Measures to include restrictions on ‘safe’ social media apps, with some fearing banning some platforms and not others will lead to legal challenges

Teenagers under the age of 16 are to be banned from accessing “high-risk” social media apps while safer platforms will be subjected to restrictions, under a sweeping government crackdown.

Under-18s will also be banned from using romantic or sexual AI chatbots after a consultation on keeping children safe online.

Tech company says it ‘caught and disrupted’ NSO Group’s attempts to access accounts in Jordan and Lebanon

A spyware firm has been targeting WhatsApp users with malicious links in contravention of a US court order forbidding it from doing so, Meta has said.

In a post, Meta said WhatsApp had “caught and disrupted spear phishing attempts” by NSO Group, which a spokesperson said targeted a handful of users in Jordan and Lebanon. It had also caught the group creating “test accounts and groups” on WhatsApp.

Meta’s former head of global affairs says executives pivoted right in some cases for ‘rather more self-interested’ reasons

Silicon Valley companies including Meta have decided to embrace Maga politics, some for “rather more self-interested” reasons, the former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has said.

Clegg, who spent nearly seven years at Meta as the head of global affairs, told The Rest is Money podcast that it felt like “a very good time for me to move on” when he left the company in March 2025, three months into the second Trump administration.