meta will move its trust and safety teams from California to Texas and other US locations. “I think that will help us build trust to do this work in places where there is less concern about the bias of our teams,” Zuckerberg said.

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Elon Musk Shares Parody Video Of Kamala Harris Which Clones Her Voice, Raising Concerns Over AI 

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Tech billionaire Elon Musk recently shared a video on his social media platform X which used artificial intelligence to clone the voice of Vice President Kamala Harris, raising concerns over AI’s potential role in the election.

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Elon Musk Says X ‘May Fail’ 

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Elon Musk said in a post on X, formally known as Twitter, that the social media may fail after a glitch caused pictures posted before December 2014 to be deleted.

“The sad truth is that there are no great ‘social networks’ right now. We may fail, as so many have predicted, but we will try our best to make there be at least one.”

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Over the weekend, a glitch on the platform caused all pictures and links on posts for pictures and videos to be removed if they were posted before December 2014. 

The posts made before December 2014 showed broken links instead of the pictures and videos that were previously there. 

Many users noticed the glitch almost immediately after. Technologist Tom Coates referred to the glitch as an “epic vandalism by Musk,” suggesting that it could’ve been a cost-saving exercise. 

One of the biggest tweets that suffered from the glitch was the famous Oscar selfie from 2014 posted by Ellen DeGeneres. The picture became the platform’s most retweeted photo, with more than 2 million shares on the social network. 

Some X users are speculating that the glitch was caused by an effort to save money on storage data, while others have said the 2016 changes where “enhanced URL enrichment” was implemented, could’ve attributed, as the change was meant to show previews for linked websites and attachments beyond the company’s previous 140 character limit, according to The Verge. 

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This particular malfunction also came after reports last week that suggested access from X to other social networks had been slowed down. The 5-second delay that users reported also appeared on links to news sites. 

Earlier this year, X users also experienced a daily limit on the amount of tweets they could see in a day while direct messages temporarily stopped working. The company has since apologized for this “glitch” and others that left users locked out of their accounts. 

Since Musk took over the platform, thousands of jobs have been cut, massively reducing the workforce since November. 

Musk’s initial plans for the platform were to cut down on costs, however, he reported a 50% drop in advertising revenue last month, as well as heavy debt. 

Currently, X faces annual interest payments of $1.5 billion due to the debt it took on when Musk acquired the platform for $44 billion.

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Police Halt Elon Musk’s Attempt to Remove Twitter Sign From HQ After Rebranding

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Elon Musk’s efforts to rebrand Twitter as X are not going as smoothly as planned. While workers were trying to remove the company’s old name and famed bird logo from the front face of its headquarters, police intervened.

The local police department stopped the impromptu renovation Monday afternoon, citing the act as “unauthorized work.” The authorities say the social media company failed to notify the building’s owner and security about its intention to remove the sign from its San Francisco headquarters.

After the incident, a representative for the police department shared with The Associated Press in an email that no crime had been committed. The police were trying to ascertain if Twitter had a permit to close Market Street and block a lane of traffic.

“Officers assigned to Tenderloin Station responded to the area of 10th and Market streets regarding a report of a possible unpermitted street closure. Through their investigation, officers were able to determine that no crime was committed and this incident was not a police matter.”

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By the time the work had been interrupted, only the old Twitter logo and the letters “er” remained. On Sunday, Musk had tweeted, “And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and gradually, all the birds.” Later that day, he shared on the platform that the bird logo would be replaced with the letter X.

“X.com now points to https://twitter.com/. Interim X logo goes live later today.”

However, users like NYTimes Tech Reporter @Rmac18 tweeted, the hyperlink redirected many users to a GoDaddy landing page.

“Despite this, X dot com is still redirecting some people (including myself) to a GoDaddy site with ads for sectional sofas.”

The New York Times reported that Musk renamed conference rooms in the building, incorporating the letter X. Some titles seen in photos include “s3Xy,” “eXposure,” and “eXult.” The letter X was also projected into the cafeteria.

Musk has made a number of controversial changes to the site since he purchased the social media platform for $44 billion last year, the most recent being the name change to X. Many of these amendments to the platform, with its lax moderation policies, have driven advertisers off the website.

He has also been accused of not holding up his alleged “free-speech absolutist” philosophy. Aside from his supporters, users claim that the new paid Twitter Blue subscription directly puts a price on speech, amplifying his supporters while dampening the reach of his opponents or those who cannot afford it.

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Users with left-wing views and progressive activists are seeing their accounts suspended with no explanation. He was recently accused of removing the community-based fact-check under one of his tweets inciting vaccine hesitancy.

Earlier this month, Musk told CNN that the company was struggling with its finances, citing a 50% drop in advertising revenue and a negative cash flow.

In a tweet about the rebranding, Twitter’s new chief executive Linda Yaccarino praised taking the platform in a new direction.

“It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”

However, analysts say that this move could end up costing Twitter. Mike Proulx, research director and vice president at Forrester, said in a blog post that given the drop in revenue and negative cash flow, ditching the Twitter name will damage the platform further.

“This is far from a position of strength from which to attempt what is essentially an app relaunch — a move that will only alienate more users and more advertisers. While Musk’s vision is to turn “X” into an “everything app,” this takes time, money, and people — three things that the company no longer has. Disenfranchised Twitter users will increasingly turn to Threads while Musk’s company continues to lose money. Simply put, X’s runway is coming to an end.”