A series of messages published on social media Tuesday morning call for a wave of violent riots across Spain "inspired" by the recent chaotic events in France for Saturday, October 31, local outlets warned.
The post Reports: France-Inspired Violent Riots Are Being Urged in Spain for Halloween appeared first on Breitbart.
Courtesy of Talon Krebs
Talon Krebs works full time as a TikTok Shop affiliate, promoting products on the app and earning a commission when shoppers buy through his links.
The gig earned the 23-year-old six figures last year, according to a 1099 form reviewed by Business Insider.
"As far as startup cost, TikTok Shop has to be one of the most profitable business models I've ever seen," he told BI.
Krebs said beginners can get started with a phone, a few products, and an understanding of what makes people stop scrolling. He shares three steps to turn TikTok videos into a source of income.
Anyone can open a TikTok account, but affiliates need an established following to join TikTok Shop.
TikTok offers multiple routes into its affiliate program, Krebs explained. Its pilot program requires 1,000 followers but limits participants to a handful of posts a week, while the main program, which gives affiliates more flexibility, requires at least 5,000 followers.
Krebs already had about 24,000 followers on a personal account when he got started. He said he built the audience by posting about sports, current events, and other subjects he liked: "I was just posting stuff I was interested in."
Krebs said he spent $100 to $200 on a handful of products when he first started. He chose items he needed anyway, like hoodies.
Affiliates can search TikTok's product marketplace for brands and products to promote. Krebs said they don't need a direct relationship with a brand to start making videos, though successful affiliates may eventually negotiate higher commissions or paid content deals.
Talon Krebs
For someone trying to keep costs close to zero, Krebs recommends looking around the house first. If an item you already own is listed on TikTok Shop, you can create a video about it rather than buying something new specifically to promote.
He also joined Media Labs, a community for affiliates that offered video feedback and weekly calls. He paid the $1,500 fee in six $250 monthly installments, putting his initial outlay — including products and his first community payment — at about $450.
Skip the community, use products you already own, and film with a phone and free editing tools, and Krebs said you could get started for essentially nothing.
A TikTok Shop video still has to work as a TikTok video. Krebs said the opening seconds matter most: The hook should get a viewer's attention, identify a pain point, or create enough curiosity to keep them watching.
In one of his most successful videos about a digital business card, he opens with: "Paper business cards are officially a thing of the past." The statement created some controversy, he said, but it got viewers' attention before he explained the product and how he used it as an entrepreneur.
Krebs tries to keep most videos between 30 and 50 seconds, though he said the right length depends on the product. Some products need more explanation, while others can be shown in a 10-second video.
He thinks of each video as a loop: The hook opens it, the middle explains or demonstrates the product, and the call to action closes it. Affiliates can tag a product directly in the video, allowing viewers to tap the orange shopping-cart icon, view the listing, and ultimately make a purchase.
Otto anni di tentativi per mettere a punto un sugo. Poi, a maggio, bastano quaranta secondi di video e la vita cambia. Natendrea Jones, 36 anni, South Carolina, si è svegliata una mattina con più di 300 ordini sul suo profilo commerciale e ha mollato il telefono per la sorpresa. “Sono caduta in ginocchio”, racconta a Business Insider. Fino a quel momento, la sua cucina era stata per oltre dieci anni un’attività di contorno: piatti di pesce per gli amici, qualche teglia venduta ogni tanto, mentre a pagare le bollette erano i capelli e le unghie delle clienti.
A far cambiare tutto è stato Gabriel Rivera, recensore di cibo con oltre due milioni di follower su TikTok, ordina i suoi pasti attraverso Facebook Marketplace e li assaggia dentro la propria auto. Quando si imbatte nell’annuncio di Jones, le offre 200 dollari per cucinargli quello che vuole. Lei pensa a uno scherzo. Non lo è.
