The Web

Elon Musk's social media app X on Monday began offering its X Money banking service to all U.S. subscribers of its paid Premium and Premium+ tiers, part of the multibillionaire's ambition to turn the site into an "everything app."... Read more

Time to check if you've got mail. Again.... Read more

France's parliament on Tuesday approved a bill banning social media access for children under 15, making France the first European country to bar children from apps such as TikTok.... Read more

France's parliament is weighing a social media ban for users under 15, following in the footsteps of Australia and Indonesia, although enforcement authorities face a puzzle over how to manage age checks.... Read more

A comprehensive analysis of age assurance technologies co-authored by CISPA faculty member Dr. Wouter Lueks concludes that many currently proposed systems for protecting minors online come with significant trade-offs for privacy, security, accessibility and civil liberties. The study "Assessing Age Assurance Technologies: Effectiveness, Side-Effects, and Acceptance," conducted with colleagues from... Read more

The British government announced plans Wednesday to introduce a six-hour social media curfew from midnight for 16- and 17-year-olds—though they will be able to override the proposed default setting.... Read more

Chinese users of AI-powered companion bots have bade heart-rending farewells to their virtual buddies as national regulations took effect Wednesday, aimed at curbing the risk of emotional dependency.... Read more

There should be a "youth mode" for children on social media platforms in which addictive features and targeted advertising are turned off, EU lawmakers demanded Tuesday.... Read more

Children should have "phased and gradual access" to social media, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said Monday, as experts recommended that children under 13 use online platforms only under supervision.... Read more

To ban or not to ban children from all social media? That is the big question facing the European Union in its bid to protect minors from harmful content.... Read more

The European Union's plan to regulate children's access to social media follows the implementation or proposal of similar measures around the world.... Read more

Meta has pulled the plug on a feature of a recently launched AI tool following criticism that it made Instagram accounts fodder for use in creating AI-generated images.... Read more

Several major music industry organizations on Friday unveiled a labeling system for content created with generative artificial intelligence that they would like to see widely adopted.... Read more

The New York Times, the Daily News and other media outlets are asking a federal judge to impose sanctions on OpenAI, escalating a fight over artificial intelligence and copyright that could shape the future of a struggling news industry.... Read more

Restrictions on children's use of social media in the European Union could come as early as this summer, as a long-awaited expert report next week is expected to recommend limiting minors' access to online platforms.... Read more

Many digital users rely on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to combat security threats, allowing the application to view, intercept and handle all user traffic in return for hiding identifying information from third parties. Yet a new mobile VPN security testing framework—MVPNalyzer—found many popular VPNs breach user trust, according to a... Read more

In the last year or so, artificial intelligence companies have rolled out a spate of web browsers equipped with AI agents. A user might ask one of these agents to plan a vacation, and it will open browser tabs to research routes and restaurants, then make reservations and add events... Read more

Music from Kylie Minogue, John Farnham, INXS, Midnight Oil, AC/DC, Tones and I, Gotye, Ben Frost, Nick Cave, Tame Impala, Parkway Drive, The Living End and Vance Joy has been found in a database of 12 million songs used to teach artificial intelligence.... Read more

Social media companies claim their platforms are safe for kids, promoting safety features that include restricting searches for harmful content, limiting messaging and warning of out-of-network contacts.... Read more

WhatsApp users will soon get the option of going by usernames instead of phone numbers, the company said Monday, announcing plans to address a privacy blind spot.... Read more

The Australian government has announced it is "doubling down" on social media platforms that aren't complying with age restrictions for under-16s.... Read more

A study led by researchers from IMDEA Networks and Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) has carried out the first large-scale analysis of the volatility, content and actual infrastructure of hidden websites on the so-called dark web. This work was among the recipients of the 2025–2026 Spanish Police Foundation Research... Read more

Despite European legislation, many commercial websites still fall short when it comes to meeting the WCAG accessibility standard, Dante Göbbels has found. Göbbels investigated the barriers website visitors encounter, including inaccessible forms and poor contrast, missing alt text for images (important for blind and visually impaired users), and keyboard-unfriendly navigation.... Read more

Whether you love or loathe generative AI chatbots, they're becoming increasingly involved in the business of romance.... Read more

Six months on from Australia's under-16s social media ban taking effect, the early verdict from headlines and children themselves has been blunt: It isn't working.... Read more

There is little evidence that Australia's Social Media Minimum Age Act has led to any immediate reductions in social media use by under-16s, according to an early analysis of survey data published by The BMJ.... Read more

