Huawei trumps Samsung as top smartphone vendor this quarter
Thanks to a Covid-19 slump from Samsung, China’s smartphone giant Huawei has shipped more handsets than any other vendor in the last quarter. Huawei’s long harboured ambition to trump Samsung to the title of biggest smartphone seller has finally come to fruition, according to a new report from analyst firm...
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Instagram’s shopping feature is looking to be ‘the new mall’
As fashion and beauty turns to tech to stay afloat during the Coronavirus pandemic, online-platform shopping features are set to become 'the new mall.' Though the thought of returning to a mall in the middle of a global pandemic might seem unusual to most, many are finding themselves longing for...
Instagram rolls out ‘Personal Fundraisers’ to support small businesses
In response to the economic fallout caused by Covid-19, Instagram has released a crowdfunding feature to keep small businesses afloat. Instagram pumping out updates has become one of the constants of 2020, but the latest feature is far from just another quirky AR addition. Parent company Facebook has already played host...
Twitter suffers massive bitcoin security breach
Accounts of huge companies and celebrities including Barack Obama and Apple have been compromised in the biggest Twitter hack ever. Over 300,000 verified Twitter accounts have been temporarily blocked from posting any content due to a huge, widespread cyber-attack by a bitcoin scammer. These users include huge international companies such...
Is TikTok really an elaborate façade for Chinese spyware?
Cyber-experts are claiming that 2020’s number one app is a shady front for Chinese spyware and mass censorship. Suggestions that ByteDance’s ‘innocuous’ short-bite video app TikTok has all the makings of a totalitarian plot hatched by the Chinese government are looking more plausible by the day. Suffice to say, people are freaked. Months of bad...
Chinese face-tracking tech bans foreigners from live streaming
A global inquest into TikTok has done little to deter China from pushing stricter censorship on its own soil. Official documents from TikTok’s parent company ByteDance have confirmed rumours that the viral video app is constantly running facial recognition technology to monitor and censor content on Douyin – China’s version...
Reddit must persist with alt-right purge despite ‘free speech’ concerns
Media efforts to combat hate is pressuring user-based platforms like Reddit and MeWe to follow suit, and rightly so. Since the 18th century we have used boycotting as a political weapon for good. In 1791 some 300,000 people abstained from buying any goods produced by slaves in the West Indies, demonstrating for the first time the undeniable influence of consumer action in bringing about tangible change. Today, with social media being...
TikTok dedicated to promoting Black creators following accusations of racism
The hugely popular video-sharing platform has introduced a 'creator diversity council' after receiving criticism for suppressing non-white content with its complex algorithms. After a string of controversies about racial equality on the app, TikTok has formally apologised to its Black users. The company, which recently came under fire for appearing to hide posts with George Floyd and BLM hashtags, has accepted responsibility for failing Black content creators by censoring their...
Gen Z are mocking millennials online
If you’re over 25 and you’ve been using the phrase ‘OK boomer’ online, you’re about to have a reality check. The generational wars have truly begun, people. No longer are we simply aiming our tweets at dismissive and judgemental boomers, we’re now attacking each other in what can only be described as a social media civil war. Well, kind of. Over the last few weeks, Gen Zers have begun to...
Mixer ends Ninja and Shroud contracts as Facebook partnership beckons
Microsoft is showing the door to its key Mixer streamers, but will its ballsy plot pay off in the long term? As we predicted back in January, 2020 is fast becoming the year for streaming services to really show their mettle. Whether it’s having a captive audience to target in lockdown, the nigh-on quarter increase in engagement for the likes of Twitch, record spikes in monthly
