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☆ Supreme Court to weigh GOP-backed social media ‘censorship’ laws
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-29 | by ( Lawrence Hurley | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The Supreme Court of the United States building seen in Washington D.C., United States on September 28, 2023. The states argue that they have the authority to regulate social media companies to ensure that users receive equal access to the platforms. Circuit Court of Appeals, prompting the state to appeal to the Supreme Court. "It is not at all obvious how our existing precedents, which predate the age of the internet, should apply to large social media companies," he wrote. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments and issue a ruling in its new term, which begins next week and ends in June.

Persons: WASHINGTON —, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Biden, Ashley Moody, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Elena Kagan, — David Ingram Organizations: Washington D.C, WASHINGTON, Republicans, Tech, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Computer and Communications Industry Association, U.S, Capitol, Trump, Disney, NBC News, Circuit, Supreme, Appeals, Conservative, Thomas, Liberal, Communications, Google Locations: United States, Washington, Florida, Texas, Atlanta, New Orleans

☆ Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, ranks last in climate misinformation ‘scorecard’
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-20 | by ( David Ingram | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Environmental groups slammed Elon Musk's X app, formerly known as Twitter, in a report Wednesday ranking social media platforms on their approach to climate change misinformation. Before Musk bought Twitter last year, the app said it banned advertisements that "contradict the scientific consensus on climate change." In a statement responding to the climate scorecard, YouTube said: "Our climate change policy explicitly prohibits the monetization of content that denies the existence of climate change, as well as ads that promote these claims. Debate or discussions of climate change topics, including around public policy or research, is allowed, but when content crosses the line to climate change denial, we stop showing ads on those videos. In general, our systems also don't recommend or prominently surface content that includes climate change misinformation."

Persons: Elon, it's, Musk, Erika Seiber, Pinterest, TikTok, they've Organizations: WWF International, General, Twitter, Elon, NBC News, Meta, YouTube, LinkedIn, Social, Facebook, New York Times Locations: San Francisco , California, Scotland, Patagonia, Spanish

☆ ChatGPT is powered by these contractors making $15 an hour
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( David Ingram | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Out of the limelight, Savreux and other contractors have spent countless hours in the past few years teaching OpenAI's systems to give better responses in ChatGPT. So far, AI contract work hasn't inspired a similar movement in the U.S. among the Americans quietly building AI systems word-by-word. watch nowJob postings for AI contractors refer to both the allure of working in a cutting-edge industry as well as the sometimes-grinding nature of the work. There's no definitive tally of how many contractors work for AI companies, but it's an increasingly common form of work around the world. A spokesperson for OpenAI said no one was available to answer questions about its use of AI contractors.

☆ Biden and Republican senators join forces in attack on Big Tech at Supreme Court
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( Lawrence Hurley | David Ingram | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

A person walks in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building during rainy weather, in Washington, U.S. January 17, 2023. WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and some of his most prominent Republican adversaries in Congress have become allies, of sorts, in an upcoming Supreme Court showdown between Big Tech and its critics. Biden took a shot at tech companies in his State of the Union address earlier this month, although he did not mention Section 230. "I think this is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to disentangle some of the knots that the courts themselves have woven here into the law," he said in an interview. "The rhetoric is that these are bad powerful tech companies that are harming ordinary people and causing a lot of harm and injustice," Rathi said.

☆ Sam Altman is tech’s next household name — if we survive the killer robots
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( David Ingram | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, walks from lunch during the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 6, 2022, in Sun Valley, Idaho. Sam Altman may be tech's next household name, but many Americans probably haven't heard of him. To anyone outside San Francisco, Altman would probably seem like just another young tech CEO. That worldview flared up into controversy in 2017 when Altman wrote a blog post criticizing political correctness, saying tech entrepreneurs were leaving San Francisco over it. "I realized I felt more comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Beijing than in San Francisco," he wrote.

