Social Media and the state

[Innula Zenovka]

Unofficial Guardian (UK) Bot (@guardian-uk-rss.bsky.social)

Andrew Tate’s alliance with Trump has been in the making for a long time https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/feb/21/andrew-tate-trump-administration

bsky.app

Trump and Tate have a lot in common, and both stand to gain much from each other. They are disinformation virtuosos, having sought to delegitimize criminal allegations against them through information warfare. They both mastered their loud, obnoxious performance of self under the lights and cameras of reality TV (The Apprentice for Trump, Big Brother for Tate), before using the same model to dominate social media. There, among the likes and the shares and the algorithms, they learned that while truth and integrity get you nothing, controversy, lies and extremism can be easily transmuted into fame, wealth and power.

Tate is aware of the value he can offer politicians. In January he instructed his associates to call two Romanian rightwing politicians to tell them: “You will get a lot of votes when Tate says you took their side,” according to prosecutors who tapped his phone. Whereas this Romanian politician ultimately turned Andrew Tate down, the Trump administration apparently has fewer scruples.

But the Tate-Trump alliance is about more than just votes, especially now Trump has won. The Trump administration and Tate are both promoting a conspiracy theory that USAid and the mainstream media have worked together to fabricate charges against Tate. By supporting him, the Trump administration is forging a new axis of disinformation to go after the press and the very idea of justice and due process.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

The US tech giant has begun to remove ‘advanced data protection’ from British customers after the government demanded access to users’ material

www.thetimes.com

Evernote Link

 

[Innula Zenovka]

How the far right recruits children: making Hitler on Minecraft

Extremists are hosting Nazi dinner parties and creating games where players can machinegun migrants in what experts call ‘Disneyfied’ terror

www.thetimes.com

Evernote Link

How extremists dodge moderators to radicalise children online

Security forces have yet to catch up with the Islamist and far-right groups flooding platforms from TikTok to Telegram to attract growing numbers of young people

www.thetimes.com

Evernote Link

 

[Noodles]

How the far right recruits children: making Hitler on Minecraft

Extremists are hosting Nazi dinner parties and creating games where players can machinegun migrants in what experts call ‘Disneyfied’ terror

www.thetimes.com

Evernote Link

Back in my day we played games where you machine gunned Nazis like real patriots.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

MPs probe X official on whether 'abhorrent' racist, misogynistic posts violate rules - Politics.co.uk

The House of Commons science, innovation and technology committee has heard oral evidence from TikTok, Meta and X officials as part of its inquiry into misinformation and harmful algorithms. The session saw MPs question senior representatives of the social media platforms on a range of topics...

www.politics.co.uk

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

MPs probe X official on whether 'abhorrent' racist, misogynistic posts violate rules - Politics.co.uk

The House of Commons science, innovation and technology committee has heard oral evidence from TikTok, Meta and X officials as part of its inquiry into misinformation and harmful algorithms. The session saw MPs question senior representatives of the social media platforms on a range of topics...

www.politics.co.uk

Need a "spineless worm" reaction button.

"Given that your company sent you, someone clearly unqualified and unable to answer the very legitimate questions we're putting forth... we see no reason to continue wasting our time with you. You may leave, and we'll consider whether or not the UK will continue to tolerate your corporation's social media platform within our borders. If you would like to continue having our people as your subscribers, please arrange to have someone who CAN answer our questions definitively reach out to us by the end of the week.

Otherwise, if your social media continues to ignore our laws within our border, we'll have no choice but to do what you apparently can not and will not.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Thread

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) (@sundersays.bsky.social)

Plymouth man sentenced for inciting racial hatred on > 250 occasions. 14 months (suspended) + 5 year Criminal Behaviour Order (Can not use any social media). This man used alias "British Dean" on Gab, Twitter. Had orchestrated racism v England players...

bsky.app

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Financial Times (@financialtimes.com)

The real history of free speech — from supreme ideal to poisonous politics https://www.ft.com/content/d1f10dd6-501b-46fc-9c54-8b9697f0fc0f

bsky.app

Evernote Link

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Guardian (@theguardian.com)

Social media platforms face huge fines under UK’s new digital safety laws https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/mar/17/social-media-companies-fines-uk-illegal-content-online-safety-act?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu

bsky.app

Social media platforms face significant fines if they fail to implement robust measures in the UK to tackle illegal content, including fraud, terrorism, and child sexual abuse material, under new digital safety laws.

