The unstoppable rise of boyfriend point-of-view TikToks
It’s early in the morning, and you’ve just woken up. Your boyfriend is lying next to you in a hoodie,…
BySocial Media
Find here all of the New Statesman’s comment and analysis about social media and the digital age.
Why Facebook won’t ban political advertising
Though the company could take the financial hit, the damage it would do to its relationship with the US government is…
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What is shitposting? And why does it matter that the BBC got it wrong?
The implications of misunderstanding internet terminology go far beyond a minor misread.
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Twitter’s ban on political ads won’t save it from being a cesspool
Twitter isn’t a political hellscape because of paid advertising, it’s a political hellscape because of its users.
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How Instagram’s plastic surgery filters are warping the way we see our faces
Plastic surgery filters have become an unavoidable part of Instagram. But the ramifications of obsessively augmenting our faces are even…
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“They’re doing this badly on purpose“: Why the Tories’ latest online ads look so ugly
Welcome to the era of political shitposting.
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Instagram is removing the “Following” tab, and that’s not necessarily a good thing
Transparency: 0, your cheating boyfriend: 1.
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Why we need to hear the phrase “I don’t know” much more in a world of instant online opinions
I am disheartened by how certain everyone seems, all the time.
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J-Lo’s Milan Fashion Week appearance shows we’re in the era of inescapable sponcon
Sponcon is no longer just on our screens, but infiltrating our most exciting physical moments.
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The next election will be fought on Facebook. Dominic Cummings knows that
It may be a forlorn hope, but for a fair election, legislation on social media advertising in elections should be…
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Why Second Hand September isn’t quite the radical challenge it seems
Influencers are using the Instagram hashtag for little more than virtue signalling – and in many cases, feeding the beast it claims to starve.
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James Charles, Tati Westbrook and the internet’s insatiable appetite for “tea”
On 10 May 2019, a 37-year-old woman posted a 43-minute YouTube video about her former best friend, a 19-year-old boy.…
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Cabinet audit: What does Nicky Morgan’s appointment to Culture Media and Sport mean for policy?
Nicky Morgan returns to cabinet as one of the few Remainers given a look in by Boris Johnson, albeit one…
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Kids as young as five are snapping pictures of their parents for Instagram, but should we be worried?
As a general rule, children are not allowed to stand on their parents’ beds. But for eight-year-old Elsie, this is…
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The blogger known as Guido Fawkes owns a pro-Boris website. But does it actually matter?
Yesterday, BuzzFeed reported that a website campaigning for Boris Johnson is registered to Paul Staines – the owner of the…
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The unstoppable rise of TikTok moms
Ask somebody to think of a social media influencer, and they’d probably picture young, manicured teens and twenty-somethings making content for…
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Meet the Instagram cleaning icon making women scrub harder
In January 2019, supermarket Morrisons announced it was rationing one of its products to two per customer. The £2.50 “Minky…
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The rise of the ironic teenage right
“Your average teenage art hoe is about as disposable as a journalist”, says YouTube star Sophia as she looks jovially…
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Why do we watch terrorist videos and what effect do they have on us?
In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on two mosques in New Zealand that killed 50 people, internet companies struggled…
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Titania McGrath’s tired and unfunny “joke” is just the old sneering at the young
The parody character is aimed at those who claim “you can’t say anything anymore”, while their opinions are constantly repeated on…
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