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When you think of the term "Instagram stalking," what kind of scenarios come to mind? Is it vetting an upcoming Hinge date’s profile to ensure they tick all the critical boxes: they have friends, they like to travel and they look the same in their tagged photos as they do the ones on their profile? Is it to suss out whether a couple has broken up? Is it being sucked into a black hole of scrutinising the fashion (and lifestyle) choices of your high school arch nemesis? 

As evidenced above, when we imagine ourselves digital sleuthing, it always involves other people. But look inward, and you might realise that you — yes you — are your own most dedicated viewer. For many on TikTok, it’s common practice: we share an Instagram story – a supposed 24-hour-only glimpse into our lives – and we find ourselves in a deadly cycle of replaying it and monitoring the viewer list. While the latter exists for a reason (allowing us the privilege of knowing if that person who we wanted to see the story, saw it), what is it that drives us to watch our content back? It’s not like we’ll find anything new – we’re the ones who published it, after all. 

This behaviour isn’t limited to stories, either. I’ll admit it: sometimes when I’m feeling down, I’ve found myself looking back over my grid, pausing on holiday photos, snapshots from nights out, birthday celebrations, and sometimes, a selfie where I know I look great. I’m not the only one, either: while some flick through their social media profiles for a morale boost, others, like @xoxotatianaa on TikTok, state the facts: she watches her content repeatedly because she can, and she doesn’t care (and neither do the 667k others than agree with her). 

SEE ALSO: Why some people on dating apps just want to be 'pen pals'

So, why do we do it? Is it because we’re perfectionists, obsessed with our content fitting in with the digital version of ourselves we present to the world? Are we so hyper-aware of being perceived that we try to view ourselves through someone else’s eyes? Or are we just in love with ourselves?

"Say I get some new followers, I like to view my profile from the perspective of what they’re seeing..."

I posed the question to my own Instagram followers (via a story which, yes, I watched back a few times). "Say I get some new followers, I like to view my profile from the perspective of what they’re seeing, even if I know what my profile looks like," one friend, Tom replied. "When someone follows me, I wonder what they’re looking at, so I check through it to see what they see." Another friend, Kat, said: "I pretend I’m someone else because I want to see how other people perceive me and if they’d think I have a cool grid (I just cringed typing that out)."

Seeing ourselves from other people's POV

According to Eloise Skinner, a psychotherapist and author specialising in existential identity, there are several factors as to why we stalk ourselves – one being a desire to see ourselves from an external perspective (think Ariana Grande’s song POV). "The desire to understand how we’re perceived has been present in human instinct for generations," she explains. "As we try to understand ourselves – answering the timeless question of ‘who am I?' – we often draw on the opinions and reflections of others to guide us." She continues that when we don’t have that information handy, we take it upon ourselves to decipher the thoughts and opinions of others by imagining what they might see when they look at our profiles. 

Psychologist Zoe Mallet agrees, and says that evolution has shaped our innate desire for social acceptance and status, ingraining a "deep-seated need for social approval" into our being. "The tendency to present oneself favourably is a direct offshoot of this, online and offline," she says. "It’s a subconscious attempt to enhance our social standing, increase our chances of belonging and create a positive self-image, which is part of our survival coping mechanisms as humans." 

"The desire to understand how we’re perceived has been present in human instinct for generations."

Both Skinner and Mallet note that our attempts to control how we’re perceived existed long before the arrival of Instagram – like how we spend time picking out an outfit for an event, or what we say in a conversation with an acquaintance. Social media, then, has become a digital platform to project this onto – it’s an attempt to reflect the identity we want people to perceive us as embodying. Although it may seem like stalking ourselves is the best way of ensuring that we keep this identity in check, Skinner points out that for some, self-stalking is rooted in perfectionism. 

Take journalist and content creator Mared Perry, for example, who tells me that she watches her stories repeatedly for two reasons. The first is to make sure "content looks slick" in case of potential work opportunities, and secondly "because of the paranoia that other people may find something cringe, or that I’m oversharing". "Self-stalking could stem from a feeling of insecurity about our sense of identity, how we appear to others, or even a critical feeling about what we post and where we should improve," Skinner continues. "There’s a greater awareness of how we compare to others online – in other words, it’s easier to hold up our digital lives against someone else’s, to see what we like or don’t like." 

How am I presenting myself online?

It’s important to remember that not everyone uses social media in the same way. Some use it to maintain relationships and stay connected ("If this is the case, it might seem less important to present in a certain way," Skinner says), whereas for others, like Perry and journalist David Chipakupaku, it’s deeper than that – it’s an extension of who they are. "I want to show all the different facets of who I am on my social media, and I don’t want to be known for just one thing," Chipakupaku tells me. "I’ll share the different sides of myself – I’ll post a meme and I’ll share news posts. It’s about getting the balance right. Am I being too funny? Too serious? Too weird? Too much?"

He says that he’ll check his content over and over again due to a mix of "anxiety and sense-curating". "When someone taps on my story, are they going to come away with a full understanding of who I am? If yes, I’ve done it right. If not, I’ll add something or take it away. It sounds so insidious and weird, but it’s true." Mallet points out that this phenomenon is unique only to social media. "Think about how we show up in real life – there are limits to how many sides of ourselves we can show per situation or experience. We can’t go back and curate it. But online you can, which adds to this mounting pressure of wanting to present as perfect," she says. Skinner adds that while this pressure could be internal (the same impulse that makes us reflect on how we presented ourselves at a work event, for example), it can also be external: "For instance, the demands we put on ourselves to have a certain image, following or level of popularity on social media." 

