Amelia Dimoldenberg says publicists ignored her interview show for years but she can now be picky over A-list guests

Just a decade ago, Amelia Dimoldenberg found it impossible to drum up any mainstream celebrities to come on her mock date YouTube show, in which she chats awkwardly with guests over chicken and chips.

Even persuading a local actor connected with her London youth club to come on took years of prodding. Managers of A-listers with movies or albums to push instead battled to claim a spot on the hallowed cushions of the primetime TV chatshow sofa.

From cover design to shelf placement and influencer partnerships … how publishers will persuade you to buy their books this autumn

Think about the last book you bought. How did you choose it? Was it from a recommendation, a review, a TikTok video? Did the cover grab you, were you swayed by the quotes on the front, or did you just happen to spot it on an appealing table as you walked into the shop? Did you think about all the nudges that led you to that decision – by the publisher, the bookseller or that person you follow on Insta?

The reality is that our reading choices are directed and massaged at every turn. “It’s all about the art of persuasion,” says Philip Gwyn Jones, who was a publisher for more than 30 years and is now a literary agent. And who are the persuaders? They’re the booksellers, the supermarket stock buyers, the publishing houses and their ranks of marketers and publicists. And, more recently, persuasion often comes from BookTokers and online influencers, social media videos, podcasts and Instagram posts. How is all this changing publishing?

Social media trend feeds on footage shot from cars racing down busy roads, with potentially lethal consequences

The hashtags tell the story of the potentially lethal social media subculture where young men film themselves hurtling at illegal speeds down busy roads: #speedhunters, #needforspeed, #racing.

The fast-driving internet trend on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube is fed by footage shot from a driver’s perspective of cars going “#fullsend” – the jargon for roaring down dual carriageways – and “#gapping” or “#swimming”, as in weaving dangerously through packed traffic. The posts attract thousands, sometimes millions of views and have been described by Andy Burnham on Monday as “truly reprehensible”.

Content creators are fighting proposal to boost traditional broadcasters in video platforms’ all-powerful algorithms

The millions who subscribe to the content creator Simon Squibb’s social media channels are usually delivered tips and hacks on how to turn their dream business idea into reality. But they were recently presented with something completely different.

In an Instagram post entitled “the government wants to control YOU”, Squibb issued an urgent call to arms. He asked his followers to fight against a proposal that he said could force content from the BBC and other traditional broadcasters into their social media feeds and recommendations whether they liked it or not.

Jimi Famurewa, restaurant critic and food journalist, travels to Edinburgh, London and Manchester eating at the female-fronted cafes and bistros reviving regional comfort food favourites, passed down through generations. Starting with soda bread and a fry-up cooked by Irish-born owner Claire Hanrahan at her bistro Norah, named after her late grandmother. Onwards to Bara, where Cecily Dalladay and Zoë Heimann are celebrating the Welsh ingredients they grew up with and feed Jimi a hearty Caerphilly cheesesteak. Finally he visits Auntie Lou’s, where Emily Witts recreates her grandmother’s recipe for scones with apricot jam and cheese.

Trotz Verbots versammeln sich am Wochenende einige Tausend Menschen am früheren Wohnort des Youtubers. Die Polizei spricht von einer „aggressiven Grundstimmung“, Gewalt und Festnahmen.

Brandon Relph, who founded first company at 13, joins strategy team in ‘much-needed step’ for the broadcaster

A 26-year-old business prodigy and self-styled gen Z whisperer has been drafted in by the BBC as it battles to reach young audiences increasingly choosing content creators on YouTube and TikTok over traditional broadcasters.

Brandon Relph, who founded his first company aged 13, and has been praised by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, has joined the BBC’s strategy team to help counter the existential threat of falling audiences among young people.

Restaurant critic and award-winning author Jimi Famurewa meets broth obsessives in unlikely parts of Britain who fell in with the ancient ramen tradition - and found a hungry audience for their new noodle bowls.

Shouldn’t the health secretary have his hands full with the cyclosporiasis outbreak, measles or rabbit fever? Not when there are crispy salmon cakes to prepare …

The US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has got his work cut out for him. A cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce has the entire country playing salad roulette: one bad leaf and you could become very unwell. The condition isn’t normally deadly, but, on Monday, officials in Michigan confirmed the first two fatalities. Meanwhile, it’s the worst year for measles in the US since 1991. A disease that was once eliminated now looks as though it’s back with a vengeance – thanks in part, according to experts, to anti-vaxxers such as Kennedy himself. And this week New York officials are warning about a rare tick-borne illness called rabbit fever (tularemia).

Still, despite having rather a lot on his plate, Kennedy has found the time to front a new cooking show, hosted on YouTube. It’s called The Real Food Show and it’s supposed to help Americans prepare healthy, affordable meals at home. The first episode features the chef and TV personality Andrew Gruel (perfect name) teaching the US to prepare crispy salmon cakes with … salad. Which is certainly a bold way to kick things off.

Judge orders removal of all Wolfoo videos from online platforms after finding ‘prolific’ copyright infringement

The corporate owners of Peppa Pig have won a copyright battle against the copycat animation Wolfoo after a judge ruled the latter had illegally used audio from the famous cartoon pig.

The US-headquartered entertainment company Hasbro, which owns the rights to Peppa Pig, sued SConnect – the Vietnamese makers of Wolfoo – for copyright infringement regarding videos which used short audio clips of Peppa and her family saying words such as “Hooray!”