☆ A mailman, a NASA scientist and a park ranger: Some government employees shrug off TikTok bans
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

Jean-Pierre, who’s from Morristown, New Jersey, has attracted 215,500 followers on the video app where most days he posts from his mail truck during his lunch break. As of last month, all federal workers are banned from having TikTok on their work phones. In some places, using a personal device isn’t enough to get around TikTok restrictions. There’s no telling precisely how many federal workers use TikTok, but certain hashtags show the breadth of its popularity. The public relations staff at some federal agencies said they had no plans to interfere with what federal workers did on their own.

☆ Two companies race to deploy robotaxis in San Francisco. The city wants them to hit the brakes.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco is trying to slow the expansion of robotaxis after repeated incidents in which cars without drivers stopped and idled in the middle of the street for no obvious reason, delaying bus riders and disrupting the work of firefighters. Some believe self-driving cars will never happen on a wide scale, but they’ve been gaining momentum in San Francisco. San Francisco doesn’t want robotaxis operating in the city’s downtown core, for example, or during morning and evening peak commuting times. He also provided letters in support of Cruise written by local San Francisco merchants associations, disability advocates and community groups. City officials argue that stopped robotaxis are hazards that can cause human drivers to react dangerously.

☆ TikTok tries to sell ‘Project Texas’ as it fights for survival in the U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

Some of the details appeared Thursday on the security blog Lawfare, where two people provided a rundown of what they said they heard at one TikTok briefing last week. He said his center has received funding from TikTok, but that he had no view on whether TikTok’s assurances were satisfactory. “We have shifted our approach,” Erich Andersen, the general counsel of ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, told the Times. A key partner of TikTok is the U.S. computing giant Oracle, which has its headquarters in Austin, Texas, where TikTok may choose to house the data of its U.S. users. The code name “Project Texas” became public last year.

☆ Elon Musk's Twitter faces censorship allegations in India free speech battle
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

Elon Musk is facing allegations of being complicit with state censorship after Twitter appeared to take sides with India’s government in a turbulent free speech fight over a documentary critical of the country’s prime minister. Musk’s brief answer was in contrast to the sometimes-detailed, personalized responses he has given to other people who complain to him about Twitter. Within India, Twitter said it complied 5.6% of the time. “The BBC has not asked Twitter to remove any content relating to the documentary,” the British broadcaster said in a statement. “The IT Rules are being exploited, handing authorities license to pressure platforms to censor content in ‘emergency’ cases,” he said in a Twitter thread.

☆ AI bot that lets you chat with Jesus, Hitler is latest GPT-3 controversy
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +9 min

But this week, it sparked viral controversy online over its inclusion of Hitler, his Nazi lieutenants and other dictators from the past. Historical Figures, which also uses GPT-3, launched the first week of January, and as of Wednesday, it had about 9,000 signups, app creator Sidhant Chadda said in a phone interview. “People expect these historical figures to be truthful, but in reality, people are not always 100% honest,” he said. Asking a question costs one coin, and the app charges extra to get access to high-profile historical figures. The possibility of digitally re-animating historical figures has been gaining ground ever since, from the “The Simpsons” to holograms of dead idols such as Buddy Holly and Whitney Houston.

☆ ChatGPT used by mental health tech app in AI experiment with users
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-14 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +11 min

But for a few thousand people, the mental health support they received wasn’t entirely human. About 4,000 people got responses from Koko at least partly written by AI, Koko co-founder Robert Morris said. Academics, journalists and fellow technologists accused him of acting unethically and tricking people into becoming test subjects without their knowledge or consent when they were in the vulnerable spot of needing mental health support. “There are millions of people online who are struggling for help.”There’s a nationwide shortage of professionals trained to provide mental health support, even as symptoms of anxiety and depression have surged during the coronavirus pandemic. In June, the World Health Organization included informed consent in one of its six “guiding principles” for AI design and use.

