In our digital age, those tasked with our protection are finding a growing number of fronts on which to do battle. And as online trolling becomes more vicious and potentially more dangerous, the U.K. is stepping up its efforts to combat this new form of abuse. The London Mayor’s office recently announced the creation of a new specialized police force charged with investigating digital hate crimes, which will encompass content posted on Twitter and Facebook that is deemed abusive. The London-based team will be comprised of five officers who the BBC reports will “support victims and identify online abuse.”
Currently in a pilot stage, the program is slated to last two years, and will cost a total of 1.7 million pounds (around $2.2 million). A spokesman for the Mayor’s Office emphasized that there was “no place for hate” in London and further stressed “zero tolerance” for online abuse. Joining the five police officers in the so-called Online Hate Crime Hub will be a number of community volunteers.
According to the Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC), social media “provides hate crime perpetrators with a veil of anonymity, making it harder to bring them to justice and potentially impacting on a larger number of people.” Moreover, the Office noted, victims of this kind of abuse risk becoming “isolated, living in fear of the online behavior materializing in the real world.” And because the current response from British authorities tends to be “inconsistent,” a task force specifically focused upon this kind of digital vitriol has become necessary.
Never before has a “dedicated police team” held the exclusive responsibility of responding to hate crimes, and officers will also help train other officials and community groups on how to identify, report, and challenge abuse, the BBC reports. “Community groups in London have told us that online hate crime is an issue of increasing concern to them,” the MOPAC spokesman added. So maybe this will be the first step towards a troll-free internet.
You just opened X and started typing your thoughts. Imagine the jump scare when a hand suddenly pops up on your screen, pointing at the promote button. It doesn’t say a word and simply points. For a growing number of X users, this isn’t a made-up scenario but something they have been seeing since yesterday, and very few of them are amused.
Most of us have learned to tune out the usual in-app upsells, whether it’s a glowing upgrade banner or a pop-up about a premium plan. A floating hand hovering over your draft is much harder to ignore, and that’s probably the whole point.
Scroll through any app for five minutes, and you’ll find someone maxxing something. Their skin, their sleep, their protein intake, even their Friday night on the couch. That little suffix has been everywhere this year, and now it has a trophy to show for it. In a recent announcement, Dictionary.com named maxxing its 2026 Word of the Year.
What are people actually doing when they’re maxxing?
Instagram is testing a new format for long-form videos called Features. It allows select creators to upload horizontal videos running up to 90 minutes long. Instagram has already tested the new format with creators in Brazil, and now, it's expanding to tens of thousands of creators across the US.
How will Instagram's new Features format work?