"CENSORSHIP IS A TOOL, BUT ONE THAT IS OFTEN USED INADVERTENTLY TO SILENCE MARGINALISED VOICES," SAYS CREATIVE FOUNDER & PHOTOGRAPHER, RANKIN.

EXHIBITION IN PARTNERSHIP WITH QUANTUS GALLERY JUNE 16TH-24TH FEATURING RANKIN PORTRAITS OF 13 OF THE UNFAIRLY CENSORED COMMUNITY.

RANKIN'S CENSORED PORTRAITS OF THE UNSEEN MADE INTERACTIVE WITH AR EXPERIENCE BY MEDIA.MONKS, USING 8TH WALL.

THE UNSEEN GIVES VOICE TO HUNDREDS OF INDIVIDUALS AND SMALL BUSINESSES THAT HAVE BEEN UNFAIRLY CENSORED AND SILENCED ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS.

LONDON, June 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --RANKIN CREATIVE has launched an online community project spotlighting unfair censorship by using its resources to re-platform those who've been unfairly silenced online. THE UNSEEN is open to anyone who has experienced Content removal, account removal, promotion/ad ban or shadow banning. The project intends to create a positive debate around this topic, to provoke change in attitudes and working practices.

"Censorship is a necessary tool to prevent fake news, protect children and more. But it is often used inadvertently to silence marginalised voices," said Creative Founder & Photographer, Rankin.

THE UNSEEN is specifically highlighting the breadth and severity of unfair censorship in a way that's not been seen before. The statistics of those who have joined the community highlight the core reasons marginalised people feel they are being censored:

FEMALE BODY & SEXISM/MISOGYNY

RELATED EXPERIENCES 29.6%

EXPERIENCES OF HOMO/QUEERPHOBIA 10%

POLITICALLY RELATED EXPERIENCES 7%

FATPHOBIA/PLUS SIZE DISCRIMINATION 5%

ABLEISM EXPERIENCES 4%

RACISM EXPERIENCES 4%

"IT'S A CONTINUOUS, FRUSTRATING GAME OF WHACK-A-MOLE WITH PLATFORMS, SO MUCH SO THAT I'VE ENDED UP BLENDING MY PHD IN THE MODERATION OF ONLINE ABUSE WITH MY EXPERIENCES OF CENSORSHIP," SAYS UNSEEN COMMUNITY MEMBER DR CAROLINA ARE.

The project has generated incredible interest, even at it's early stages, with hundreds of people from all over the world sharing their stories and joining the discussion. The stories shared on THE UNSEEN entry form and the posts that the entrant had censored will all be included on THE UNSEEN website launching on the 15th of June.

Story continues

"We've had an incredible response so far, and we're just getting started," said Rankin. "This is an important issue, and those affected deserve to have a voice in the policies that affect them on the platforms they love and build their businesses on."

To launch the project, RANKIN has partnered with Digital-first Quantus Gallery in Shoreditch, London to hold a public exhibition. The show will feature all the posts and several of the stories submitted by entrants, alongside portraits of 13 of the community photographed by Rankin and made Interactive by the experiential design team at Media.Monks.

"We wanted to put the viewer back in control, and subvert the relationship we have with the images we see online, so working with Media.Monks was ideal. I also think it's important to show how emerging technologies like 8th Wall can be used positively, to make things fairer," said Rankin

"We're thrilled to be launching this project to the public, we hope the simple act of creating a database and awareness of these stories will help make a difference. But we're far from done, we'll be working until the system is fairer." said the creatives driving the project OPALUKE (Opal Turner and Luke Lasenby.)

The website (theunseen.site) and exhibition will launch on the 15th of June at 7pm and be open to the public from the 16th - 24th June at Quantus Gallery 11-29 Fashion Street, London, E1 6PX.

PRESS ONLY - To attend the launch please email your name to rsvp@rankin.co.uk.

ABOUT RANKIN CREATIVE

RANKIN CREATIVE IS AN INDEPENDENT CREATIVE AGENCY FOUNDED BY THE EPONYMOUS PHOTOGRAPHER AND CREATIVE POLYMATH, RANKIN.

"We work with progressive brands, businesses and people to drive growth creatively and commercially using the power of popular culture, taking on some of society's biggest tensions and taboos."

