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Simfin

online safety and digital citizenship specialist

Young People News

05 March 2022

Marta Vasyuta is a regular 20-year-old Ukrainian.

And like many people of her age she's on TikTok.

Until last week she had a few hundred followers on the video-sharing app. She posted videos from nights out, and lip-synced to her favourite music.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, she happened to be in the UK visiting friends she'd met at university.

She watched in horror at reports of Russian bombs falling on Kyiv.

Read what happened next

26 February 2022

The second day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been accompanied by further false or misleading imagery on social media claiming to be from the conflict.

Some show military action taken from older conflicts, while other viral videos have proved difficult to verify.

One video clip seen by the BBC and proven to be several years old has been viewed more than 27 million times in one day, while another showed video game footage.

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18 February 2022

This is a tragedy and an interesting resource on the price and value of privacy.

 

'Over time, Justin's obsession with the girl became worrying. She learned that her hometown friends in Naples, Florida, were selling the man photos of her and other information, including her cellphone number.

Justin began calling and texting her, and even agreed to do one of her classmate's math homework in exchange for information about Ms Majury.'

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26 January 2022

For 10 years, Matthew Hardy harassed people online by creating fake social media accounts to spread lies about them.

His targets had very little in common - they varied in age, had unconnected jobs and were living in different areas when they were targeted.

However, one thing they all shared was a persistent paranoia, brought on by not knowing the identity of the person behind the accounts or why they were being targeted.

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