Tweets with racial slurs soar after Musk takeover

  • New research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate found the number of tweets containing one of several different racial slurs soared in the week after Elon Musk bought Twitter.
  • This came despite assurances from the platform that it had reduced hateful activity.
  • A racial slur used to attack Black people was found more than 26,000 times, 3 times the average for 2022.
  • The use of slurs to target trans people increased by 53%.
  • To learn more, go to the Independent’s website.

Trends like #WhatIEatInADay may influence disordered eating behaviours

  • A study from the University of Vermont analysed 1,000 TikTok videos under popular hashtags related to body image and eating and how they may influence disordered eating behaviours.
  • #WhatIEatInADay had 3.2 billion views and #WeightLoss had 10 billion views at the start of the study.
  • Less than 3% of the nutrition-related videos were weight-inclusive.
  • Many of the videos also assigned ‘good’ or ‘bad’ labels to different foods and most nutrition advice was not provided by experts.
  • The study highlighted a particular concern about the number of young women who interacted highly with the content.
  • Over 60% of the videos were made by female-presenting people, and more than half were users in their teens or college-aged.
  • For the full study, go to the CNBC’s website.

Available fostering places in England down by 23% in four years

  • New data from Ofsted has found the number of available fostering places in England has fallen by almost a quarter in four years.
  • There were 13,170 vacant approved fostering placements over 2021 to 2022.
  • This was a drop of 23% since 2018.
  • It comes after applications for mainstream fostering fell, the number of approved foster carers dropped, and more foster carers left the sector.
  • To read more, go to the Independent’s website.