BeReal and the authenticity trap
A new social media app claims to reflect the reality of its users – but is it ever possible to…
BySocial Media
Find here all of the New Statesman’s comment and analysis about social media and the digital age.
Charging Twitter users for blue ticks would be a disaster
Elon Musk’s latest brainwave risks alienating the users Twitter depends on and would expose it to lawsuits.
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Let’s get ready to dance on Twitter’s grave
Elon Musk has given us another good reason to log out.
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The power of the platform
The power that digital technologies wield over the world has to be confronted, but their democratic potential should never be…
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The unlikely revival of the Daily Star
How the once downmarket tabloid began lighting up a gloomy news agenda.
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Shows like The Rings of Power and She-Hulk have been runaway successes – why can’t keyboard warriors admit it?
Happily, these shows have proven to be huge hits – extremely popular with audiences and critics alike, despite the trolling.
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How Mahsa Amini’s death set Iran on fire
When 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after being arrested by police in Tehran, months of frustrations with the country’s repressive regime…
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The Molly Russell verdict proves it – social media must be regulated
A ruling has found social media companies played a part in the death of a British teenager. Intervention must be…
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Metaverse in retrograde
Mark Zuckerberg’s latest iteration of his virtual world has been derided as aesthetically primitive – but is that the point?
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True crime’s legal pay-offs give it a righteous gloss – but it’s still only shallow, manipulative entertainment
The thrill of the genre is that it lends a factual story a dramatic twist. In fact, it is as…
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Gen Z are using TikTok over Google – a worrying trend
Younger users are using social platforms instead of search engines, but a study suggests a fifth of TikTok results contain…
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The problem with the “quiet quitting” media storm
The concept has gone viral on social media – but that could also undermine its power.
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Why girls are pressured to share nudes online
Images and videos of girls aged 13 and under make up 95 per cent of self-generated child sexual abuse on…
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Why OnlyFans wants us to regulate the internet
Keily Blair, chief operating and strategy officer of the controversial creator platform, on why she's a big believer in the…
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“Our online lives can never truly be our own”: Marie Le Conte on the generation that broke the internet
What does it mean to have grown up alongside an adolescent internet?
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Andrew Tate has been banned from social media. Is this a new era of content moderation?
Facebook, Instagram and TikTok’s move to ban the misogynist was surprisingly swift and decisive.
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Don’t blame Instagram for the popularity of plastic surgery; blame those who profit
From Botox to fillers, every time a new beauty treatment arrives on the market it seems to wash through society.
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Technology has eroded liberal democracy. But it could also be used to restore it
From using AI to inform legislature to strengthening online voting, institutions are increasingly looking to tech to help protect civic…
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We’re told not to have too many friends – but for me, there’s no such thing
I resent the suggestion that a wide friendship circle makes you somehow cheap or insincere.
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Bruce Daisley: “Twitter wasn’t set up to be about anger and rage”
The former Twitter executive reflects on the social network’s moderation problem and where the self-help industry went wrong.
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