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Facebook flagged and removed emergency wildfire information as spam
Facebook is reportedly taking down important safety information as wildfire season spreads across the western part of the country. An investigation by The Washington Post found dozens of instances of the tech giant flagging and removing posts since June, in areas that saw a total of 20 active fires. Posts often contained links or screenshots…
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Sam Altman steps down as head of OpenAIs safety group
OpenAI ‘s internal safety committee is becoming an independent oversight body, as CEO Sam Altman leaves the group’s top leadership role. The announcement came as part of the results of a 90-day evaluation by the existing Altman-chaired Safety and Security Committee into the company’s AI safeguards and governance. The committee’s new leadership includes Zico Kolter…
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A powerful new tool: A disabled advocate on Apples FDA-approved hearing aids
Apple made history this month when a feature in the company’s forthcoming AirPods Pro 2 was approved by the Food and Drug Administration as the first over-the-counter (OTC), clinical-grade hearing aid software. The Hearing Aid Feature, as Apple refers to the software, amplifies sound for adults with perceived mild to moderate hearing impairment (it also…
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X just released its first transparency report in years. Heres what they arent saying.
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…
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Elon Musks weirdest weekend, explained
In September, there were signs that Elon Musk’s attempts to elect Donald Trump — on and off the network formerly known as Twitter — were faltering. Now, after a weekend in which Musk immortalized the hashtag #DorkMAGA at a Trump rally, appropriated the @America account from its owner, and used it to literally offer money…
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I read all the community notes on Elon Musks X account. Heres what I learned.
The first thing to know about Community Notes on Elon Musk‘s tweets: there ought to be a lot more of them. Community Notes, the Twitter/X fact-checks formerly known as Birdwatch, are often touted as one of the few good things to have survived the first chaotic year of Musk’s ownership. These notes are user-generated, usually…
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Musk is gutting Xs blocking feature — why this change is dangerous
Elon Musk’s X is moving forward with his proposed changes to blocking users, a shift that allows blocked accounts to see a user’s public profile and posts but prevents them from interacting with the content. Musk, who has long made it known he doesn’t agree with the current blocking and moderation environment online, sees the…
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Judge refuses to stop Elon Musk’s million dollar election sweepstakes
The political action committee set up by X owner Elon Musk to deliver the presidency to Donald Trump will be allowed to keep awarding swing state voters millions of dollars, the Associated Press reports. Responding to a civil case brought by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, Common Pleas Court Judge Angelo Foglietta ruled on Monday…
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Xs Community Notes arent flagging election misinformation
X (Twitter)’s crowdsourced fact-checking tool is failing to accomplish the one thing its designed to do: Flag rampant misinformation. A new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate — a recent legal target of X CEO Elon Musk — found that the platform’s Community Notes feature is not successfully reaching the majority of platform…
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Google corrects Elon Musk-boosted claim that its favoring Kamala Harris
X owner and Trump supporter Elon Musk reposted a message on Election Day claiming Google is helping Harris voters find polling places, while not doing the same for Trump voters, but the search giant is doing no such thing. At about 3 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Musk reposted a conspiracy theory on X, the social…