Our deep roots in the visual arts and editorial world fuels our approach that ensures our work is leading culture and makes real behaviour changing impact."

RANKIN.CO.UK

ABOUT QUANTUS GALLERY

Quantus is Europe's first NFT Gallery and Advisory on London's Fashion Street, Co/founded by James Ryan of Grove Square Galleries and crypto currency and NFT expert Josh Sandhu. A hybrid Gallery, Quantus are at the forefront of all things NFT related, supporting new artists and collectors on their journey.

ABOUT MEDIA.MONKS

Media.Monks is a digital-first marketing and advertising services company that connects content, data and digital media and technology services and produces websites, games, films, social media content, digital advertising campaigns, data and measurement solutions, and more.

For Press Enquiries please visit media.monks.com.

Cision

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rankin-creative-launch-exhibition-to-platform-those-unfairly-censored-on-social-media-301566697.html

SOURCE RANKIN CREATIVE

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RANKIN CREATIVE LAUNCH EXHIBITION TO PLATFORM THOSE UNFAIRLY CENSORED ON SOCIAL MEDIA - Yahoo Finance

Elon Musk may want out of his deal with Twitter, but he has some ideas about how to run the bird app, and they involve layoffs, subscriptions, and a sarcasm button. Musk turned up on Thursday for a video chat with Twitter employees, and the employees promptly leaked its contents to reporters including my Verge colleague Alex Heath and The New York Times Mike Isaac, who ran a liveblog of the event while it was happening. An apparent digression about aliens notwithstanding, the meetings results were fairly predictable but illuminating for anybody whos spent too much time obsessing over ominous phrases like authenticate all humans in the past few months.

Subscribe to The Verge's limited-run newsletter occasionally revived when there's Too Much Elon News. (And right now, there is Too Much Elon News.)

In Thursdays meeting, Musk had the energy of a rich MMORPG fan who buys a studio so he can implement his totally rad spell and weapon designs while beleaguered game designers worry about the day-to-day operations of their jobs. (In fairness to rich gamers, when this once literally happened, at least the devs werent imploring their new boss to stop trash-talking them in public.) Twitter employees asked repeatedly about whether theyll be able to work from home, getting a pledge from Musk that exceptional workers can remain remote. In less positive developments, Musk reiterated hints that Twitter will cut jobs to become profitable. That plan sits alongside tactics like upselling Twitter users on subscriptions and adding TikTok-style algorithmic recommendations, plus your average internet-company mainstays like payment processing.

Playing Twitter technoking might be more fun than dealing with the rest of Musks business empire this week. Teslas cars are getting more expensive (along with everything else) and employees are getting laid off. His lawyers are still seeking a sympathetic court for his years-long tweet-fueled battle with the SEC, and theyll probably bill Musk a few more hours to handle a crypto buyers long-shot lawsuit accusing him of Dogecoin racketeering. The FAA is asking SpaceX to make a round of changes in its Texas launch site, while SpaceX employees are circulating an open letter asking Musk to, for Gods sake, stop tweeting. SpaceX has reportedly responded by firing at least five of them, a move reminiscent of some retaliation that got him in legal hot water back at Tesla.

At Twitter, Musk still has no responsibilities. He told employees that he wants to drive the product in a particular direction in the long term, but hes not hung up on titles and doesnt really care about being CEO. For now, he can just dial in on his crappy hotel Wi-Fi and riff on potential new features like an irony label that indicates whether tweets are serious or not. But the more Musk talks about what hed change, the more contradictory his vision gets.

As funny as I find the concept of an irony button, its a classic type of addition to the service: something users hacked together a solution for years ago, integrated into the formal interface. (/srs!) But Musk also seems to be simply throwing ideas at the wall and walking them back when questioned, with no clear vision beyond get a billion users and become wildly profitable, a far cry from his early calls for unfettered speech. Hes willing to casually propose plans that would upend how Twitter works, but when pressed, he retreats into positions the company has effectively held for years.

