No navel-gazing here

TikTok has enjoyed huge growth over the last couple of years, and events in 2020 appear to have supercharged that growth, making it the most downloaded app of the year globally. This rapid growth has seen TikTok surpass established social media platforms like Twitter and SnapChat to more than 800 million monthly active users.

Welcome to our monthly social update. Here, our digital team will fill you in on what’s been happening in the world of social media over the past month.

More brands join the #StopHateForProfit campaign to pause Facebook Ad spend in July in reaction and protest over Facebook’s inaction to address hate speech on its platform. The campaign has said that Facebook has indeed allowed hate speech “which incites violence against protesters fighting for racial justice” and has called on brands in America to stand up against Facebook’s policies.

Anyone that knows me or has even briefly met me will know just how much of a passion I have for sport. Watching, playing, reading about it. I can’t get enough of it. Like many, I have been absolutely starved since we went into lockdown almost three months ago. As such, the return of the Premier League last Wednesday felt like finding a natural spring after wandering through the Sahara desert for weeks. I’ve been lucky enough to witness genuine jaw-dropping moments in sport – Jessica Ennis-Hill kicking for home in the 800m at the London Olympics, Jonny Wilkinson’s last minute drop goal to win the Rugby World Cup in 2003, Helen Housby’s buzzer beater to win gold for the England Netball team at the Commonwealth Games a couple of years ago, AGUEROOOOOOOOOOO…. There are too many to list.

“Christ…!”. This was Prime Minister Johnson’s reported reaction to being informed over the weekend that 3.5 million jobs were at risk in the hospitality sector if Britain failed to reopen for the summer. In this moment, Johnson probably recognised a stark reality – the number of unemployed people within the hospitality sector could be double the entire economy’s unemployment figure for 2017. In the face of this kind of extreme economic strain, the media and public have intensified their scrutiny of the government’s plans to get people back to work and revive the economy.

One of the positives that’s emerges in the last few months has been seeing tech brands stepping up to offer their support in the fight against COVID-19 – especially when it comes to healthcare. The NHS is turning to some of the world’s biggest tech companies in order to tackle the pandemic and deliver efficient medical care in the face of enormous pressure.