Supernova: Ex-Saatchi Sir John Hegarty backs social network September 25, 2025 Sir John Hegarty, the creative heavyweight behind Saatchi & Saatchi, TBWA London and Bartle Bogle Hegarty, has become an investor and creative adviser to social network Supernova. The platform, created by former Saatchi adman and BAFTA winner Dominic O’Meara, bills itself as “social media for grown-ups”, promising to donate a share of every ‘like’ to [...]
Brits bypass Online Safety Act with VPNs, report finds September 11, 2025 The government’s flagship Online Safety Act is already being bypassed at scale, with a new survey showing nearly one in three Brits are still accessing adult content without age checks in place. Research by verification and anti-fraud platform Sumsub, which polled 2,000 UK consumers, found widespread scepticism about whether Ofcom and ministers can enforce the [...]
Spotify creating new UK jobs after redundancies September 1, 2025 The UK arm of Spotify is creating new UK jobs this year after shedding more than 200 jobs in 2024 as its profit continued to rise despite a fall in revenue, it has been revealed. The division of the Swedish audio streaming giant cut its workforce from 1,039 employees during its latest financial year, according [...]
TikTok sheds London staff in major AI push August 22, 2025 TikTok is set to lay off hundreds of staff in its content moderation and security team in London, a decision that has sparked concern just as the UK’s Online Safety Act comes into force. The company, owned by ByteDance, is centralising its “trust and safety” operations globally and plans to increasingly rely on artificial intelligence [...]
Should we be worried about Instagram’s map feature? August 20, 2025 Instagram’s new location-sharing feature, dubbed ‘Instagram Map’, has been rolled out to 170m users, but a journey through the platform reveals a perplexing reality: it’s a digital ghost town. While Instagram’s parent, Meta, has billed the feature as a “new, light way to connect”, many users are finding themselves alone on the map, prompting a [...]
Brits call for VPN ban for minors to curb Online Safety Act loopholes August 20, 2025 A majority of Britons believe children under 18 should be banned from using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) following a recent surge, a survey has found. Research from YouGov found that 55 per cent of the public supports a ban for minors, while only 20 per cent think they should be allowed to use them. This [...]
UK backs down on plans to force Apple to share encrypted user data August 19, 2025 The British government has backed down on plans to force Apple to share encrypted user data, according to President Trump’s intelligence chief. Tulsi Gabbard told the Financial Times that the government has agreed to abandon its demands for a “back door” for data. US vice-president JD Vance reportedly intervened to broker the exemption for the [...]
Rayner claims Reform will ‘fail women’ as she weighs in on online safety row August 16, 2025 Nigel Farage and Reform UK risk “failing a generation of young women” if they scrap online safety laws aimed at preventing revenge porn, Angela Rayner has said. The Deputy Prime Minister demanded Farage explain how his party would keep young women safe when they use the internet, after Reform vowed to repeal the Online Safety [...]
Peter Kyle defends UK free speech record after US report attacks Online Safety Act August 14, 2025 Tech secretary Peter Kyle has pushed back against a damning US government report accusing the UK of backsliding on human rights and curbing freedom of expression under Labour. The annual State Department dossier, published on Tuesday, warned that Britain’s human rights record had “worsened during the year” amid “serious restrictions on freedom of expression”, and [...]
Notting Hill Carnival: The Met is writing its own rules for live facial recognition August 13, 2025 With the Met primed to use live facial recognition tech at the upcoming Notting Hill Carnival, primary legislation is needed urgently.