Take the aforementioned authentication of all humans, something Musk promoted as a way to fight spambots. Verifying that each Twitter user represents a real person would likely be disruptive and erode anonymity, a feature pre-Musk Twitter has fought to preserve. Possibly for that reason, Musk scaled the idea back in Thursdays meeting, discussing a possible Twitter Blue authentication service where people would pay to prove theyre a human and have their allegedly more trustworthy tweets prioritized. The thing is, Twitter already prioritizes things like replies based on account credibility. And if youre concerned about freedom of speech, theres a real tradeoff to massively prioritizing users based on their ability to pay. So Musks proposal will either involve slightly tweaking something Twitter already does, or it will seriously compromise ordinary non-billionaire users ability to speak.

Musk drew a similarly well-trodden distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of reach on Thursday. I think people should be allowed to say pretty outrageous things that are within the bounds of the law, but then that doesnt get amplified, it doesnt get, you know, a ton of reach, he said. We have to strike this balance of allowing people to say what they want to say but also make people comfortable on Twitter, or they simply wont use it. The speech / reach division has been a common talking point for years among platform executives, and reducing sketchy contents visibility is standard operating procedure for Facebook and Twitter itself. Its a core piece of the vision for Bluesky, the open-source Twitter offshoot that predates Musk, and more time-tested decentralized platforms like Mastodon have grappled with the complications of the principle.

Its also a supremely ironic thing for Musk to call for because Musk has complained repeatedly about Twitter restricting the reach of content, particularly his content. In April, he was speculating about a shadow ban council suppressing a tweet insulting Bill Gates, and shadowbanning is the purest expression of limiting reach: you can see your pretty outrageous tweet, but other people dont have to. Musk has suggested that its different if the limits are transparent, so Twitter can solve any problems by making its recommendation algorithms open source and letting people examine them. As Will Knight at Wired has explained, this is a red herring. There are real benefits to opening up social networks algorithmic black boxes, but it almost certainly wont tell the average person whether their Bill Gates looks like a pregnant man tweet should organically have more faves.

Musk has, for lack of a better term, a commitment to a particular free speech aesthetic. He likes provocative trolling and portrays himself as part of a common-sense straight-talking middle of American politics, stating in Thursdays meeting that he is the center of the normal distribution of political views in the country. (Its true that he has his political bases with both parties covered, but he also recently tweeted support for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis a stridently far-from-centrist Republican becoming president.) He frequently describes his support for speaking within the bounds of the law, repeating the phrase at least three times in the Q&A.

When confronted with the many problems that stated commitment poses, though, Musk sounds like any other risk-averse social network operator. If anything, he seems unusually interested in shaping what gets seen on Twitter. Per Recodes meeting transcript, one of his big-picture goals is for Twitter to offer a more socially conscious version of TikToks powerful recommendation algorithm, pushing interesting and informative tweets to users (Ive lightly edited the quote for a bit more, uh, clarity):

Its important to make Twitter as attractive as possible. And really, that means not showing people content that they would find hateful or offensive, or even frankly content they would find boring is not good. We dont even want them to see boring content. Unless we were talking about TikTok last night. And TikTok obviously does a great job of making sure youre not bored.

[...]

You know, TikTok is interesting, but, like, you want to be informed about serious issues as well. And I think Twitter, in terms of serious issues, can be a lot better for informing people about serious issues. I do think its important that if there are two sides to an issue, its important to represent multiple opinions. But you know, and just make sure that were not sort of driving narrative. Therell be give people an opportunity to understand the various sides of issues.

TikTok is a fascinating case study on the line between moderation and invasive censorship. It has almost completely escaped accusations of political bias, even during that weird period where Trump wanted to ban it from the country possibly because the people who shape free speech discourse dont congregate there much. But far from not driving narrative, its algorithm has produced a bizarre emergent vocabulary thanks to soft bans on words like suicide and has changed the way a generation speaks. Algospeak is everywhere. Its the kind of system that should prompt deep consideration of social networks power.

Instead, Musk seems as confident as ever in his power to dictate apolitical and neutral moderation assuming he ever actually gets to wield the banhammer.

See the article here:

This Week in Elon: smashing the irony button - The Verge

Landlords are set to be outlawed from banning children, pets and people on benefits.

Plans to create a fairer private rented sector in England have taken a huge step forward with the publication of a Government White Paper this week. Tenants will have stronger powers to challenge poor practice and unjustified rent increases under the proposals, and they could also be saved the expense of having to move as often from one rented home to another.