Jones prepara una teglia traboccante di zampe di granchio delle nevi, aragosta, gamberi e ostriche. Non è ancora nel menu, ma diventerà presto il “Gabriel Special”. Il verdetto di Rivera, tra un boccone e l’altro, è netto: il suo condimento è “su un altro livello”.
L'articolo “Sono caduta in ginocchio davanti a 300 ordini in una mattina”: la storia di Natendrea Jones, la parrucchiera diventata regina dei piatti di mare per un video virale proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.
Kevin Mazur/MG26/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
Instagram's top executive, Adam Mosseri, has a plan to keep the platform "culturally relevant" — by making it more like YouTube.
Meta-owned Instagram unveiled an overhaul of long-form video features on Monday, including a test of horizontal videos called "Features." Taken together, the changes make the app feel a lot more like YouTube.
"We want to be the most culturally relevant platform," Mosseri said in an interview with content creators and founders of Press Publish, Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry. "To do that, we just need to show up where people are."
The context: YouTube has become a major hit on TV screens, and there's a growing appetite for Instagram-native shows with recurring episodes.
"Subway Takes," hosted by Kareem Rahma, is a prime example of Instagram's strengths and limits. The show started in 2023 as a short-form interview series and, as it grew, expanded with longer-form cuts on YouTube and the streaming platform Tubi. Instagram, however, is where Rahma's show still has its largest audience of 2.4 million followers.
Instagram doesn't want people to go to YouTube or Tubi to see longer versions of shows like "Subway Takes." That's leaving ad revenue and user engagement on the table. Its new tools are designed to entice creators and viewers to stay on its platform.
Meta
This isn't Instagram's first time dabbling in long-form content.
In 2018, it launched IGTV, a long-form video format and stand-alone app. In 2020, Instagram rolled out a program that let creators earn money from those videos on IGTV. Four years after launching, the company sunset the IGTV app and shifted its video efforts to Reels.
There are a few key elements missing from Instagram's big leap (back) into long-form video.
You can't watch the video while continuing to scroll through Instagram, or multitask by opening other apps while keeping the Instagram content in a picture-in-picture pop-up. There also aren't automated transcripts and subtitles yet. A spokesperson for Meta told Business Insider that there are plans for these features.
For creators, one key question and pain point looms: Will Meta share the honeypot?
Mosseri told Rosenblum and Chaudry that Instagram is thinking about ways to test pre-roll and mid-roll ads that could lead to a revenue split. However, he said previous attempts by Instagram to build a creator monetization system comparable to YouTube's Partner Program didn't prove beneficial for the platform.
"We spend more money than we make back by a long shot," Mosseri said of Instagram's previous efforts at broad revenue-sharing programs.
Mosseri said that in its previous iterations of content monetization, creators typically didn't produce more content than they already did for free, and the content they did create tended to be lower quality.
Still, Instagram will need to "figure it out" as it tries to crack longer-form content, Mosseri said.
"I don't think of platform payments or performance-based incentives or bonuses as a revenue driver," Mosseri added. "I'd be psyched to scale them up for any of these formats — as long as we're breaking even."
Kayla Oaddams/Getty Images for Warner Brothers Pictures
The app that wanted to be the "HBO" of micro dramas is shutting down.
Prolific film producer Tommy Harper is shutting down his app, VeYou, after about six months. A message on VeYou said the service would end November 6.
Harper told Business Insider he would continue producing series, distributing them via TikTok's micro-drama app PineDrama, YouTube, and other partners.
Harper, whose credits include "Star Wars" and "Top Gun: Maverick," is one of several Hollywood vets trying to bring their prestige sensibility to micro dramas, the soapy, low-budget series that got their start in China and have exploded in the US.
The move shows how fast the space is changing as Big Tech companies lean in. Micro dramas — also called "verticals" — cost a fraction of a traditional feature-length movie, but apps often lose money because of the high cost of marketing, and VeYou didn't have massive financial backing.
