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Fyre Festival 2 is coming, and it already sounds bananas (and not in a good way)

Billy McFarland is back, with Fyre Festival 2. Scheduled to take place in Isla Mujeres, Mexico from May 30 to June 2, tickets just went on sale, ranging from $1,400 to a truly brazen $1.1 million — even though no artists have been confirmed, and McFarland himself isn’t sure if he can legally leave the […]

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UK’s internet watchdog toughens approach to deepfake porn

Ofcom, the U.K.’s internet safety regulator, has published another new draft guidance as it continues to implement the Online Safety Act (OSA) — the latest set of recommendations aim to support in-scope firms to meet legal obligations to protect women and girls from online threats like harassment and bullying, misogyny, and intimate image abuse. The

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TikTok (with Douyin) becomes first app to reach $6B in annual consumer spending

TikTok, including its Chinese counterpart Douyin, in 2024 became the first non-game app to reach $6 billion in in-app purchase revenue in a year. According to a new report from app intelligence provider Sensor Tower, TikTok also generated a record high of $1.9 billion in gross in-app purchase (IAP) revenue in the fourth quarter of

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As Meta gets rid of fact-checkers, misinformation is going viral

Meta is phasing out its third-party fact-checking programs in the U.S. while it reintroduces a bonus program for creators, which pays them for viral content. The timing of these changes at Meta could intensify the prevalence of misinformation, according to ProPublica. In the past, content creators could not monetize posts that fact-checkers deemed false; but

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Meta, X approved ads containing violent anti-Muslim, antisemitic hate speech ahead of German election, study finds

Social media giants Meta and X (formerly Twitter) approved ads targeting users in Germany with violent anti-Muslim and anti-Jew hate speech in the run-up to the country’s federal elections, according to new research from Eko, a corporate responsibility non-profit campaign group. The group’s researchers tested whether the two platforms ad review systems would approve or

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Mark Zuckerberg’s makeover didn’t make people like him, study shows

A study by the Pew Research Center found that Americans’ views of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg skew more negative than positive. While Zuckerberg has sparked chatter in Silicon Valley with his sudden interest in high fashion, the Meta CEO is less popular than President Trump’s right-hand man, Elon Musk, the report found. While about

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Substack now lets creators monetize videos and post them directly from its app

As TikTok’s future in the U.S. remains uncertain, Substack tries to lure creators to its platform by doubling down on video. The company announced on Wednesday that it’s now allowing creators to monetize their videos on the platform, and letting them publish video posts directly from the Substack app. Previously, creators have been able to

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Study of TikTok, X ‘For You’ feeds in Germany finds Far Right political bias ahead of federal elections

Recommendation algorithms operated by social media giants TikTok and X have shown evidence of substantial Far Right political bias in Germany ahead of a federal election that takes place Sunday, according to new research carried out by Global Witness. The non-government organization (NGO) undertook an analysis of social media content displayed to new users via

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