Conspiracy theories are the new pandemic infecting public life
19 July 2023
Millions of people, from all walks of life, have come to believe aspects of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Prevention is our only hope, says James Ball
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Premium
Social media brings benefits as well as risks to young people
12 July 2023
A recent US surgeon general’s report on social media use and youth mental health warns of a "profound risk of harm". But it also highlights the upsides, says Jennifer Abbasi
Bluesky is just another Twitter clone and that isn't a good thing
7 June 2023
The much hyped social media app Bluesky is meant to be doing things differently, but can its approach to content moderation really build a new social sphere, asks Annalee Newitz
How I found a new home online at Mastodon, after giving up on Twitter
12 April 2023
More like a village than a city, Mastodon has less cruelty and bad-faith debates than Twitter, in my experience Could it be a social media platform to trust, asks Annalee Newitz
US president could get power to ban TikTok nationwide
1 March 2023
A bill that would empower the US president to ban TikTok from all devices nationwide has advanced beyond committee for discussion by Congress
Twitter security flaw may leave videos sent in direct messages exposed
21 December 2022
Videos sent in Twitter direct messages can theoretically be viewed by anyone, a weakness that could be leveraged by hackers, but the company isn't planning on fixing this flaw
Leaving Twitter? Here's what other social media platforms offer
7 December 2022
With the platform looking a little the worse for wear after its recent acquisition by Elon Musk, Annalee Newitz tries the best alternatives, so you don’t have to
Most people who threatened to quit Twitter for Mastodon haven't left
2 December 2022
Of more than 140,000 Twitter users who announced they were moving to Mastodon, just 1.6 per cent have actually quit Elon Musk’s social media platform
AI-generated deepfake faces could help protect privacy on social media
18 November 2022
Algorithms that generate fake faces could be used to change people’s appearance in photos they don’t want to be shared
Stop calling it social media - these firms don't care what we want
14 September 2022
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and their ilk were meant to let us chat freely in a digital public square, but the firms running social media are just as corporate as old media, says Annalee Newitz