"In the past year, TikTok, Meta, and YouTube all moved hard into short drama," Harper emailed. "When the three biggest attention platforms commit to a format, distribution is decided. The opportunity for an independent company is to be the best supplier to those platforms, not to compete with them for installs. So we're focused where we have the edge: making the shows."
Harper raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding for VeYou from investor S32, a venture firm started by Google Ventures founder Bill Maris, who's also backed 23andMe, Impossible Foods, and Nest. VeYou has made a handful of originals, starting with "Love Under Fire," a romance drama starring Kasey Esser, who wrote the series alongside Harper.
The micro drama space has changed dramatically in recent months.
In the past year, AI-generated characters have increasingly taken their place alongside human actors, and free, ad-supported offerings are competing with the "freemium" apps that had dominated the landscape.
A report by media consultancy Owl & Co. found two-thirds of films released by leading apps in the third quarter of this year outside China were AI-generated, up from 3% in the first quarter.
TikTok's free app PineDrama rolled out in January, and by the third quarter, it accounted for more than half of all micro drama views across 16 leading apps, according to the Owl & Co. report.
Other tech giants have also moved quickly into the space and made themselves bigger viewing destinations for micro dramas.
YouTube released a new feature that allows creators to bundle their short videos in a series of episodes or seasons, designed to be viewed sequentially.
On Meta, the dominant platform used by micro drama apps to acquire customers, some apps are running portions of their films lasting 20 minutes or more as ads to get people to subscribe.
Lori Golden-Stryer, the CEO of RIVR Media, a producing partner for VeYou, said VeYou's films set themselves apart through their scripts, acting, and direction. She said she was encouraged to see its series perform well on TikTok, based on platform data and her company's monitoring.
"People want live characters," she said. "I don't think they want AI. I've seen a lot of different verticals, and I'd like to think ours were a little cut above."
Moktar, 21, pulls up his neck gaiter, tightens the hood of his puffer jacket and steps out of the house in the late afternoon, dressed in immaculate black from head to toe. Behind the little mustache and the thick-lensed glasses with gold-rimmed temples, he smiles — a third-year college student from a very modest Tunisian family. Friendly, sharp, with an unusually political sense for his age and skin toughened by his surroundings, Moktar grew up in one of the poorest buildings in the L’Abreuvoir neighborhood in Bobigny (population 48,873), right opposite one of the drug-dealing hotspots where traffickers, police, customers, and addicts come and go all day. “Ballon here,” reads graffiti on the wall, advertising the nitrous oxide gas sold for inhalation.
© Samuel Aranda
© Samuel Aranda
© Samuel Aranda
© Samuel Aranda
On the eve of a party plenum that has purged 45 of 376 members, China faces its most pressing question: is the model it has adopted right for its historical phase? Beijing is uncertain. Domestically, it faces many problems, and foreign examples offer little reassurance. If the US offers a positive model, Beijing might reconsider, […]
The post The right cat for China? appeared first on Asia Times.
Domenica 25 ottobre alle 20.30 su Rai 3, nuovo appuntamento con PresaDiretta. Il programma di Riccardo Iacona affronta il tema del rapporto tra Ai e democrazia; mentre PresaDiretta Open è dedicata al conflitto in Medioriente.
Palantir, il colosso fondato da Peter Thiel, è diventato il cervello tecnologico di Pentagono ed eserciti, mentre bot farm e macchine per la propaganda create con l’utilizzo dell’Intelligenza artificiale ci profilano e orientano il nostro voto, le telecamere ci osservano e gli archivi di oggi addestreranno le intelligenze artificiali di domani. Chi governa gli algoritmi, potrebbe governare anche noi? E poi un importante reportage da Gaza, tra annunci di ricostruzione, cantieri mai partiti e violenze mai cessate: che fine hanno fatto soldi e promesse?
