All posts tagged: Social Media

Seattle school district sues Big Tech over mental health crisis

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In an interesting move, a US public school district in Seattle, Washington is suing several social media giants alleging they are causing mental distress, anxiety, and depression among children, Breitbart reports. Included in the list of those being sued are the Chinese-owned TikTok, Facebook and Instagram which are owned by Meta, and also Snapchat, YouTube and Google. In a statement explaining its action, the school board said that it wants to hold “‘social media companies accountable for the harm they have wreaked on the social, emotional, and mental health’ of students.” “The increase in suicides, attempted suicides, and mental-health related emergency room visits is no coincidence,” the statement added. The statement also alleged that Big Tech has manipulated, “the psychology and neurophysiology of their users so that they spend more and more time on their platforms…creating a mental health crisis among young Americans.” READ: Big Tech sued by Seattle schools over mental health ‘crisis’ RELATED: Study: Social Media Causes Children to ‘Dislike Their Own Bodies’ AND Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company …

Social media causes children to dislike themselves, study finds

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According to a survey conducted by stem4, a mental health charity, social media has caused children to dislike their bodies, Breitbart reports. The poll of over 1,024 young people between the ages of 12-121 found: In an interview with The Guardian, Dr. Nihara Krause, the founder of stem4 said: “We need to improve understanding of the potentially compelling impact of social media content, and the reinforcement created through algorithms, on young people’s engagement with apps and their consequent mental health.” READ: Study: Social Media Causes Children to ‘Dislike Their Own Bodies’ Of course, many of these social media giants already knew this. According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook has conducted several studies on the negative impact that Instagram is having on teen girls. The following are some findings from Facebook’s own studies: “Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.” “Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves.” “We make body image issues worse for one in three teen …

Did the Chinese Communist Party use TikTok to target US politicians during the 2020 midterms?

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According to a report by Forbes, the Chinese Communist Party is controlling several accounts on TikTok, that specifically targeted American politicians who lean politically to the right during the recent 2022 midterms. Breitbart provides more details: The TikTok accounts are being run by MediaLinks TV, a registered foreign agent of the primary Chinese Communist Party television news outlet, China Central Television, according to a report by Forbes. Many of the videos on the China-owned app attacked specific U.S. politicians ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. The largest of these propaganda accounts are @Pandaorama, @The…Optimist, and @NewsTokss. Before the U.S. midterm elections, @NewsTokss reportedly attacked Republican candidates and favored Democrat candidates. READ: Election Interference: TikTok Accounts Operated by Chinese Communist Party Push Divisive Videos About U.S. Politicians Of course, there have been growing security concerns about TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, a corporation headquartered in China. READ: South Dakota governor bans TikTok for state agencies, warning of security threat In mid-November, FBI chief, Christopher Wray, warned the US Congress about growing security concerns about TikTok. The New York Post …

US FCC Commissioner calls for TikTok to be banned

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TikTok, a short-form video-sharing platform, has quickly become one of the more popular social media apps in the world today. According to recent studies over 41% of its users are Gen Z (ages 16 to 24). But along with this, there are growing concerns about the app, and its connection to China and the Chinese Communist Party. In early November 2022, Brendan Carr, a commissioner for Federal Communications Commission (FCC) stated that the US should ban TikTok in order to protect the data of American citizens. Fox News provides more details: Carr, one of the five commissioners who lead the FCC, argued in an interview with Axios that there is no way to have “sufficient confidence” that Americans’ data on the app is not being sent back to Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). TikTok is owned by the Chinese tech giant, ByteDance, and Chinese law mandates that companies share their data with the CCP upon request. […] That access is used frequently as well, as was revealed in an extensive report from BuzzFeed …

How Twitter fact-checked President Biden’s tweet

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With Elon Musk’s purchase of the social media giant, Twitter, people are hoping for a return to free speech and facts on the platform. It may be too soon to tell, but people were pleasantly surprised when Twitter fact-checked one of President Biden’s tweets when his office gloated: “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their social security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership.” In response to the now-deleted Tweet, Twitter pointed out in a statement below the tweet, that the increase was simply an automatic cost of living adjustment due to inflation caused by the Biden administration. The fact check stated: “Seniors will receive a large Social Security benefit increase due to the annual cost of living adjustment, which is based on the inflation rate. President Nixon in 1972 signed into law automatic benefit adjustments tied to the Consumer Price Index. Pub. L. 92-336 (1972).” READ: Twitter praised for fact-check on White House account: ‘Fact checks are getting factual now!’

Free Speech returns to Twitter as Musk takes over

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Unless President Joe Biden intervenes Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter seems to be a done deal. To demonstrate how close the deal is to being completed, Musk changed his profile name to ‘Chief Twit’ and released a video of him entering Twitter headquarters carrying a kitchen sink. It is suspected that Musk will officially take over Twitter on Friday, Oct. 28, 2022. In a letter posted today, Musk revealed that his decision to purchase Twitter was for the sake of Free Speech in America as over the years the platform has repeatedly censored conservative voices. The Daily Wire provides more details of Musk’s letter: “The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk wrote. “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.” He also …

Study: Excessive social media leads to depression

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Researchers from the Public Policy Program at the University of Arkansas concluded that people who spend an excessive amount of time on social media are more likely to show high levels of depression six months later than those who don’t, Study Finds reports. Curiously, despite displaying high degrees of success and positivity in their posts, months later many were struggling with depression. The researchers came to this conclusion after studying 1,000 people between the ages of 18 and 30 in 2018. Study Finds reports: “Regardless of personality type, social media use increased the risk for future depression diagnoses. However, people who rated high in agreeableness were 49 percent less likely to become depressed than people with low agreeableness. When people with high neuroticism — being in a negative or anxious emotional state — spent over five hours on social media (300 minutes), they were twice as likely to develop depression than others.“ The researchers concluded that the depression was caused because people were comparing themselves to others who were also posting the highlights of their lives or when they …

