Ed Sheeran said some “turbulent things” that took place in his personal life forced him to pump the brakes on his social media presence.

The “Bad Habits” hitmaker made a defiant return to Instagram Tuesday following two months of radio silence on the platform.

“I realize I haven’t been that engaged in my social media or my fan base online over the last couple of years,” the 31-year-old told his 42 million followers……..

In September, former President Donald J. Trump went on Truth Social, his social network, and shared an image of himself wearing a lapel pin in the form of the letter Q, along with a phrase closely associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory movement: “The storm is coming.”

In doing so, Mr. Trump ensured that the message — first posted by a QAnon-aligned account — would be hugely amplified, visible to his more than four mill…….

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By Linda Stamato

“The rise of social media has “unwittingly dissolved the mortar of trust, belief in institutions, and shared stories that had held a large and diverse secular democracy together.” ― Jonathan Haidt, The Atlantic, May, 2022.

<p class="article__paragraph article__paragraph–left" id="FOAQE4DHGVDY5…….

What happened to Molly Russell, who took her own life aged 14, was a tragedy. Everything possible must be done to prevent similar events in the future. Molly’s death was linked by a coroner to internet use after she was shown in a London court to have been deluged with algorithmically driven self-harm material. On the principle that this was wrong, and that social media companies must take more responsibility for what happens on their platforms, there is a good deal of a…….

CNN
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The once queen of Instagram is back.

<p class="paragraph inline-placeholder" data-uri="archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/paragraph/instances/paragraph_57F2A77C-28B1-D387-BD2D-A630F05D1DD5@publishe…….

The role of social media platforms and messaging apps in Sunday’s political violence in Brasília is under the spotlight after experts highlighted their use by Jair Bolsonaro supporters to question the presidential election result and organise the protests.

Facebook and Instagram’s owner, Meta, has said it will take down content that praises the storming of government buildings in Brazil’s capital, amid claims that tech firms had not done enou…….

China has suspended or closed the social media accounts of more than 1,000 critics of the government’s policies on the Covid-19 outbreak, as the country moves to further open up.

The popular Sina Weibo social media platform said it had addressed 12,854 violations including attacks on experts, scholars and medical workers and issued temporary or permanent bans on 1,120 accounts.

The ruling Communist Party had largely relied on the medical community to justify its harsh lockdowns, q…….

The effect of social media use on children is a fraught area of research, as parents and policymakers try to ascertain the results of a vast experiment already in full swing. Successive studies have added pieces to the puzzle, fleshing out the implications of a nearly constant stream of virtual interactions beginning in childhood.

A new study by neuroscientists at the University of North Carolina tries something new, conducting suc…….