Should Apple be taking on mental health?
Apple’s latest iOS update will allow iPhones and to track our mental health. The news is raising questions about the rise (and ethics) of digital health. In an era marked by unprecedented technological advancements, our relationship with digital devices has become deeply intertwined with our daily lives. Besides dominating the tech...
Current in Social
Instagram officially launches Twitter competitor Threads
With Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter causing mounting problems, Instagram has swooped in with its own competitor, Threads. The app has officially launched. Zuckerberg has officially launched his direct Twitter competitor Threads. Largely based on a similar, endless feed of statuses, Threads directly moves over your Instagram profile and provides...
Will Elon’s latest restrictive rules mark the end of Twitter?
In attempts to ‘address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation,’ Twitter boss Elon Musk has placed new limits on the number of tweets users can view in a single day. Outrage has ensued and #TwitterIsDead is trending globally. From the moment Elon Musk took over Twitter, its users...
UAE allegedly uses fake accounts to defend its hosting of COP28
Across Twitter and Medium, at least 100 fake accounts are posting positive sentiments about the United Arab Emirates and its controversial position as host nation of COP28. Experts claim its part of a shoddily executed popularity drive from within. Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of state oil giant ADNOC, is an...
How is Facebook hoping to bring back alienated Gen Zers?
Facebook has fallen out of favour with young consumers. Once seen as the defining social media platform, it is now associated with misinformation, privacy breaches, and older people. Is there any way back? If you’re an older Gen Zers or younger Millennial, you may remember a time when Facebook was...
Meta fined a record $1.3bn for EU data transfers to the US
Meta has been hit with a record $1.3bn fine for transferring the Facebook data of EU citizens to the US despite security risks. Is Mark Zuckerberg’s burgeoning social media enterprise already reaching last-chance saloon territory? To summarise the current Meta situation in Gen Z terms, there’s only one phrase that...
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey launches new app ‘Bluesky’
Who doesn’t love a little healthy competition? Jack Dorsey, who is partly responsible for Twitter’s rise to success, has now launched a new platform called Bluesky. It’s aimed at competing with Twitter, under Elon Musk. Twitter has been nothing short of a mess since Elon Musk took over as CEO in October of last year. From the iconic bluebird symbol being switched to the Dogecoin Shiba Inu for a week,...
Dove campaign examines ‘cost of beauty’ for youth mental health
The brand’s research has revealed that nine in ten children are being exposed to toxic beauty content on social media, which is having a ‘heart-breaking’ impact on their mental and physical wellbeing. Renowned for championing self-esteem, Dove has just debuted a report titled ‘The Real Cost of Beauty Ideals’ examining the impact of our image-obsessed world on young people’s mental and physical wellbeing. Investigating both body dissatisfaction and appearance-based discrimination,...
How personalised ads are contributing to climate change
A new report from Global Action Plan analysing the scale of unnecessary emissions being generated by Big Tech’s business model has uncovered just how energy intensive it really is. Recently, it’s become all but impossible to use social media without being constantly bombarded with ads. And while online marketing is nothing new, you may have begun noticing that whenever you open up your favourite apps these days, the products being pushed...
Spotify is pivoting toward short-form video content
Music streaming platform Spotify has announced a newly designed user interface that prioritises short-form video and quick preview snippets. It is the latest app to follow TikTok’s design model. Spotify is rolling out a new user interface that focuses on short-form video content. Previous iterations of the app displayed albums, songs, podcasts, and playlists as stacked tiles fixed to your home screen. The updated interface will instead offer an endless,...
