The Tories and Labour are forking out more than ever on social media ads, but going viral isn’t easy. We speak to influencers and strategists about the messages and memes
Why would you hold an election in November? The question came from digital marketing guru Mike Harris and was asked in a message to his friend, Labour’s campaign manager, Morgan McSweeney, earlier this year. Digital advertising is more expensive in October and November because the internet is swamped with ads for Christmas and Black Friday, said Harris, the founder of communications agency 89up. Why not pick a cheaper time of year?
TikTok is now disputing a Reuters report that claims the short-video app is cloning its algorithm to potentially offer a different version of the app, which might degrade over time, just for US users.
Sources "with direct knowledge" of the project—granted anonymity because they're not authorized to discuss it publicly—told Reuters that the TikTok effort began late last year. They said that the project will likely take a year to complete, requiring hundreds of engineers to separate millions of lines of code.
As these sources reported, TikTok's tremendous undertaking could potentially help prepare its China-based owner ByteDance to appease US lawmakers who passed a law in April forcing TikTok to sell its US-based operations by January 19 or face a ban. But TikTok has maintained that the "qualified divestiture" required by the law would be impossible, and on Thursday, TikTok denied the accuracy of Reuters' report while reiterating its stance that a sale is not in the cards.
Videos on Douyin give people step-by-step instructions on how to get to the US – and then leave them stranded upon arrival
This article is copublished with Documented, a multilingual news site about immigrants in New York, and the Markup, a non-profit, investigative newsroom that challenges technology to serve the public good.
Xiong couldn’t pinpoint exactly what finally prompted him to leave his home town in China, the only place he had lived for 32 years, and embark on the arduous journey on foot through Central and South America to reach the United States in 2023. However, he clearly remembered the catalyst that first ignited the idea.
Pretty Girls Walk by Big Boss Vette was used by the party as it promoted its policies on the platform
The Scottish National party has deleted an election campaign video on TikTok after it featured a sexually explicit song by the American rapper Big Boss Vette.
The track, Pretty Girls Walk, carries an explicit lyrics warning on streaming platforms and starts with an expletive-laden first verse.
Platforms like TikTok have helped inmates stay connected with family, share their stories online and shed light on prison abuse
A proposed change to US prison rules is threatening to punish inmates for using social media or directing others to do so on their behalf, severing what some view as a vital link to the outside world.
Delores Eggerson manages her son’s social media accounts while he serves a life sentence in Arkansas. For almost 22 years, she’s logged into his Facebook from her home in Manville, Texas, screenshotting messages from old classmates, or photos from family reunions. It’s become her way of feeling connected – a part of his incarceration – and the solitary life he now has to lead.
New Netflix docuseries Dancing for the Devil details strange story of young dancers enrolled in a mysterious religious organisation with allegations of abuse
Since they were young girls, Miranda and Melanie Wilking danced together. The sisters, two years apart, grew up exceptionally close in suburban Detroit, dancing in their basement, in competitions and eventually in pursuit of a professional career. When Miranda graduated high school and moved to Los Angeles to chase the dream, Melanie followed as soon as she could. The duo, who looked nearly identical – long brown hair, bright blue eyes, sharp features, deep tans and lithe physiques – found modest work auditioning together, but greater success online. By this point, in the late 2010s, TikTok was on the rise; short, peppy dance videos to a front-facing camera were the fastest avenue to a following, and thus a living, via sponsorships. Miranda and Melanie started an account together as the Wilking Sisters; by 2020, they had over 3 million followers on the platform.
But in 2021, the sisters suddenly stopped posting new videos together, as things fell apart behind the scenes. Through her boyfriend James “BDash” Derrick, a dancer well-known for the LA-based street-style krump, Miranda and several dancer friends had joined a management company called 7M as well as its affiliate Christian church, Shekinah, both run by a man named Robert Shinn. Melanie always followed her older sister, but was put off by Shinn’s “weird” messianic vibe and the pressure to attend services. Soon Miranda began acting strangely, distancing herself from her formerly close family and anyone not associated with 7M. She chopped her hair short, dyed it blonde, and started new social channels, posting dance videos that followed a distinct 7M template: punchy, polished, slightly hypnotic, with aspirational backdrops – expansive patios, mansions, Hollywood landmarks. By January 2021, she cut off contact with her family entirely. Though Miranda was posting frequently to social media, to those that knew her, she wasn’t Miranda any more. “I literally feel like my sister died. She’s everywhere, but nowhere,” Melanie explains in the new Netflix docu-series Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult.
