Category Archives: X

Australian prime minister labels Elon Musk ‘an arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law’

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Anthony Albanese responds to X owner who criticised Australian authorities demanding videos of a Sydney church stabbing be removed

Australia’s prime minister has labelled X’s owner, Elon Musk, an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law” as the rift deepens between Australia and the tech platform over the removal of videos of a violent stabbing in a Sydney church.

On Monday evening in an urgent last-minute federal court hearing, the court ordered a two-day injunction against X to hide posts globally containing the footage of the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel on 15 April. The eSafety commissioner had previously directed X to remove the posts, but X had only blocked them from access in Australia pending a legal challenge.

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Australian court orders Elon Musk’s X to hide Sydney church stabbing posts from users globally

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Judge makes interim order after eSafety commissioner orders social media outlet to remove footage of Wakeley stabbing

The Australian federal court has ordered Elon Musk’s X to hide posts containing videos of a stabbing at a Sydney church last week from users globally, after the eSafety commissioner launched an urgent court case on Monday evening seeking an injunction.

X, along with Meta, were ordered by the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, on Tuesday last week to remove material deemed to depict “gratuitous or offensive violence with a high degree of impact or detail” within 24 hours or potentially face fines.

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Bolsonaro supporters hit streets of Rio and hail new hero Elon Musk

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Owner of X has used social media platform to bash judge in charge of investigations into former president

Thousands of diehard supporters of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro have hit the streets of Rio to champion their embattled leader and celebrate the new hero of their far-right movement: Elon Musk.

The tech billionaire has spent recent weeks using his social network X to bash Bolsonaro’s arch-enemy, the supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes. Moraes is responsible for several investigations into Bolsonaro that could land the ex-president in jail, including one examining the alleged coup plot that preceded the rightwing insurrection in Brasília on 8 January 2023.

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Elon Musk and X to fight Australian eSafety order to remove content relating to Sydney stabbing

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Company says it complied with directive over posts about stabbing of Sydney bishop but will challenge ‘unlawful and dangerous approach’ in court

Elon Musk and his social media company X have accused Australia’s eSafety commissioner of censorship and say they will challenge in court an order to remove content on the site relating to Monday’s Sydney church stabbing.

On Tuesday the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said that X and Meta were issued with a notice to remove material within 24 hours that depicted “gratuitous or offensive violence with a high degree of impact or detail”, with the companies facing potential fines if they failed to comply.

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Sydney church stabbing: social media pages ‘infamous’ for spreading misinformation taken down

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Premier Chris Minns is alarmed at the ‘wildfire’ of rumour and graphic content online after Wakeley and Bondi stabbings

Social media pages “infamous” for spreading misinformation have been taken down after the Wakeley church stabbing attack, the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, said on Thursday, while expressing alarm at the “wildfire” of rumour and graphic content still proliferating on tech platforms.

On Monday night YouTube was live broadcasting Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel’s service at the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church. After the stabbing occurred, video clips spread through WhatsApp groups before police had arrived on scene.

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Child sexual abuse content growing online with AI-made images, report says

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More children and families extorted with AI-made photos and videos, says National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Child sexual exploitation is on the rise online and taking new forms such as images and videos generated by artificial intelligence, according to an annual assessment released on Tuesday by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), a US-based clearinghouse for the reporting of child sexual abuse material.

Reports to the NCMEC of child abuse online rose by more than 12% in 2023 compared with the previous year, surpassing 36.2m reports, the organization said in its annual CyberTipline report. The majority of tips received were related to the circulation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) such as photos and videos, but there was also an increase in reports of financial sexual extortion, when an online predator lures a child into sending nude images or videos and then demands money.

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eSafety commissioner orders X and Meta to remove violent videos following Sydney church stabbing

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Julie Inman Grant issues notices compelling companies to remove offending material within 24 hours

Facebook’s parent company Meta and X/Twitter have been told to remove violent and distressing videos and imagery of the stabbing of a prominent Orthodox Christian leader in Sydney’s west on Monday evening.

The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, told reporters on Tuesday that X and Meta had been issued with notices to remove material within 24 hours that depicted “gratuitous or offensive violence with a high degree of impact or detail”, with the companies facing potential fines if they fail to comply.

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Elon Musk faces Brazil inquiry after defying X court order

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Multibillionaire called for resignation of judge who ordered platform to block far-right users

Elon Musk faces a legal investigation in Brazil after becoming embroiled in a public row with a supreme court judge over an order requiring the social network X to take down some far-right accounts.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes had issued a court order forcing the site formerly known as Twitter to block several users as part of his investigation into the former president Jair Bolsonaro’s attempts to stay in power after his 2022 election defeat.

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Dismay as X’s most-followed accounts given blue ticks for free

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Elon Musk’s firm reverses policy of insisting on payment for ‘verified status’ – embarrassing some beneficiaries

Elon Musk has reversed one of his most notorious decisions since taking over X, the social network better known as Twitter, and started bestowing blue ticks on the site’s most-followed users – whether they want them or not.

The entrepreneur and one-time “Chief Twit” had tweeted last week that the service would grant free “premium” status to any user with more than 2,500 “verified subscriber follows” and accounts with more than 5,000 would get “premium+”. That policy is now being enacted.

