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GENERAL ENGLISH · BREAKING NEWS · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

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1 Warm up
Discuss the questions in pairs or small groups.

1. Do you use TikTok? Why/why not?

2. Why do you think TikTok has become so popular in recent years?
3. Are you worried about companies spying on you through your phone or other devices?
4. Do you think TikTok is less safe than other social media apps, such as Facebook, WhatsApp and
Instagram?
5. What will the next popular social media app look like? Will it be video-based, like TikTok?

2 Listening for specific information

Listen to the report. Match the numbers mentioned with the things they relate to.

150 1 billion 2017 2018 2020

a. the number of countries in which TikTok is available

b. the number of TikTok users

c. when TikTok was launched internationally

d. when the US government announced that it was considering banning TikTok

e. when Facebook’s founder was called before US Congress

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3 Listening for comprehension

Listen to the report again. Answer the questions true, false or not given.

1. Over time, TikTok has become less popular.

2. More than one country has said it is concerned about TikTok’s ownership.

3. Donald Trump successfully banned the app in the US.

4. The app has been completely banned in Indonesia and Bangladesh.

5. Several spy balloons were shot down by the American military.

6. TikTok has been banned in government networks in the US, the EU and Canada.

7. Two-thirds of 18-25 year olds support a ban of Chinese social media apps.

8. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has accused TikTok of tracking users’ online behaviour.

4 Reading: general vocabulary

Part A: Match the words in bold with the correct definitions.

Group 1

1. The mobile phone signal for my network is patchy in this area. I’m thinking of changing to a
different network. (adj.)

2. Maybe one day we will be able to converse with animals using technology. (v)

3. When I get home, my dog begins to eagerly jump up at me. He knows it’s time for his evening
meal. (adv.)

4. We carefully concealed the broken mug behind the plates in the back of the cupboard, so that our
parents wouldn’t discover it. (v)

5. The criminal was allowed to walk out of prison two years early thanks to a loophole in the law. (n)

6. It rained so hard that it became futile to try to keep dry, even with an umbrella. (adj.)

a. hide somebody/something

b. in a way that shows great interest and excitement about something that is going to happen or
something that you want to do

c. having no purpose because there is no chance of success

d. a mistake in the way a law, contract, etc. has been written that enables people to legally avoid
doing something that the law, contract, etc. had intended them to do

e. existing or happening in some places and not others

f. (formal) have a conversation with somebody

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Group 2

1. Our farm was overrun with mice until we bought a cat. (v)

2. We found the culprit trying to break open our bin last night. It turned out to be a fox! (n)

3. My wife and I changed our plans for the day accordingly when it began to snow. (adv.)

4. I find cameras outside public bathrooms to be very obtrusive. (adj.)

5. Twenty years ago, internet cafes were abundant in my town. The last one closed down a few
weeks ago. (adj.)

6. The house is certainly large, albeit a little smaller than our previous home. (conj.)

a. fill or spread over an area quickly, especially in large numbers

b. although

c. a person or thing responsible for causing a problem or breaking a law

d. easy to notice in an unpleasant way

e. existing in large quantities; more than enough

f. in a way that is appropriate to what has been done or said in a particular situation

Part B: Complete the short text below with the words and phrases from the above exercise. You may
need to change the form of the word or phrase.

Our shop closed down yesterday. We sold computers and accessories, but these days, traditional
1 2
computers are hardly . Mobile phones and tablets are the . They have
become far more popular than computers, it seems! Personally, I find using a phone to connect to the
3 4
Internet a little . I don’t like the way that people with friends, family or
even their boss on the bus or the train. I still remember the first year we opened, when crowds would
5
queue for hours outside the shop if a new computer was due to be released.
6 7
We did try to change our stock , and added a few mobile phones and tablets,
older models, but we couldn’t compete with the big department stores, or the mobile phone shops that
8 9
have our little town. In the end, we decided that it was to continue.
10
My partner and I own the shop together, and, thanks to a in the local law, we are
going to be able to sell the building back to the original owner at a profit. It was a bit upsetting to lock
the doors for the final time, though!

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Part C: Discuss these questions in pairs.