There’s a host of reasons why we trawl back through our content (so it’s not just because we’re in love with ourselves, which isn’t always a bad thing). But does a distinction exist between this behaviour being normal and unhealthy? As of September 2024, Instagram has 2 billion active users globally, all of whom produce a lot of content. Skinner believes It’s pretty normal, then, that we’d want to look back over our content from time to time, like how we’d flick through a photo album, journal or scrapbook. "Social media can act as a storage unit for older versions of ourselves and our identities, so reflecting with appreciation, nostalgia or thoughtfulness can be a supportive, beneficial activity."

The signs to spot when we might be going too far? Other than if it’s taking focus away from other important parts of our lives, Skinner urges us to be aware of how the act of self-stalking makes us feel, in the moment and afterwards. If we find it motivating or comforting, great. But it also risks making us more critical of ourselves or leaving us wrapped up in the past. "If it makes us more self-conscious, self-absorbed or distracted from whatever we’d like to use social media for, it’s worth rethinking the habit," she advises.

Last year, research from Bournemouth University found that young adults who use social media passively (by browsing the content of others) are more likely to experience mental health problems such as anxiety and depression than those who share their own content (active users). Self-stalking puts a spanner in the works, though: we’ve posted this content ourselves, but we’re now the ones viewing it passively, too. While research into self-stalking doesn’t exist (yet), Mallet urges us to remember that from the start, social media was designed to be addictive. "When we post, we’re validated by the responses we receive and get a hit of dopamine. We want that hit again and again, so of course we’ll head back to the source where we experienced it before," she says. "It’s not that we’re addicted to looking at our own Instagram. We’re addicted to the feeling we get when we do."

Prime Big Deal Days isn't till October 8 and 9 — but many deals are already here. Check out the best book deals at Amazon already live before the sale even officially begins.

Early Prime Day book deals: Best book deal overall 'Atomic Habits' by James Clear $13.79 at Amazon (save $13.21) Get Deal Best book bundle deal Dr. Seuss’s Beginner Book Boxed Set Collection $26.47 at Amazon (save $23.48) Get Deal Best Kindle deal 'Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals' $2.99 at Amazon (save $17) Get Deal

Prime Day is here yet again — the bi-annual shopping event (this time known as Prime Big Deal Days) is coming up on October 8 and 9, and Amazon’s already offering discounts on countless products across all categories. One category you probably wouldn’t expect to see a lot of deals on is books, but that's exactly what we're seeing on Amazon's website right now. (Amazon did start as an online bookstore, so it kind of makes sense.)

We’ve found tons of book titles from a wide variety of genres that are currently on sale, from bestselling novels to nonfiction and children's books. Kindle and e-book editions are up to 80% off their typical list prices, while hardcover and paperback books are seeing discounts of up to 50% off. And this is before the official start of Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days.

Here are just a few of the book deals that’ve caught our eye so far:

Best book deal overall Opens in a new window Credit: Avery Our pick: 'Atomic Habits' by James Clear $13.79 at Amazon
$27.00 Save $13.21 Get Deal Why we like it

If you’re not into self-help books, James Clear’s Atomic Habits might not be on your radar. But this is one of the best nonfiction titles to come out within the past few years, and it's currently 49% off in hardcover.

This book is all about teaching yourself to build good habits, break bad ones, and generally become more focused, productive, and successful in your daily life. And at just $13.79 for the hardcover, it’s a steal.

Best book bundle deal Opens in a new window Credit: Random House Books for Young Readers Our pick: Dr. Seuss’s Beginner Book Boxed Set Collection: 'The Cat in the Hat'; 'One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish'; 'Green Eggs and Ham'; 'Hop on Pop'; 'Fox in Socks' $26.47 at Amazon
$49.95 Save $23.48 Get Deal Why we like it

Whether you have kids or you’re an adult who’s looking to add another classic book series to your collection, the Dr. Seuss’s Beginner Book Boxed Set Collection: The Cat in the Hat; One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish; Green Eggs and Ham; Hop on Pop; Fox in Socks is on sale for just $26.47.

That’s five iconic Dr. Seuss books for less than $30, which is an awesome deal considering each of these books typically sells for around $9 to $12 individually.

This book set is the perfect gift for new parents, birthdays, holidays, or just to add to the family home library.

Best Kindle deal Opens in a new window Credit: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Our pick: 'Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals' by Oliver Burkeman $2.99 at Amazon
$19.99 Save $17.00 Get Deal Why we like it

If you’ve ever mumbled that 24 hours just wasn’t enough time in a day, Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals — currently 84% off the Kindle edition price — might be just the book for you.

This book has a ton of “life hacks” that can help you prioritize your time and figure out what's really worth doing — it's kind of an anti-productivity productivity book. If you're overwhelmed by the constant demands on your time and attention, this e-book promises to help you take back control and get more done.

You can get it for free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription, or pay just $2.99 to own it outright.

More book deals

• The Rule Book: A Novel by Sarah Adams — $12.09 $18 (save $5.91)

• Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel by Bonnie Garmus — $15.37 $29 (save $13.63)

• A Fate Inked in Blood: Book One of the Saga of the Unfated by Danielle L. Jensen — $16.99 $29.99 (save $13)

• The Ministry of Time: A Novel by Kaliane Bradley — $17.89 $28.99 (save $11.10)

• George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones 5-Book Boxed Set: Song of Ice and Fire Series — $33.84 $49.95 (save $16.11)

Check out the best Amazon deals of the day as of Sept. 25: OUR TOP PICK Blink Video Doorbell $29.99 at Amazon (save $30) Get Deal BEST TV DEAL LG 48-inch C4 OLED evo 4K TV $1,096.99 at Amazon (save $503) Get Deal BEST ECHO DEAL Amazon Echo Frames (3rd gen) Sunglasses $199.99 at Amazon (save $130) Get Deal

Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days is less than two weeks away and deals are already abundant. We've been keeping our eyes peeled for the best ones to shop ahead of the big event. The early bird gets the worm, as they say. Or, in this case, the early shopper gets to take home great deals before everyone else.

