The messaging service pegs itself as the ‘happiest place’ online, but Snap’s Ronan Harris explain how its post-pandemic struggles has made it focus on being friendlier not just to users but to small businesses, too

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Why are some social networks a success, while others struggle to stay alive? How did Facebook and Twitter go from being peers in the 2000s to barely even rivals 15 years on? Everyone seems to use social media, so everyone seems to have an answer to this sort of question.

But social networks are icebergs: most of what matters lies below the surface. Simply building a good user experience is table stakes for playing in the space. To actually succeed, though, you also need to master the parts most people don’t see.

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Murray Dowey, a 16-year-old from Dunblane, was targeted by a sextortion scammer in the hours before he took his own life. Now his parents are raising awareness of this increasingly prevalent crime. Libby Brooks reports

On the evening of 29 December, 16-year-old Murray Dowey was with his family in their home in Dunblane, Scotland. As they sat together watching TV, Murray talked about saving up money for a summer holiday with his friends.

At about 9.30pm, he went up to his bedroom.

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I used to be an avid user of TikTok, but the algorithm serves much less delight and serendipity than it used to

TikTok is facing its most credible existential threat yet. Last week, the US Congress passed a bill that bans the short-form video app if it does not sell to an American company by this time next year. But as a former avid user whose time on the app has dropped sharply in recent months, I am left wondering – will I even be using the app a year from now?

Like many Americans of my demographic (aging millennial), I first started using TikTok regularly when the Covid-19 pandemic began and lockdowns gave many of us more time than we knew how to fill.

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Last week, Conservative campaigning gave a chilling indication of the depths to which they will sink to retain power

In the psychedelic 60s stop-frame animation children’s television series Trumpton , all the characters have identifying proper names – the fireman Captain Flack, the state stormtrooper Police Constable Potter, and the mysterious dungeon-dwelling economist Gideon Pencils Osborne. The mayor of Trumpton, however, was known only as The Mayor, and neither his actual name nor his political affiliations were ever revealed, though he smelt of pubs and Wormwood Scrubs and too many rightwing meetings.

All over the land last week, Tory mayors dreamed of similar anonymity, hoping that if no one knew anything about them, and their campaign literature didn’t reveal they belonged to the Tory party, people might at least vote for them by accident, thinking they were someone else. “Oh! Andy Street was the West Midlands’ Tory mayor candidate? I thought I was voting for the glamorous, and now deceased, Welsh wrestler Adrian Street. I liked it when he pulled out Jimmy Savile’s hair in 1971.”

Stewart Lee’s new live show, Stewart Lee vs the Man-Wulf , opens in London in December before a national tour

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I travelled the UK interviewing teenage boys. I found openness, thoughtfulness, honesty and vulnerability on topics from sex to pornography, feelings and isolation

It was two separate conversations that made me think properly about what life might be like as a boy these days. The first was about a 13-year-old, the son of a friend, who said he had been rounded on for making a small (and, he thought, complimentary) comment about a girl’s haircut.

He told his mother that the girl’s friends were outraged: “Oh my God, you can’t say that about someone’s appearance. That’s so bad. You can’t talk about a girl like that!”

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The UK regulator has been criticised by grieving families and internet abuse survivors for failing to engage with them

Bereaved parents and abuse survivors who have endured years of “preventable, life-changing harm” linked to social media say they have been denied a voice in official discussions about holding tech firms to account.

Mariano Janin, whose ­daughter Mia, 14, killed herself after online bullying , and the parents of Oliver Stephens, 13, who was murdered after a dispute on social media , are among those who have accused Ofcom of excluding them from a ­consultation process for tackling online harms.

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A classical singer is to be praised for last week’s rebellion against a sea of illuminated screens

It was after the third song in Britten’s Les Illuminations that Ian Bostridge decided he’d had enough . Wheeling round to face the constellation of screen lights that dotted Birmingham’s vast Symphony Hall, the tenor called the show to a halt. Could everyone please turn off their phones? It was extremely distracting.

After the performance, which was two weeks ago, Bostridge was surprised to find his phone-happy audience had been perfectly within their rights. More than that: they’d actually been encouraged to video him. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) had last year decided to drop “ any perceived ‘rules’ of a traditional concert ” in a bid to “challenge conventions” and get “young people” interested. Signs in its venues now ask ticketholders to “bring drinks into the auditorium. Clap whenever they like. Wear whatever makes them feel comfortable. Take photos or short snippets of film (and share them with us).”

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Consequences of sharing nude images and subsequent threat of blackmail can be devastating. Talk to your child, say experts

“I’m naked on cam now I’ll call you. Answer the call don’t be shy.”

The teenage boy did as he was told by the girl he had been chatting with over social media. The next message was chilling: “If you don’t want to get into trouble, you better listen. I’ve enough to destroy you.”

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Influencers’ inventive recipes for high-protein dairy product have boosted trade by 40% for one producer

If you peered into a UK fridge in the late 1970s, it is more than likely you would have found a pot of cottage cheese tucked between the prawn cocktail and sherry trifle.

A popular “diet food” at the time, demand waned in subsequent decades as the high-protein, low-fat wonder food fell out of fashion. But 50 years on from its heyday, cottage cheese is making a comeback in the UK, and has become an unlikely hit with health-conscious Gen Z.

Driven by a wave of social media influencers sharing inventive recipes for the dairy product, which is made from milk curds, UK retailers are reporting significant increases in sales, while producers are struggling to keep up with demand.

“It’s come from absolutely nowhere,” said Robert Graham, managing director of Graham’s Family Dairy. “Since May of last year, when there was a TikTok craze that went on, cottage cheese sales for us are up 40%.”

The company said the growth in production, the equivalent of an extra 2m kilograms a year, means it is looking at ways to increase output, including an initial growth plan to invest £5m to bolster its production facilities.

“We are considering new factories because cottage cheese production is almost full,” said Graham, whose company supplies big retailers such as Co-op, Morrisons and Aldi.

Dairy company Arla is also benefiting from the cottage cheese rush, reporting a double-digit increase in sales in the last three months, while Marks & Spencer experienced a 30% increase compared with last year, and Waitrose reported a 22% year-on-year rise.

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