Twitter accounts that offer to trade or sell child sexual abuse material under thinly veiled terms and hashtags have remained online for months, even after CEO Elon Musk said he would combat child exploitation on the platform. The tweets reviewed by NBC News offer to sell or trade content that is commonly known as child pornography or child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The tweets do not show CSAM, and NBC News did not view any CSAM in the course of reporting this article. The problem has been pervasive enough to catch the attention of some Twitter users. In 25 tweets, users tagged Musk using at least one of the major hashtags to alert him to the content.

☆ Trump Facebook ban could be reversed in the coming weeks
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

For one thing, social media looks different than it did two years ago. Trump now has his own social media company, Truth Social, and his account has been restored on Twitter (where he has yet to tweet). And though there’s no legal right for Trump or anyone else to be on social media, Republicans in Florida and Texas are trying to create laws that would prevent social media companies from removing certain posts. NBC News asked a handful of experts in social media moderation what they thought about the upcoming decision. The answers offered a sense of the shifts in social media and moderation since both Twitter and Facebook banned Trump.

☆ Biden signs TikTok ban for government devices amid security concerns
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

President Joe Biden approved a limited TikTok ban Thursday when he signed the 4,126-page spending bill into law. The ban prohibits the use of TikTok by the federal government’s nearly 4 million employees on devices owned by its agencies, with limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security and security research purposes. Since 2020, a bubbling movement led largely by conservatives has maintained a minor interest in a TikTok ban. “We’re disappointed that Congress has moved to ban TikTok on government devices — a political gesture that will do nothing to advance national security interests — rather than encouraging the Administration to conclude its national security review,” the company said in a statement. It added that the proposed security agreement with the Biden administration would address the security concerns of lawmakers and regulators.

☆ Silicon Valley is coming for your gut biome
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

SAN FRANCISCO — Cryptocurrency hasn’t worked out so well for tech investors. As a consumer product, supplements are associated more with the Kardashians or Joe Rogan than with Silicon Valley. Roelof Botha, the managing partner of Sequoia Capital, one of the largest venture capital firms in the world, is among those buying in. He said there’s a “societal reawakening” about the complex biome of the human gut where hundreds of species of bacteria live. She co-wrote a review of the science this year, and said future probiotic supplements have promise compared to supplements that have been available for decades.

Police in South Pasadena said in a statement Tuesday that, contrary to Musk's assertions about the incident, they believe a member of Musk's security team hit a man with his car and accused him of following him. The police called the security team member a "suspect." While parked, the man said another vehicle pulled directly in front of him, blocking his path, according to police. The driver of the second vehicle then accused the Connecticut man of following him, police said. Police said that as Musk's security team member was leaving the parking lot in the second vehicle, he struck the Connecticut man with his vehicle.

On Thursday, Twitter accounts for at least nine journalists and one left-leaning political pundit were suspended. That is the real problem here.”According to Musk, Thursday’s suspensions were related to new rules around sharing real-time location information, which he tied to an alleged stalking incident. Musk said, “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. On Wednesday, Musk tweeted that legal action would be taken against Sweeney. Andrew Torba, founder of the far-right social platform Gab, also criticized Musk and touted his company as an alternative to Twitter.

☆ Democratic senator questions Twitter’s handling of child safety under Elon Musk
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sent a letter to tech billionaire Elon Musk on Friday expressing concern that Twitter’s approach to child safety had “rapidly deteriorated” since Musk bought the social media site in October. He continued: “While Twitter certainly had room for improving online child safety before you acquired it, reports indicate that Twitter’s approach to child safety has rapidly deteriorated on your watch." Durbin cited Musk’s decision to dissolve Twitter’s expert board, known as its Trust and Safety Council, as well as a 50% reduction in staff at Twitter’s child safety team. By one metric — reports to an outside group that tracks child sexual abuse material — Musk has made little difference, for better or worse. Durbin wrote to Musk that Twitter has both “global legal obligations” and moral obligations to address online child abuse.