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Missouri AG sues Media Matters as Republicans take on critics of Musk’s X

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Move follows similar lawsuit by Texas attorney general, raising fear that news outlets could be next targets

The attorney general of Missouri is suing Media Matters, a progressive watchdog group, alleging that it failed to turn over internal documents following its 2023 coverage of hate speech on the social media platform X. The head of the group says news outlets could be the next targets.

“Media Matters has pursued an activist agenda in its attempt to destroy X, because they cannot control it,” the lawsuit said, describing X – formerly known as Twitter – as a “free speech platform” that allows “Missourians to express their own viewpoints in the public square”.

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Australian eSafety commissioner puts tech companies on notice over reports terror-related content still being shared

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Julie Inman Grant has asked companies including Google, Meta and Telegram to explain how they are taking action against violent and extremist material

Australia’s online safety regulator has issued notices to Telegram, Google, Meta, Reddit and X asking how they are taking action against terror material on their platforms.

It is five years since an Australian murdered 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in New Zealand, and broadcast the massacre on Facebook live. Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said she still receives reports that video and other perpetrator-produced material from terror attacks are being shared on mainstream platforms, although there were now slightly less on mainstream platforms such as X and Facebook.

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EU calls on tech firms to outline plans to tackle deepfakes amid election fears

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Move involving companies such as Google, Facebook and X comes after evidence of Russian online interference in polls

The EU is calling on eight major tech companies including Google, Facebook and X to detail how they identify and tackle deepfake material amid concerns about the use of the technology to influence elections.

In a world first, they will be using new laws on artificial intelligence to force companies to root out fake video, imagery and audio.

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Musk ordered to testify again in SEC investigation of Twitter takeover

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US regulator sued in October to compel Musk to testify as part of an investigation into his $44bn purchase of what is now known as X

Elon Musk has been ordered to testify again as part of an investigation by US regulators into his 2022 purchase of the social media platform Twitter, later renamed X.

A California federal court ruling released on Saturday gave the Tesla and SpaceX chief a week to agree with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) on a date and place for the interview after Musk refused to attend a previous sit-down in September.

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Jewish students condemn antisemitic tweets about French PM Gabriel Attal

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Students’ union calls for sanctions over posts on social network that have also contained homophobic abuse

The French Union of Jewish Students has called for sanctions against people who have written antisemitic and homophobic comments about France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, on the social network X.

Attal, 34, who was appointed by the president, Emmanuel Macron, this week, is France’s youngest prime minister and also the first out gay politician in the job.

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FBI investigates fake tweet about bitcoin investment fund that led to price spike

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Hackers posted false news about a widely anticipated announcement that the SEC was expected to make about bitcoin

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Wednesday that it is working with the FBI to investigate a fake message posted on its X social media account.

On Tuesday hackers posted false news about a widely anticipated announcement that the SEC was expected to make about bitcoin, leading the cryptocurrency’s price to spike and alarming observers. An SEC spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian in a statement that the unauthorized post on the @SECGov account “was not drafted or created by the SEC”.

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SEC says ‘compromised’ account to blame for tweet approving Bitcoin ETF

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Price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000, as ETF would have given way to invest without buying outright on a crypto exchange

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Tuesday that a post sent from the agency’s account on the social platform X/Twitter announcing the approval of a long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded fund was “unauthorized”, and that the agency’s account had been “compromised”.

The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post on X claimed: “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.” Cryptocurrency investors had already driven bitcoin’s price above $46,000 in anticipation of the approval.

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Value of X has fallen 71% since purchase by Musk and name change from Twitter

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Mutual fund Fidelity, which owns stake in social media platform, marks down value of its shares in disclosure obtained by Axios

The social media platform X has lost 71% of its value since it was bought by Elon Musk, according to the mutual fund Fidelity.

Fidelity, which owns a stake in X Holdings, said in a disclosure obtained by Axios that it had marked down the value of its shares by 71.5% since Musk’s purchase.

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X to be investigated for allegedly breaking EU laws on hate speech and fake news

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EU launches proceedings against Elon Musk’s social media platform under new Digital Services Act

The social media platform X, formerly Twitter, is being investigated for allegedly breaking EU law on disinformation, illegal content and transparency, the European Commission has announced.

The decision to launch formal infringement proceedings against the company, owned by the US billionaire Elon Musk, comes weeks after X was asked to provide evidence of compliance with new laws designed to eliminate hate speech, racism and fake news from platforms in the EU.

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Elon Musk says X will reinstate Alex Jones’s account after poll of users

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Rightwing conspiracy theorist was banned from platform in 2018, but could be back after 2m votes cast

The social media platform X will reinstate the account of the US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones after a poll of the site’s users backed his return, its owner, Elon Musk, has said.

“The people have spoken and so it shall be,” Musk posted in reply to a poll on Saturday on whether to reinstate the Jones account. Close to 2m votes were cast by the time the poll closed, with about 70% voting in favour of Jones’s return.

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Elon Musk hurls defiant, profanity-laced retort at fleeing advertisers

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At New York event Wednesday, X owner had choice words for Walt Disney and others who pulled ads over antisemitic content

Elon Musk has issued a defiant and profanity-laced message for the advertisers who pulled money from X in recent weeks amid a backlash over his endorsement of an antisemitic tweet and reports of increased hate speech on the platform.

Video of the interview, which was widely circulated, showed that Musk said, “Don’t advertise,” on Wednesday during an on-stage interview at an event in New York. “If someone’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself.”

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