The Guardian

Echo project will help erase images as part of package of support to end ‘prolonged suffering of survivors’ Victims of child sexual abuse in England and Wales will be given help to remove online images of their abuse as part of a wider package of support to end the “prolonged suffering of survivors”. The Echo project will help those who have reported their abuse to the police to identify and remo…

Prime minister makes announcement during speech at the start of London Tech Week In his speech Starmer cited the government’s response to Grok, when its AI tool was being used to allow people to produce non-consensual intimate images, as an example of how the government would stand up to tech companies. He said: Where technology poses a threat to our people, to our children, we will act quickly a…

Investigation reveals more than 4.4 million people live in ‘news deserts’ that lack dedicated local reporting Local social media groups are fuelling misinformation in areas with no reliable sources of news, according to an investigation that reveals the scale of fake news flowing to vulnerable communities across Britain. Misinformation was nearly three times more common in areas with little or no…

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions explores a topical issue of personal cybersecurity Readers reply: If an alien asked you: ‘What is music?’ what would you play for them? I’ve been struggling to get my head around the idea that a passkey, which can be a PIN on your phone, or facial recognition, can be safer than using a complicated password, and two factor au…

Technology secretary Liz Kendall says she is ‘very concerned’ about role of social media but will not be ‘bullied off’ X The government is considering fresh action to halt the spread of misinformation during public crises, Liz Kendall has said, insisting she will not be “bullied off” Elon Musk’s X. The technology secretary was speaking after rioting broke out in Southampton over the police respon…

Royal Court, London Teenage girls discuss the horrors they have seen via their phones as Georgie Dettmer’s reckoning with internet culture is brutally realised by director Jess Edwards Georgie Dettmer’s gaze is unflinching. Nothing is held back in Are You Watching?, her fury-filled interrogation of our twisted relationship with sex and violence, and the emotional distance we hide behind when we w…

Jess Asato was portrayed by AI tool as wearing a bikini after she criticised the creation of such non-consensual pictures A Labour MP has taken legal action against Elon Musk’s AI company after saying its Grok tool helped a user produce fake sexualised pictures of her, part of a wave of such images that flooded X earlier this year. Jess Asato, the MP for Lowestoft, said in January that seeing her…

European Commission aims to reduce ‘risky dependencies’ on foreign suppliers in cloud computing, AI and semiconductor production The EU executive wants to ensure no foreign government or company has access to a “kill switch” to turn off or disrupt vital tech services across the continent, as part of an effort to cut dependencies on the US and China. Publishing “technological sovereignty” proposal…

Mat Watkinson and Keith Flett respond to Jonathan Liew’s article asking why many self-professed progressives still use Elon Musk’s social media platform Jonathan Liew wonders why people are still on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X ( If you’re still on Elon Musk’s X, ask yourself this: why?, 28 May ). There is an obvious answer: all major companies refuse to leave it. Sadly, it’s the quickest…

Bank apologises after IT update caused problems with Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland apps Lloyds Banking Group has apologised after thousands of its customers were unable to make payments or send money due to another IT glitch. According to Downdetector, a website that lets people track real-time service issues and outages, customers started noticing problems shortly after 11am on Wednesday,…

At Pixelate, the music is as garish as the meme-referencing costumes. Is it internet ‘brainrot’ come to life – or a much-needed offline community? ‘It’s time to get … crazy!” DJ Compulsive Leia is yelling at us from the stage. Around me, clubbers in cat ears wave LED glow sticks and squeal in anticipation. Suddenly, an all too familiar sound: Crazy Frog’s much maligned version of Axel F, albeit r…

Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker say UK has stopped them travelling to speak at SXSW London Two prominent US political commentators who were due to speak at events in the UK this week have said they have been banned from entering the country. Cenk Uygur, the host of the Young Turks online political talkshow, and Hasan Piker, who runs his own hours-long stream each day, said they had been stopped from a…

Authoritarian states are increasingly shutting off or throttling access to the internet, creating separate spheres in a realm built on connection China boasts of having the world’s largest population of internet users: 1.125 billion by the end of 2025, according to official figures . But as one joke has it, the Great Firewall – blocking not only politically sensitive material but also global tech…

Richard Thackeray and Phil Snell respond to an article by Wendy Liu on using artificial intelligence Wendy Liu’s thoughtful piece on AI and cognitive sovereignty raises real concerns about labour redundancies, the hype and the environmental cost ( I avoid AI tools because thinking is supposed to be hard. It’s what makes us human, 24 May ). But I think she allows those legitimate grievances to col…