On July 13, shortly after Donald Trump was targeted by an assassination attempt, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter), tweeted to his more than 200 million followers: I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery. Musk’s efforts to influence who wins next week’s US presidential election have continued. For… Read more »
X’s attempt to have a $600,000 fine thrown out as it was issued to its previous company name has been rejected by an Australian court, in a significant legal win for the eSafety Commissioner. Federal Court of Australia Justice Michael Wheelahan ruled on Friday that X could not wriggle out of an Australian government infringement… Read more »
For almost a decade, researchers have been gathering evidence that the social media platform Facebook disproportionately amplifies low-quality content and misinformation. So it was something of a surprise when in 2023 the journal Science published a study that found Facebook’s algorithms were not major drivers of misinformation during the 2020 United States election. This study… Read more »
As Australia and other countries debate the merits of banning kids under 14 from social media, Meta has announced a significant “reimagining” of teenagers’ experience of Instagram. These new “Teen Accounts” will be set to private by default, have the maximum content and messaging restrictions possible, pause notifications at night, and add new ways for… Read more »
The federal government is stepping up its fight against scams, which last year cost Australians more than A$2.7 billion. On Friday, the federal treasury released a draft scam prevention framework. The government said the plan is: an economy‑wide reform to protect the Australian community from scams. It takes a whole‑of‑ecosystem approach to reduce gaps which… Read more »
Facebook acknowledged in a Senate inquiry yesterday that it is scraping the public photos of Australian users to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models. Facebook’s parent company Meta claims this excludes data from users who have marked their posts as “private”, as well as photos or data from users under the age of 18. Since… Read more »
The Albanese government has announced it will introduce a social media ban for children. The government has not yet nominated a minimum age but is trialling age-assurance mechanisms for those aged 13–16. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the legislation will be introduced this year. This follows criticism from a range of experts, who argue it… Read more »
The federal government has committed to a national plan to ban children from social media. Details are still scarce. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has acknowledged that “no government is going to be able to protect every child from every threat, but we have to do all we can”. But banning children from social media isn’t… Read more »
The Albanese government will introduce legislation this term to enforce a minimum age for children to access social media. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will make the formal announcement on Tuesday. This follows a discussion at last Friday’s national cabinet meeting, at which all states and territories, as well as the Commonwealth, committed to tackling what… Read more »
Meta, which owns social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, has revealed its plans for keeping kids safe online. It wants companies like Apple and Google, who run mobile phone app stores, to force parents to approve when their children attempt to install phone apps which are popular among young people. Meta’s announcement comes… Read more »
Authorities in Brazil, the country with the world’s fifth largest number of internet users, have banned the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter). The ban came into effect over the weekend. It followed a long-running battle between Elon Musk, the owner of X, and Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes who had… Read more »
Australian mining magnate Dr Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest is a step closer to holding Meta to account for deepfake scam advertisements, after the dismissal of an appeal by the tech giant marked the first time it has failed to hide behind a US law widely seen to provide blanket immunity online. Forrest first discovered his image… Read more »
When Pavel Durov arrived in France on his private jet last Saturday, he was greeted by police who promptly arrested him. As the founder of the direct messaging platform Telegram, he was accused of facilitating the widespread crimes committed on it. The following day, a French judge extended Durov’s initial period of detention, allowing police… Read more »
Note: This article contains images generated by artificial intelligence. Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has released Grok-2, the latest version of its Grok artificial intelligence chatbot, which can now generate images with what appears to be very few guardrails to prevent potential abuse. Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini, which are only available to subscribers of Musk’s social… Read more »
Social media is a problem for economists. They don’t know how to value it. It has long been argued that it ought to be in the national accounts as part of gross domestic product. One 2019 study estimated Facebook alone is worth US$40 to US$50 per month for consumers in the United States. But that’s… Read more »
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