More young people are using TikTok to access news, research finds
- TikTok is reportedly the “fastest growing social network” in the Reuters Institute Digital News Report’s survey, with 20% of 18–24-year-olds using it for news.
- Reuters Institute director, Ramus Neilsen, stated that younger generations have little interest in many conventional news offers orientated towards older generations.
- The report found that audiences “selectively avoid” stories such as the Ukraine war, and cost-of-living crisis, due to cutting back on negative news to protect their mental health.
- Findings of the report showed that payment for online news has stalled, with 39% of subscribers across more than 20 countries having cancelled or renegotiated news subscriptions in the last year.
- Reuters Institute reported saving money was the biggest reason for this.
- For more, please visit the Independent website.
Ofsted chief admits system ‘did not work as well as it should’ after abuse at school
- Ofsted’s chief inspector Amanda Spielman defended the Ofsted inspection system from MPs after it failed to spot mistreatment of more than 100 children and young people at a large residential school for disabled children in Doncaster.
- Despite evidence of a range of complaints and serious incidents going back to 2015, the Doncaster educational facilities run by the Hesley Group was issued a “good” rating in 2019.
- A subsequent investigation into abuse claims at the Hesley homes published in 2022, found a “culture of abuse” in which children were punched, kicked, verbally abused and inappropriately restrained.
- When quizzed by Conservative MP for Don Valley Nick Fletcher, Spielman admitted that although there was systematic concealing of evidence of abuse, the system “did not work as well as it should”.
- For more, please visit the Guardian’s website.
Meta’s Horizon Worlds is getting a text-based ‘world chat’ feature
- Meta is trying to make its VR-based Horizon Worlds more social.
- In its latest update, the company released a new feature called ‘world chat’ which will allow users to send messages to anyone else in the same world session.
- This feature will work like a text-based thread.
- Users can connect with or follow other users in a chat by clicking the individual’s name to view their profile and invite them to connect.
- It is promising strict security controls for the new feature.
- These include proactive scanning and removal of messages that violate its VR Code of Conduct and user controls to ensure each individual is able to shut off communications they choose.
- For more, please visit the Social Media Today website.
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Scotland in danger of missing child poverty targets
- According to the Poverty and Inequality Commission, there was a “grave danger” of Scotland missing its 2030 target.
- The watchdog reported that the introduction of the Scottish Child Payment had made a real difference to child poverty but more needed to be done to help give parents a change to earn money.
- Chairman of the Poverty and Inequality Commission, Bill Scott also said that extra benefits payments were projected to have reduced child poverty by as many as 50,000 children.
- The benefit was introduced in February 2021 and is received by more than 300,000 children in Scotland.
- Despite this reduction, next year’s interim target and the 2030 goal will be missed.
- Experts say that policy alone could see a reduction in child poverty rates in Scotland by four or five percentage points.
- For more, please visit the BBC News website.