It will also be made illegal for landlords or agents to place blanket bans on renting to families with children or those in receipt of benefits. The Fairer Private Rented Sector White Paper marks a generational shift, according to the Government, which will redress the balance between landlords and the 4.4 million privately renting households across England.

READ MORE: Lancashire areas where house prices have increased more than 200%

The decent homes living standard will be extended to the private sector, meaning homes must be free from serious health and safety hazards, and landlords must keep homes in a good state of repair so renters have clean, appropriate and useable facilities. No fault Section 21 evictions that allow landlords to terminate tenancies without giving any reason will be outlawed.

More than a fifth of private renters who moved in 2019 and 2020 did not end their tenancy by choice, the Government said. A new Private Renters Ombudsman will be created to enable disputes between private renters and landlords to be settled quickly, and at a relatively low cost, without having to go to court.

Measures will also help responsible landlords to gain possession of their properties efficiently from anti-social tenants, the Government said. A new property portal will help landlords to understand, and comply with, their responsibilities as well as giving councils and tenants the information they need to tackle rogue operators.

The measures will form part of the Renters Reform Bill, as announced in the Queens Speech, to be introduced in this parliamentary session. Levelling Up and Housing Secretary Michael Gove said: For too long many private renters have been at the mercy of unscrupulous landlords who fail to repair homes and let families live in damp, unsafe and cold properties, with the threat of unfair no fault evictions orders hanging over them.

Our new deal for renters will help to end this injustice by improving the rights and conditions for millions of renters as we level up across the country and deliver on the peoples priorities. While the majority of private rented homes are of good quality, offering safe, comfortable accommodation for families, the conditions of more than half a million properties pose an imminent risk to tenants health and safety, according to the Government.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: The Renters Reform Bill is a game changer for Englands 11 million private renters. Scrapping unfair evictions will level the playing field. For the first time in a long time, tenants will be able to stand up to bad behaviour instead of living in fear. This White Paper promises people safety and security in their home, and it makes clear that landlords need to play by the rules.

"Gone will be the days of families being uprooted and children forced to move school after being slapped with a Section 21 no-fault eviction for no good reason. As these plans move through Parliament, theyve got to keep their teeth to drive up standards and professionalise private renting.

"For every renter trapped in a never-ending nightmare of moving from one shoddy rental to the next, the Renters Reform Bill cannot come soon enough."

Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), said: Whilst headline commitments to strengthening possession grounds, speedier court processes and mediation are helpful, the detail to follow must retain the confidence of responsible landlords, as well as improving tenants rights. We will be analysing the Governments plans carefully to ensure they meet this test.

"A failure to do so will exacerbate the housing crisis at a time when renters are struggling to find the homes they need. The eventual legislation needs to recognise that government actions have led to a shortage of supply in the sector at a time of record demand.

"It is causing landlords to leave the sector and driving up rents when people can least afford it."

Alicia Kennedy, director of Generation Rent, said: Without proper safeguards we could still see thousands of tenants facing the hardship of unwanted moves, and more staying quiet about disrepair out of fear of a retaliatory eviction. If the Government can get the detail right and give tenants the confidence they need to request improvements and plan for the long term, this legislation has the potential to improve the lives of millions throughout England.

Councillor David Renard, housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association (LGA), said: Removal of no fault evictions is a key step towards increased protection for private renters and will allow renters to challenge poor practice and unfair rent increases without fear of eviction. It will also be important that landlords are able to get their properties back in a timely fashion where they have a valid reason to do so.

Lisa Nandy, Labours shadow levelling up and housing secretary, said: More security for renters is welcome, but action is needed now, not after yet another consultation. While the Government has dithered and delayed, rents and evictions have shot up.

Labour is calling for emergency legislation to immediately end no-fault evictions and give people more security in their home.

View original post here:

Landlords are to be outlawed from banning kids, pets and people on benefits - Lancs Live

Opponents of the antitrust push targeting Big Tech have lobbed all kinds of arguments to try to weaken support for new legislation. They may finally have found one that sticks.

