On Monday, X filed a lawsuit against Media Matters for America (MMFA), a nonprofit, alleging that a recent report showing big name advertisers appearing next to antisemitic content on X was an attempt to “destroy” the company by encouraging advertisers to pull their money. Shortly after, Texas Attorney General Ken …
Read More »Elon Musk May Have Just Signed X’s Death Warrant
Elon Musk may have put the final nail in X’s coffin. On Wednesday, Musk appeared to endorse an antisemitic post by user @breakingbaht alleging that “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” In …
Read More »Elon Musk Announces Grok, a ‘Rebellious’ AI With Few Guardrails
Last week, Elon Musk flew to the UK to hype up the existential risk posed by artificial intelligence. A couple of days later, he announced that his latest company, xAI, had developed a powerful AI—one with fewer guardrails than the competition. The AI model, called Grok (a name that means …
Read More »Where the Hell Is X CEO Linda Yaccarino?
Linda Yaccarino has been the CEO of X since June, but you’d never know it. Elon Musk, the company’s owner, CTO, and super-user, still remains the gravitational force at its center. In an all-hands meeting last week, the transcript of which was published by The Verge, Musk said almost twice …
Read More »Elon Musk Has Owned Twitter for a Year. And What a Year It’s Been
Twitter may be officially called X now, but that rebranding is just one of the many changes that have hit the platform since Elon Musk took over. It's been one whole year since the mercurial billionaire purchased Twitter, and in that time the social platform has undergone big shifts in …
Read More »The New Era of Social Media Looks as Bad for Privacy as the Last One
When Elon Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, experts warned that his proposed changes—including less content moderation and a subscription-based verification system—would lead to an exodus of users and advertisers. A year later, those predictions have largely borne out. Advertising revenue on the platform has declined 55 percent since …
Read More »X Banned the Account of a Major Critic. Now He’s Taking It to Court
X has banned the account of a prominent critic after he published data that he claims exposed the site’s embrace of the far-right after Elon Musk’s takeover last year. Travis Brown, a software developer based in Berlin, alleges his account was first suspended on July 1 this year, several months …
Read More »Maine Mass Shooting Disinformation Floods Social Media as Suspect Remains at Large
Following a mass shooting at a bowling alley and restaurant in Lewiston, Maine, yesterday evening that left at least 18 people dead, state police urgently warned residents to “stay inside your home with the doors locked” as they mounted a manhunt for the suspect. Misinformation about the suspect flooded social …
Read More »Elon Musk Mocked Ukraine, and Russian Trolls Went Wild
Since Elon Musk spent $44 billion on Twitter (now X) last year, the billionaire has been determined to wipe out bots and spammy accounts. Things haven’t gone smoothly. Amid the chaos, in recent weeks Russian trolls have jumped on one of Musk’s own posts and used it to push pro-Kremlin …
Read More »Misinformation Is Soaring Online. Don’t Fall for It
Misinformation lives everywhere. False accounts of events, doctored photos, and purposely misleading news stories are quickly shared and passed around on social media, usually by well-meaning people who don’t know they’re sharing incorrect information. It's a big problem in the best of times, but the stakes become much higher during …
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