MPs call for social media regulation to protect children from online ‘wild west’ March 18, 2019 The “lawless landscape” of social media must be regulated to ensure young people are protected from graphic content that could damage their mental health, a group of MPs has said. A report into the impact of social media on young people’s mental health concluded firms such as Facebook and Instagram should face a 0.5 per [...]
Labour hits back at social media giants over Christchurch attack footage March 17, 2019 Social media firms must be better at reacting quickly to take down live broadcasts, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said today. A gunman attacked two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand on Friday, killing 50 Muslims. He live-streamed the attack on Facebook for 17 minutes, with footage of the event quickly spreading to other platforms such as [...]
UK home secretary Sajid Javid warns tech giants over footage March 16, 2019 Home secretary Sajid Javid has warned social media companies to "clean up their platforms" after the attack by a gunman in New Zealand, killing 49 people at two mosques, was live streamed on Facebook. Javid told these firms they would face the "force of the law" if they did not more, with the video lasting 17 [...]
Facebook blames server problem after 14-hour outage cripples social media sites March 15, 2019 Facebook has blamed a “server configuration change” for the outage that affected its social media platforms for more than 14 hours yesterday. “We've now resolved the issues and our systems are recovering. We’re very sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate everyone’s patience,” the company said in a statement. Read more: Facebook restores service after worst [...]
Facebook loses two top technology execs after Zuckerberg adopts privacy shift March 14, 2019 Two senior Facebook technology executives have left the social media giant, days after its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company would be moving towards a “privacy-focused future”. Zuckerberg said in a blog post that chief product officer Chris Cox, one of the firm’s earliest employees, and Whatsapp vice president Chris Daniels had resigned. “As Mark has [...]
Facebook hit with US criminal investigation over data-sharing deals March 14, 2019 US prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into Facebook over a number of data deals it struck with other major tech firms. A grand jury in New York has ordered two smartphone manufacturers to hand over records, the New York Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Read more: Facebook to encrypt more messages [...]
The World Wide Web is 30 years old – what will be the future of the internet? March 14, 2019 The World Wide Web turned 30 years old this week: on 12 March 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal to the world’s largest physics laboratory, Cern, that outlined a new way to link, share, and manage information over the internet. As the main way that the vast majority of us access the online world, the [...]
Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp emerge from worst outage in tech giant’s history March 14, 2019 Facebook showed signs of recovery this morning after suffering a partial outage that affected users across the world for more than 14 hours. The outage, believed to be the longest in the social media site’s history, began yesterday afternoon and also affected Instagram, Messenger and Whatsapp. Read more: Global outages cripple Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram The [...]
Ray Kelvin held Ted Baker too tight March 14, 2019 Yet another big-name chief executive has stepped down from their position at the helm of a well-known British business. The founder of fashion retail brand Ted Baker, Ray Kelvin, announced last Monday that he was going to be resigning from his position as chief executive, as the firm investigates allegations that he behaved inappropriately toward [...]
Global outages cripple Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram March 13, 2019 Several of Facebook’s most popular social media platforms are suffering partial outages around the world, largely affecting users across the Americas and Europe. Service continues to be disrupted on Facebook’s main app, Messsenger, Instagram and Whatsapp. Users began reporting issues at around 4pm GMT, with full access to the platforms still ongoing. Third-party outage tracker Down Detector said [...]