The Guardian

Why prolific poster Sam Nair decided it was time to kick the doom-scrolling into touch As a past follower of Marie Le Conte (AKA the Young Vulgarian) on X, I read her column on leaving the platform with interest, complete empathy and self-reflection ( To anybody still using X: sexual abuse content is the final straw, it’s time to leave, 12 January ). I joined X – or rather, Twitter – in 2007 afte…

Big tech treats our attention like a resource to be mercilessly extracted. The fightback begins here In the last 15 years, a linked series of unprecedented technologies have changed the experience of personhood across most of the world. It is estimated that nearly 70% of the human population of the Earth currently possesses a smartphone , and these devices constitute about 95% of internet access-…

Experts warn use of VPNs makes it hard to limit access to technology that can create nonconsensual explicit images Days after Malaysia made global headlines by announcing it would temporarily ban Grok over its ability to generate “grossly offensive and nonconsensual manipulated images”, the generative AI tool was conversing breezily with accounts registered in the country. “Still here! That DNS b…

Exclusive: Amazon, Meta and X among firms holding hundreds of meetings with people at heart of government, data shows Tech companies have been meeting government ministers at a rate of more than once per working day, enjoying high-level political access that dwarfs that of child safety and copyright campaigners, who called the pattern “shocking” and “disturbing”. Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Elon …

Progress of artificial general intelligence could stall, which may lead to a financial crash, says Yoshua Bengio, one of the ‘godfathers’ of modern AI Will the race to artificial general intelligence (AGI) lead us to a land of financial plenty – or will it end in a 2008-style bust? Trillions of dollars rest on the answer. The figures are staggering: an estimated $2.9tn (£2.2tn) being spent on dat…

I was a child actor, exploited by strangers on the internet. Now millions of children face the same danger When I was a little girl, there was nothing scarier than a stranger. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, kids were told, by our parents, by TV specials, by teachers, that there were strangers out there who wanted to hurt us. “Stranger Danger” was everywhere. It was a well-meaning lesson, but …

How would you feel if your therapist’s notes – your darkest thoughts and deepest feelings – were exposed to the world? For 33,000 Finnish people, that became a terrifying reality, with deadly consequences Tiina Parikka was half-naked when she read the email. It was a Saturday in late October 2020, and Parikka had spent the morning sorting out plans for distance learning after a Covid outbreak at …

Report claims unrestricted online access will be a ‘government privilege’, limited to individuals vetted by regime Iran is planning to permanently break from the global internet, only allowing individuals vetted by the regime to connect online, according to Iranian digital rights activists. “A confidential plan is under way to turn international internet access into a ‘governmental privilege’,” a…

Company says TB testing carried out as ‘precaution’ after small number of workers contracted lung disease Amazon is testing workers at its Coventry warehouse for tuberculosis after an outbreak of the lung disease. A handful of workers from the site were found to have contagious tuberculosis (TB) last year, prompting the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to begin running a screening programme in S…

Ashley St Clair files lawsuit in state of New York over deepfakes that appeared on social media platform X The mother of one of Elon Musk’s children is suing his company – alleging explicit images were generated by his Grok AI tool, including one in which she was underage. Ashley St Clair has filed a lawsuit with the supreme court of the state of New York against xAI, alleging that Grok, which is…

Democrats and Republicans called on president to circumvent legislative process to implement ‘Freedom’ bill US politics live – latest updates A bipartisan group of lawmakers is calling on Donald Trump to allow the US government to help open up internet access in Iran , which the country’s Islamic regime has blocked in an effort to suppress an eruption of unrest. With deaths soaring into thousands…

Big tech companies cannot be trusted. It is not enough that they remove harm when they find it – the law must make their systems prevent harm On X, a woman posts a photo in a sari, and within minutes, various users are underneath the post tagging Grok to strip her down to a bikini. It is a shocking violation of privacy, but now a familiar and commonplace practice . Between June 2025 and January 2…

Ministers have rolled back central element of digital ID plans, possibly allowing people to use other forms of identification to prove their right to work Here are extracts from three interesting comment articles about the digital ID U-turn. Ailbhe Rea in the New Statesman in the New Statesmans says there were high hopes for the policy when it was first announced. I remember a leisurely lunch ove…

While Grok has introduced belated safeguards to prevent sexualised AI imagery, other tools have far fewer limits “Since discovering Grok AI, regular porn doesn’t do it for me anymore, it just sounds absurd now,” one enthusiast for the Elon Musk-owned AI chatbot wrote on Reddit. Another agreed: “If I want a really specific person, yes.” If those who have been horrified by the distribution of sexua…

Exclusive: Health secretary issues invitation in push for UK to consider copying landmark restrictions in Australia Wes Streeting has asked Jonathan Haidt, a bestselling author and high-profile advocate of banning social media for under-16s, to speak to his officials in his push for the UK to consider following a landmark ban in Australia. The health secretary has invited Haidt to address an even…