Welcome to ICYMI – a weekly snapshot of European news stories that have given me pause for thought. ICYMI is a chance for you to go beyond the front-page headlines and find out what other stories may be worthy of your attention.
The US election on November 6th was not just a watershed moment for US politics; it may also prove to have a lasting impact on the future of social media.
The election day proved to be a huge one for the Elon Musk owned X platform which, according to Similarweb, attracted 46.5 million visits from within the US. To give that context it is more than any day within the past year and about 38% higher than an average day in recent months.
Yet on the same day – November 6th – a record number of X/Twitter users,115,000 according to Similarweb, shut down their accounts. It seems that the election of Donald Trump, so vocally backed by X’s Owner Elon Musk, was the last straw for many.
Among the most high-profile users to have voiced their concern about X in the last week is The Guardian media group. It announced on November 13th it intended to stop posting on X, although it would keep its accounts open for now.
An editorial in the paper said, “This is something we have been considering for a while given the often-disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism. The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.”
It concluded by saying, “We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere.”
That ‘elsewhere’ might just be the newi-sh social media contender BlueSky. The platform is an analogue of how Twitter used to look, which is not surprising as it was created by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. In recent weeks, the number of users on Bluesky has swelled massively. On November 11th over a million people joined the platform in one day. It can now boast around not too far short of 20 million users.
It is attracting a young, socially liberal audience very akin to the early days of Twitter. Among the recent joiners are many tech influencers, entrepreneurs, and media folk.
There have been other Twitter alternatives in the recent past (does anyone still use Mastodon?), but they never quite had the momentum to reach the mainstream. It will be fascinating to see if Bluesky manages to do this. It certainly feels like a safe space for tech companies and brands; whether it makes sense to plough resources into the platform just yet remains to be seen.
As for X, it is worth remembering that it has over 200 million active daily users. Any reports of its demise are almost certainly premature.
Is AI running out of content?
There is interesting news this week about the evolution of artificial intelligence. Apparently leading AI companies are now struggling to develop their new advanced AI models as they have reached the limits of progress. For example, OpenAI is currently working on an ambitious new AI language model, Orion. But despite months of effort, sources admit to Bloomberg that the model has fallen short of the desired performance, particularly in terms of programming skills. Similarly, Google’s latest Gemini model is said to disappoint internally, and the launch of Anthropic’s chatbot, Claude Opus 3.5, has experienced delays.
AI industry experts admit that progress is starting to slow.
One of the key reasons given for the evolution is that AI needs to find more data to be trained on. Incredibly the huge library of content on the internet has already been exploited, and now companies are now looking at alternatives, such as manually labelling data by human experts or generating synthetic data.
According to Gartner, AI leaders must expand the focus of AI beyond technical conversations and pay attention to areas surrounding AI, like governance, risk ownership, and safety.
Security concerns for Gen Z
This has been a big week for security stories. In France Les Echos has an article about how Gen Z’s cyber habits are posing a threat to the companies they work for. It says that while Gen Z employees are well-trained in cybersecurity, their tendency to bypass security protocols for productivity can endanger corporate data. Nearly half store personal files on work devices, and many turn to personal accounts when corporate systems fail, highlighting the need for secure alternative channels and increased cybersecurity budgets.
In the Netherlands Bright has been focusing on how cyber criminals are striking gold as so many users have poor quality passwords. Nordpass has compiled a list of the 25 most used passwords in 2024 and points out that they are alarmingly simple, with “123456” topping the list, used by over three million individuals. Other prominent choices include “123456789,” “12345678,” “password,” and “qwerty123.” These weak passwords can be cracked in less than a second, posing significant security risks. In the Netherlands, popular passwords such as “qwerty123,” “qwerty1,” and “123456” are also commonly used.
Also, in the Netherlands NU has a story about how criminals have begun using fake QR codes to scam people by redirecting them to fraudulent websites, where they can steal personal or financial information. Known as “Qishing,” this scam is increasingly common in places like restaurants, parking stations, and EV charging points, where attackers replace genuine QR codes with malicious ones. Experts warn that due to the unfamiliarity of this method, many people may fall victim, especially in rushed situations.
So, if you are setting up a Bluesky account this week, choose your password with care…
