Yesterday afternoon, Donald Trump Jr. posted a graphic video to X (formerly Twitter) that purported to show Hamas fighters murdering Israeli citizens during the attack last Saturday morning. “You don’t negotiate with this,” Trump Jr. wrote. “There’s only one way to handle this.” The son of former US president Donald …
Read More »The EU’s Threats to Elon Musk Are Empty, Sources Say
On Tuesday, Europe’s top tech regulator called out X owner Elon Musk for losing control of his own platform. "Following the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel, we have indications that your platform is being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU,” Thierry Breton said …
Read More »A Doctored Biden Video Is a Test Case for Facebook’s Deepfake Policies
In May, A manipulated video of President Joe Biden appeared on Facebook. The original footage showed Biden during the 2022 midterm elections, placing an “I voted” sticker on his granddaughter’s chest and kissing her on the cheek. The doctored version looped the footage to make it appear like he was …
Read More »Elon Musk Is Shitposting His Way Through the Israel-Hamas War
yesterday night, what’s left of the Trust and Safety team at X (formerly Twitter) announced the measures it was taking to try and curb the virulent spread of disinformation around the Israel-Hamas war on its platform. The statement, issued three days after the conflict began, reads: “As the events continue …
Read More »Google’s AI Is Making Traffic Lights More Efficient and Less Annoying
Each time a driver in Seattle meets a red light, they wait about 20 seconds on average before it turns green again, according to vehicle and smartphone data collected by analytics company Inrix. The delays cause annoyance and expel in Seattle alone an estimated 1,000 metric tons or more of …
Read More »Deepfake Audio Is a Political Nightmare
As members of the UK’s largest opposition party gathered in Liverpool for their party conference—probably their last before the UK holds a general election—a potentially explosive audio file started circulating on X, formerly known as Twitter. The 25-second recording was posted by an X account with the handle “@Leo_Hutz” that …
Read More »New York’s Airbnb Ban Is Descending Into Pure Chaos
As few as 2 percent of New York City’s previous 22,000 short-term rentals on Airbnb have been registered with the city since a new law banning most listings came into effect in early September. But many illegal short-term rental listings are now being advertised on social media and lesser known …
Read More »Inside FTX’s All-Night Race to Stop a $1 Billion Crypto Heist
By the evening of November 11 of last year, FTX’s staff had already endured one of the worst days in the company’s short life. What had recently been one of the world's top cryptocurrency exchanges, valued at $32 billion only 10 months earlier, had just declared bankruptcy. Executives had, after …
Read More »The Israel-Hamas War Is Drowning X in Disinformation
In the wake of Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel this weekend—and the Israeli military’s response—journalists, researchers, open source intelligence (OSINT) experts, and fact-checkers rushed to verify the deluge of raw video footage and images being shared online by people on the ground. But users of X (formerly Twitter) seeking information …
Read More »Graphcore Was the UK's AI Champion—Now It’s Scrambling to Survive
Last month, the UK government announced the home for its new exascale supercomputer, designed to give the country an edge in the global artificial intelligence race. The £900 million ($1.1 billion) project would be built in Bristol, a city in the west of England famed for its industrial heritage, and …
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