Here are our top picks for the best Amazon deals of the day for Sept. 25, so you can be an early bird. If none of these catch your eye, check out our picks from Sept. 23 and Sept. 24, and keep your eyes peeled for brand-new selections each day this week.

Our top pick Opens in a new window Credit: Blink Blink Video Doorbell $29.99 at Amazon
$59.99 Save $30.00 Get Deal

The Blink Video Doorbell is already down to $29.99 at Amazon, which is 50% off its retail price and matches its Prime Day price from July. There's a chance it could drop even more on Prime Big Deal Days, but this might be the lowest price we'll see. Either way, you can rest assured you're getting an awesome deal if you shop early. This smart doorbell lets you see who's at your door even when you're not home with a 1080p HD live view and two-way audio, plus infrared night vision after the sun goes down. Get it for half price as of Sept. 25.

Opens in a new window Credit: LG LG 48-inch C4 OLED evo 4K TV $1,096.99 at Amazon
$1,599.99 Save $503.00 Get Deal

Bring the magic of cinema home with a high-end TV like LG's C4 OLED evo 4K TV. A newer version of our favorite TV for gaming, the C4 features an updated processor, upgraded software, a 144Hz maximum refresh rate (vs. the previous model's 120Hz), and an even brighter and more dynamic screen. It also features a nearly invisible bezel and the ability to display artwork and photos like Samsung's The Frame TV. Basically, if you want the best possible viewing experience when you're watching and the option for it to blend into your space when you're not watching, the C4 OLED evo is for you. As of Sept. 25, you can even save 31% on the 48-inch model and get it for $1,096.99 at Amazon. That's a $100 drop from its most recent sale price and its lowest price to date.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Amazon Echo Frames Sunglasses (3rd gen) $199.99 at Amazon
$329.99 Save $130.00 Get Deal

If you prefer your tech to be discreetly disguised into everyday glasses, check out the Echo Frames. These babies are equipped with Alexa, so you can use them to control your smart home devices and ask important questions. Plus, you won't have to worry about taking out your phone or popping earbuds in and out to take calls, listen to tunes, or stream podcasts. They'll last you up to 14 hours on a charge and come in five unique styles, depending on the lens type. The sunglasses are currently on sale for just $199.99 at Amazon, which is a 39% price drop from the usual $329.99. Last Prime Day we saw them drop to $169.99, so we'll be keeping an eye out in the coming weeks. In the meantime, this is still a pretty great deal.

None of these deals catching your eye? Check out Amazon's daily deals for even more savings.

An "Apartment 7A" clip features Julia Garner pushed to her breaking point in "Rosemary's Baby" prequel.

In 1986, it was weird that The Legend of Zelda was about a guy named Link. In 1998, Nintendo reinvented the series in 3D, but didn’t mess with the franchise’s fundamental contradiction. In 2017, Zelda was reinvented yet again with Breath of the Wild (and further expanded in 2023 with Tears of the Kingdom), but still, the series' namesake has frustratingly almost always sat in the margins.

As you’ve probably heard by now, Nintendo and developer Grezzo finally addressed the elephant in the room and made a new, mainline 2D Legend of Zelda game where you actually play as Princess Zelda. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is a pleasant surprise on a number of fronts; I didn’t expect to see a new Zelda game before Switch 2 launched, I didn’t expect Zelda to actually take the starring role anytime soon, and I certainly didn’t think Nintendo would find a way to successfully marry what Zelda used to be with what Zelda is now.

But it has, and for that we should all be thankful. Echoes of Wisdom is a mostly delightful synthesis of Zelda’s classic puzzle box sensibilities with a more open-ended design ethos, similar to Breath and Tears. It doesn’t close the loop on every idea it has, but that doesn’t stop it from being extremely fun.

Even if it wasn’t those things, it would still be rad just to finally play as Zelda for a full game.

Echoes of Wisdom asks Link to step to the sideline Sorry, little guy. Credit: Nintendo

Almost every Legend of Zelda game up until now has been about Princess Zelda being kidnapped or otherwise vanishing for nefarious reasons, leaving Link to go save her, usually from Ganon or someone adjacent to the series’ famous villain. Nintendo has occasionally veered away from this in the past (Majora’s Mask being the most successful example), but one thing that took me a bit by surprise in Echoes of Wisdom is how straightforward a Zelda story it is.

Mysterious purple rifts have begun opening up around Hyrule, sucking any nearby terrain, buildings, and people into an off-putting place called the Still World. Echoes opens with Link attempting to save Zelda (in this incarnation, the two have never met before), but instead, he gets pulled into a rift and it's up to Zelda to essentially do Link’s job for him.

Aside from the role reversal between Link and Zelda, Echoes of Wisdom plays out pretty much like any other game in the series. You’ll travel from one region of Hyrule to the next, interacting with Gorons, Zoras, Deku Scrubs, and other classic Zelda entities on your journey to save the kingdom. Each area has some underlying problem Zelda needs to solve, which always winds up with Zelda attempting to clear a dungeon of some sort.

