The Guardian

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…

European Commission finds shoppers on Chinese website very likely to find unsafe items and imposes €200m penalty EU regulators have fined the Chinese shopping website Temu €200m (£173m) for failing to stop the sale of illegal and dangerous products. The European Commission imposed the penalty after a 19-month investigation that found consumers were very likely to encounter illegal or unsafe produ…

Some argue that quitting the platform formerly known as Twitter cedes the space to malign actors. But it’s an open sewer, beyond redemeption You can read the Tottenham striker Richarlison launching a defiant broadside at the newly crowned champions. “Next season, we will compete for the title,” he says. “Arsenal won’t be winning it again for the next 22 years.” You can read the outgoing Mancheste…

After 88 days of near-total blackout, first reactions to the return of partial connectivity were not celebratory After 88 days of near-total internet blackout in Iran, long-delayed messages, images and poems flooded phones and social media feeds at about 5pm on Tuesday, when still-limited connectivity flickered back to life . The first reactions, however, were not celebratory. Many new posts were…

She made millions as a tween and teenager by posting clips of herself and her friends on YouTube. Then the business collapsed amid acrimony. What does her success in the adult industry, at 18, say about surveillance, social media and sexualisation? ‘Honestly, the answer is kind of gross,” says Piper Rockelle, in a recent TikTok video, reflecting on why she is so popular on OnlyFans. In the clip, …

As government begins restoring connection, population voices dismay over food price increases and shortages The partial lifting of internet restrictions in Iran has revealed a rising tide of anger about food price inflation as ordinary Iranians decry annual price increases of 308% for vegetable oil, 190% for chicken, and 170% for rice. Iranian authorities on Tuesday began restoring the connection…

The company’s data editor trawls through billions of queries to deliver a portrait of the world’s preoccupations As anyone who has procreated this century knows, childrearing involves daily rounds of online searching. The most common parenting-related queries feature in What We Ask Google, a valiant attempt by the search giant’s data editor Simon Rogers to create a “surprisingly hopeful picture o…

Barnardo’s says survey shows online abuse and harassment becoming ‘part of background noise of growing up’ Nearly one in five girls in the UK receive persistent, unwanted images online, according to a poll by the charity Barnardo’s, which warned that online misogyny was becoming an everyday part of childhood. Its survey of 4,000 young people found that a quarter of girls had been called degrading…

Internet monitors unsure if political or technical issues behind delay after access was cut off during protests in January Middle East crisis – live updates An Iranian government announcement on Tuesday that an 88-day internet blackout was being brought to an end did not have any immediate noticeable impact, according to internet monitors. It was not clear if technical or political issues were de…

Soon after Twitch streamer Hasan Piker started campaigning with Democratic candidates this spring, an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal was published with the headline: Democrats are too cozy with Hasan Piker. That triggered a fever pitch of more op-eds and interviews asking Piker to respond to past statements he’s made on Israel's war in Gaza, 9/11 and more. But the controversy surroundin…

Sue Jacquot was taking part in fundraiser when police swarmed her home after someone falsely reported a crime An Arizona grandmother has said someone subjected her to a so-called police swatting call while she was taking part in a Minecraft fundraiser to raise financial support for her grandson’s cancer treatment medical bills. The bizarre turn of events is the latest high-profile instance in the…

US social media firms acting on orders from Middle East kingdom accused of being ‘instruments of repression’ Major US social media companies including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms have blocked the accounts of Saudi Arabian dissidents so they are no longer visible inside the kingdom, following orders by Saudi authorities. Those affected include Abdullah Alaoudh, a US-based activist and …