social media
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Elon Musk Is Throttling Twitter Links to Sites That Have Vexed Him
“Free Speech Absolutist” Elon Musk appears to have hit a new low by standing in the way of website traffic flowing from X, formerly known as Twitter, to websites he doesn’t like. The social media app targeted news sites including The New York Times and Reuters as well as competing social media platforms such as Facebook,…
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Maybe Facebook’s Ruthless Ascent Didn’t Make the World More Depressed, Study Says
New academic research analysing Facebook’s adoption across 72 different countries is trying to challenge the common claim that social media is to blame for negative mental health outcomes. Researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) said they found “no evidence” that increased Facebook penetration worldwide was linked to widespread psychological harm. Instead, they claim the…
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Twitter Gives Verified Users Option to Hide Their Checkmark of Shame
Twitter—which Elon Musk has desperately tried to convince users is now called “X”—wants users to display their $US8 a month blue checkmark prominently on their page. Unfortunately for those who pay up, that checkmark has become a kind of Scarlet Letter analog that many app denizens use to denote a Musk bootlicker, or worse, or…
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Mastodon Has a Child Abuse Material Problem, Like Every Other Major Web Platform
A new report suggests that the lax content moderation policies of Mastodon and other decentralised social media platforms have led to a proliferation of child sexual abuse material. Stanford’s Internet Observatory published new research this week that shows that decentralised sites have serious shortcomings when it comes to “child safety infrastructure.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t make…