This week, a group of four Democratic senators, led by Brian Schatz of Hawaii, sent a letter to Amy Klobuchar asking her to pump the breaks on the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. The bill, which Klobuchar cosponsored with bipartisan support, would prohibit the biggest tech companies from abusing their power to disadvantage businesses that operate on their platforms. But Schatzs group argues that a terrible side effect is buried in the legislation. The bill, they claim, would prevent dominant platforms from enforcing their content policies, which in turn would supercharge harmful content online and make it more difficult to combat.

Here is what the bill says about content moderation: nothing. The relevant section says that a covered platformthe likes of Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, or Microsoftcannot discriminate in the application or enforcement of the terms of service of the covered platform among similarly situated business users in a manner that would materially harm competition. This does not appear to ban or limit content policies. It suggests, to the contrary, that platforms can continue to enforce their terms of servicejust not in a discriminatory way. On its face, this means that a dominant platform cant apply its rules unfairly against a company that relies on it to reach customers. If a new video-sharing app was eating into YouTubes market share, for instance, this provision would prevent Google from selectively invoking some little-used policy to ban it from its app store.

If the bill doesnt discuss content moderation, where did some people get the idea that it would nonetheless affect it? In part, its a talking point from an industry that isnt shy about making creative arguments to defeat proposed regulation. But tech insiders arent the only ones making this claim. Last week, law professors Jane Bambauer and Anupam Chander published an op-ed in The Washington Post issuing much the same warning. On Wednesday, Chander, who teaches at Georgetown, walked me through the argument. Take what happened to Parler, the conservative-friendly free speech Twitter alternative. Last year, after the January 6 riot, Apple and Google banned Parler from their app stores, and Amazon AWS canceled its hosting contract. Parler sued but had no legal leg to stand on. (It eventually implemented a content policy and was allowed back into the app stores.) Under the new bill, however, a conservative state attorney general, like Texas Ken Paxton, would be able to sue the platforms, claiming that they discriminated against Parler because of its conservative affiliation.

OK, but couldnt the companies then simply say, But this wasnt discrimination. Here is the policy they violated, and heres the evidence that they violated it? Not so fast, Chander argues. It doesnt really matter what Google or Amazon says; what matters is what a federal judge, and ultimately the Supreme Court, decides. And a lot of Republican-appointed federal judges might agree that tech companies are mistreating conservatives.

Content moderation decisions are not clear up-and-down decisions, Chander says. Its easy to cast those judgment calls as discriminatory, especially when you have judges who feel that their side is the one being discriminated against. He adds, Boy, are you handing the conservative judges on these courts a loaded weapon, knowing theyre going to be backed up by all the conservative Supreme Court justices.

Read the original post:

The Weak Argument Jeopardizing the American Innovation and Choice Online Act - WIRED

Furious Conservative MPs have vowed to bring forward an amendment to the Governments planned Bill banning conversion therapy in order to ensure it includes trans people.

Alicia Kearns, MP for Rutland and Melton, said she would seek to amend the watered-down legislation announced by the Government in the Queens Speech, which will seek to ban attempts to change a persons sexual orientation, but not their gender identity.

The MP said she was speaking out with a heavy heart, telling a Westminster Hall debate that the Governments stance has already caused deep-set harm to transgender people who have been harmed by people saying they do not deserve the same rights and protections as lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

She said: I for one will not stand for a ban that devalues my transgender friends, and I will amend legislation that comes forward without trans people included.

The debate was called after 145,000 people signed a petition calling on the Government to ensure any ban fully includes trans people and all forms of conversion therapy, with the public gallery packed with young LGBT+ activists in support of an inclusive ban.

Ms Kearns said: There should not be any sides on this. This ban is about preventing those who use so-called therapy as a smokescreen for their homophobic and transphobic exorcisms, who claim that LGBT people do not deserve to live their lives as they truly are.

Conversion therapy often takes the form of one-directional talking therapies conducted by quacks in unregulated settings it is a therapy with only one stopping point. It is not about keeping choices, but eliminating them entirely.

Carshalton and Wallington MP Elliot Colburn, who is a patron of the LGBT+ Conservatives, warned that a ban excluding transgender people would create a big problem within law and potentially allow conversion therapy for all LGBT+ people to continue by the back door, by claiming that this is to be done because of their gender identity.