Echoes of Wisdom is clearly meant to be more slight in the storytelling department than either of its two most recent predecessors. There is no voice acting, cutscenes are generally pretty quick, and the plot is mostly bereft of huge, shocking twists and turns. It’s humble and respectable, though I wish there was a tiny bit more here. 

It’s hard to explain why without getting into spoiler territory, but I’ll say that the final hour or so of gameplay in Tears of the Kingdom got me feeling teary-eyed and sentimental about Zelda, while Echoes never elicited a similar response in me. It’s frequently charming and funny enough that I’m fine with that, though. 

Echoes of Wisdom bridges old and new Tri is a cool little fella. Credit: Nintendo

Echoes of Wisdom may not be particularly adventurous with its narrative elements, but it more than makes up for that mechanically.

As has been covered by pre-launch marketing and my own hands-on piece a couple of weeks ago, this game is all about makin' stuff out of thin air. Zelda quickly meets a magical floating friend named Tri who gifts Zelda with a staff that can absorb the essences of inanimate objects and monsters. Once you’ve done so, you can spawn copies (or echoes) of that object or monster to your hearts’ content.

Well, almost. Tri has an energy meter that puts a strict limitation on how many (and what kinds of) echoes you can conjure. For example, a powerful Lizalfos monster is so expensive to make that you can only have one out at a time, but basic objects like tables are cheaper, so duplicating those is possible. Tri’s capabilities level up over time, adding to a nice sense of progression that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom didn’t necessarily have.

I would say the most impressive thing about Echoes of Wisdom is that I believe it has something for every kind of Zelda fan. If you love the improvisational problem-solving of the more recent games, there’s plenty of that here. If you love a smaller, more structured and linear adventure with actual dungeons, that’s also what Echoes of Wisdom is, and it has plenty of those.

Beds are very useful. Credit: Nintendo

Unlike Breath and Tears, you can’t just go wherever you want after the tutorial. There’s a mild illusion of non-linearity in parts of the story, but for the most part, you will go where the designers want you to go. Echoes also mostly lacks survival elements like needing to prepare for extreme temperatures, while totally eschewing the complicated physics engine of the other two Switch games. Sure, some echoes can float on water and some can’t, but generally speaking, everything behaves very predictably. 

By gatekeeping certain regions behind story progress and carefully placing new echoes near places where they might come in handy, Echoes of Wisdom’s designers have adeptly recreated the feeling of finding the hookshot or boomerang in an old Zelda without sacrificing player creativity in the process. Sure, that echo you just found outside the room you’re in might be the way to solve the puzzle, but there’s usually a faster and easier way if you really think about it.

Quickly, I’d also like to acknowledge the incredible addition of lock-on targeting to a 2D Zelda game. It works exactly how you think it should and makes aiming at faraway objects so much easier than it used to be. 

Echoes of Wisdom doesn’t always ask enough of the player The bind/reverse bond system isn't as necessary as it could be. Credit: Nintendo

I would estimate that roughly 80 to 90 percent of the moment-to-moment puzzle solving in Echoes of Wisdom is delightful and clever. There was usually at least one room in a dungeon where, after figuring out the solution, I’d think “oh man, that’s really neat!” to myself. 

Unfortunately, that other 10 to 20 percent is a problem. Echoes of Wisdom actually, at times, has too many ideas going on and doesn’t always know how to best deploy them. The "bind" mechanic is a great example of this. You can use it to telekinetically move objects and monsters around (not unlike Ultrahand in Tears of the Kingdom), which definitely comes in handy all throughout the adventure.

However, there’s another side of "bind" called "reverse bond" that will make Zelda mimic the object or monster’s movements, rather than the other way around, and that’s where Echoes of Wisdom starts to disappoint. This seems really cool in the tutorial, where you use reverse bond to clear gaps by floating underneath moving platforms. Strangely, though, the game almost never requires the player to use this mechanic again. I was able to clear the story and a decent number of side quests without reverse bonding to almost anything unless I forced myself to use it.

Even the echo system isn't without its faults. Over time, I found myself gravitating towards a small handful of very useful echoes for every situation at the expense of the literally dozens of others I’d found. By the second half of the game, I had a massive roster of echoes and regularly used about seven or eight of them. It's not that the opportunities for creativity aren’t there, but the game doesn’t always force you to be creative as much as I’d like.

Combat is another area where an abundance of ideas actually feels a little limiting. Creating echoes of monsters to fight on your behalf is the main method of taking out enemies, and I would say it’s also the most enjoyable. At its best, it feels like they’ve turned Zelda into Pikmin, with the player desperately avoiding enemies while ordering minions to protect them. 

You can change costumes, too. Credit: Nintendo

Sadly, Echoes of Wisdom doesn’t commit all the way to this idea. Not long into the adventure, Zelda unlocks "Swordfighter Form," which basically turns her into a ghostly version of Link with access to a sword. This upgradeable form is limited by an energy meter that becomes easier and easier to refill over time, meaning that by the end of the game, this was the only way I handled any combat encounter.

On top of that, Zelda eventually gets the ability to craft and deploy robotic automatons with powerful and unique combat abilities. This is a cool idea that is nonetheless totally optional and adds next to nothing to the game. Despite very much wanting to use them, I never found a single situation where throwing an automaton out into the field felt necessary. 

I can see how these are tricky problems to solve from a game designers' perspective. The uber-mainstream and family-friendly nature of any big-name Nintendo game is going to necessarily limit the difficulty level. Creating too many puzzles that absolutely require the use of one certain ability, echo, or automaton would be dissonant with the game’s mechanics, too.

