Technology

A former content moderator for TikTok has filed a lawsuit against the platform, alleging that parent company ByteDance provides inadequate safeguards to protect moderators’ mental health against a near-constant onslaught of traumatic footage. In a proposed class-action lawsuit filed in the California Central District Court, Candie Frazier says she spent 12 hours a day moderating videos uploaded to TikTok for a third-party contracting firm named Telus International. In that time, Frazier says she witnessed “thousands of acts of extreme and graphic violence,” including mass shootings, child rape, animal mutilation, cannibalism, gang murder, and genocide. Frazier says that in order to deal with the huge volume of content uploaded to TikTok daily, she and her fellow moderators had to watch bet...

Maybe you’re new to TikTok, or perhaps you’ve been on the app for a couple of years and would like to find some new accounts to follow. While the algorithm does a shockingly great job of surfacing videos a user might like, it’s easy to get stuck in a bubble of repetitive content, so you’re seeing the same creators again and again or hearing one trending sound just a little too often. I spend a lot of my downtime perusing TikTok, and I take pride in the list of accounts I follow. So much pride that I’ve got a sizable list of all the creators I’d recommend following. They range from creators who dole out advice to a forager and even to a heavy metal vocalist. If you’re just starting out on TikTok, these accounts are a great place to start. If you’ve been using it for a while, then unless we ...

This holiday season, let’s talk about the gadgets that are no longer with us anymore — not because they were bad or became obsolete or were the victims of an upgrade offer too good to refuse, but because they met their demise in a delightfully destructive way. We broke these gadgets without meaning to. (Probably. Helen is sus.) This started out as a fun conversation in The Verge’s private Slack, and now we’re bringing a more polished version to you. Also, feel free to share your own tales in the comments below this story! Canon EOS Rebel T5 I have a sassy cat named Pablo. As a very large boy, he’s quite particular about when he gets fed. Actually, sometimes he yowls at 4AM because he doesn’t like eating alone, making us sit with him as he chows down on kibble. A few months ago, our vet tol...

Teens and adolescents might be turning to TikTok to learn about sex when their typical sex education isn’t sufficient. But the videos on the platform aren’t screened for misinformation and don’t give teens ways to ask additional questions, notes a new analysis. Sex education offered in schools in the United States is usually inadequate — most states don’t require kids to be taught about topics like contraception, consent, and gender diversity. Information about sex, though, is spreading on TikTok, which has millions of adolescent and teen users. To evaluate the sex education information on TikTok, one author of a new study created an account as a 15-year-old, downloaded 100 videos under the #sexeducation and #healthclass hashtags, and categorized them. Over half either focused on male and ...

The U.S. government is working to return over $154 million USD in funds that were allegedly stolen from a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation by an employee and converted into Bitcoin. According to a press release from the Department of Justice, an employee of Sony Life Insurance Company Ltd. in Tokyo allegedly diverted $154 million USD of company money into his bank account listed in La Jolla, California. The man then quickly converted the funds to Bitcoin, totaling about 3,879.16 Bitcoins. The FBI was able to trace Bitcoin transfers and identify that they had been transferred to a specific Bitcoin address and then to an offline cryptocurrency cold wallet. In cooperation with Sony and Citibank, alongside Japanese authorities, the FBI was able to obtain a private key needed to access the ...

According to reports, TikTok has now overtaken Google as the world’s most visited online destination. Cloudflare, an IT security company, revealed rankings that show that the viral video app took over the top spot from the search engine in February, March and June this year, steadily holding the number one position since August. The ranking is based on Cloudflare’s “Cloudflare Radar,” a monitor of web traffic. Owned by Chinese company Bytedance, TikTok currently has over one billion active users across the world. The popularity of the app has been attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic as TikTok was downloaded more than three billion times in 2021 alone. In case you missed it, Anti Social Social Club and OPPO Indonesia recently came together to say “Call Me Back.” Read Full Article

