VKontakte (VK)

China has conditionally supported the need of the United States to transfer the control over American activities of TikTok on the basis of the agreement with its domestic regulatory system.  In opposition to the actions by ByteDance to prevent the ban that might happen extremely soon, the Ministry of Commerce is trying to balance the conflicting interests under the increasing technological and geopolitical strains.   Deal Sparks Optimism on Growing Tech Tensions On 18 December 2025, ByteDance signed binding agreements to sell its activities in America to a group of investors led by Oracle.  The deal was a success after many years of speculation and mounting pressure by U.S legislators who argued that national security was threatened by the Chinese ownership and governance structure by allowing ByteDance to be held by one of their own.   According to a press conference by the spokesperson of the ministry of commerce, He Yongqian, “It is hoped that the U.S. side will work with China in the same direction, earnestly fulfill its corresponding commitments, provide a fair, open, transparent and non-discriminatory business environment for the continuous and stable operation of Chinese enterprises in the U.S.,” Analyzing the High Stakes   The contractual structure finds a lot

A paedophile who tried to groom three girls – two of them just 10 years old – using Snapchat and Instagram social media platforms has been jailed for four years. Mikey Winchester, 25, of Gibbon Road, Newhaven, was jailed by Judge Christine Laing, the honorary recorder of Brighton and Hove, last Wednesday (17 December). Sussex Police said: “A Newhaven man who posed as a teenage girl on social media to groom several young girls has been jailed. “Mikey Winchester, 25, of Gibbon Road, in Newhaven, targeted three girls – two aged 10, one aged 13 – on Snapchat and Instagram in 2022 and 2023. “Sussex Police first became aware of Winchester’s offending from another police force in May 2023. “The force had received reports from two 10-year-old girls who had been approached by a Snapchat user using the name ‘avadunn2.0’. “The account known as ‘Ava’ was in fact Winchester pretending to be a 13-year-old girl. “Winchester sent both victims explicit images before asking them to send explicit images of themselves in return. “Both victims had clearly stated they were young children in the chat with Winchester. “The messages were discovered on both children’s phones and the Snapchat account was traced

Julie Caironi, head of marketing, MENA – Snap Inc/Image: Supplied The digital advertising industry has spent the last decade perfecting the feed. We made it infinite, optimised it, personalised it, layered it with targeting and measurement, and trained entire creative cultures around getting people to stop scrolling for just one second more. But people today are communicating differently than the formats we’ve built for them. They’re moving into more private, personal spaces, places where conversations happen, not broadcasts. Anyone working in marketing today can see the shift clearly, attention isn’t disappearing, it’s becoming more selective. Consumers want relevance, but they want it on their own terms. On Snapchat, we’ve seen this play out most strongly in chat. It’s where people make plans, share recommendations, send jokes, talk through decisions, and stay close to the people who matter. In Q1 alone, our community exchanged 880 billion chats, a volume that reflects something deeper than usage. It reflects behaviour. It’s a reminder that culture doesn’t form in the loudest places, but in the most personal ones. This is where the industry has a gap. For all the innovation in digital advertising, very little has been designed for the spaces where people actually

Officers are issuing an online safety message in relation to a WhatsApp and Snapchat group which could be exposing children to inappropriate ...

TAZEWELL COUNTY, Ill. (WEEK/Gray News) - Tazewell County prosecutors have formally charged a pastor for allegedly sending sexually graphic photographs of himself to a minor last summer. According to the state’s attorney’s office, Michael Ritchason, 48, has been charged with one count of distributing harmful material to a minor, a Class 4 felony. Ritchason was the lead pastor of Riverside Community Church, and he used to be an elementary school teacher and Pekin City Council member. Pekin police arrested Ritchason on Oct. 8, but they provided few details. On Monday, more information was released in a probable cause affidavit filed by prosecutors. The court document details a “lengthy” Snapchat thread in which Ritchason allegedly sent graphic photographs of himself to the minor. Church officials said in October that Ritchason asked to be removed from all pastoral duties, and he was placed on leave while the criminal case is pending. On the church’s website, Ritchason is still listed as lead pastor, also noting he’s on leave. Ritchason is not in custody, according to Tazewell County Jail staff. Online records indicate the state has not filed a pretrial detention motion. Ritchason’s first court appearance is scheduled for Jan. 29, 2026. Copyright 2025

