The Web

Researchers from the University of Melbourne (UoM) and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) have developed an algorithm that can detect important events based on the time and geographical scale of topics being actively discussed on social media. Their algorithm, detailed in the Journal of Big Data, does... Read more

A US judge has ordered Facebook to release posts the social network removed over their role in inciting government-backed violence against the Rohingya people in Myanmar.... Read more

In stressful times—and I think we all agree these qualify—Facebook can feel like a little bit of sanctuary.... Read more

Facebook's semi-independent oversight board says it will review the company's "XCheck," or cross check, system following an investigation by The Wall Street Journal into the use of this internal system that has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules.... Read more

Facebook on Tuesday fired back after a series of withering Wall Street Journal reports that the company failed to keep users safe, with the social media giant noting an increase in staff and spending on battling abuses.... Read more

Maybe it's the pandemic doomscrolling, the unsettling revelations about how toxic Instagram is for teenage girls, or you are just craving more time for IRL moments with the people you love and less time oversharing your life online.... Read more

Facebook removed almost 150 accounts and pages linked to anti-lockdown demonstrators in Germany, the company announced Thursday, under a new policy focused on groups that spread misinformation or incite violence but who don't fit into the platform's existing categories of bad actors.... Read more

Facebook has launched an effort targeting users working together on the platform to promote real-world violence or conspiracy theories, beginning by taking down a German network spreading Covid misinformation.... Read more

Instagram on Tuesday defended itself against a report that the social network harms the mental health of young girls, saying it plans to play down posts promoting myths about beautiful bodies.... Read more

Russia fined Facebook and Twitter on Tuesday for not deleting banned content, adding to a slew of penalties the government has imposed on foreign tech giants.... Read more

Facebook exempts certain celebrities, politicians and other high-profile users from some its own rules for posts as part of a program launched as a quality-control mechanism, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.... Read more

Facebook has been quietly experimenting with reducing the amount of political content it puts in users' news feeds. The move is a tacit acknowledgment that the way the company's algorithms work can be a problem.... Read more

Getting around an Australian city without a car can be a real hassle. Imagine how much easier it would be if you had the option of combining public transport and shared services—be it bus, train, tram, taxi, car share, electric bicycle or e-scooter—and could book and pay for the lot... Read more

Facebook, Google's YouTube and Twitter will fight a new Texas law cracking down on social media companies for allegedly censoring conservative speech and former President Donald Trump.... Read more

An international team of researchers is promoting the idea of using firmware to stop ransomware attacks before they can encrypt user data stored on a solid-state drive (SSD). The group presented their ideas back in 2018 at the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, and more recently spoke to... Read more

Texas on Thursday made it illegal for popular social media platforms to ban users "simply based on their political viewpoints."... Read more

In August 2021, a Facebook ad campaign criticizing Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the United States' first Muslim congresswomen, came under intense scrutiny. Critics charged that the ads linked the congresswomen with terrorism, and some faith leaders condemned the campaign as "Islamophobic"—that is, spreading fear of Islam and hatred against... Read more

More than 500 websites have promoted misinformation about the coronavirus—including debunked claims about vaccines, according to a firm that rates the credibility of websites.... Read more

Facebook on Friday said it disabled its topic recommendation feature after it mistook Black men for "primates" in video at the social network.... Read more

Lately, it seems the place to be for job seekers is TikTok, where users are posting video resumes—and racking up impressive page views—as they look to set themselves apart in increasingly competitive candidate pools.... Read more

A recently passed Texas law banning women from having an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy is getting some resistance—from TikTok.... Read more

Child sexual abuse material is rampant online, despite considerable efforts by big tech companies and governments to curb it. And according to reports, it has only become more prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic.... Read more

The advancement of digital media is a double-edged sword.... Read more

YouTube's music streaming service reported Thursday it now has more than 50 million subscribers, saying it is growing quickly as it tries to close the gap with market-leader Spotify.... Read more

Reddit has banned a community linked to misinformation about the COVID vaccine following a series of protests from other subreddits.... Read more

Despite growing opposition, the U.S. government is on track to increase its use of controversial facial recognition technology.... Read more

Texas is on the verge of passing a new law that would crack down on social media companies Republicans say are censoring conservative speech.... Read more

Twitter on Wednesday launched a long-promised "Super Follows" feature that lets creators sell subscriptions for access to special content.... Read more

Users of Twitch, the world's biggest video game streaming site, staged a virtual walkout on Wednesday to voice outrage over barrages of racist, sexist and homophobic abuse on the Amazon-owned platform.... Read more

Twitter on Wednesday announced it is testing a new feature that automatically blocks hateful messages, as the US site comes under increasing pressure to protect its users from online abuse.... Read more

Over the past 25 years, the name "Google" has become synonymous with the idea of searching for anything online. In much the same way "to Hoover" means to use a vacuum cleaner, dictionaries have recognized "to Google" as meaning to undertake an online search using any available service.... Read more

As companies and decision-makers increasingly look to machine learning to make sense of large amounts of data, ensuring the quality of training data used in machine learning problems is becoming critical. That data is coded and labeled by human data annotators—often hired from online crowdsourcing platforms—which raises concerns that data... Read more

There's a new type of gambling advert being used online and on social media to try and appeal to viewers, recent research has shown. Unlike on television, these online advertisements can be more personalized, interactive and may be harder to distinguish from other content.... Read more

In 2021, an investigation revealed that home loan algorithms systematically discriminate against qualified minority applicants. Unfortunately, stories of dubious profit-driven data uses like this are all too common.... Read more

Wide area networks (WANs), the global backbones and workhorses of today's Internet that connect billions of computers over continents and oceans, are the foundation of modern online services. As COVID-19 has placed a vital reliance on online services, today's networks are struggling to deliver high bandwidth and availability imposed by... Read more

YouTube said Wednesday it has removed more than one million videos with "dangerous coronavirus misinformation" since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.... Read more

Some 38 million records stored on a Microsoft service, including private information, were mistakenly left exposed this year, security firm UpGuard said Monday.... Read more

NFTs or non-fungible tokens first captured the public imagination when a digital collage by an artist named Beeple sold for US$69 million (£51 million) at Christie's in March 2021. Since then, there has been an explosion in the use of these units for storing digital content, which are bought and... Read more

OnlyFans will be removing sexually explicit content after it rose to fame for its ... sexually explicit content.... Read more