PresaDiretta Open, nella prima parte della serata, si chiede che fine abbia fatto il Board of Peace, il Consiglio internazionale presieduto da Trump per guidare la ricostruzione di Gaza. Grazie alle immagini girate da Yasser, filmaker palestinese, PresaDiretta racconta una Striscia dove il 94% della popolazione è sfollato, dove l’Onu ha contato 1400 palestinesi uccisi dal cessate il fuoco a oggi e dove l’esercito israeliano controlla e occupa il 64% del territorio. La ricostruzione non è mai partita: il piano operativo del Board vale 2,45 miliardi, contro i 71 che servirebbero secondo l’ONU.
E poi la puntata Democrazia Artificiale. A Roma, a porte chiuse, Peter Thiel parla dell’Anticristo; intanto la sua creatura Palantir, azienda specializzata nello sviluppo di software e analisi di big data con la AI è diventata uno dei cervelli tecnologici del Pentagono e degli eserciti in guerra. PresaDiretta ricostruisce come i suoi software siano entrati nelle istituzioni di vari Paesi anche in Europa: nella sanità inglese e anche nei contratti della Difesa italiana, tra documenti che mancano o che non ci è permesso di leggere.
Queste stesse tecnologie non solo ci sorvegliano, ma soprattutto lavorano per influenzare il consenso politico. In Sassonia-Anhalt l’AfD ha appena stravinto le regionali soprattutto sui social, con una macchina della propaganda potentissima che funziona grazie alla AI. “Alternita”, il software di AI – scoperto dal gruppo di giornalismo investigativo Correctiv – sceglie le notizie più virali, scrive i post, genera immagini e gonfia le visualizzazioni e il consenso con migliaia di profili falsi. E le stesse tecniche sono già arrivate in Italia, dove su TikTok la galassia di Vannacci conquista i giovanissimi con meme e video creati con l’AI. Insieme a AI Forensics e Trollrensics, PresaDiretta ha ricostruito le origini di migliaia di account sospetti registrati in Benin e Nigeria.
Infine la crescente diffusione degli strumenti per la sorveglianza di massa: dagli Stati Uniti all’Italia, come vengono trattati i nostri dati biometrici, quelli sanitari, le informazioni finanziarie e in generale tutte le informazioni personali gestiti con l’Intelligenza Artificiale? Come li utilizzeranno le forze dell’ordine, per farne cosa e per quanto tempo?
Riflettori puntati, a chiusura di puntata, sulla truffa con cellule staminali portata avanti, anche con infusioni a domicilio, dalla società polacca BioCells Medical. Dopo l’inchiesta della scorsa edizione, PresaDiretta racconta i nuovi sviluppi sulle indagini giudiziarie, nazionali e internazionali. Le puntate di PresaDiretta sono visibili integralmente su RaiPlay.
L'articolo A PresaDiretta l’inchiesta sulla galassia di Vannacci su TikTok: “Migliaia di account sospetti registrati in Benin e Nigeria” proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.
Lo scorso gennaio Mathias Döpfner, amministratore delegato e comproprietario del gruppo editoriale tedesco Axel Springer, ha ospitato nel suo studio di Berlino Charles Kushner. Dall’ambasciatore statunitense in Francia, nonché padre di Jared, genero di Donald Trump, voleva sapere qualche dettaglio del piano pensato dall’amministrazione americana per TikTok. Anche Döpfner aveva in mente qualcosa di simile, così da fugare le preoccupazioni di sicurezza che circondano la piattaforma cinese, per cui una chiacchierata non avrebbe fatto male. A raccontare l’incontro è il Financial Times, secondo cui il magnate dei media vorrebbe arrivare a un accordo per scorporare il social network e diventare titolare della sezione europea.
La questione è tutta in divenire. Sia Byte Dance, proprietaria di TikTok, sia funzionari della Commissione europea che hanno discusso della proposta con Döpfner hanno chiuso la porta, definendola una suggestione irrealizzabile. La questione è problematica soprattutto per Bruxelles. Le sue regole sulla sicurezza valgono per tutti gli operatori, dentro e fuori l’Ue, e sono stringenti. Forse non così tanto, come ha sottolineato il vicepresidente del Parlamento europeo Martin Hojsík: “Non stiamo applicando sufficientemente il Digital Services Act e il Digital Markets Act. Dobbiamo chiamare le piattaforme a rispondere delle loro responsabilità”. Döpfner però non perde le speranze.