Snapchat has rolled out a new custom AI Lens feature, marking a significant expansion of its generative artificial intelligence capabilities as social platforms compete to redefine creative expression and user engagement. The update allows users to generate personalized AI powered lenses using text prompts, reinforcing Snapchat’s long standing focus on augmented reality while signaling a deeper investment in creator driven AI tools. The company announced the new feature as: “Snapchat is all about helping you express yourself in new and magical ways — and today, we’re offering a new way for you to take your creativity to an entirely new dimension with our first open prompt video generation Lens: Animate It.” The custom AI Lens feature enables users to describe an effect in natural language, which Snapchat then converts into a unique visual lens that can be applied to photos and videos. According to the company, the “Animate It” tool builds on its existing AI and AR infrastructure, combining machine learning models with Snap’s Lens technology to produce shareable, customized effects. The rollout positions Snapchat among the leading social platforms experimenting with user facing generative AI that goes beyond chat based interactions. “Whether you want to animate a reaction, dream

US court sentences Ghanaian citizen over $200 Snapchat sextortion scheme Featured Kweku Zurek Dec - 23 - 2025 , 06:39 2 minutes read A 21-year-old Ghanaian citizen, Cross Abu Cole, has been sentenced to time served of about seven months by a United States District Court after being convicted of interstate communications with intent to extort. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo in Buffalo, New York, following an announcement by the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, Michael DiGiacomo. Cole has since been turned over to the Department of Homeland Security. According to court records outlined by Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron J. Mango, who handled the prosecution, the offence dates back to October 30, 2022. Cole was said to have improperly accessed a Snapchat account belonging to an individual identified as the Victim and obtained nude photographs stored on the account. Investigators said Cole subsequently contacted the Victim using a Google Voice telephone number and demanded a payment of $200. Prosecutors said he threatened that if the money was not paid, he would damage the Victim’s reputation by releasing the nude photographs to the Victim’s family and friends. An initial payment

In 2019, TikTok announced a “ formal relationship ” with the National Parent Teacher Association, which describes itself as the largest child advocacy group in America. They published a TikTok Guide for Parents packed with instructions on “ digital safety ” and how to “decide the best experience for your family.” What TikTok did not say, lawsuits filed against the company allege, was that internal documents had begun to reveal that the company knew its technology was harming kids—the short-form video app’s target audience. Between 2018 and 2024, for example, the company allegedly heard from users and parents who described TikTok as “addictive,” “like crystal meth,” and “ruining” kids’ ability to pay attention or sleep. In 2021, TikTok’s own Trust and Safety team concluded that “compulsive usage” of the app “correlates with a slew of negative mental effects” and worsens “preexisting mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety,” a court filing claims. The filing also says the team found the risk of users being driven into algorithmic silos involving suicide and self-harm material was “HIGH.” Continue Reading The Free Press To support our journalism, and unlock all of our investigative stories and provocative commentary about the world as it

The largest outages of 2025 were driven by failures in shared cloud and network infrastructure, not isolated app-level issues. Online services were no longer optional for most people in 2025. Work, entertainment, payments, and communication all depended on platforms that were expected to be available at all times. This year made clear how fragile that expectation can be. The most disruptive outages were not small faults affecting one company or one market. They were failures deep inside shared systems that many services rely on at once. When those systems failed, the consequences spread rapidly across video platforms, games, cloud services, and social apps, frequently in several regions at the same time. That pattern reflects how concentrated digital infrastructure has become. Many popular services now sit on the same cloud providers, content delivery networks, and core platforms. When something fails at that layer, the problem does not stay local. It moves outward, affecting businesses and users far beyond the original fault. Using Downdetector data from 2025, Ookla reviewed millions of user reports to identify the largest website and service disruptions of the year. The data shows where outages had the widest reach, and which parts of the digital stack proved most

For Gen Z, the spaces to go to now are platforms where sharing conversations and not posting for social validation matter. And hence, for this generation, spaces like Discord, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and Reddit are preferable. Last Updated : 20 December 2025, 21:19 IST