Former City trader’s weekly Gary’s Economics videos took off during the Covid pandemic

The City trader turned wealth tax campaigner Gary Stevenson has announced he is quitting the YouTube channel that made his name, citing health concerns.

His announcement, in a 48-minute address to camera, came after a mixed reaction to a televised documentary that brought him to a wider audience but drew some scepticism from left-leaning tax experts as well as more rightwing critics.

Streaming pioneer that transformed TV faces slowing growth and battle for viewers’ attention from YouTube

When Netflix offered viewers the chance to binge on an entire season of House of Cards it revolutionised the TV industry and started on a path to becoming the world’s most popular streaming service.

Almost 15 years on, however, the upstart’s strategy of pumping its service with an avalanche of content and an almost-as-rapid penchant for mercilessly cancelling shows has viewers reaching for the remote.

Pre-Covid, the movie landscape was dramatically different: YouTubers weren’t dominating the box office, video game spin-offs rarely made an impact and Winnie-the-Pooh wasn’t yet the star of a slasher movie. Why such a flurry of innovation – and what will be next?

Cinema has always been a medium of research and development. At any given point, the industry is searching for yet another breakthrough that can drive it into the future. Synchronised sound in the 1920s. Technicolor in the 1930s. The invention of the modern blockbuster in the 1970s.

Conversely, the consensus is that, if the 2020s has a defining trend, then it is one of decline. The theatrical experience is under attack from all angles: streaming, YouTube, a once-in-a-century health crisis that shut cinemas down entirely. And yet, if you look closer, this has actually been one of the most innovative decades that cinema has ever seen. Whether down to technology or desperation, the film industry has spent these last few years figuring out new ways to make films that simply could not have existed even at the turn of the decade.

From playing would you rather to ranking snacks, A-listers navigating the promo trail are now forced on a set schedule of silliness

This summer, we’ve been blessed with new movies from the legendary director Steven Spielberg and one of his biggest and most beloved successors, Christopher Nolan. In both cases, the movies have been heavily sold on the directors’ names, and, befitting two of the most famous film-makers to ever do it, Spielberg and Nolan have been making the press rounds. This has meant a wealth of interviews and insights – a bonus feature unfolding alongside the selling of the actual movies that will delight movie nerds the world over.

So at first, when I saw a 60-second video of Christopher Nolan answering a barrage of yes-or-no questions come across my social-media feed, of course I stopped and watched as a famously buttoned-up (if obviously still passionate) film-maker attempted some spontaneity with no danger of follow-up questions (or obligation to follow-up answers). From this, there is admittedly plenty of information to be gleaned: he has no designs on retiring, Tarantino-style. He will not make another superhero movie or a TV show. He’s fine with people watching movies on their phones or laptops. He will neither confirm nor deny that Interstellar is his favorite of his films. He will also neither confirm nor deny that he would like to make a Star Wars movie. (Perhaps the most intriguing, given that you’d rather expect that to be a firm “no”.)

Der börsennotierte Verlag hat lange gut verdient an romantischen Büchern für junge Frauen. Aber jetzt sinken die Umsätze. Wachstum soll auch eine neue Variante Hörbücher bringen.

Die Nutzung sozialer Medien und anderer digitaler Dienste sollte bis zu dieser Altersgrenze nur unter Aufsicht der Eltern oder in einem pädagogischen Kontext erfolgen, heißt es in einem in Brüssel vorgestellten Bericht.

When Mark Lanier and his young client Kaley faced the tech giants in an LA courtroom earlier this year, it seemed a bigger battle than David v Goliath. But they scored a landmark victory, proving that the social media giants had created ‘addiction machines’ that harmed mental health. How did they pull it off?

When Mark Zuckerberg walked into a Los Angeles courtroom on 18 February flanked by an entourage bedecked in Meta Ray-Bans, some people laughed. If this was an attempt at product placement for the company’s newest range of smart glasses, it was jarringly ill-judged: Zuckerberg was about to testify before a jury in a landmark lawsuit that sought to prove that Instagram and YouTube are addictive by design, and he had passed a throng of bereaved parents on his way into the courthouse. But the prosecution team, led by Mark Lanier, were not laughing.

This was a serious trial. For the first time, the most powerful names in social media were being held to account for the inherent design of their platforms, rather than the content hosted on them. They were accused of deliberately and maliciously building products that keep children hooked, with disastrous consequences for the mental wellbeing of young people. It was a landmark case – a big tobacco moment for big tech.

Last week, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, announced a sweeping ban on under-16s that would stop them accessing social media apps including Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X and Facebook by 2027.

The move has been nicknamed an ‘Australia plus’ ban, after Australia became the first country to introduce a nation-wide ban on children accessing these apps at the end of last year.

But how is it actually going over there? Political correspondent Aletha Adu teamed up with Guardian Australia social media host and reporter Matilda Boseley to find out

Charlotte Ritchie presents a wildly ambitious and unapologetically brainy YouTube documentary that takes in Big Bang soundwaves, singing dolphins and an astonishing amount in between. Don’t miss it for the world

One of the big things to have come out of David Attenborough’s 100th birthday celebrations this year was the scale of ambition he had during his tenure behind camera. It was Attenborough who commissioned Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation and Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man, two vast documentary series that became defining texts on the history of art and science.

The consensus seemed to be that this sort of thing – huge, cerebral, expensive – would simply not get made today, unless it was dumbed down and cut-price and rebranded as Amanda Holden’s Top 10 Renaissance Willies. So it comes as something of a surprise to learn that the Cosmic Shambles Network’s new documentary series, For the Record: An Incomplete History of Music, takes its title as seriously as it does.