Live sport major draw for Prime Video, while Netflix second with 17% share in fourth quarterAmazon proved more popular than Netflix in the run-up to Christmas as live Premier League and international rugby helped it attract half of all new UK subscribers to streaming services in the final quarter last year.There were almost 1.3m new subscriptions to services such as Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime, which includes access to Prime Video as well as perks such as free delivery on purchases, as bored Britain turned to streaming in record numbers to stay entertained during the pandemic. Continue reading...

Half of referrals for child sexual abuse material could be falling under the radar after changes to EU e-privacy directiveThe children’s charity NSPCC has called on Facebook to resume a programme that scanned private messages for indications of child abuse, with new data suggesting that almost half of referrals for child sexual abuse material are now falling below the radar.Recent changes to the European commission’s e-privacy directive, which are being finalised, require messaging services to follow strict new restrictions on the privacy of message data. Facebook blamed that directive for shutting down the child protection operation, but the children’s charity says Facebook has gone too far in reading the law as banning it entirely. Continue reading...

PC, Mac; Tim SheinmanIn this brief but insidious information game, you’re an aide to a defeated commander-in-chief who is refusing to concedeThe terrible truth about conspiracy theories is that they’re fun. Making and sharing connections offers a sense of control so potent we might willingly blind ourselves to the provenance of the information in question – a tendency amplified by online recommendation algorithms, which point us towards ideas we already sympathise with. This is the gloomy message of Conspiracy!, an extremely timely text game in which you fabricate a plot to steal a US election.Created in December, as Donald Trump and his followers doubled down on claims of voting fraud, the game casts you as an aide to an ousted Republican president who is refusing to concede. To make your employer’s case, you must assemble evidence for a conspiracy that folds in every deep state fairytale from human sacrifice to the ruinous effects of 5G internet. Play is about simple but satisfying comparison and deduction. You comb through a small stash of newspaper excerpts, podcasts, forum posts and classified emails, assigning dates to a series of captioned Polaroids. Get five dates correct, and the game locks them in while handing you fresh materials for your investigation. Continue reading...

CEO Alex Baldock says Currys PC World owner is ‘winning online’ as shopping habits change in pandemic Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageLocked-down European consumers bought big-screen TVs, food preparation gadgets and health and beauty appliances, handing Dixons Carphone’s 11% more revenue from selling electrical items over the Christmas trading period than a year earlier.The retailer, which owns the Currys PC World brand, said computing and gaming products were also big sellers during the festive period and online sales had grown by more than 120%. Continue reading...

A Facebook page with 40,000 members created for people buying plots of land has been taken over by rightwing conspiracy theoristsOn 14 January, the 40,000 Britons who had joined the Facebook group Land for Sale UK awoke to find their newsfeed transformed.Until then, the group had been a moderately sized message board for people looking to buy or sell small parcels of land. “We’d love a patch of land in the Falmouth and Penryn area to let the kids roam, grow fruit trees,” read one typical post. Continue reading...