If you’ve been targeted ads from Israel’s foreign ministry on YouTube this past fortnight, you’re not alone.

I’ve learned, using Semrush, that they’ve spent nearly $7.1 million on YouTube ads, including some horrifying videos. Here’s what I found out 1/ Semrush is an analytics platform that estimates what accounts have spent on ad campaigns. Together with Google’s ad transparency center, we can see they've heavily targeted France, Germany and the UK, then some others, with 88 ads Oct 7-19. 2/

Obsessed with this new study that found German and Arabic speakers' brains shape their wiring differently in order to handle the difficulties in each respective language. Flexible word order in German = left hemisphere business. Roots + patterns in Arabic = cross hemisphere! Study was done on 94 participants in Germany - they tried their best to control for non-linguistic variables. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

The Education Secretary has written to schools about sex ed, telling them they shouldn't be using resources with copyright/commercial reasons preventing said resources from being shared outside school premises - something that can be quite common with external agencies /1 This is because it means that some parents are being told they can't have a read of materials being used in the classroom. I'd be fascinated to hear from any parents who've experienced this, or schools who are trying to deal with this at the moment too 2/

Exclusive from our newsroom. Police took four years to pass their investigation to the Crown Prosecution Service – at which point the CPS declined to prosecute. vice.com/en/article/bvm… According to one woman VICE World News spoke to, whom we’re calling “Sally,” Tate used a similar method of emotional and physical control in his UK webcam business back in 2015, before relocating to Romania, but the CPS declined to prosecute the case.

This has been one of the most "you're kidding me" stories I've ever worked on. But it happened – and is happening – around the UK.

Women in the UK are being denied healthcare because they're 'virgins' 🧵

vice.com/en/article/v7v… The healthcare in question is a transvaginal ultrasound, which uses a probe 2-3 inches into the vaginal canal and helps medical professionals examine female reproductive organs to find the cause for conditions such as pelvic pain, unexplained bleeding or cysts /2

Reporter ✅ Creator ✅ Author ✅
Fellow at Brown… ✅ …!!!

I’ve always wanted to make the internet a better place - now I’m going to be an Information Futures Fellow @IFL_Brown solving information challenges to support young people in thriving online 🧵 @IFL_Brown Lots of school talks about the internet & social media - and teacher training to confidently deliver such talks - aren’t what they could be.

Content creators are in a perfect position to help here. For the next 6 months, I’ll be ringleading them into schools.

Handy tools and ideas to collect your Twitter data, a thread 🧵 To start with, you can request all your Twitter data but this is taking several hours right now - requested mine hours ago but it's still not ready yet.

Settings and support -> settings and privacy -> Your Account -> download an archive of your data

I’ll be staying in Asia a little bit longer to do some reporting but I had a brilliant time speaking about my work at @ICFP2022. I learnt *so* many new things about contraception and sex that I’m going to make a big ol’ thread with the good, the cool and the just plain weird 🧵 I’m going to have to start with the weird because I can’t help myself. Ever wondered how to innovate the condom? Here are, er, two ideas…

This week @nicnewman asked me on a @BBCAcademy/@risj_oxford panel 'how's TikTok changed news?' and - amongst a million thoughts I have on this - it's forced me (and hopefully others) to rethink the importance of participatory social & new formats for journalism's survival. @nicnewman @BBCAcademy @risj_oxford TikTok didn't start this - YouTube and Instagram were there way before - but what TikTok has done is turboboost a new format for Gen Z/Alpha which is forcing the whole internet to pivot to vertical video.

🚨 Exclusive 🚨 last week US Customs + Borders told an Australian tourist they'd detained in June – who they'd asked 'have you recently had an abortion?' – it is *their policy* to ask about "termination of pregnancy".

This is not public - and not what they've told the press 🧵 CBP told @VICEWorldNews their policy is to "collect information regarding potential medical issues of concern, including pregnancy, postpartum and pregnancy loss to childbearing females."

On the 📞 to her, they said "termination of pregnancy", not loss.

vice.com/en/article/7k8…

asked dad to send me over ‘a few figs’ because our tree is in season at the moment and… I did a work thing AND this today all while feeling a bit ill. That’s fig jam!

Two surgeons have written in the BMJ about a lack of conversation around healthcare problems for women arising from an increase in anal sex.

It’s reminded me of a study I reference in my book that…wasn’t nice. It was published in 2014… 1/

bmj.com/content/378/bm… Here it is - investigating anal heterosex. Conclusion: ‘Young people’s narratives normalised coercive, painful and unsafe anal heterosex.’ 2/

Thank you for having me on this morning @BBCBreakfast to talk about my TikTok journalism in light of the news today from Ofcom - younger audiences prefer IG, TikTok and YouTube to BBC TV news and TikTok is fastest growing news source for UK adults. Time for...a thread! 🧵 @BBCBreakfast My hot take on younger audiences going to image based/video based platforms for news rather than traditional media is actually a very cold take, given that research has been showing this for years: they don't feel like news media + journalists are making content *for* them.

I was on @bbc5live this morning taking about online abuse + how you can support your children with peer on peer abuse in particular. In all the chat about how the Online Safety Bill could assist here, there’s not nearly enough discussion about another piece of legislation… 1/ The 2017 Act that made relationships and sex ed compulsory here in England. Schools should already be teaching the new curriculum which has a lot in it about the online world, consent etc. But guess what? Loads have still had zero training to help them teach it /2

🚨 Excl 🚨 A British anti-abortion group has received over £70,000 in the last two years from an anonymous US donor to use in schools + with medical professionals.

In a world of unclear funding, it’s a big find linking US anti-abortion activity to the UK. vice.com/en/article/93b… The group are Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child. They are especially active in Scotland, where they say they’ve talked in 10% of schools. But they’re expanding these to the rest of the UK. You might have also seen their recent TikToks.

⚡ A high court judge has granted a judicial review into the Welsh government's rollout of their new, compulsory Relationships and Sexuality Education curriculum, because 5,000 parents disagree that their children should learn about the following without their right to withdraw.. Go through the below thread - full of a curriculum that was devised through expert consultations, influenced by UNESCO's international guidance on Comprehensive Sex Education:

https://twitter.com/sophiasgaler/status/1518875082889830401?s=20&t=yxFDyKCUsX8l2LNtl52z8A

I would have spoken about this on the Today prog this morning, were I not bumped off by Gove getting stuck in a lift. My hot take? Editors are finally taking notice of what social & video journalists were telling them two years ago - audiences want personality-filled news.

https://twitter.com/risj_oxford/status/1480447714835976192

...and they want it on the apps they're increasingly encountering news incidentally on: YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

Personality-filled doesn't mean partial, nor extraversion - it means authenticity and 'edutainment'.

This is really nice, and a consequence of my job that I never anticipated. But I've been getting loads of DMs from RE teachers asking where to find a library of my videos to send their students as they learn remotely. I don't have one! So here's a thread instead: Non-trad religions? Try this IG doc I made on brujas in Brooklyn who are using Instagram to reclaim syncretic Caribbean faith practices

https://twitter.com/sophiasgaler/status/1245307474330161152?s=20

I was raised on my Nonna's tuna pasta - cheap and always available. It's an ideal lockdown recipe as it mainly relies on cupboard supplies, so 🐟 here it is as we're all limiting ourselves to essential food shopping 🐟 Ingredients:
- 🥫
- tinned tuna (I'd use 2)
- pasta
- you DO need onion really so I hope you can find one. Good thing about onions is that you can get big ones and chop sparingly + store in fridge