But there’s still sometimes a noteworthy disconnect between the number of options you have at your disposal and the simplicity of the problems you need them for. I just never felt like there was a single dungeon or puzzle that brought all of these ideas together at the same time.

That Link’s Awakening art style is still adorable Zoras! Credit: Nintendo

Visually, Echoes of Wisdom uses the same lightly Funko Pop-looking art style as the 2019 Link’s Awakening Switch remake. Characters have big heads, little bodies, and beady little black eyes that are shockingly expressive for how simplistic they look.

It was a charming aesthetic in 2019 and it remains charming now. Most notably, Echoes of Wisdom actually runs a bit better than that Link’s Awakening remake did. The latter rapidly oscillated between 60 frames per second and 30 FPS depending on if you were indoors or outdoors. Echoes of Wisdom is sadly still pretty inconsistent relative to other games (it still varies between those two target frame rates), but it’s not quite as egregious as Link’s Awakening. 

Zelda always brings the noise

Would you be shocked if I told you a Legend of Zelda game has great music?

This is so unsurprising that it barely warrants a mention, but Echoes of Wisdom’s audio presentation is excellent. They gave Zelda her own little overworld theme song that will be stuck in your head for weeks. I also appreciate the occasional incorporation of "Zelda’s Lullaby" from Ocarina of Time, but Nintendo has been doing that for decades, so it’s not really new.

The tunes themselves are catchy and atmospheric, but the sparse instrumentation drives the soundtrack home. These aren’t giant, swelling orchestral productions; songs will usually sound like they could’ve been recorded by just a few people. It fits nicely with the less grandiose nature of the game.

Is The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom worth getting?

There are a couple of areas in which Echoes of Wisdom is a slight disappointment. Its story isn’t quite as ambitious as it could have been given the historic opportunity to make the first Zelda game starring Zelda. Mechanically, it bites off a tiny bit more than it can chew, leaving players with more options than they need or can even realistically use.

But everything else about it rules. Its aesthetic and music are endearing, the echo system creates tons of really clever puzzle solutions, and it harkens back to old Zelda games without abandoning what makes the newer ones special. The total playtime, even if you do a lot of side quests, also tops out at 25 to 30 hours, so it's a fulfilling adventure that doesn't monopolize too much of your free time.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom may not be a big Switch 2 blowout launch title, but it is a mostly delectable late-in-life treat for Switch owners.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom launches exclusively on Nintendo Switch on Sept. 26.

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For the first time since CEO Elon Musk's takeover of X (formerly Twitter), the social media platform is taking the public behind the scenes of its increasingly opaque reporting and moderation practices. Sort of.

Released today, the 15-page Global Transparency Report is the first public report on internal enforcement data beyond Dec. 2021 (Musk took over Twitter in Oct. 2022). It covers the first six months of 2024, and attempts to paint a picture of the platform's new enforcement ethos. According to the data, X received more than 224 million user reports, suspended more than 5 million users, and took down more than 10 million posts between January and June.

Previously, Twitter issued twice-yearly reports on its enforcement mechanisms via its Transparency Center. The practice began in 2012, and didn't stop until new ownership took hold over the platform's reigns. At the time, Musk spoke openly about fighting the government's "bullying" of social media platforms and tech leaders, which included shutting out researchers from internal data like transparency reports.

SEE ALSO: Blocking users will soon be banned on X

Now, the platform has changed its tune. "Our policies and enforcement principles are grounded in human rights, and we have been taking an extensive and holistic approach towards freedom of expression by investing in developing a broader range of remediations, with a particular focus on education, rehabilitation, and deterrence," the report reads. "These beliefs are the foundation of 'Freedom of Speech, not Freedom of Reach'— our enforcement philosophy, which means we restrict the reach of posts, only where appropriate, to make the content less discoverable as an alternative to removal."

The report is notably more scarce than previous iterations. It features a brief run down of user reporting and corresponding company action, covering a variety of policy areas, including child safety, abuse and harassment, platform manipulation, and suicide and self-harm. It depicts a hybrid machine-learning and human moderation process, featuring an "international, cross-functional team with 24-hour coverage," making enforcement decisions.

What "rehabilitation" looks like is not explained — although previous reinstatements of some of the platform's worst offenders, and the focus on account suspensions in the report, suggest X is moving away from outright banning.

X sent 370,588 reports of child exploitation, required by law, to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)'s CyberTipline in the first half of the year. The platform says it also suspended more than 2 million accounts actively engaging with child sexual abuse media (CSAM). In 2021, X/Twitter reported 86,000 cases to NCMEC. The number increased to 98,000 in 2022, and then saw a massive jump to 870,000 in 2023.

An X spokesperson explained the jump in numbers in a statement to Mashable. "In 2023, X updated its enforcement guidelines to also suspend users who engaged with actioned CSAM content (Like, Reply, Share, Bookmark, etc.) and added additional proactive defenses. We saw a spike in enforcements after these changes (catching and cleaning up an existing problem), and we believe that those changes have been effective at discouraging users from either sharing CSAM or looking for it (the actions trending down over time, even though we continue to improve defenses)."

The report also offers (limited) information on government data requests and removals, formerly a major focus of Twitter's reporting as it then championed for a more "open" internet. At the time of the 2021 report, X/Twitter said it had fielded 11,460 requests for information from 67 countries, complying with 40.2 percent of them. In 2024, the platform reported more than 18,000 requests for information and 72,000 requests for content removal from an undisclosed amount of countries. X reportedly disclosed information in 52 percent of cases and complied with 70 percent of removal requests.