TikTok, affermava in una intervista a Dpa a inizio settembre, “dovrebbe essere venduto ad azionisti democratici o bandito. Non capisco ancora perché noi in Europa non stiamo agendo. Gli americani hanno dimostrato che si può fare”. Non è un caso che le aziende che amministra siano da poco sbarcare su TikTok. Axel Springer, Bild e Welt hanno di recente aperto un loro profilo sulla piattaforma. Politico e Telegraph, sempre di proprietà di Döpfner, già ne hanno uno. Ed è proprio Axel Springer a uscire allo scoperto: “Come risulta chiaro dalle sue dichiarazioni pubbliche, Mathias Döpfner ha sempre sostenuto una soluzione europea per TikTok sulla falsariga del modello americano. Se tale soluzione si fosse concretizzata, avremmo accolto con favore l’opportunità di farne parte in quanto importante operatore mediatico europeo”.
Dietro c’è anche dell’altro. La strategia di Döpfner è larga e punta a inglobare altri interessi. Politico è uno dei media che sono stati bannati dalla Casa Bianca su ordine di Trump. Per cercare di riportare i suoi giornalisti all’interno delle sale istituzionali americane, Döpfner ha avviato una capillare opera di persuasione. Non soltanto con Kushner. A febbraio, quindi un mese dopo averlo incontrato, si è visto con Susie Wiles, l’importantissima capa di gabinetto di Trump, che la considera centrale per il suo lavoro. A settembre, invece, ha premiato di persona Peter Thiel, altra figura fondamentale nell’alveo del presidente. Un modo elegante per cercare di rientrare nella sua cerchia.
A strong wind sweeping across the cornfields reveals a house still under construction beside a small enclosure of sheep and donkeys. The two-story home, which is still unpainted, has a gable roof, a porch and a garage. It is the home that Candice and Fidel García Sánchez, a Mexican American couple, have spent the past five years building after he was deported from the United States and she chose to move with him to a rural area of the Mexican state of Puebla. Their building project has unfolded in full view of the public: half a million YouTube subscribers and more than 1.5 million people on TikTok are following the house’s progress.
© Nayeli Cruz (EL PAÍS)
© Nayeli Cruz
© Nayeli Cruz (EL PAÍS)
© Nayeli Cruz (EL PAÍS)
© Nayeli Cruz (EL PAÍS)
© Montserrat Lemus
The Australian government has introduced its digital duty of care legislation to parliament today. The bill includes an “off switch” to allow social media users to opt out of recommender algorithms. If passed, Australians could choose to switch off their algorithmic recommendation and consume a news feed populated by the accounts they subscribe to. It’s […]
The post China previews a world where the algorithm is switched off appeared first on Asia Times.
Poland is confronting an unprecedented school security crisis after a succession of violent attacks by young people triggered widespread fear, school closures and a nationwide police mobilisation. By Sunday, 11 October, officers had detained 117 people and conducted nearly 64,000 security checks at educational establishments, as the authorities attempted to contain both genuine threats and an escalating campaign of intimidation on social media.
The crisis reached its height on Friday, 9 October, when warnings circulated about a supposed nationwide killing campaign known as “Bloody Friday”. Videos, threatening messages and lists of potential targets spread through TikTok, messaging platforms and school discussion groups, prompting parents to keep children at home and several local authorities to suspend classroom teaching.
Although police have found no evidence of an organised nationwide conspiracy, the violence that preceded the rumours was real. Three separate attacks took place between 7 and 10 October, while investigators are examining hundreds of other incidents involving threats or suspected criminal activity.
