Rory Sutherland: ‘I now understand how teenage celebrities feel like’ April 3, 2025 Spend enough time scrolling through on YouTube, TikTok or Instagram these days and it’s won’t take long for you to come across the most unlikely social media sensation of the last couple of years – Rory Sutherland. This 59-year-old Cambridge graduate and advertising executive has become a well-known face ever since an enterprising film student [...]
No10 communications chief to quit after nine months March 28, 2025 Sir Keir Starmer’s director of communications, Matthew Doyle, is set to quit No10 Downing Street after nine months in the job. Doyle, who served as the Prime Minister’s communications chief in opposition, is understood to be stepping down immediately after feeling he had stabilised the government’s communications strategy after a rocky first few months in [...]
Schiehallion: Value of Spacex stake in Baillie Gifford trust skyrockets March 26, 2025 Baillie Gifford’s Schiehallion trust marked up the value of its holdings in Elon Musk’s Spacex by 86 per cent last year, as the trust worked to close the gap between its share price and underlying assets. The valuation of Spacex, which makes up 9.4 per cent of Schiehallion’s portfolio, has increased by more than 600 [...]
Sidemen charity match proves importance of entertainment in sport March 10, 2025 On Saturday afternoon at Wembley Stadium, 90,000 fans packed out the home of football for a charity match featuring online celebrities the Sidemen. Having begun with games at Southampton in 2016 and Charlton’s The Valley, the Sidemen – a group of seven YouTubers who have banded together to grow their brand, and whose most notable [...]
US ban looms, yet TikTok’s ad revenue soars March 6, 2025 TikTok’s advertising revenue is set to exceed $30bn this year, despite looming uncertainty over a potential US ban. WARC Media’s latest insights suggest that this could jeopardise almost $12bn in ad spend. The platform’s ad business is growing rapidly, helping to cushion the blow should a ban take effect in the US, which accounts for [...]
UK watchdog probes Tiktok over child data practices March 3, 2025 The UK’s data watchdog has launched a major investigation into Tiktok, Reddit and Imgur, raising new concerns over how social media platforms handle children’s personal information. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is scrutinising the video platform’s use of teenage user data to recommend content, amid growing fears that its algorithm could expose young people to [...]
MPs slam Tiktok, Meta and X over misinformation failures February 26, 2025 MPs were left frustrated after questioning executives from big tech firms TikTok, Meta and X on how platforms handle misinformation and harmful content. The science, innovation and technology committee (SITC)’s evidence session on Tuesday, saw platform representatives struggle to provide clear answers on their content moderation policies. The session formed part of its ongoing inquiry [...]
Want Gen Z to believe in democracy? Why not actually try it January 29, 2025 Reports that Gen Z are increasingly disillusioned with democracy aren’t surprising. Too many powers in Britain have been handed to unelected quangocrats with no skin in the game while autocracies like China and the UAE are offering superficially attractive alternatives, says James Price “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms [...]
President Trump says he’s open to X owner Elon Musk buying Tiktok January 22, 2025 President Donald Trump said he was open to the idea of X-owner Elon Musk buying TikTok as well, as the app navigates attempts to ban it in the US. The social media platform with links to the Chinese government, which boasts over 170m American users, briefly went dark on Sunday after the Supreme Court upheld [...]
X and Meta: Who’s benefiting from Tiktok’s brief hiatus? January 20, 2025 As Tiktok temporarily went down on Sunday afternoon, rival social media platforms such as X and Meta scrambled to fill the void left by the app’s absence. Several competitors moved quickly to capitalise on its downfall, hoping to attract its 170m US user base by picking up its various features. Before the ban took effect [...]