A TikTok ban threatens to destroy millions of jobs and silence diverse voices. It would change the world for the worse
I’m a TikTok creator. I’ve used TikTok to build a multimillion dollar business, focused on sharing interesting things I’ve learned in life and throughout my years in college. TikTok allowed me to create a community and help further my goal of educating the public. I always feared that one day, it would be threatened. And now, it’s happening.
Why does the US government want to ban TikTok? The reasons given include TikTok’s foreign ownership and its “addictive” nature, but I suspect that part of the reason is that the app primarily appeals to younger generations who often hold political and moral views that differ significantly from those of older generations, including many of today’s politicians.
Dominic Andre is a content creator and the CEO of The Lab
The social media influencer on how he became a hit on BookTok, democratising book reviewing, and trying to explain to his family what he does for a living
Born in 1998 and brought up in Brighton, Jack Edwards started a YouTube channel at secondary school. After documenting student life at Durham University, he began posting videos about books in 2020. Now a renowned book influencer with 2.3 million subscribers on social media platforms, he also has a guest-led, weekly podcast launching this summer, is writing his first novel, and hosted the International Booker prize livestream last week.
You’re one of the biggest stars of BookTube and BookTok. Why do young people watch you?
I’ve been asking myself the same question for a very long time! I think seeing someone talk with enthusiasm about their interest, and conveying how much they adore their area of expertise, is kind of magnetic. Also, reading is one of those things that so many people make their resolution, and it started to take off [more] during the pandemic when we’d baked all the banana bread, learned all the TikTok dances and done all the puzzles in the attic.
This leads us straight back to the original conversation about "Man or Bear," which has nothing to do with bears. (Sorry, bears!) "Would you rather be stuck in a forest with a man or a bear?" is just another way of asking, "Are you afraid of men?" It's the same question I've been fielding for the entirety of my life as a solo female traveler. It's the same question that hovers over women all the time as we move through the world. And it's a question that's always been difficult for me to answer. from A Woman Who Left Society to Live With Bears Weighs in on "Man or Bear" by Laura Killingbeck [Bikepacking]
He was found jammed in the tailpipe of a car and brought to wildlife rehabbers For Fox Sake, where he has grown and thrived, except for all the dying. He even made it to CNN. He will be released to the wild soon, once he is big enough to fend for himself.
What am I doing with my one wild and precious life? Struggling to follow fast, frantic cookery instructions and developing a whole new swearing habit
I have been following the rise of the bao bun very keenly – the pallid little puffballs are enjoying a boom in Britain’s snack sector – on account of the fact that I learned to make them myself. It took me a long time and made me question a lot of things, including my soundness of mind. For anyone without teenagers in their house, there is a new frontier in knowledge exchange, which is the TikTok recipe. It’s like a regular recipe, except with a twist: it’s also like the world’s hardest IQ test.
The posters are mainly American and the dishes are mainly Korean (or air-fryer-based). The TikTokkers will tell you in broad terms what the ingredients are, but incredibly fast and often with swearing. Think of the craft segments on Blue Peter – painstakingly described, with one they made earlier – then make it 150 times faster and much bluer.
Gen Z are flaunting their knockoffs and imitations – so experts say companies should play along
High-end brands should “lean in” and embrace the #dupe subculture that feeds off recommending duplicates or cheaper alternatives to luxury products, social media experts have advised.
Dupes, knockoffs and brand imitators are not new: the first wave of beauty YouTubers were highlighting cheaper products as far back as 2010. But in the past, buying imitation goods was mostly done with the aim of passing the item off as the real thing.
News avatars are proliferating on social media and experts say they will spread as the technology becomes more accessible
The news presenter has a deeply uncanny air as he delivers a partisan and pejorative message in Mandarin: Taiwan’s outgoing president, Tsai Ing-wen, is as effective as limp spinach, her period in office beset by economic under performance, social problems and protests.
“Waterspinach looks at waterspinach. Turns out that waterspinach isn’t just a name,” says the presenter, in an extended metaphor about Tsaibeing “Hollow Tsai” – a pun related to the Mandarin word for water spinach.