The first major incident occurred on Wednesday, 7 October, at a vocational school in Ostrołęka, north-east of Warsaw. A 19-year-old student armed with a machete attacked pupils, teachers and other people in and around the building, injuring nine victims before harming himself.
Investigators subsequently discovered a homemade explosive device inside his backpack. The suspect was arrested, and prosecutors brought nine charges against him, including attempted murder. The discovery of explosives raised further questions about the extent of his preparations and the possibility of a substantially higher death toll.
The following day, a 15-year-old former pupil entered a primary school in Leszczydół-Nowiny, near Wyszków, and attacked three members of staff with a knife. A 37-year-old caretaker died from her injuries, while two teachers, including the headteacher, were wounded.
According to investigators, the teenager wore a helmet-mounted camera, raising suspicions that he intended to record the assault. The official prosecution statement confirmed the victim’s death and the detention of the suspect.
The attacks were followed by threatening messages from other teenagers, including a video attributed to a 17-year-old in the Przasnysz district who claimed to be participating in a competition involving killings. Police subsequently detained him. In Sierpc, another 17-year-old was arrested after allegedly discussing plans for violence at school; officers discovered two knives.
The rumours produced an immediate reaction. Schools in Wyszków, Ciechanów, Pułtusk and other municipalities cancelled classroom teaching or introduced remote lessons. Elsewhere, parents independently withdrew their children, leaving some classrooms largely empty.
Police launched an extensive preventive operation, deploying additional officers around schools and investigating online threats.
According to the figures released on 11 October, the authorities had recorded 275 incidents requiring investigation, detained 117 people and carried out nearly 64,000 checks at schools, nurseries and other educational facilities.
The situation deteriorated further on Saturday, 10 October, when a 21-year-old student attacked three people at a post-secondary educational institution in Warsaw. Two 17-year-old girls and a 24-year-old woman were injured. One victim required hospital treatment, although none of the injuries was considered life-threatening.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński subsequently stated that investigators had established no links between the recent attacks. The authorities nevertheless remain concerned about imitation offences, particularly where threatening material circulates among teenagers through closed online communities.
The events have also raised questions about whether hostile foreign actors deliberately amplified the crisis. Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s minister responsible for coordinating the intelligence services, warned that Russian organisations routinely exploit domestic emergencies to spread disinformation and undermine confidence in public institutions.
In his statement on 9 October, Siemoniak acknowledged the possibility of foreign involvement but stressed the need for evidence before assigning responsibility.
There is, at present, no publicly established evidence that Moscow organised the school attacks or directed the subsequent threats. Nevertheless, the rapid circulation of alarming videos, fabricated warnings and unverified target lists illustrates how genuine violent incidents can be exploited to disrupt everyday life without further physical attacks.
The episode also presents a challenge for European regulators. Poland is examining measures against dangerous online content, while its existing obligations under the EU Digital Services Act provide a framework for addressing systemic risks associated with major platforms.
For Donald Tusk’s government, the immediate priority is preventing further attacks as schools reopen under heightened security. The longer-term challenge concerns the interaction between online radicalisation, copycat violence and disinformation capable of transforming isolated crimes into a national emergency.
White Nights, a short novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky first published in 1848, is the latest literary discovery of Generation Z. TikTok users seem to be talking about little else.
© Patricia Bolaños (EL PAÍS)
There was a time when moderation was a virtue and the middle ground, wisdom. Hyperbole was no more than a literary or rhetorical device. But not anymore. We live at the extremes. Raising everything to its highest possible level is the zeitgeist fate has handed us, and it comes with a suffix that colonizes the internet: maxxing. A highly versatile suffix: placed after the right word it means that, whatever you do, you are giving it your all.
© CASSIDY ARAIZA ( New York Times / Europa Press / CONTACTO )
15-year-old girl allegedly stabbed by her 18-year-old sister in Gujranwala, police say.
The post Sister allegedly kills younger sister over TikTok followers appeared first on BOL News.
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