Vodafone has sold the world’s first text message as an NFT for roughly $150,000 USD. The message was originally sent from Vodafone programmer Neil Papworth to the then director Richard Jarvis more than 29 years ago, and since it happened to be December at the time, the text simply read “Merry Christmas.” Now packaged as an NFT, this piece of telecommunications history managed to auction off in Paris earlier this week for €132,680 EUR, or approximately $150,367 USD. The winner, who decided to stay anonymous, will receive a copy of the text message’s communication protocol, a digital frame showing an animated phone receiving the SMS, and of course, a certificate of authenticity. Most importantly, in the giving spirit of Christmas, Vodafone will be donating all of the auction’s proceeds to th...

The pace of companies announcing they will forego the in-person parts of CES 2022 has only increased in the last 24 hours, with major companies like Intel and Google announcing their decisions on Thursday afternoon. Despite a growing list of cancellations that includes exhibitors, advertisers, and most tech media organizations we can name (including The Verge), the Consumer Technology Association that puts on the event says it will push forward with in-person events. CES 2022 will provide an opportunity for companies from around the world, both large and small, to launch products, build brands and form partnerships. — CES (@CES) December 24, 2021 In a thread of tweets posted Thursday night, the @CES account said, “Our focus remains on convening the tech industry and giving those who cannot...

Tesla won’t let people play video games on its cars’ built-in display while in motion anymore, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This change, which will be included in a software update, comes right on the heels of the NHTSA announcing an investigation into the feature, which would include the evaluation of over half a million cars. When The Verge tested out the feature, called Passenger Play, earlier this month, we could play a few Tesla Arcade games while the car was moving. A warning popped up on the screen, saying only passengers are allowed to play while the car’s moving, along with a button asking to confirm that the player is a passenger. Safety advocates called Passenger Play “dangerous” But nothing really stops a driver from pressing the button and p...

Tesla won’t let people play video games on its cars’ built-in display while in motion anymore, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This change, which will be included in a software update, comes right on the heels of the NHTSA announcing an investigation into the feature, which would include the evaluation of over half a million cars. When The Verge tested out the feature, called Passenger Play, earlier this month, we could play a few Tesla Arcade games while the car was moving. A warning popped up on the screen, saying only passengers are allowed to play while the car’s moving, along with a button asking to confirm that the player is a passenger. Safety advocates called Passenger Play “dangerous” But nothing really stops a driver from pressing the button and p...

Anker PowerPort III Nano charger If your friends are traveling this holiday season, a good-quality iPhone charger will be a much appreciated gift. This Anker charger is small enough that you can easily lug it around and is capable of fast charging some of the latest iPhone models – including the iPhone 13 lineup. Price: $14 Amazon 8BitDo SN30 Pro Whether your giftee games primarily on a Nintendo Switch, PC, or smartphone, they’ll need a solid controller. 8BitDo’s SN30 Pro is tough to beat, both in terms of price and functionality. It stacks up to pricier models for less. Price: $45 Amazon Best Buy Fujifilm Instax Square SQ1 Not everything has to live on the ‘gram. With Fujifilm’s colorful Square SQ1, you can capture and print square portraits of your cat, friends, o...

Anker PowerPort III Nano charger If your friends are traveling this holiday season, a good-quality iPhone charger will be a much appreciated gift. This Anker charger is small enough that you can easily lug it around and is capable of fast charging some of the latest iPhone models – including the iPhone 13 lineup. Price: $14 Amazon 8BitDo SN30 Pro Whether your giftee games primarily on a Nintendo Switch, PC, or smartphone, they’ll need a solid controller. 8BitDo’s SN30 Pro is tough to beat, both in terms of price and functionality. It stacks up to pricier models for less. Price: $45 Amazon Best Buy Fujifilm Instax Square SQ1 Not everything has to live on the ‘gram. With Fujifilm’s colorful Square SQ1, you can capture and print square portraits of your cat, friends, o...