Free speech beats Big Tech in Texas court case

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Free speech was the big winner and Big Tech was the big loser in a recent Texas court case. Two organizations had taken the state of Texas to court after it passed a law banning Social media corporations, with over 50 million monthly users, from censoring speech on their platforms based on the user’s political leanings. PJ Media provides more details: On Sept. 9, 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 20 into law. In a statement, Abbott summarized the new law: “House Bill 20 prevents social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users banning users simply based on their political viewpoints. The law also requires several consumer protection disclosures and processes related to content management on the social media sites to which the bill applies. These sites must disclose their content management and moderation policies and implement a complaint and appeals process for content they remove, providing a reason for the removal and a review of their decision. They also must review and remove illegal content within 48 hours. House Bill 20 also prohibits …

Study: High social media usage may cause mental health issues for teens?

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According to a study conducted by Cambridge University’s Digital Mental Health program, social media may be causing mental issues in teens, particularly as they enter puberty. The study, reported by The Verge, noted that it came to this conclusion from studying the results of seven surveys of 72,000 individuals between 2011 and 2018 and a survey of 17,000 between the ages of 10 to 21. The study found that higher social media usage resulted in teens having ‘low’ self-esteem and ‘poor’ body image, which showed up when they entered puberty, and also at the time they were ready to leave home. The Verge reports: “Narrowing in on adolescents, the team found that for people in the 16- to 21-year-old age range, both very low and very high social media use were both linked with lower life satisfaction. In 10- to 15-year-olds, there wasn’tmuch difference in life satisfaction between kids reporting low and high social media use. But in that group, girls with high social media use had lower life satisfaction than boys.” READ: Social media …

Facebook sees its number of logins decline for the first time in history

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For the first time in its storied history, Facebook has seen its number of users decline. Facebook opened its doors on Oct 28, 2003 under the name of FaceMask. It would change its name to TheFacebook in Feb 2004. The Dailymail reports that Facebook, which typically has 1.93 billion people logging in daily, saw its number of logins shrink by nearly 500,000 daily during the last three months of 2021. This combined with lower ad revenues because of Tik Tok has resulted in a 22.6% decline in the stock price of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, a $200 billion reduction in the company’s value. READ: Facebook loses users for the first time EVER: Shares plummet 20%, wiping $200BN off value of parent-firm Meta after it revealed 500,000 fewer daily log-ins and declining profits – Zuckerberg’s personal wealth takes $29BN hit Of course, Facebook has gone woke and continues to censor and ban any groups it personally doesn’t agree with. Apparently, its administrators haven’t figured out if they continue doing this, people will go elsewhere. READ: US …

Facebook just censored one of opentheWord’s articles

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I call it a badge of honour, but someone just told me that Facebook censored one of my articles, as it was completely yanked from the social media site. They forwarded me the warning I received. Apparently, the article was yanked because it was partially false: Now, we need a bit of context here. The global warming elitists are gathering in Glasgow, Scotland for a big man-made warming shin ding where they will warn us, as they have done for nearly 20 years, that we only have ten years to save the planet. As the elitists fly in on their private jets, they will also be insisting the peasants of the world should no longer be allowed to drive our cars. So, of course, Facebook’s censors on heightened alert for any news that would contradict the global warming propaganda. Apparently, my article on how Australia’s Great Barrier, that was allegedly obliterated by man-made global warming, is now growing back was partially false. You can read the censored article here: READ: As global warming fearmongering grows, …

YouTube fined for censoring anti-lockdown protest video

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According to a report by Reclaim the Net, a German court has just fined YouTube 100,000 Euros (Approximately US$118,000) for taking down a video of people protesting against the COVID lockdowns in neighbouring Switzerland. When YouTube took down the video back in April 2020, the Dresden court ordered YouTube to immediately restore the video, but YouTube ignored the court’s ruling for nearly a month before finally restoring it on May 14, 2020. Ruling that YouTube’s behaviour was “deliberate and serious violation,” the court fined the social media behemoth. YouTube argued that its “medical misinformation policy” was above the laws of Germany. The court disagreed. READ: YouTube fined 100,000 Euro after German court rejects its “misinformation” excuse for deleting anti-lockdown protest video The manager of the channel censored by YouTube tweeted several responses to the recent court ruling: English translation: “Joachim Steinhöfel: ‘With the historically high fine, the Higher Regional Court makes it very clear that court decisions must be observed without restriction, regardless of whether YouTube assumes a violation of its guidelines or not.’” Rough …

Islamic extremists get pro-Israel Facebook page banned?

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Facebook recently took down a page, Jerusalem Prayer Team, dedicated to praying for Jerusalem and told its founder, Mike Evans, there was no appeal. The page had 75 million followers. Evans alleges this took place after Islamic extremists began posting antisemitic comments on the site, including photos and statements by Adolf Hitler, and then reported the comments to Facebook.

Canada issues warning about Chinese social media apps

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In a surprising move, Bill Blair, Canada’s federal public safety minister, issued a warning to Canadians over using Chinese social media apps such as TikTok, WeChat and Weibo. Blair made the statement during a parliamentary meeting on China-Canada relation, He stated that China’s communist regime could use information posted on these apps against Canada. Millions of Canadians currently use the three apps.