- Google signs nuclear power deal with startup Kairos
- Carsley open to foreign England manager amid Guardiola links
- Pogba hungry to have his football cake after doping ban
- India and Canada expel top envoys in Sikh separatist killing row
- Mbappe says victim of 'fake news' after 'rape' report in Sweden
- Lebanon says 21 killed in strike on northern village
- Netanyahu vows no mercy after deadly Hezbollah drone strike
- Russia could be able to attack NATO by 2030: German intelligence
- EVs seek to regain sales momentum at Paris Motor Show
- Clarke backs Scotland to bounce back from 'tough' run
- Harris, Trump target crucial Pennsylvania as US vote looms
- NASA probe Europa Clipper lifts off for Jupiter's icy moon
- Lebanese Red Cross says 18 killed in strike in north
- Mendy borrowed money from Man City team-mates for legal fees
- Palestinian officials say Israeli forces kill two in West Bank
- Football leagues, unions file EU complaint against FIFA in calendar dispute
- Nigeria boycott AFCON qualifier in Libya after 'inhumane treatment'
- India to recall top envoy to Canada: foreign ministry
- Hezbollah, Israeli troops in 'violent clashes' after drone strike
- China insists won't renounce 'use of force' to take Taiwan as drills end
- Painkiller sale plan to US gives France major headache
- Italy begins landmark migrant transfers to Albania
- Russia jails French researcher for three years
- 'Unsustainable' housing crisis bedevils Spain's socialist govt
- Stocks shrug off China disappointment but oil slides
- New Zealand 4-0 up in America's Cup but British show signs of life
- Russian prosecutor demands 3 years prison for French researcher
- 'Innocent' British nerve agent victim caught in global murder plot: inquiry
- Afghan Taliban vow to implement media ban on images of living things
- Russian prosecutor demands 3 years, 3 months jail for French researcher
- England ready for Pakistan's spin assault in second Test
- New Zealand's Ravindra excited for India Tests with father in crowd
- India's capital bans fireworks to curb air pollution
- Stocks diverge, oil retreats as China disappoints markets
- FIFA to open 'global dialogue' on transfer system after Diarra ruling
- Trio wins economics Nobel for work on wealth inequality
- Starmer vows to cut red tape as he urges foreign investors to 'back' UK
- Ex-Stasi officer jailed over 1974 Berlin border killing
- 'Not viable': Barcelona turns against surging tourism
- Hezbollah says targeted Israeli naval base after deadly drone strike
- Rice praises 'unbelievable' England interim boss Carsley despite uncertainty
- Nepali teenager hailed as hero after climbing world's 8,000m peaks
- England captain Stokes back from injury for second Pakistan Test
- Shanghai stocks gain after stimulus briefing as markets rally
- Shanghai stocks gain after stimulus briefing as Asian markets rally
- South Korea military says 'fully ready' as drone flights anger North
- Pakistan 'vigilantes' behind rise in online blasphemy cases
- Nearly 90, but opera legend Kabaivanska is still calling tune
- Smith experiment as Test opener over, Green out of India series
- With inflation down, ECB eyes faster tempo of rate cuts
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Social media titans caught in Gaza storm over content
Six weeks after the eruption of the war in Gaza with the attack by Hamas on Israel, social media platforms are still caught in the maelstrom, struggling to control content and withstand user fury.
TikTok and X, formerly Twitter, were swept up in controversies this week, one involving an unearthing of a two-decade old screed by Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States.
Facebook and Instagram owner Meta is also facing pushback from users accusing the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg of over-censorship of pro-Palestinian content.
The problems have cast a harsh light on content moderation policies at the big platforms after a big cost-cutting campaign last year saw trust and safety teams gutted.
For TikTok, the risks are real as it faces a threat to be outright banned in the United States, under suspicion that its powerful algorithm is ultimately under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.
Those calls were renewed when it emerged on Thursday that videos promoting bin Laden's "Letter to America" went viral, 22 years after he wrote it.
Bin Laden's deeply anti-American writing explained his reasons for masterminding plane attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Searches for the letter were eventually banned by TikTok which minimized the reach of the videos.
"TikTok is so popular now with younger users, and when you talk about younger users you are talking about uniquely uninformed people," said Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.
"They do not have enough knowledge of the world to know you can't rely on Osama Bin Laden as your history teacher," he added.
- 'Flip a switch' -
Meanwhile, according to The New York Times, more than a dozen Jewish TikTok celebrities confronted executives this week urging them to stop a surge of anti-Semitism on the app.
"What is happening at TikTok is it is creating the biggest anti-Semitic movement since the Nazis," Sacha Baron Cohen told TikTok in a 90-minute impassioned phone call, according to the Times.
The "Borat" star said TikTok could "flip a switch" to stop such videos, which the company denied it could do.
At X, the problems came of mercurial owner Elon Musk's own making, when he endorsed an anti-Semitic post as the "actual truth," setting off a firestorm that saw yet more major advertisers flee the platform.
Apple, Disney, and Lionsgate Entertainment on Friday were reported to have joined IBM in pausing advertising on X.
Musk had engaged with a conspiratorial claim that Jews want to flood the US with minorities to weaken white majorities.
The theory, observers said, was once notoriously promoted by the man who carried out a mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, killing 11 people in the country's deadliest anti-Semitic attack.
Musk's post received a rebuke from the White House and saw left-wing media watchdog Media Matters for America warn major companies that their ads on X were accompanying blatantly anti-Semitic content.
IBM hours later pulled company ads from the site, while the European Union also said it would halt advertising on X because of a surge in disinformation and hate speech.
- 'Not worth it' -
Musk is one of the world's most powerful people and his behavior on X seems to indicate he is not bothered particularly about spooking advertisers on a site he paid $44 billion for last year.
Privileging free speech over content moderation, the main risk Musk faces is that Apple or Google could one day boot X from their app stores, said Andrew Selepak, assistant media professor at the University of Florida.
"At what point did they decide it's not worth it for us, and they pull their ties to X," he said.
Meta so far has managed to avoid some of the harshest attention, in part because Facebook and Instagram are deeply focused on keeping advertisers on board with an army of content moderators compared to other platforms.
Moreover, "with Meta, the content you see is most likely going to come from people you know offline," limiting the chances of being offended compared to TikTok, said Selepak.
Meta was briefly caught out blocking Instagram accounts that featured the Palestinian flag, which it later apologized for and corrected.
"Censorship of the Palestinian flag emoji on Instagram and unjustified content removal on mass levels is emblematic of Meta's deeply rooted bias and disregard for Palestinian rights," said Sarah Philips, campaigner at Fight for the Future, an activist group.
In a statement, Meta in October said "we can make errors" and asked users to use their sites' appeals process.
O.Karlsson--AMWN