Weve seen that happening already. Survivors have come forward, particularly camp gay men and butch lesbians, who have undergone conversion therapy because of their gender identity, not their sexual orientation.

He added: This is happening today, in the UK, right now. This isnt something that happened decades ago. These kind of practices are still happening in the UK, and indeed actions of sending people overseas to undergo such practices.

Peter Gibson, Tory MP for Darlington, said that it was essential that trans people be included in a ban, adding: I am personally committed to seeing all forms of abuse towards LGBT people banned.

To not include trans people in a ban on conversion therapy would be a great wrong, allowing loopholes in the legislation that would allow these abusive practices to ruin peoples lives. Seeking to divide the LG and B from the T will only marginalise trans people.

Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said that excluding trans people from the law would further demonise an already demonised group, while Labours Luke Pollard said: If we are banning it because we think those practices are vile, we need to ban it for everybody.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn also spoke out in favour of a trans-inclusive ban, adding: This proposal to not include trans people in the conversion therapy ban is unbelievable wrong, divisive, and very short-sighted.

When this legislation comes along, I hope there will be a majority in this House to say we need a total ban on conversion therapy.

However, some MPs intervened to oppose the inclusion of trans people in the Bill, with Nick Fletcher, Tory MP for Don Valley, claiming there were enough laws already and that banning conversion therapy would create a problem with freedom of speech.

Jackie Doyle-Price, who is Conservative MP for Thurrock and voted against same-sex marriage, told MPs that the term trans can mean any number of things and that gender dysphoria can be a symptom of trauma.

Labours shadow Women and Equalities Secretary, Anneliese Dodds, criticised the chaotic Government stance on the issue, calling for a trans-inclusive ban with safeguards for families and religious groups.

In an unusual response to the debate, Government equalities minister Mike Freer did not offer a specific defence of the exclusion of trans people from the Bill a decision that was reportedly taken in Downing Street, over the heads of equalities ministers.

Mr Freer instead said he recognises the strength of feeling on the issue, and admitted he was obviously disappointed that we have not brought forward a fully inclusive Bill.

He hinted that the Bill that goes forward would be amendable, that is how I see it, and that is, of course, a debate for another time.

The minister also expressed sadness that there was no consensus on the issue as he said he had a similar mindset to many of those who have spoken out, adding: We do wish to ensure that any action we bring forward on transgender conversion therapy practises dont have wider implications.

Lamenting the lack of consensus on the issue, he added: I do feel it is not unreasonable to take some extra time to try and build that consensus, so that when the bill comes forward, were able to make it as inclusive as possible. I cant guarantee that we will get there, but thats my aim and objective.

Read the original here:

'Furious' Tory MPs vow to rebel over conversion therapy if Bill excludes trans people - iNews

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China grew 19% in 2021 to reach $170 billion. Downloads of apps also grew by 5%, reaching 230 billion in 2021, and mobile ad spend grew 23% year over year to reach $295 billion.

Todays consumers now spend more time in apps than ever before even topping the time they spend watching TV, in some cases. The average American watches 3.1 hours of TV per day, for example, but in 2021, they spent 4.1 hours on their mobile device. And theyre not even the worlds heaviest mobile users. In markets like Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea, users surpassed five hours per day in mobile apps in 2021.

Apps arent just a way to pass idle hours, either. They can grow to become huge businesses. In 2021, 233 apps and games generated more than $100 million in consumer spend, and 13 topped $1 billion in revenue. This was up 20% from 2020, when 193 apps and games topped $100 million in annual consumer spend, and just eight apps topped $1 billion.

This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place, with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps to try, too.

Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters

Image Credits: Meta

Social apps are taking a closer look at how theyre being used by teens and minors as regulatory pressure increases.

Last week, TikTok improved its protections for minor users when adding a new feature that allows users to remind themselves to take a break after watching videos for a certain amount of time on the app. As a part of this, the company also said it would notify younger teens on the app that the new tool was available if they had spent more than 100 minutes on TikTok the prior day.

This week, Instagram said its rolling out its own set of improvements to the teen experience. Its expanding access to its existing parental control features outside the U.S. to users in the U.K., Japan, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France and Germany starting this month, and plans to make them globally available by year end.