Concerns raised as influencers promote pigment-injection procedure as latest cosmetic trend
From butter boards to viral dances, social media has spawned a host of fads, but experts have warned against the latest trend: eye-tattooing.
The procedure, known as keratopigmentation, is a recent development and can be used for therapeutic purposes to improve the appearance of eyes. This can include for people who have been left with scars on the transparent front part of the eye, known as the cornea, as a result of infection, disease or injury, or who have aniridia, a condition where the iris has not formed properly.
For the past decade, the dating app Bumble has claimed to be all about empowering women. But under a new CEO, Lidiane Jones, Bumble is now apologizing for a tone-deaf ad campaign that many users said seemed to channel incel ideology by telling women to stop denying sex.
"You know full well a vow of celibacy is not the answer,” one Bumble billboard seen in Los Angeles read. "Thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun," read another.
Bumble HQ
“We don’t have enough women on the app.”
“They’d rather be alone than deal with men.”
“Should we teach men to be better?”
“No, we should shame women so they come back to the app.”
The US Senate has approved a bill that would effectively ban TikTok from the US unless Chinese owner ByteDance gives up its share of the immensely popular app.
Social video platform TikTok has experienced explosive growth since it first appeared in 2017, and is now said to have well over 1.5 billion users, with an estimated 170 million of them in the US.
Essentially, the bill says that TikTok has to find a new owner that is not based in a foreign adversarial country within the next 180 days or face a ban until it does comply. President Biden has committed to sign it into law as soon as it reaches his desk.
Since 2020, several governments and organizations have banned, or considered banning, TikTok from their staff’s devices, but a complete ban of an internet app would be a first in the US.
For a long time now, TikTok has been battling to convince politicians that it operates independently of ByteDance, which allegedly has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). For example, TikTok has repeatedly claimed the Chinese government has never demanded access to US data and that TikTok would not comply if it did.
While ByteDance denies any direct links to the Chinese Communist Party, a former executive at TikTok’s parent company claimed in court documents that the CCP had access to TikTok data, despite US storage of the data. The allegations came up in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit filed in May of 2023 in the San Francisco Superior Court.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an international non-profit digital rights group based in the US, says it opposes this bill, mainly because it is afraid that TikTok will not be the last app to face this type of ban.
TikTok also encouraged its users and creators to express their opposition to the bill. Last week, the social media company said the bill would:
“Trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate seven million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the US economy, annually.”
Chinese officials reportedly said the government would “firmly oppose” any forced sale of TikTok because it would “seriously undermine the confidence of investors from various countries, including China, to invest in the United States.”
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A disappointing meal at a restaurant. An ugly breakup between two partners. A popular TV show that kills off a beloved, main character.
In a perfect world, these are irritations and moments of vulnerability. But online today, these same events can sometimes be the catalyst for hate. That disappointing meal can produce a frighteningly invasive Yelp review that exposes a restaurant owner’s home address for all to see. That ugly breakup can lead to an abusive ex posting a video of revenge porn. And even a movie or videogame can enrage some individuals into such a fury that they begin sending death threats to the actors and cast mates involved.
Online hate and harassment campaigns are well-known and widely studied. Sadly, they’re also becoming more frequent.
In 2023, the Anti-Defamation League revealed that 52% of American adults reported being harassed online at least some time in their life—the highest rate ever recorded by the organization and a dramatic climb from the 40% who responded similarly just one year earlier. When asking teens about recent harm, 51% said they’d suffered from online harassment in strictly the 12 months prior to taking the survey itself—a radical 15% increase from what teens said the year prior.
The proposed solutions, so far, have been difficult to implement.
Social media platforms often deflect blame—and are frequently shielded from legal liability—and many efforts to moderate and remove hateful content have either been slow or entirely absent in the past. Popular accounts with millions of followers will, without explicitly inciting violence, sometimes draw undue attention to everyday people. And the increasing need to have an online presence for teens—even classwork is done online now—makes it near impossible to simply “log off.”
Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we speak with Tall Poppy CEO and co-founder Leigh Honeywell, about the evolution of online hate, personal defense strategies that mirror many of the best practices in cybersecurity, and the modern risks of accidentally becoming viral in a world with little privacy.
“It’s not just that your content can go viral, it’s that when your content goes viral, five people might be motivated enough to call in a fake bomb threat at your house.”
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