Writers will be able to submit scripts to the BBC online for the first time following the launch of BBC Writersroom's e-submission system. The BBC worked with digital design company MagnerticNorth to create the system, which will drastically cut handling time for staff who were previously dealing with up to 10,000 script submissions a year manually.

The campaign group Europe v Facebook has decried a decision by the Luxembourg data protection commissioner, which found that Microsoft and its Skype subsidiary have not broken EU privacy law by sending Europeans' data back to the U.S. The National Commission for Data Protection said on Monday that the data transfer was legal under the Safe Harbor agreement, through which U.S. companies can self-certify to say they abide by EU-strength privacy standards, even though their country does not.

A senior United Nations official responsible for freedom of expression has warned that the British government's response to the mass surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden is doing serious damage to the UK's international reputation for investigative journalism and press freedom. Frank La Rue, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, said he was alarmed at the political reaction following the revelations about the extent and reach of secret surveillance programmes.

The move comes after The Sun website went behind a paywall on 1 August, limiting the extent to which stories can be shared on social media. According to a job ad placed by News UK, The Sun wants to use its digital team for: The acquisition of digital subscribers, the creation of a Sun community on social networks, newsgathering, attaining the best scale and reach as befits our print power, and the successful implementation of The Sun social media strategy.

Over half of British adults now own a personal video recorder (PVR) such as Sky+, YouView or V+ as time shifted viewing is moving towards "the default behaviour" for viewers, according to research released by Kantar Media. The Future Proof study, which focused on over 2,000 UK adults over the age of 16 was conducted in August and discovered that 53 per cent of British adults owned a PVR at home.

The companies will work together to help small businesses in the UK better promote themselves and engage with existing and new customers. O2 will provide educational content from Twitter, specific to the small business audience, with marketing tips and best practice advice. Eligible UK businesses will also receive a share of GBP1m free advertising credit on Twitter's new self-service advertising platform.

Vice Media, the multimedia content company that recently sold a stake to Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox, suffered an 89% slump in profits for its UK business in 2012 after reinvesting for growth. Across its European business as a whole, including the UK, the provider of music, fashion and quixotic journalism from international troublespots also reported a pre-tax profit decline year on year in 2012, while revenue was up.

One built its reputation by exposing fashion faux pas, the other by listing pictures of strangely-behaving pets. But two youth-oriented media brands, Vice and BuzzFeed, are fast becoming challengers to the traditional news industry.

Global advertising expenditures have seen robust growth in the first half of 2013, compared to a year ago. Despite the continued effects of the European economic crisis and a 6% decrease in spend there, Latin America saw an impressive upswing at 13.1%. Europe wasn't a total loss, as marketers in Norway, Switzerland and Greece increased their budgets.

Viacom's Viacom International Media Networks unit and Twitter have reached an agreement with cosmetics company Cosnova that they said will make it the first firm to launch a social video advertising campaign via the tech firm's Twitter Amplify platform on a pan-European basis.