Over the last year, state legislators concerned about a mental health crisis among the nation’s young people have passed a raft of children’s online safety measures. A new Utah law would require social networks to obtain a parent’s consent before giving an account to a child younger than 18 while a new California law would […]
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More Than Likes is a series about social media personalities who are trying to do positive things for their communities. Before he was New York Nico (handle: @newyorknico), the popular social-media documentarian of New York’s quirks and characters, Nicolas Heller was the “mayor of 16th Street” — at age 3. On his walk home from […]
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The work is lucrative, Ms. Tan said, and she isn’t planning to stop anytime soon. “I was definitely not fully set up financially for retirement,” she said. Besides saving for her later years, Ms. Tan said, she is paying a mortgage and college tuition for a younger child. Ms. Tan’s success is more the exception […]
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During a three-part special examining the crimes of the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer that aired last November on “Dr. Phil,” Phil McGraw, the host of the daytime talk show, played a TikTok video of a 27-year-old woman named Stanzi Potenza as evidence that true-crime fandom had gone too far. In the video, Ms. Potenza said […]
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In August 2021, TikTok received a complaint from a British user, who flagged that a man had been “exposing himself and playing with himself” on a livestream she hosted on the video app. She also described past abuse she had experienced. To address the complaint, TikTok employees shared the incident on an internal messaging and […]
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In Manhattan, one high school freshman said he was trying to cut down on scrolling through TikTok, but questioned whether age restrictions on social media use could ever effectively stop tech-savvy teenagers. Another senior from Queens said social media was essential for socializing but lamented its transformation from an enjoyable activity into an obligation. And […]
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Attention, parents with “screenagers”: The U.S. government has issued a public warning that scrolling through apps like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat may pose serious risks to your child’s mental health. In a 19-page report, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy said on Tuesday that while social media offered some benefits to younger people, including the ability […]
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TikTok on Monday sued to block Montana from banning the popular video app, escalating its efforts to stop a prohibition that would be the first of its kind in the nation. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, the company said Montana’s legislation violated the First Amendment and parts […]
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Christian Poole, 20, has deemed himself “the unofficial ambassador for the state of Montana.” On TikTok, his favorite social media platform, he posts lighthearted videos about the peculiarities of his home state. His nearly 420,000 followers reward him with hearts and laughing-face emojis. But when Gov. Greg Gianforte of Montana signed a bill on Wednesday […]
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For Nicole O’Shea, losing TikTok would almost certainly mean losing work. Ms. O’Shea, 41, specializes in user-generated content, or UGC, which means she is paid by brands to make product promotion videos that the brands then run on their own social media accounts. (Ms. O’Shea does not post these videos on her own feeds.) She […]
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A court battle over First Amendment rights appeared to be brewing in Montana on Thursday, in response to the state banning TikTok from operating there as of Jan. 1, the first prohibition of its kind in the nation. The ban, which was signed by Gov. Greg Gianforte on Wednesday, set off an outcry from TikTok, […]
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The governor of Montana, Greg Gianforte, signed a bill on Wednesday to ban TikTok from operating inside the state, the most extreme prohibition of the app in the nation and one that will almost certainly be challenged in court. “Today, Montana takes the most decisive action of any state to protect Montanans’ private data and […]
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When Brigette Ramirez and her family drove to Houston for a Taylor Swift concert, she made a very important pit stop. Three, actually: T.J. Maxx, T.J. Maxx and T.J. Maxx. Mx. Ramirez, 33, an 11th-grade U.S. history teacher, was on the hunt for the sugar-free syrups that her fellow flavored-water enthusiasts had cleaned out from […]
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A former executive at ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, has accused the technology giant of a “culture of lawlessness,” including stealing content from rival platforms Snapchat and Instagram in its early years, and called the company a “useful propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party.” The claims were part of a wrongful dismissal […]
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Cocaine. Foreign currencies. Firearms. All contraband that customs agents are trained to catch. But hundreds of pounds of Fruit Roll-Ups? Welcome to the age of TikTok-influenced smuggling. Because of a recipe that spread widely on the social media platform, Fruit Roll-Ups — the American-made fruit leather snack that has been passed out to children at […]