Tech companies must implement safeguards that take action against illegal harms such as encouraging suicide, extreme pornography and selling drugs.

From Monday, every site and app within the scope of the Online Safety Act, which covers more than 100,000 services from Facebook, Google and X to Reddit and OnlyFans, will be required to take steps to stop such content appearing or to take it down if it goes online.

The technology secretary, Peter Kyle, said the illegal content crackdown was “just the beginning”. “In recent years, tech companies have treated safety as an afterthought. That changes today,” he said.

Companies that breach the act face fines of up to £18m or 10% of worldwide revenue, which in the case of those such as Facebook’s owner, Meta, or Google would equate to billions of pounds. In extreme cases, services can also be taken down.

Many of the new rules cover the companies' new obligation to monitor for Child Sexual Abuse Material and to remove it proactively.

The Online Safety Act has been the subject of criticism by the US vice-president, JD Vance, who said last month that free speech in the UK was “in retreat”. However, [the UK technology secretary, Peter] Kyle has insisted the act will not be a bargaining chip in any negotiations with the Trump administration over the threat of tariffs being imposed on British exports to the US.

“Our online safety standards are not up for negotiation. They are on statute and they will remain,” Kyle told LBC radio last week. The British government’s view, which Keir Starmer reiterated in Washington last month, is that the act is about tackling criminality, not censoring debate.

 

[Dancien]

While I agree with 99.9% of everything in the Online Safety Act, what is the plan if the major companies pull a PornHub and say "No thank you" and just region block the UK?

 

[Soen Eber]

While I agree with 99.9% of everything in the Online Safety Act, what is the plan if the major companies pull a PornHub and say "No thank you" and just region block the UK?

Probably the same thing that happens when an antibiotic wipes out a particularly virulent virus. It leaves space for something else to grow. There is a human need to communicate, why have a platform that poisons and addicts you for opportunistic reasons?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

While I agree with 99.9% of everything in the Online Safety Act, what is the plan if the major companies pull a PornHub and say "No thank you" and just region block the UK?

Then they block the UK and forfeit a great deal of advertising revenue and monetizable data, I guess. People who can't figure out how to use a VPN probably shouldn't be on social media in the first place.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

While I agree with 99.9% of everything in the Online Safety Act, what is the plan if the major companies pull a PornHub and say "No thank you" and just region block the UK?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Link to Guardian article

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Link to Guardian article

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Link to Guardian article

I believe I've seen some of these groups with my own eyes. ....was very disturbing. They had no idea how warped they really were.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Link to Guardian article

“You used to finish school and then hang out with your friends to chat and eat snacks,” she says. “And now, kids are on their own at home in front of a screen … Boys and girls are separating and that’s giving rise to very different thought systems … there’s a big gulf and lack of trust.”

 

[Noodles]

That article about the Spanish young men is rather concerning. It feels like a growing trend all over. Young men being fed inflammatory rhetoric about being pushed aside and marginalized.

Also, side note, on the one photo, the credit: "Teacher Alicia López. Photograph: Alicia Lopez" is a really goofy way to say "Selfie"

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

It feels like a growing trend all over. Young men being fed inflammatory rhetoric about being pushed aside and marginalized.

Not really a "growing trend", but more that it has been a trend for at least a decade now.
And the "separate media culture" has been a thing ever since guys were watching edgelord gross-out animation on cartoon network and girls were watching gilmore girls or Will & Grace.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Not really a "growing trend", but more that it has been a trend for at least a decade now.
And the "separate media culture" has been a thing ever since guys were watching edgelord gross-out animation on cartoon network and girls were watching gilmore girls or Will & Grace.

It HAS gotten a lot worse though. Men my age range (39) are a lot less right wing than Gen z men seem to be right now. The Edgelord animation my generation watched didn't seem to radicalize nearly as many people as the "memes" of killing women and minorities circulating now do.