The Dutch government is considering making it illegal to use children younger than 16 in paid social media content. The government argues such online content featuring children—designed to sell goods to child consumers—basically involves them in child labor.... Read more

There was "no meaningful shift" away from big tech platforms like TikTok and Instagram in the immediate wake of Australia's world-leading teen social media ban, government documents obtained by AFP show.... Read more

YouTube is offering Hollywood celebrities and entertainers a free detection tool to help combat their deepfakes, expanding the Google-owned video platform's efforts to guard against AI-driven impersonations.... Read more

A University of Queensland study has shown large language models (LLMs) used in AI content moderation may be prone to subtle biases that undermine their neutrality. A team led by data scientist Professor Gianluca Demartini from UQ's School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science used persona prompting to test the... Read more

Online review aggregator Yelp wants to harness artificial intelligence to make it easier for users to find information curated by other people.... Read more

A new study, published in Anatomical Sciences Education, provides evidence that researchers and scientific organizations can significantly improve public access to accurate, high-quality information through structured engagement with Wikipedia, one of the most widely used knowledge platforms in the world and an increasingly influential source for both search engines and... Read more

European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday that an EU-developed age verification app was ready to go, as the bloc pushes to better protect children from online harm.... Read more

For some evangelical Christians, faith is about having a personal relationship with Jesus. At $1.99 per minute, the tech company Just Like Me is taking that concept to a new level.... Read more

Good news for people who regret the Gmail address they came up with when they registered for an account: Google is now letting users change it.... Read more

Instagram is testing a pay tier that offers features including letting subscribers discreetly view "Story" posts that normally vanish after 24 hours, Meta told AFP on Monday, confirming a report by news website TechCrunch.... Read more

Australians are among the most anxious in the world about artificial intelligence (AI).... Read more

Internet trailblazer Yahoo is exploring technology's next frontier with Scout, an answer engine powered by artificial intelligence. Scout seems insightful, based on its response to a question posed by The Associated Press about why one of Silicon Valley's brightest stars faded away a decade ago.... Read more

Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology used machine learning tools and social network theory—the study of how people connect with each other—to better understand how people interact online. Using data from X, formerly Twitter, researchers probed the complex patterns of relationships and shared interests that link people together across the... Read more

The US Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in a landmark copyright case that internet service providers (ISPs) are not liable for online pirating of music by their users.... Read more

For many job seekers, it might seem like there's never been a harder time to find a job. Hiring for white-collar jobs has been especially weak, part of what economists call a "low-hire, low-fire" job market in which businesses are largely holding onto their workers while hiring remains sluggish, making... Read more

Researchers have discovered a major security leak hiding in plain sight on the internet that could expose the personal data and financial records of millions of people. In a paper published on the arXiv preprint server, Nurullah Demir of Stanford University and colleagues analyzed 10 million websites to see how... Read more

Love is mysterious. You feel it in your chest, your knees, your soul. Love will put you on budget airplanes across the world, leave you hiding from your own phone after a sent text message or perhaps standing in the rain with your belongings in a box.... Read more

Viewers would rather watch video at slightly lower speeds than endure rebuffering, according to new research from Lancaster University. The study investigated how dynamically slowing down or speeding up playback is perceived by viewers, and how playback speed changes compare to other ways of overcoming viewer internet slowdowns—such as reducing... Read more

In a survey study of U.S. teens, more than half (55.3%) reported that they had created at least one image using nudification tools, which use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to show what an individual may look like without clothing. Chad Steel of George Mason University, Virginia, U.S., presents these findings... Read more

Google Maps will depend more heavily on artificial intelligence to help people figure out where they want to go and the best way to get there as part of a major redesign unveiled on Thursday.... Read more

Researchers at the University at Albany and Rutgers University have developed an early-warning framework that can predict harmful social media interactions before they erupt, paving the way for interventions that can minimize harm and make platforms safer for users. Using publicly available datasets from Reddit and Instagram, two social media... Read more

TikTok is built for people to create and share their own content, so dance music and indie artists fill the platform's Top 100. On Spotify, love songs and music from major record labels dominate its top charts. On both platforms, people's preferences only partly explain what songs become hits.... Read more

Why do you see the results you do when you search for information online? It's a complex mix of what the source is, its relationships to other sources online, and your own past browsing history and device settings.... Read more

Online chat service Discord has announced it will begin testing age verification for some users, joining a growing list of platforms trying to work out who is actually behind the screen.... Read more