In recent years, people around the world have lost hundreds of millions of dollars to online romance scams.
One of the most lucrative of these, being run by criminal gangs across South East Asia, is called the “pig butchering romance scam”.
The scammers refer to their victims as pigs, whom they fatten up to be "butchered" - or conned, out of as much money as possible.
Beauty filters like TikTok's new Bold Glamour can transform people's appearance, and the technology is now strikingly seamless. What can research tell us about the psychological consequences?
Due to the popularity of online gaming platform Roblox with children and young people under the age of 16, our online safety experts have released this Safeguarding Update about a collection of games trending within the platform. The games depict themes of isolation, cutting, and suicide with some including chatrooms where users engage in unmoderated discussions around hopelessness, depression, self-harm, and suicide.
As a young girl, Alice (not her real name) logged on to the popular live video chat website, Omegle, and was randomly paired with a paedophile, who coerced her into becoming a digital sex slave. Nearly 10 years later the young American is suing Omegle in a landmark case that could pave the way for a wave of lawsuits against other social platforms.
Counter-extremism workers have warned of a rapid rise in the number of cases being referred to them by schools concerned about the influence of the self-styled misogynist influencer Andrew Tate.
Incidents include the verbal harassment of female teachers or other pupils and outbursts echoing Tate’s views, which are disseminated and spread mainly on social platforms TikTok and Instagram despite him being banned from them.
'I spent weeks inside Andrew Tate’s online business course – originally called Hustler’s University, it has since been rebranded to “The Real World”. The course costs £40 a month and poses as a get-rich-quick scheme with courses in e-commerce and cryptocurrency. But beneath the surface is a capitalist cult of over 220,000 young men who worship Tate and are being indoctrinated by the far-right who have infiltrated the online business course.'
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