‘It’s really sad’: US TikTok users rethink app over concerns about privacy and censorship

Many TikTok users across the US say they’re rethinking their relationship with the platform since its ownership and terms and conditions have recently changed, with some citing censorship and lack of trust as reasons why they’re removing themselves from the app.Keara Sullivan, a 26-year-old comedian, says TikTok jumpstarted her career and provided a pathway to getting a manager and a literary agent.“I’m not one of those creators who’s a TikTok hater,” said Sullivan, who has more than half a million followers on the platform. “I’m very transparent about the fact that where I am in my career is largely because of TikTok.”That’s why, she said, it’s “really sad” for her to step away from the platform – at least for now

Why TikTok’s first week of American ownership was a disaster

A little more than one week ago, TikTok stepped on to US shores as a naturalized citizen. Ever since, the video app has been fighting for its life.TikTok’s calamitous emigration began on 22 January when its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, finalized a deal to sell the app to a group of US investors, among them the business software giant Oracle. The app’s time under Chinese ownership had been marked by a meteoric ascent to more than a billion users, which left incumbents such as Instagram looking like the next Myspace. But TikTok’s short new life in the US has been less than auspicious

US authorities reportedly investigate claims that Meta can read encrypted WhatsApp messages

US authorities have reportedly investigated claims that Meta can read users’ encrypted chats on the WhatsApp messaging platform, which it owns.The reports follow a lawsuit filed last week, which claimed Meta “can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications”.Meta has denied the allegation, reported by Bloomberg, calling the lawsuit’s claim “categorically false and absurd”. It suggested the claim was a tactic to support the NSO Group, an Israeli firm that develops spyware used against activists and journalists, and which recently lost a lawsuit brought by WhatsApp.The firm that filed last week’s lawsuit against Meta, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, attributes the allegation to unnamed “courageous” whistleblowers from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa

We have lost so much of ourselves to smartphones: can we get it back?

In 2003, the Stanford social scientist BJ Fogg published an extraordinarily prescient book. Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do predicted a future in which a student “sits in a college library and removes an electronic device from her purse”. It serves as her “mobile phone, information portal, entertainment platform, and personal organiser. She takes this device almost everywhere and feels lost without it.”Such devices, Fogg argued, would be “persuasive technology systems … the device can suggest, encourage, and reward”

Elon Musk had more extensive ties to Epstein than previously known, emails show

Elon Musk had more extensive – and more friendly – communications with the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein than previously publicly known, according to documents released on Friday by the Department of Justice. Emails in the files appear to show the two cordially messaging each other on two separate occasions to make plans for Musk to visit Epstein’s island.The documents include Musk and Epstein emailing in both 2012 and 2013 to determine when Musk should make the trip to Little St James. Neither exchanges appear to have resulted in Musk visiting the island, due to logistical issues.“Will be in the BVI/St Bart’s area over the holidays

What good is a social media ban when screens are rife in classrooms? | Letters

Your recent coverage of children’s screen use (How screen time affects toddlers: ‘We’re losing a big part of being human’, 22 January) highlights an issue that still receives remarkably little attention: the amount of screen time built into the school day. While politicians debate bans on social media for under‑16s, and teachers report children trying to swipe the pages of books, it is puzzling that the question of screen time in schools is left out of discussions.Every morning, most primary school children are greeted by an electronic whiteboard glowing in the classroom, often left on all day. Lessons are delivered as slides, tablets are used for activities, and many schools require homework to be completed online.When it rains, “wet play” means more screen‑based entertainment