1. Is the network signal for your mobile phone patchy where you live?
2. Are there any types of shops that you would describe as abundant in your town or city?
3. Why do you think that some people eagerly queue outside a new shop or restaurant when it is
about to open for the first time?
4. Have you ever concealed your identity online? If so, why?
5. Would you rather converse with friends through text messages or over the phone?
6. Do you find video cameras in streets obtrusive? Why/why not?
7. Is it futile to try and keep some parts of your life private if you use social media?

5 Pre-reading task: reading for general understanding

Part A: You are going to read a text about the evolution of the Internet and the resulting privacy
concerns. Scan the text quickly and match each paragraph with the correct heading. Two of the
headings cannot be matched to any of the paragraphs in the text and should be marked ‘Not given’.

capitalism (n): an economic system in which a country’s businesses and industry are controlled
and run for profit by private owners rather than the government

1. Freedom leads to regulation

2. A darker side emerges

3. The move from computer to smartphone

4. A free market for marketing

5. The dawn of a digital world

6. The rise of online advertising

Part B: Look at the following sentences. In pairs, discuss the meaning of the underlined phrases, then
write your own sentences using the expressions.

1. If artificial intelligence became dangerous, would we be able to pull the plug in time?
2. Many experts agree that if aliens ever visited us, our world would change in the blink of an eye.

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The great data breach

Is it time to reset the internet?

A. The Internet hasn’t been with us for long. The official birthday of the web is often considered to be January 1st,
1983, but it took another ten years before it was made available to the wider public. Broadband would take a
further decade to begin to appear, and coverage remains patchy in some parts of the world. To an immortal being,
the digital age might have taken place in the blink of an eye – one moment we were living analogue lives, the
next we were connecting with each other through modems and smartphones. As a species, we are lagging behind
the evolution of our own inventions. The Internet was conceived as a way to share ideas freely: to communicate
without borders, to access the entirety of human knowledge from behind a keyboard. In 2023, that dream seems
distant, crushed by commercial interests. The Internet is still free – but not for us.

B. In the early days of the web, forums were abundant. Users would eagerly sign up to share opinions, advice and
knowledge. The first search engines would helpfully rank websites based, primarily, on usefulness. Chatrooms,
preceding social networks, served as a way to meet and converse with potential friends from all over the world.
There was, of course, a darker side to this largely anonymous online world. Users were often concealed by tiny
avatars that showed a pixel image rather than a photograph. A teenager may well have been talking to a grown
man from another country, rather than somebody their own age, and forums could quickly become overrun by
trolls without appropriate moderation.

C. "Anything goes" seemed to be the motto in the first few years of the Internet. Websites such as Wikipedia popped
up; ambitious projects that aimed to provide everyone with free access to the human story. Media files were
shared around the world, albeit rather slowly, raising concerns of copyright theft and catching the attention of
governments. Legislation began to creep in, but it was generally too little, too late, with attempts to ban piracy
appearing feeble as we became aware of the true scope of the worldwide web. Corporations watched these early
attempts at regulation closely – and then developed their marketing strategies accordingly. From pop-up adverts
to spam emails, advertising had arrived on the internet.

D. The first online marketing campaigns were crude and easy to ignore. Ad-blocking software was developed that
filtered out the most obtrusive attempts to sell us products we weren’t interested in. Web advertising was
following a similar pattern to real-life efforts; from billboards to television commercials. With the first social
networks, a shift started to take place. These websites were vast, virtual meeting-points, free to use and soon
home to all of your friends, family and neighbours. If you weren’t on Facebook, you were missing out. Once
everyone had signed up, the next phase began. Users noticed that, if they searched for something on Google,
they would see adverts show up on their Facebook newsfeed, in between holiday photos and wedding albums.
We had, unwittingly or otherwise, given these web corporations our most valuable asset: our data.

E. In recent times, concerns over data protection have become somewhat futile. If you’ve ever posted something
online, signed up for a newsletter, ordered a product or created a social media profile, you have already surrendered
your privacy. Your personal information has been passed around or sold to a growing number of companies, many
of whom have discovered a loophole in the law. Some rules created to protect creatives from piracy have, instead,
been appropriated by marketing groups or smartphone apps. TikTok, for example, collects a huge quantity of data
from users – but the Chinese-owned application is far from the only culprit. Our beautiful idea of a digital space
in which freedom reigns supreme has been hijacked by the free market, for better or for worse. Perhaps this was
the inevitable destination for the Internet; a tool for humanity becoming a tool for capitalism. Maybe it’s time to
pull the plug and try again, building on the lessons we have learnt in the brief history of the web.