The report drops as the platform is subtly revamping itself and its generative AI offerings pre-election. In previous months, X has quietly reinvested in its safety and security teams, with Musk simultaneously redefining the notion of site wide "transparency" and supporting content moderation tools. The CEO also announced this week that the company will soon shutter the site's block feature.

For those of us TV fans who cut the cable cord ages ago, it's time again to cut... something. I don't honestly know what we're cutting this time exactly. But it's time to cancel all your streaming services. To use the industry term, churn out every month, and don't churn back in unless a particular service has something you just can't miss.

That's right: go cancel them all.

After all, how many of these ever-increasing monthly fees are you already tolerating? The average is reportedly four, and depending on whether or not you pay for the ad-free options, that could set you back about $75 per month. And four services isn't enough to keep you in the loop about everything buzzy on TV. If you just pay for four of the most popular ones — perhaps Netflix, Max, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ — you missed awards juggernaut Shōgun on Hulu (the ad-free version of which now costs an eye-watering $18.99 per month). And how have you survived 2024 without the Olympics on Peacock? Oh, and you're on track to miss out on Severance season 2 if you're not an Apple TV+ subscriber.

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The sneaky price spiral just goes on and on until you're paying more than the cost of cable — and there's a good chance you are.

Then again, you probably don't just watch your favorite shows. If you're like a lot of people, you often fire up a streaming service app, browse to whatever you've seen talked about online, and give it a try. And what's your reward for such open-mindedness? Perhaps you watched streaming services dump some of your favorite characters into festering swamps like they did in Secret Invasion, or Velma. Maybe you tuned into The Circle season 6, which featured the unwatchably try-hard plot twist of an "AI" contestant. Maybe you checked out The Idol, or Deep Fake Love, which you'd heard were so bad they're good, but they turned out to be so bad that you just want those precious hours of your life back.

Millions of Americans are already quitting in 2024. In response to password-sharing crackdowns, rising costs, and the proliferation of ads on streamers like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime — which one day decided to turn ads on for you by default — consumers in 2024 are cancelling streaming services in record numbers. 

But don't just make a mental note to cancel when the offerings on one service or another feel exceptionally dire; go cold turkey right now. The best part of streaming à la carte instead of paying all the time is the newfound freedom you'll feel not to watch the next big thing if you don't really want to. You'll soon notice that other, cheaper, better ways of consuming TV and movies have just become strangely attractive.

SEE ALSO: Netflix is axing its cheapest ad-free tier How streaming arrived at its cut-the-cord moment so fast

Cord cutting the first time around was a no-brainer because it felt like everyone agreed that cable was a drag. Watching TV in the '90s sometimes meant clicking around the upper channels of your cable package, waiting for something — anything remotely interesting, please — to come back from an epic commercial marathon. It certainly wasn't what you wanted as a paying consumer, but it was obviously the experience the pay TV industry wanted you to have. 

For millions of cord cutters (not to mention "cord nevers") that experience is gone forever, but the feeling of time and money flushed down the toilet, supposedly in the name of "entertainment," is back with a vengeance. 

A decade ago, it felt like the Silicon Valley disruptors had arrived to fix the entertainment industry. House of Cards showed up on Netflix in 2013 like a precision-guided missile of politically charged melodrama straight to the cerebral cortexes of "discerning" viewers like myself. (It turned out we weren't all that discerning; we were just TV gluttons at our first all-you-can-eat buffet). Netflix's addictive grand slam during its first at-bat was astonishing. The networks could never. HBO could sometimes, but who can remember what HBO's first-ever drama even was? (Answer: Philip Marlowe, Private Eye. Yeah, me neither). 

Netflix was defying the very laws of entertainment industry physics. The stream-and-binge TV era had begun, and it felt like nothing would ever be the same. The Big Data guru Rick Smolan told the New York Times' David Carr in 2013, "Programmers have been wandering out and shooting a shotgun into the night sky and hoping they hit something, and I end up paying $150 for channels full of nothing I want to watch. These guys know what they are aiming at." 

But the TV industry has fully reverted to its old ways in the decade since that House of Cards moment. The business is once again all about getting people to overpay for tons and tons of ad-saturated mediocrity. Dan Goman, CEO of the video software company Ateliere Creative Solutions, told Forbes earlier this year that, "For many years, streaming services offered subscriptions at rates that were enticingly low," but that, "We’re now seeing the industry gravitating toward familiar models — ads and bundles."

You already know the highlights here: One after another, streaming services are hiking their prices, in a series of moves designed to push consumers to cheaper ad-supported tiers which generate more revenue than the premium ones. Meanwhile, the services themselves kill programming users expect to be there in an effort to cut their spending on library content, all while degrading cherished brands, abandoning quality in favor of quantity, and — perhaps oddest and most irksome of all — cutting corners on audio, making it hard to literally hear the content we're paying our hard-earned money for. 

The term "enshittification" is overused these days, but this sort of thing is exactly what its coiner, Cory Doctorow, had in mind when he came up with it. As Doctorow wrote last year:

Why is Netflix putting the screws to its customers? It’s part of the enshittification cycle, where platform companies first allocate surpluses to their customers, luring them in and using them as bait for business customers. Once they turn up, the companies reallocate surpluses to businesses, lavishing them with low commissions and lots of revenue opportunities. And once they’re locked in, the company starts to claw back the surpluses for itself.

Do streaming services deserve your passive, monthly dollars?