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On a warm spring evening in New York, dozens of people gathered on a rooftop in Midtown Manhattan to sip fruity cocktails and chat. Shortly after the happy hour began, a woman stepped away from the crowd and went to work. Standing between a backdrop of fake greenery and an iPhone attached to a ring […]
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The modern men’s perm is loud for a hairstyle so soft. On TikTok, the hashtag #menperm, referring to one of the latest hair trends to be born from the app, has garnered more than 20.7 million views. Those videos often begin with a man in a salon chair, pictured from the shoulder up. The camera […]
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People in Louisiana who visited Pornhub in recent months were met with a surprising new demand. Before they could stream sexually explicit videos, they had to provide proof that they were at least 18. That’s because Louisiana lawmakers had passed legislation last year requiring publishers of online material that could be “harmful to minors” to […]
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Nearly two decades ago, Facebook exploded on college campuses as a site for students to stay in touch. Then came Twitter, where people posted about what they had for breakfast, and Instagram, where friends shared photos to keep up with one another. Today, Instagram and Facebook feeds are full of ads and sponsored posts. TikTok […]
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TAIPEI, Taiwan — I just returned from visiting China for the first time since Covid struck. Being back in Beijing was a reminder of my first rule of journalism: If you don’t go, you don’t know. Relations between our two countries have soured so badly, so quickly, and have so reduced our points of contact — […]
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In the summer of 1914, few wanted war or thought a major war was possible. My grandparents were married that spring in Lviv, Austria-Hungary, and I look at their giddy wedding photos and realize they had no clue that a cataclysm would soon erase their country, shatter their lives and eventually send a branch of […]
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Lawmakers in Washington are pushing for an outright ban of TikTok on American soil. Montana might beat them to it. The state’s Legislature is further along than any other body in the United States to passing a ban of the popular Chinese-owned video app, which has faced scrutiny for whether it is handing sensitive data […]
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The giant robot arms and high-tech heaters at one of Europe’s largest ammunition plants have been whirring around the clock since the start of the war in Ukraine to produce more desperately needed 155-millimeter artillery shells. If all goes as planned, the factory’s parent company, Nammo, will be turning out as many as 200,000 of […]
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When TikTok flew a group of its stars to Washington last month, it seemed inevitable that they would end up dancing. How else to protest a potential ban on what’s been nicknamed “the dance app”? While TikTok’s chief executive prepared to testify before Congress, the influencers posted dance videos filmed in the halls of the […]
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When members of Congress grilled TikTok’s chief executive last month on Capitol Hill, the app’s supporters sprang to its defense online. The lawmakers were “old, tech-illiterate,” one said. “Out of touch, paranoid and self-righteous,” said another. The hourslong hearing “destroyed the illusion that US leads in cyber era,” read another post. These particular barbs did […]
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It seemed like a typical first day of class. In January, Matthew Prince, a public relations executive at Taco Bell who teaches at Chapman University in Southern California, was telling 80 students what to expect from his influencer marketing course as he walked them through the syllabus projected onto a screen at the front of […]
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There’s been an average of more than one school shooting per week in the United States so far in 2023, so it’s great to see lawmakers from both parties finally reaching consensus on how to protect America’s children: Ban TikTok. Is this real life? Are we really doing this? American politicians have been warning for […]
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As TikTok’s chief executive was getting grilled by lawmakers last week about the app’s relationship to Beijing, with some even calling for a ban, the company’s Chinese owner was sending a message to Americans who regularly make and publish posts on social media: Come join our new app. “ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, invites […]
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Mariela Munguía was idly browsing TikTok when something piqued her attention, prompting her to double back mid-scroll: a video about a two-bedroom house for sale in Peoria, Ill., for less than $50,000. “The idea of a $50,000 house was not anywhere on my radar. It was not something that I knew could even exist,” said […]
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The latest viral trend on TikTok is defending TikTok. “Now is the time to fight the ban on TikTok,” read a caption of a TikTok video that was posted on Thursday about the app’s future. “#savetiktok #keeptiktok” “Do I believe TikTok should be banned? No,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, said on Friday […]
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Gail Collins: Bret, I have to admit that when the subject of Donald Trump comes up these days, I tend to start telling sex-scandal stories. My bad. Bret Stephens: Don’t let me stand in your way. Gail: Right now, that very old Stormy Daniels mess seems to have produced some very scary stuff. Our former […]
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