Emine Saner It was when Mehret Biruk lost two hours of her life to Instagram that she knew the time had come to escape. What had she been looking at? She couldn’t even remember in the moments immediately afterwards. Instagram, she recalls thinking, was “winning the war on my attention”. The irony was that Biruk… Read More What it’s like to have a social media detox
A number of prominent journalists who have reported on Twitter and its new chief executive Elon Musk appeared to have been suspended or banned from the platform. The Twitter account for a rival social media company, Mastodon, where some Twitter users have migrated after Musk’s takeover of Twitter, also appeared to have been suspended. In a series… Read More The ‘free speech’ advocate suspends accounts of several journalists who had reported on Elon Musk
After decades of spectacular “move fast and break things” growth, Zuckerberg’s empire is now looking a little fragile. Meta’s share price has fallen by more than 70% this year. Moneyspinners Facebook and Instagram are losing market share and Gen Z users to fresher rivals like TikTok and Snapchat. Apple’s changes to data privacy last year also decimated revenues – its introduction of an… Read More Is Facebook losing its $100bn gamble on virtual reality?
Jeremy Gilbert Alex Williams The Musk-Twitter apocalypse is a symptom of a much bigger crisis. To avoid a bleak future we have to bring the big platforms under our control Within the tech world, the most significant development of the past two years has been the collapse of the profit-making model described by Shoshana Zuboff… Read More Big Tech is failing. The future of democracy depends on what happens next
By Laura He Internet users in China will soon be held liable for liking posts deemed illegal or harmful, sparking fears that the world’s second largest economy plans to control social media like never before. China’s internet watchdog is stepping up its regulation of cyberspace as authorities intensify their crackdown on online dissent amid growing public anger against the country’s… Read More China to punish internet users for ‘liking’ posts in crackdown after zero-Covid protests
Annie Lord Dating apps have changed us and in reality there’s probably no going back. When people don’t use apps, it doesn’t mean they start meeting in person, it just means they don’t meet anyone at all. A friend of mine recently compared the situation to Uber and the way the ride sharing app monopolised… Read More Swipe fatigue, or the rise and fall of dating apps
His projects were so reliant on public money for survival that in the days before he discovered the necessity of voting Republican to provide “balance” to American politics, conservatives derided the degree of state support for his ventures. Kenan Malik Trussonomics trashed within eight weeks. Donald Trump’s anointed candidates cut down in the US midterms. Sam… Read More Beware self-made ‘genius’ entrepreneurs promising the earth. Just look at Elon Musk
Bidisha Mamata Last month, Elon Musk walked into Twitter and then all the good people left. I quit, too. It was a time-sink, a brain drain and an eye strain. In 12 years, I gained nothing, while witnessing peers and colleagues at their worst. Oh, the bliss of not turning every little thing into a quip. The… Read More I too quit Twitter this week – and have never been more relieved
Jeff Sparrow The higher the monkey climbs, the more he exposes his backside. So too with the super rich. Oxfam tells us that a mere 10 people now possess more wealth than the bottom 40% of humanity – and that the richest 20 tycoons collectively own more than the entire GDP of sub-Saharan Africa. You’d think that… Read More The grotesque inequality embodied by Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg is a threat to democracy
By Suzanne Bearne When Gayle Macdonald reached a summit in Spain’s Sierra Nevada mountain range earlier this year, she didn’t just stop and take in the moment. Instead, the 45-year-old did what a great many people would do – she looked for the best spot to take a selfie for her social media accounts. Gayle… Read More ‘It’s so liberating’: The people quitting social media
