The Guardian

When bubbles burst, what comes next can be better, if we build it differently It was December 1999. Tech investors were riding high, convinced that a website and a Super Bowl ad were all it took to get rich quick. Spending was mistaken for growth; marketing was mistaken for a business model. In just a few months, the dot-com boom would go bust: $1.7tn in market value vanished , and the broader ec…

In the first part of our series on digital politics, we look at how centrists have lost ground fighting disinformation – when the real battle is over emotion and attention Robert Topinka is a reader in digital media and rhetoric at Birkbeck, University of London There’s a strange tendency to describe social media as something other people use – those young people on TikTok, that conspiratorial un…

Ecosystem known as the Com is carrying out extreme exploitation, violence and sexual abuse, says report A leading UK online safety charity has issued a “public warning” about a hacking community that is targeting vulnerable children for sexual abuse, self-harm and suicide. The Molly Rose Foundation (MRF) said online networks linked to a global ecosystem labelled the Com were carrying out extreme …

Exclusive: Branch of Iranian software company TSIT, which makes Gap Messenger, is registered in Sussex The creators of a messaging app accused of handing user data to the Iranian regime live on a windswept hill in a British coastal town, the Guardian can reveal. Hadi and Mahdi Anjidani are the cofounders of TS Information Technology, established in 2010 and now registered at the address of a tax …

Analysis finds at least 150 channels on messaging app that are distributing AI-generated images and video Millions of people around the world are creating and sharing deepfake nudes on the secure messaging app Telegram, a Guardian analysis has shown, as the spread of advanced AI tools industrialises the online abuse of women. The Guardian has identified at least 150 Telegram channels – large encr…

Experts say uneven connectivity suggests regime is throttling and filtering data as losses said to hit $36m a day Iranian authorities appear to have relaxed – but not removed – internet restrictions, in what experts say is a sign of the mounting costs of the most severe internet blackout the regime has ever imposed. “There seems to be a real patchwork of connectivity. I think if most people have …

Founder of the world wide web says commercialisation means the net has been ‘optimised for nastiness’, but collaboration and compassion can prevail Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast When Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web in 1989, his vision was clear: it would used by everyone, filled with everything and, crucially, it would be free. Today, the British com…

The human impulse to steal has been accelerated by AI, inequality and our political leaders – with profound consequences Continue reading...

Online, people are documenting their attempts to clock up as many ‘nos’ as they can this year. Is this actually the best possible route to more ‘yeses’ than you’re used to? Name: Rejection spreadsheets. Age: There’s nothing new in rejection. JK Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers, Elvis was told he couldn’t sing. Going back a little further, Cain had an offering of produce rejected by God himse…

The mysterious Cornish electronic music pioneer has gained an extraordinary second life in the TikTok era. Writers and musicians explain why his glitchy slipperiness is so in tune with life today QKThr, an obscure cut from Aphex Twin’s 2001 album, Drukqs, sounds like an ambient experiment recorded on a historic pirate ship. Shaky fingers caress the keys of an accordion to create an uncanny tone; …

Investigation comes after Elon Musk’s firm sparked outrage by allowing users to ‘strip’ photos of women and children Europe live – latest updates The European Commission has launched an investigation into Elon Musk’s X over the production of sexually explicit images and the spreading of possible child sexual abuse material by the platform’s AI chatbot feature, Grok. The formal inquiry, launched o…

Molly Russell was just 14 when she took her own life in 2017, and an inquest later found negative online content was a significant factor. With many people now pushing for teenagers to be kept off tech platforms, her father explains why he backs a different approach Ian Russell describes his life as being split into two parts: before and after 20 November 2017, the day his youngest daughter, Moll…

Yousef Pezeshkian says nothing will be solved by trying to postpone moment footage of violent crackdown circulate The son of Iran’s president has called for the internet restrictions in the country to be lifted, saying nothing will be solved by trying to postpone the moment when pictures and video of the protests circulate, which were violently crushed by the regime. With a battle underway at the…

The most popular posts on r/animalid are exotic lizards and rare birds – but it’s the haziest trail cam screenshots that feel the most dangerous, the most spectacular Read more in the Internet wormhole series I spent the first decade of my life in Vancouver Island, Canada, in an area rich with parks, lakes and forests. Deer would occasionally wander into our neighbourhood and nibble on the blosso…

Exclusive: German research into responses to health queries raises fresh questions about summaries seen by 2bn people a month • How the ‘confident authority’ of AI Overviews is putting public health at risk Google’s search feature AI Overviews cites YouTube more than any medical website when answering queries about health conditions, according to research that raises fresh questions about a tool …