Is TikTok a national security threat – or is the ban a smokescreen for superpower rivalry?

Washington looks happy for the video app to harvest users’ data – as long as China does not reap the rewards

Elon Musk has shown his hand. If politicians like me won’t curb his malign powers, who will?

It’s the job of democracies around the world to stand strong together and hold oligarchs and their platforms to account, says Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey

Nick Clegg defends Meta’s removal of Facebook and Instagram factcheckers

Executive tells WEF in Davos the sites will still have ‘the industry’s most sophisticated community standards’

UK experts warn of dangers of violent content being readily available online

Ofcom figures show number of people seeing material depicting or encouraging violence or injury has risen

Australian children who play Roblox spending average of 137 minutes a day on the gaming app, data shows

Study by parental control software firm Qustodio also shows Roblox is the gaming app most blocked by parents

From TikTok to TrumpTok? The app’s banning and unbanning encapsulates everything wrong with US politics

Having done his best to shut down the social media platform, the new president is now being hailed as its saviour. And once again the Democrats have egg on their faces, writes Arwa Mahdawi

Trump signs executive order to pause US TikTok ban

President’s order says temporary pause would give ‘opportunity to determine appropriate course forward’

Why is TikTok working again in the US as Trump takes office?

App has resumed operations after saying it received assurance over de facto ban, but its future remains uncertain

TikTok users posting cat videos do not threaten UK national security, minister says

Darren Jones defends decision to allow app to continue running in UK as it stops working in US ahead of national ban

An information dark age is upon us. I’m logging off

As Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos attempt to reshape our reality, my advice is to avoid their toxic platforms and wait it out

We tried banning our young son from watching YouTube…

It just led to him recreating its annoying content offline

Sadiq Khan warns western democracy at risk from ‘resurgent fascism’ ahead of Trump inauguration

London mayor calls for stricter laws on harmful online content and takes aim at Elon Musk

Never have stale crisps again… nine invaluable things I’ve learned from TikTok

As the platform bows out in the US, here is my carefully curated list of the best things it’s taught me

Chinese rival app Xiaohongshu is overwhelmed by ‘TikTok refugees’ in US

Social media accounts blocked for breaking Beijing rules as millions of users join up before ban takes effect

When kids set their parents’ screen time rules: ‘I hit my limit before I even get out of bed’

Would six-year-old Malakhi be strict? Could the grownups give up their phones? Three writers let their children set the rules