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The latest news, analysis and opinion on Internet. In-depth analysis, industry insights and expert opinion.
Children and adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems, including experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety, according to the US Office of the Surgeon General. Photo: Shutterstock
Wellness

How social media can be terrible for teens and the people fighting back

Phone and social media use have led to a youth mental health crisis and transformed teens’ lives but schools and governments are stepping in.

Tencent

How AI investments are paying off for Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent

Old Hong Kong

Then & Now | It’s in the mail: how postal services shaped global communication

E-commerce

Beijing tells food delivery giants to simmer down as feud gets too hot to handle

Five government agencies, led by the State Administration for Market Regulation, urged the instant commerce giants to follow competition regulation.

Food delivery riders from rivals Meituan (yellow) and Ele.me (blue) rest on their motorbikes in Chongqing on December 29, 2024. Photo: Getty Images
Artificial intelligence

Alibaba pushes global adoption of Qwen3 AI models via more developer platforms

The Qwen3 family of AI models can now be deployed via large language model platforms Ollama, LM Studio, SGLang and vLLM.

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Social media

Asia-Pacific takes the lead in fight to regulate Big Tech for children

From Australia’s under-16s ban to Malaysia’s licensing demands, the region is blazing a trail to protect young users from online harms.

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Thailand

Lisa’s Thai fans lash out at rapper Azealia Banks after transphobic tirade

Banks’ offensive social media meltdown exploded into a racially-charged online battle with the K-pop star’s Thai supporters.

Thai singer and actress Lalisa Manobal, better known as Lisa of Blackpink, arrives for the 2025 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 5 in New York. Photo: Reuters
India

Indian woman’s ‘extremely creepy’ online job hunt sparks cyber abuse concerns

Women say they are subjected to inappropriate behaviour during online work interviews, with one even getting molested.

Semiconductors

Nvidia modifies H20 chip for China to overcome US export controls: sources

Chinese customers have been notified by Nvidia that it aims to release the downgraded version of the H20 chip in July, sources say.

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Alibaba

Alibaba teams up with social media platform RedNote in fresh e-commerce push

The cross-platform alliance allows consumers to find products via RedNote, which redirects them to buy the goods on Taobao and Tmall.

RedNote had more than 300 million monthly active users in 2024. Photo: Shutterstock
Artificial intelligence

Alibaba’s Qwen3 unseats DeepSeek’s R1 as world’s top-ranked open-source AI model

Qwen3 surpassed R1 in LiveBench tests that gauge open-source AI models’ capabilities including coding, maths and data analysis.

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The broader LiveBench rankings showed that Qwen3 still trailed the top closed-source AI models, including OpenAI’s o3, Google’s Gemini Pro 2.5 and Anthropic’s Claude 3.7. Photo: Shutterstock
New Zealand

First Australia, now New Zealand eyes social media ban for under-16s

Worried about cyberbullying and harmful content, New Zealand’s PM is pushing for a ban modelled on the one Australia is introducing.

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China economy

My Take | China’s ‘instant commerce’ is no fast fix for low consumer spending

Consumers love instant delivery of everything from clothing to everyday items, but no amount of convenience will address China’s demand problem.

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Hong Kong tourism

Call for Hong Kong to fix border internet issues, protect rural areas

Measures suggested by observers after train Wi-fi networks became overloaded and littering increased in parks during ‘golden week’ holiday.

The the mobile data and free Wi-fi at Lok Ma Chau station could not handle the high traffic of tourists during ‘golden week’ leading to QR code ticket chaos. Photo: RedNote
United States

US professor teaches Assassin’s Creed trolls a lesson by killing with kindness

Narrative adviser Sachi Schmidt-Hori became the target of backlash by gamers who did not like the idea of a ‘woke’ Black African samurai.

Sachi Schmidt-Hori, a Japanese literature and culture professor, who was a consultant on the Assassin’s Creed Shadows video game. Photo: AP
E-commerce

Alibaba launches Taobao fast-delivery service ahead of schedule

The early introduction of the service reflects heightened domestic demand for efficient and affordable delivery of goods ordered online.

Millionaires and billionaires

Meet DoorDash co-founder Stanley Tang, who grew up in Hong Kong

Tang was born in Japan and grew up in Hong Kong before moving to California; he was a successful internet entrepreneur by the time he was 15 and co-founded DoorDash while a student at Stanford.

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Dating

The new dating trend in China? Live-streamed video chats

In China, busy young singles are meeting in group video chats hosted by a cyber matchmaker with others watching, and some are finding love.

Live-streamed video group chats are a new dating trend in China, where busy singles don’t have much time for romance. One of those hosting such chats is Tian Xin (above), a cyber matchmaker with more than 130,000 followers. Photo: AP
Vietnam

Vietnam targets social media users in ‘crackdown’ on dissent: rights group

Human Rights Watch reports ordinary social media users now face jail for criticising the state under Article 331.

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Artificial intelligence

Chinese tech giants race to expand AI services market via open-standard protocol

China is seeing growing adoption of the model context protocol, which has become a de facto standard for AI integration.

Japan

Sex tourists flock to Japan’s red-light area, lured by weak yen, social media

Money pressures are forcing women to offer cheaper services, further adding to Kabukicho’s attraction, shelter says.

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Advertisements for entertainment clubs are reflected in the window of a passing car in the Japanese red-light area of Kabukicho in Tokyo. Photo: AFP
United States

US judge rules Google monopolised online ad markets in antitrust case

Google will now face the possibility of two different US courts ordering it to sell assets or change its business practices.

The ruling could allow prosecutors to argue for a break-up of Google’s advertising products. Photo: Reuters
India

Musk’s SpaceX set to transform India’s space sector with Jio and Airtel tie-ups

Reliance Jio and its rival Bharti Airtel have signed separate deals with SpaceX to bring the Starlink internet service to India.

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India

In India, cyber scams targeting elderly fuel digital safety concerns

One 82-year-old victim lost nearly US$400,000 after fraudsters convinced him of their credentials by fabricating Supreme Court letters.

United States

Meta expands Instagram parental controls and brings them to Facebook

Under-16s need permission for live streams, as Meta’s Teen Accounts expands to Facebook.

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Meta has updated Instagram’s parental controls, and expanded the curbs to Facebook. Photo: AP
Artificial intelligence

IBM launches new mainframe system to handle heavy workload of AI models

The new z17 mainframe enables a chunk of business data to remain on customer-owned servers and not hosted on the cloud.

IBM’s new z17 mainframe is powerful enough to handle the work of artificial intelligence models with stored data. Photo: Shutterstock
DeepSeek

DeepSeek unveils new AI reasoning method amid anticipation for R2 model

In collaboration with Tsinghua University, DeepSeek developed a technique combining reasoning methods to guide AI models towards human preferences.

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E-commerce

Trump tariffs, ‘de minimis’ exemption end challenge China’s e-commerce merchants

The policy changes affect many of China’s 120,000 online exporters, whose major market is the United States.

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