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Simfin

online safety and digital citizenship specialist

Parents/Carers News

04 February 2021

The trend started as a form of empowerment, a way for people to feel sexy and good in their bodies. But because everything is terrible, some people have found a way to turn a feel-good trend into depraved gratification.

There are now many videos on YouTube instructing people how to use editing software or apps to change the contrast and color in a way that reduces the silhouette effect. Because participants are just a silhouette in the challenge, many are wearing less clothing, or lingerie, or nothing at all. The goal of the editing is to reveal their bodies.

 

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11 January 2021

In the wake of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by scores of President Trump’s supporters, a lone researcher began an effort to catalogue the posts of social media users across Parler, a platform founded to provide conservative users a safe haven for uninhibited “free speech” — but which ultimately devolved into a hotbed of far-right conspiracy theories, unchecked racism, and death threats aimed at prominent politicians.

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11 January 2021

A mother wakes at dawn to copy out worksheets for her children on to pieces of paper.

Secondary school pupils attempt to write essays on their mobile phones, while younger children queue to wait their turn on the one computer in the house.

That, according to the Child Poverty Action Group, was the reality of remote learning in some homes in the first UK lockdown in March 2020.

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21 December 2020

You're dreading the moment.

As your uncle passes the roast potatoes, he casually mentions that a coronavirus vaccine will be used to inject microchips into our bodies to track us.

Or maybe it's that point when a friend, after a couple of pints, starts talking about how Covid-19 "doesn't exist". Or when pudding is ruined as a long-lost cousin starts spinning lurid tales about QAnon and elite Satanists eating babies.

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