Sources: BBC, The Guardian, New York Times

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6 Reading comprehension

Read the article again. Complete the sentences with between ONE to THREE words from the article.

1. The Internet has only for a few decades.

2. The original purpose of the Internet was to be able to everything we know from
behind a keyboard.

3. Early search engines were helpful tools that would rank pages usefulness.

4. Small that displayed a pixel image were used to hide somebody’s identity online.

5. Some of the first websites to pop up were projects like Wikipedia.

6. The first to regulate the web focused on file sharing, which had raised concerns
of copyright theft.

7. Ad-blocking managed to effectively filter out many early adverts.

8. Facebook users began to notice that things they had on Google, would appear
on their newsfeeds.

9. Over time, concerns have become rather pointless.

10. The Internet may have begun as a of a free digital space, but it has become another
tool for capitalism.

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7 Post-reading: internet and computer vocabulary

Part A: Using the text above for reference, complete the definitions of the internet and computer
vocabulary items below by filling in the gaps with the correct words from the list.

changing checking deliberately email

illegal interest quickly screen

1. broadband: a way of connecting to the internet that allows you to receive information very
and that is always active

2. moderation: the process of content that is added to a website and removing any
material that is offensive

3. analogue: using a continuously range of physical quantities to measure or store

data

4. pixel: any of the small individual areas on a computer , which together form the
whole image

5. troll: a person who sends messages online in order to make other people angry

6. spam: advertising material sent by or online to people who have not asked for it

7. newsfeed: a service that provides regular news or items of aimed at an individual

8. piracy: the act of making copies of DVDs, computer programs, media, etc. in order
to sell or share them online

Part B: Complete the sentences with the correct vocabulary items from Part A. You may need to
change the form of the word.

1. Several sent me nasty messages after I uploaded a video of my new song.

2. We received a letter from our internet provider accusing us of . Apparently, my

son had downloaded a film illegally.

3. I wish I could block all emails before they arrive, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem
possible.

4. My is full of photos from other people’s holidays.

5. Now that we have a connection, we can watch shows online without any problems.

6. Without , our website might end up like Twitter.

7. I’d rather have an clock than a digital one.

8. My phone camera is so bad that you can see the individual without enlarging the
photos.

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8 Post-reading: finding similar words

In the text on page five, find a word or phrasal verb that means something similar to the word or
phrase below.

1. undying (adj., para. A)

2. moving more slowly than someone (phr. v, para. A)

3. invented (v, para. A)

4. begin to happen (phr. v, para. C)

5. weak (adj., para. C)

6. range (n, para. C)

7. basic (adj., para. D)

8. unchallenged (adj., para. E)

9. unavoidable (adj., para. E)

9 Talking Point

In pairs or small groups, discuss the following questions.

1. Should governments be able to ban individual phone apps or websites for the whole country?
Why/why not?
2. Are there any apps on your phone you would find it difficult to live without?
3. Would you ever support TikTok or another app being banned? Why/why not?
4. Are people who use TikTok regularly likely to develop problems, such as addiction?
5. Since the pandemic started, have you spent more or less time using social media apps on your
phone?
6. Can you think of some positive things about using TikTok?

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10 Extended activity/writing homework

Write an opinion essay on ONE of the topics below. Your essay should agree with or disagree with
the statement, and should be between 260 – 320 words.

1. Governments shouldn’t have the power to ban apps or websites.

2. The Internet has become too commercialised. We should reset it and try again, with more
regulation.

Alternative extended activity:

In groups, design a new social media app. Your app could follow on from TikTok, Instagram and
Facebook, or you may wish to think of something completely different. Your group should think of a
name for the app, a target market, how it will work, etc. Consider the way in which users will interact
with the app. Will it be more focused on reading, listening or watching videos? Will people be able
to make friends with strangers through the app, or is it going to be aimed at people who know each
other already? Present your app to the class, explaining why you think it will be the next big thing.

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