Four of the largest tech companies -- Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and YouTube -- are coming together to stop the spread of terroristic content on social media. The plan is to create a shared database and track the digital fingerprints of accounts who share propaganda for terror networks, helping them identify the content and easily remove photo or videos from their sites.

Visa is building a regional pan-European marketing hub to mirror those it has in other markets following the acquisition of Visa Europe earlier this year. Redundancies and job transfers are understood to be taking place now, so details on which members of the Visa Europe team will be affected by the shakeup are yet to be finalised.

Staff working for BuzzFeed in London have requested recognition for the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). According to a report on the BuzzFeed site, the majority of editorial staff (in a total workforce of about 80) have signed union cards. On November 25th, the NUJ sent a letter to BuzzFeed UK's Editor in Chief, Janine Gibson, requesting union recognition for collective bargaining purposes.

The UK boasts almost a third of all tech start-up employees in Europe, ahead of France on 19pc and Germany on 18pc, according to research by venture capital firm Balderton. But tech companies, which have high levels of foreign workers, fear this could be at risk as the fall in the pound makes UK salaries less competitive and the Government curbs free movement of people.

As pressure mounts on firms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter to do more to tackle fake news, some are taking things into their own hands. Technologist Daniel Sieradski has developed a plug-in -- known as BS Detector -- that flags up "questionable" Web sites on Facebook and Twitter.

Despite widespread economic uncertainty prompted by the shock results in the U.S. presidential election and Brexit votes, advertisers are not tightening their belts, according to WPP's GroupM, which today forecast global ad spend will hit $547bn in 2017. GroupM predicts that Brexit is yet to have an impact on UK media budgets.

American Express has partnered with Channel 4 to promote small retail businesses around the country. Gok Wan, George Clarke, Anna Richardson and Ade Adepitan are featured in an ad talking about their favourite small shop, celebrating the "hidden gems" on UK high streets. It launched last night during Humans on 4 December on Channel 4. The ad will run until December 18th.

The average number of ad-serving companies working with global brands has dropped by a third, according to new research. The survey by the World Federation of Advertisers and Ebiquity found the average number of ad-serving companies such as Facebook's Atlas and Google's DoubleClick has now dropped to three compared to four-and-a-half in 2014.

The Dentsu Aegis Network shop beat off competition from MediaCom and MEC. Ikea called a review of its estimated EUR400m global media account in March with around five holding companies. In July the furniture company picked DAN and WPP's Group M to be global partners. Ikea's 30 regional markets then had to choose either a DAN or Group M shop to handle their media.

Brexit will further weaken a slowdown in UK ad spend in the coming years, Zenith has forecast, with advertising growth set to halve to 5% this year. The Publicis Groupe media agency's Advertising Expenditure Forecasts says UK ad spend will be down on 2015's 9.2%. Last year, Zenith had predicted UK growth of 9.7%.