Regardless of how you feel about the overall degradation of the streaming experience, maybe you just like knowing the content you love is available anytime you want, and that makes keeping your subscriptions worthwhile. But time and again, you've opened up a streaming service hoping to see something you could have sworn was there, and it was just... gone. It's not your imagination. On top of everything else, Streamland has become a messy place where it's never clear how to find what you want, and what you can count on today might be gone tomorrow.

Think the trashy reality show that binds your friend group together will always have a home on Peacock? Think your Disney+ subscription is a parenting must-have because it houses the whole Disney and Marvel animated universes? Think the long-awaited streaming service Venu (assuming it's ever allowed to exist) has the makings of the mythical stable home for sports programming that all sports fans have been dreaming of? 

Think again. Fire up any given streaming service, and what you'll see is the confusing result of behind the scenes wheeling-and-dealing, with no apparent thought given to reliability or viewer convenience.

As an illustration of this convenience problem, look at Sex and the City. The intuitive place to watch all things Sex and the City is Max, the service formerly known as HBO Max, but Sex and the City's availability on Max may well be in danger. Yes, SATC is safe on Max for now, but starting this past April, it became available on Netflix too. A bit confusing, but as soon as the dollars and cents penciled out, Max's parent company gave up exclusivity and let Netflix in on the action. If you can keep track of all this in your head, no big deal, but it gets worse: you'd better believe that one day soon, Max may very well stop streaming Sex and the City. If that sounds implausible, it shouldn't. You already can't watch the movie Sex and the City 2 on Max.

Max, like all streaming services, will unceremoniously dump its most treasured content if it feels like it. I cannot watch my personal favorite COVID-era movie, An American Pickle, on Max — nor on literally any streaming service whatsoever — even though it was an HBO Max exclusive when it debuted. And remember HBO's hit show Westworld? You already can't watch it at all on Max even though it bagged Emmys and was by some measures HBO's biggest hit of all time. Want to stream Westworld on a monthly service? As far as I can tell, there is one streaming service with exclusive streaming rights to Westworld: DIRECTTV's "Premier" streaming package, which will set you back — are you sitting down? — $149.99 per month.

This brand of chaos is the most reliable attribute in the streaming universe. Not even bundling Hulu and Disney+ together guarantees access to all things Marvel. To wit: Marvel's Runaways, a Hulu original is now exclusive to Apple TV+. The Office — a longtime NBC hit which achieved cultural critical mass only when it became a Netflix staple, is no longer on Netflix. For that you have to go to Peacock, the NBCUniversal streaming service, which is making itself a major destination by becoming the only place to stream the likes of Yellowstone, the biggest hit on the Paramount Network, but which doesn't stream on Paramount+. So you might assume you need the all-powerful Peacock for that other NBC mega-hit, Friends, right? Not so much. Friends is only available on... Netflix? Nope, for heaven only knows what reason (money), Friends is only available on Max. Netflix is no longer your destination for legendary NBC shows. Oh, except Seinfeld. For the next two years. And after that who knows? 

The promise of streaming in the first place was instant gratification, and subscribing to upwards of eight streaming services doesn't guarantee any gratification at all. What's a content addict to do?

Watch whatever you want. You're free.

After you cancel them all, you'll find that in a manner of speaking, you have more access to the programming you want, not less.

In the barbaric bygone days of content consumption, everyone tolerated something called "video rental." Before Netflix came along and started mailing people discs in paper sleeves (yes, that was once the entire Netflix business model), this way of consuming movies and TV involved the very real hassle of physically getting off your duff and going to a store. It also meant an even worse hassle that seems totally alien now: late fees. But in terms of content-for-money, this terrible system was vastly superior to what we have today. The viewing possibilities felt truly limitless. If your local chain video store didn’t have what you were looking for, you could hunt for it elsewhere in town, or — if it was really obscure — fork over the extra money and buy it, even if that meant importing a disc from another country.

That feeling of boundless possibility is partly why some people — mostly nostalgic film buffs — are still video store partisans. But you don't have to take on any such affectation to get the benefits of the pre-streaming lifestyle (and none of the drawbacks) thanks to this one weird trick: just watch TV and movies à la carte. À la carte video rental is admittedly a form of streaming, but without the subscription. And it couldn't be easier to get started: You can just Google the exact movie or TV show you want to watch, find a site that lets you rent or "buy" that piece of content for viewing on your preferred device or smart TV, and enjoy your truly personalized entertainment experience. 

Forking over these small amounts can feel like a splurge or even a defeat if you already pay the standard American $75 per month to access "unlimited" streaming content on a bunch of streaming services, but if you cut ties with those monthly fees, you'll instantly have a nice à la carte budget. Most movies will set you back somewhere between $2 and $5 (fresh-from-theaters new releases like Blink Twice can set you back $19.99, but that sort of extravagance isn't really part of the à la carte equation), and watching a single TV show episode can look like a $0.99 rental or a rather steep $2.99 "purchase" with no option to rent.

And à la carte is, in fact, essentially the only way to watch some of those favorites I mentioned earlier, like Westworld and An American Pickle. The freedom of being a streaming service cord cutter, then, means you're in a charmed position in which you can just not sweat the shrinking archives at the streaming services at all.

Not relying on streaming services changes how you watch, but only a little Tweet may have been deleted

Canceling your streaming services and getting yourself used to à la carte streaming are just two steps on the path to maximizing your entertainment dollar. While you're at it, an antenna and a blu-ray/DVD player are good investments that will pay for themselves in a hurry. What's more, your local library has discs you can bring home for free, and if you're honest with yourself, you probably have some movies and box sets collecting dust around the house that you could watch instead of chasing a new shiny object on one of the streamers. 

