A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report showed almost 60% of U.S. girls reported persistent sadness and hopelessness. Rates are up in boys, too, but about half as many are affected. Adults have theories about what is going on, but what do teens themselves say?
Social Media
In Chicago, a digital creater who goes by the name Chris Dolo has been able to make a name for himself by reviewing food. He joined “Latino Voices” to talk about his road to TikTok fame and the ways he uses it to showcase local offerings.
On Tuesday, using his Truth Social platform, the Republican former president reposted an image of himself wearing a Q lapel pin overlaid with the words “The Storm is Coming.” In QAnon lore, the “storm” refers to Trump’s final victory, when supposedly he will regain power and his opponents will be tried, and potentially executed, on live television.
Researchers at NewsGuard searched for content about prominent news topics on TikTok and say they found that nearly 1 in 5 of the videos automatically suggested by the platform contained misinformation.
Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are generally staying the course from the 2020 voting season, which was marred by conspiracies and culminated in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Video app TikTok, which has soared in popularity since the last election cycle, announced Wednesday it is launching an election center.
Marginalized people often suffer the most harm from unintended consequences of new technologies, according to researcher Breigha Adeyemo who shares ways to make them more inclusive.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company is rebranding itself as Meta in an effort to encompass its virtual-reality vision for the future — what Zuckerberg calls the “metaverse.”
Facebook is also planning to introduce new controls for adults of teens on an optional basis so that parents or guardians can supervise what their teens are doing online. These initiatives come after Facebook announced late last month that it was pausing work on its Instagram for Kids project.
Santosh Janardhan, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure, said in a blog post that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp going dark was “caused not by malicious activity, but an error of our own making.”
The six-hour outage was a headache for many casual users but far more serious for the millions of people worldwide who rely on the social media sites to run their businesses or communicate with relatives, parents, teachers or neighbors.
Frances Haugen, testifying to the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, also offered thoughtful ideas about how Facebook’s social media platforms could be made safer.
Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms are back online after a massive global outage plunged the services and the businesses and people who rely on them into chaos for hours Monday.
A data scientist who was revealed Sunday as the Facebook whistleblower says that whenever there was a conflict between the public good and what benefited the company, the social media giant would choose its own interests.
Even if you haven’t heard of the creator economy, you’ve likely encountered it. About 50 million people worldwide consider themselves creators, with the majority – about 46.7 million – calling themselves amateurs, according to a report.
Ald. Jim Gardiner, elected in 2019, has been surrounded by controversy since he took office after defeating former Ald. John Arena. In 2023, he was elected to serve as the 45th Ward’s Democratic committeeperson, making him one of the leaders of the Cook County Democratic Party.
For many of us, social media is a convenient way to keep in touch with family, friends and colleagues. But sharing false information on platforms like Facebook during a global pandemic can have life or death consequences.