In addition, Instagram will now allow parents and guardians to send invitations to teens to initiate the setup of supervision tools. Once enabled, theyll be able to limit their teens usage of the app during specific times of day and days of the week. Theyll also be able to see more information when the teen reports an account or a post, including who they reported and the type of report. For parents who were already using parental controls in the U.S., the feature will be updated to include these new features.

Notably, Meta is also now taking a cue from last falls congressional line of inquiry into how Instagrams algorithms could be leading teens to develop eating disorders as searches for healthy recipes push them down rabbit holes to content that encourages disordered eating, over-exercise and other things that could trigger negative body image issues. Instagram says it will roll out nudges in the app that encourage teens to switch to a different topic if it sees them repeatedly looking at the same type of content on the Explore page. This feature aims to help direct them away to content they may be obsessing over to discover something new. It also wont nudge users toward content thats associated with appearance comparison, the company said.

Of course, by limiting nudges to the Explore page, Instagram isnt fully addressing the problem as users could still encounter this content while browsing their Feed, Stories or Reels. But in that case, the content is there because the user explicitly chose to follow someone which is why parental monitoring of the time spent on the app remains important.

Image Credits: Apple

Apple introduced a number of new features and services across its platforms at this months Worldwide Developers Conference, but in doing so, the company appears to have once again pulled inspiration from the wider developer community. TechCrunchs Ivan Mehta took a look at which apps got sherlocked during WWDC as a result. (The term refers to Apples old finder app called Sherlock which the company updated with features offered by a competitor, Watson. The move eventually put the latter out of business.)

This time around, Apple introduced a number of concepts popularized by other apps like Continuity Camera, which seems to be inspired by companies like Camo, which had allowed users to use their iPhone as a computer webcam. This situation recalls how the makers of Duet Display and Luna had to refocus on serving a broader ecosystem after Apple introduced Sidecar in 2019 to offer a similar ability to use the iPad as a secondary display. Camo, too, will need to shift some of its focus to Windows and Android as Apple moves in on its market.

Other services that may see increased competition include: BNPL apps like Klarna and Afterpay, which will now go up against Apple Pay Later; apps for removing the background from photos, which is now a native iOS 16 feature; medication tracking apps, which will compete with a native Apple Health feature; Figjam and other collaboration tools, which will have a new first-party rival in the form of Apples Freeform; and sleep tracking apps, whose functionality has been added to Apple Health.

While this year was a particularly bad one for smaller startups that had seen an opportunity in the market, not everything Apple copies is a fully developed product. For instance, Camo saw the shift to online meetings in the wake of COVID was driving consumer demand for better webcams and what better way to serve that market than to repurpose the excellent camera most people already carried as a smartphone? But, as Florian Mueller explained on the FOSS Patents blog this week, Camo was more of a feature than a product. And perhaps in those cases, developers should focus on patenting whatever feature it is theyve come up with, rather than waiting for Apple to swoop in with an app or API that could significantly impact their business. At least then, some of their work could be compensated.

FOSS also noted, however, that there continues to be concern that apps delivering their software to users through Apples own App Store are inadvertently giving Apple access to valuable data about their customers and traction. Alternative app stores could help somewhat to alleviate this concern.

In fact, Apples sherlocking was a line of inquiry at last years antitrust hearing in the U.S. Senate, when a rep from Apple was asked whether there was a strict firewall or other internal policies in place that prevented them from leveraging the data from third-party businesses operating on their app stores to inform the development of their own competitive products. Apple had only offered vague responses as to whether or not it leveraged such App Store data for product development ideas.

We dont copy. We dont kill. What we do is offer up a new choice and a new innovation, Kyle Andeer, Apples chief compliance officer, had said at the time. He noted simply that Apple had separate teams and controls in place to avoid such issues.

In a huge move, TikTok said it would move its U.S. users data to Oracle servers located in the U.S. at the same time BuzzFeed published a remarkable report indicating that TikToks U.S. data was regularly being shared with ByteDance colleagues in China. Concern over Chinas access to TikTok had previously led the Trump administration to ban the app in the U.S. The ban was initially held up by the courts and the appeals were then put on pause when Biden came into office. All the while, TikTok had repeatedly said it would never hand over U.S. user data to anyone.