Now that you're free, you can make a bucket list of every movie and TV show you've ever hoped to watch, and just work your way through it.

As for me, I've started thinking about TV somewhat differently, but I don't feel nearly as cut off as one might think. I subscribed to Max recently so I could watch Curb Your Enthusiasm's final season, and while I had that subscription, I scratched a couple movies from the Max archive off my watchlist before canceling. When White Lotus season 3 comes out, this cycle will begin again.

Sports were a problem when I had streaming services, and it's certainly still a problem now that I don't, but I have an antenna for in-market games, and I watch baseball in bars — where other fans are — instead of at home.

But the best way to summarize my new TV outlook is my attitude toward the Star Wars franchise. I've completely avoided all the Star Wars shows, and I have no regrets, but I'm considering watching Andor. I might, and I might not. As a streaming cord cutter, I still enjoy taking risks on new streaming shows from time to time like White Lotus and The Curse, but I mostly prefer bucket list classics, or shows where I'm more or less guaranteed to get what I want, like Law & Order: Organized Crime (available for free with my trusty antenna). In short, I rarely involve myself in shows with those deliciously intriguing opening episodes, which might turn out to be genius, but let's face it, usually turn out to be the TV equivalent of low-effort clickbait.

So if the second and final season of Andor jumps the shark, I'll have dodged a bullet. If it gets the same rapturous response as the first season, then I'll know it's a good bet. I'll subscribe to ad-free Disney+ for exactly one month, and I'll watch the whole thing at my own pace. 

Jimmy Kimmel and his wife Molly McNearney have hit back at Trump after he called Kimmel "one of the dumbest human beings ever."

Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky has uninstalled its popular antivirus software from U.S. users' computers, automatically replacing it with a completely different program from completely different company UltraAV. Kaspersky customers are not happy.

Rolled out in an update on Sept. 19, Kaspersky's unilateral swapping of users to UltraAV quickly garnered many confused and upset reactions online. Numerous people took to social media to complain about UltraAV being automatically installed on their computer without their consent, as well as express dissatisfaction at how the transition was handled. Some even voiced suspicion regarding the unfamiliar antivirus software, speculating that it was malware and demanding to know how to uninstall it.

SEE ALSO: FCC flags Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky as risk to national security

Yet despite customers' complaints, Kaspersky's handoff to UltraAV didn't come entirely out of the blue. 

Kaspersky had already announced plans to pull out of the U.S. earlier this year after the Russian cybersecurity company was banned from continuing to operate in the country. As such, Kaspersky informed U.S. customers at the beginning of the month that while they would still receive cybersecurity protection under their paid subscription, these services would now be provided by its U.S.-based partner UltraAV. 

"In the coming days, you will be receiving communications from UltraAV with instructions on how to activate your new account," wrote Kaspersky in messages that began rolling out on Sept. 5. "We're confident that you'll enjoy the enhanced protection and features UltraAV offers."

Unfortunately, at least some customers claim they never received this notification or weren't provided with the promised follow-up instructions.  

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Responding to the uproar on Saturday, Kaspersky and UltraAV issued a joint statement explaining that their aim had been to make the transition "as seamless as possible."

"Kaspersky and UltraAV worked closely to ensure customers would maintain the standards of security and privacy users have come to expect from their service," read the statement. "This update ensured that users would not experience a gap in protection upon Kaspersky’s exit from the market."

Even so, UltraAV isn't a perfect one-to-one substitute for Kaspersky. UltraAV does have a few added features that Kaspersky didn't offer, such as notifying you when your social security number is used, monitoring "high-risk transactions" such as password resets, and up to $1 million in identity theft insurance. However, unlike Kaspersky, UltraAV does not provide webcam or online payment protection, features many customers will no doubt miss.

Credit: UltraAV Why is Kaspersky uninstalling antivirus software from U.S. computers?

Kaspersky is being forced to exit the U.S. market after the government banned it from providing its services to anyone within the country, citing national security concerns about the Russian cybersecurity giant. Though announced in June, the ban is set to take effect from Sept. 29 to allow customers time to find alternative antivirus solutions. 

In a press release at the time, the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) claimed that Kaspersky posed a risk to national security "due to the Russian Government’s offensive cyber capabilities and capacity to influence or direct Kaspersky’s operations."

"[This risk] could not be addressed through mitigation measures short of a total prohibition," the BIS wrote.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission had previously labelled Kaspersky an "unacceptable risk to national security" in 2022, while federal agencies were banned from using its antivirus software in 2017.

Kaspersky has consistently argued that its U.S. ban is unconstitutional and politically motivated, claiming that there is no evidence it is a national security threat. Nonetheless, it began winding down its U.S. operations on July 20, including dismissing employees based in America.

"To respond to the U.S. authorities’ concerns, the company has proposed a comprehensive assessment framework providing for the verification of its solutions, database updates, [and] threat detection rules by an independent trusted reviewer," Kaspersky wrote in a July statement regarding the ban.

"Therefore, Kaspersky maintains that the U.S. Department of Commerce decision was based on the geopolitical climate rather than on the evaluation of the integrity of the company’s solutions and deprives U.S. users and companies of best in class protection."

Kaspersky's arguments are similar to those TikTok has mounted in the face of its own U.S. ban. The U.S. government has also accused TikTok of posing a threat to national security, claiming that the popular video sharing app is controlled by a "foreign adversary" due to its Chinese parent company ByteDance. TikTok is currently fighting its high-profile ban in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, where it's no doubt hoping for a better outcome than Kaspersky.