☆ GOP lawmakers want answers from Uber about drivers allegedly transporting drugs
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

House Republicans sent a letter Thursday to Uber asking the tech company to explain what steps it is taking in response to drivers' complaints that they’re being asked to deliver packages they suspect to be drugs. Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. Those companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Democratic side did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “Just as we have asked social media companies to do their part to curb the sale of drugs on their platforms, Uber must act to ensure Uber Connect is not used to transport untracked shipments of illicit drugs to Americans,” the lawmakers wrote.

Meanwhile, Twitter’s resources to fight child sexual exploitation content online (and what is sometimes called child pornography or child sexual abuse materials) are thin, following layoffs, mass-firings and resignations from the company. Child sexual exploitation content has remained a problem for Twitter, though most major social media platforms continue to deal with it in some form or another. Moderation of this content usually relies on a combination of automated detection systems and specialized internal teams and external contractors to identify child abuse content and remove it. “So, I mean, that is disheartening.”It’s unclear how many Twitter employees remain to work on child safety issues. A search on LinkedIn for current Twitter employees who say they work on child safety turned up only a few accounts.

Less than a month after taking control of Twitter , Elon Musk said addressing child sexual exploitation content on the social media platform was "Priority #1." "It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!" Meanwhile, Twitter's resources to fight child sexual exploitation content online (and what is sometimes called child pornography or child sexual abuse materials) are thin, following layoffs, mass-firings and resignations from the company. Twitter's imperfect efforts fighting child sexual exploitation content were well documented. Stroppa said he felt Twitter's previous efforts were lacking and that it now moves quickly to find and suspend accounts that post child sexual exploitation content.

☆ Tech jobs: Recent grads send in hundreds of apps in unfamiliar, shrinking market
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

Now, though, they’re applying for tech jobs at possibly the worst time in years, as nearly every part of the sector from streaming services to robotics has laid off people or frozen hiring. He graduated with a computer science degree in December 2021, a time he now sees as “the beginning of the end” for the most recent tech boom. “My biggest chances of getting a job in the U.S. kind of tanked,” he said, because of the recent layoffs. At colleges and universities, interest in computer science soared during the most recent tech boom. Lam, who’s scheduled to graduate in December 2023, said he originally thought the layoffs in tech would hurt junior-level people the most.

Jones and Infowars had already been banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Apple, YouTube, Spotify, Google Play, Vimeo, Pinterest, Mailchimp and LinkedIn. But Ye’s interview had more than 3.1 million views as of publication. On other platforms, clips of the interview got millions more. Twitter suspended Ye later that night after Ye tweeted an image that contained a swastika. He showed clips of Ye praising Hitler, and Foreman speculated that his channel might get a “strike” from YouTube as a result.

☆ Elon Musk promotes release of internal Twitter documents rehashing platform’s block of Hunter Biden story
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-03 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

The controversy involving Twitter and Hunter Biden dates to October 2020, weeks before the presidential election between Joe Biden and then-President Donald Trump. Taibbi wrote that he has seen no evidence that there was government involvement in Twitter’s move to block the New York Post story. Shortly after the New York Post published the article, Twitter pointed to concerns about hacked materials as the reason for blocking the story. Zuckerberg cited warnings from the FBI about election-related threats, though none about Hunter Biden in particular. Hunter Biden has said that federal prosecutors in Delaware are investigating his taxes.

☆ Twitter has grown under Elon Musk — mainly in the U.S., data shows
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

Elon Musk has generated fresh interest in Twitter, and you don’t have to take his word for it. The growth was slower outside the U.S., though, with 14% growth from a month earlier and 4% growth from a year earlier, Apptopia data showed. Musk, who already had a huge following when he bought Twitter, has continued to add followers at a rapid clip. Those apps count their users in the billions, while Twitter has about 259 million daily users, according to Musk. But it may have already ended, with Substack downloads peaking Nov. 6, the firm’s data showed.

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