When the Trump ban was underway, TikTok had engaged in discussions with several tech companies to acquire its U.S. business if it was forced to spin it off. Oracle had been among the suitors, so its not surprising it was named in the new deal.

In recent days, TikTok had come under fire in media reports about its toxic workplace culture where employees were quitting because of being overworked spending some 12 hours a day at their job due to requirements to align themselves with Chinas business hours. The company was said to also reward the overworked and punish those who set more reasonable boundaries, as it seemed to enforce Chinas 996 work schedule on non-Chinese employees. This dictates a schedule of working from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days per week. A WSJ report also noted some U.S. employees said they had worked 85 hours per week on average, resulting in health concerns, stress, anxiety and emotional lows so severe they sought therapy.

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

This week, we took a deep dive into a new app trend involving social apps that are leveraging homescreen widgets to connect and engage with younger users who are looking for simpler, more private social networking apps that let them stay in touch with friends through casual photo-sharing. Read more here:

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Indian esports fantasy app FanClash raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Alpha Wave Global, formerly known as Falcon Edge Capital. Users compete across several titles, including Counter Strike: Go, FreeFire and League of Legends. The company is now experimenting with expanding in the Philippines.

Mobile gaming platform VersusGame raised $25 million in a new funding round with a number of investors, including Apex Capital, Brightstone Capital Partners, Feld Ventures and others. The startup has content creators pose prediction contests to viewers, who can win cash and prizes. It has previously worked with BuzzFeed, Billboard, ESPN, UFC and others.

Reddit is acquiring machine learning startup Spell for an undisclosed sum. The startup was founded by former Facebook engineers to provide a cloud computing solution that allows anyone to run resource-intensive ML experiments without the high-end hardware that would normally be necessary. Reddit could use the ML to improve its personalized recommendations and its Discover tab.

Spotify closed its acquisition of audiobook company Findaway, announced last November.The company cited the potential for its expansion into audiobooks, noting the market is expected to grow from $3.3 billion to $15 billion by 2027.

Food delivery app Wonder, led by Marc Lore, raised $350 million in a new round led by Bain Capital Ventures at a $3.5 billion valuation, bringing its total raise in equity and debt to $900 million. Lore previously sold Quidsi (Diapers.com) to Amazon, then Jet.com to Walmart, where he stayed to lead its U.S. e-commerce business for years. Wonder is now looking to bring local restaurants and food truck deliveries to consumers homes.

Edtech company Pok Pok, which spun out of Snowman (Altos Adventure, Altos Odyssey) raised $3 million in seed funding led by Konvoy to expand its play-based learning experiences for kids. The companys Pok Pok Playroom app is designed to help kids learn through digital play using open-ended toys which, unlike mobile games, dont have a goal to achieve, points or other gaming elements.

Indonesian consumer payments app Flip raised $55 million in Series B funding in a round led by Tencent, with participation from Block (formerly Square) and existing investor Insight Partners. The company has helped more than 10 million people in Indonesia as of May this year, up from more than 7 million users in December 2021. Its app lets users perform interbank transfers to more than 100 domestic banks, use an e-wallet, and create international remittances.

Onymos, a feature-as-a-service platform for app development, raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Great Point Ventures. The startup offers off-the-shelf features that can be added to apps like login, biometrics, chat, data storage, location services, notification modules, underlying logic and server-side functions needed to process data in the cloud.

Image Credits: Grace

A new startup calledGrace launched an app to make it easier for parents to monitor and manage their kids screen time and app usage on iOS devices. Although Apple offers built-in parental controls, many parents would prefer an app-based solution as opposed to having to dig around in the settings for Apples tools. In addition, Grace offers more customization over kids screen time schedules. With Apples controls, parents can only configure start and stop times for Downtime, for instance, as opposed to being able to set other times when app usage should be limited, like school hours, family dinner time, homework time and more.

Grace is also notable for being one of the first to arrive thats built with Apples Screen Time API, introduced at Apples Worldwide Developer Conference last year. The new API allows developers to create an interface that works with Apples built-in tools in order to expand their functionality.

You can read more about Grace here:

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This Week in Apps: Apples Sherlocks, Instagrams nudges and a TikTok-Oracle deal - TechCrunch