Shutdown imposed as part of search for Amritpal Singh Sandhu, accused of disrupting communal harmony
Economic life in the north Indian state of Punjab has been paralysed by an internet shutdown, affecting 30 million people, imposed as part of a huge manhunt for a Sikh preacher fighting for a separate Sikh state.
Police have been searching for Amritpal Singh Sandhu, who is wanted for allegedly disrupting communal harmony, since Saturday.
Continue reading...Shares plummet after Ernie Bot AI chatbot software falls short of expectations at unveiling in Beijing
The Chinese search engine company Baidu’s shares have fallen by as much as 10% after it presented its ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence software, with investors unimpressed by the bot’s display of linguistic and maths skills.
The AI-powered ChatGPT, created by the San Francisco company OpenAI, has caused a sensation for its ability to write essays, poems and programming code on demand within seconds, prompting widespread fears over cheating or of professions becoming obsolete.
Continue reading...PM under pressure to follow EU and US in taking step over fears Chinese-owned app poses cybersecurity risk
Rishi Sunak has been urged to ban government officials from using TikTok in line with moves by the EU and US, amid growing cybersecurity fears over China.
Officials in Europe and the US have been told to limit the use of the Chinese-owned social video app over concerns that data can be accessed by Beijing.
Continue reading...The platform banned the Russia-controlled publication last year for its Ukraine falsehoods, but its content is still posted on various channels
Hundreds of videos produced by the Russia-controlled publication RT have found their way on to YouTube in the past year, despite the platform’s ban of such media last year.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, banned all Russian state-funded media from its platform globally in March 2022, citing a policy barring content that “denies, minimizes or trivializes well-documented violent events” as Russia sought to guide the narrative on its war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Dr Timothy Graham says his analysis shows that after the algorithm change was reported to have occurred, impressions of billionaire owner’s tweets went up 737%
Data collected by an Australian researcher via Twitter’s API appears to support media claims that the reach of the tweets of the platform’s billionaire owner Elon Musk have been artificially inflated.
On Wednesday, the tech news site Platformer reported 80 Twitter engineers had been engaged to tweak the platform’s algorithm after Musk noticed a tweet from the US president, Joe Biden, about the Super Bowl outperformed his own, despite Musk having more than three times the number of followers.
Continue reading...Revelation shows dangers posed by bad actors and paid operatives in democratic systems across Africa
An Israeli disinformation specialist hired to run covert dirty tricks campaigns in African elections hacked political advisers close to Kenya’s president, William Ruto, in the run-up to last year’s election, an investigation can reveal.
The interference did not prevent Ruto winning the poll, nor the peaceful transfer of power in Kenya, but the revelation highlights the growing risks posed by the involvement of bad actors and paid operatives in the relatively new democratic systems and institutions across Africa.
Continue reading...Le Nouveau Duluth enjoyed an incredible reputation on Tripadvisor – raising questions over online reviews
It’s notoriously difficult to secure a table at the world’s greatest restaurant, but diners hoping to sample the cuisine at Le Nouveau Duluth in Montreal will have an especially hard time.
That’s not only because, until recently, it had the highest Tripadvisor rating of the city’s 3,678 listed eateries – although reviews on the website suggest its menu is beyond belief.
Continue reading...Embattled firm to launch £75m share buyback to bolster stock price after criticism of sales and marketing
The chief executive of Darktrace has launched a staunch defence of the embattled cybersecurity company saying it is run with the “greatest integrity”, after allegations of irregular sales, marketing and accounting practices raised by a US-based hedge fund.
Poppy Gustafsson published a 1,200 word defence of the company she co-founded in 2013, after its share price collapsed to a record low after the publication of a highly critical 70-page report by New York-based Quintessential Capital Management (QCM) on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Internet Watch Foundation reports rise in UK children aged seven to 10 manipulated into abusing themselves on camera
Internet predators have exploited a rise in online activity during lockdown to manipulate primary school age children into abusing themselves on camera, with reports of such imagery rising by more than 1,000% in the UK since 2019.
The Internet Watch Foundation received reports of 63,050 webpages containing images and videos of children aged seven to 10 sexually abusing themselves on camera last year, an increase of just over 1,000% on the year before the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...Platform will also use technology from ChatGPT’s artificial intelligence firm, Open AI, to ‘inform’ brainstorming
BuzzFeed is reportedly planning to use artificial intelligence to personalize and enhance its online quizzes and content, the company announced to employees this week.
Jonah Peretti, the chief executive, announced the efforts in an internal memo.
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Pearson urges voice dissenters to ‘be smart’
Karvelas also asks Pearson about the concerns that are coming from the left, including Indigenous affairs spokesperson for the Greens, Lidia Thorpe, who will be calling for treaty before voice at the Invasion Day rally.
And when you have a breakthrough response, a breakthrough response like constitutional recognition, you’ve got to grab it. You’ve got to switch from protest to grabbing the opportunity.
… And I believe that a full response to the Uluru statement will achieve actual real reconciliation. We’re at a point in our history where the protest has achieved the result we desire. And, and so we’ve got to be smart about it.
This this year is the most important here in the past 235. That’s my assertion. This is the most important year and and this referendum is the most important question concerning Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians since the first fleet.
We’ve got to understand what is at stake, and that is the chance for reconciliation and if the referendum is kiboshed through game play and spoiling game by the opposition, we will lose the opportunity forever.
Continue reading...Exclusive: eSafety commission investigating nearly 1,700 complaints and has asked social media companies to remove offensive content 500 times in a year
Online bullying among children is reaching “concerning levels”, according to Australia’s eSafety commissioner. The agency is investigating nearly 1,700 cyberbullying complaints and has asked social media companies to remove offensive content more than 500 times in a year.
The eSafety commission also revealed that it has, for the first time, used its strengthened powers to issue end user notices that can compel bullies to stop their actions or apologise to victims.
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Continue reading...Dieunerst Collin, who became internet famous as a child for video of him at fast-food chain, signs advertising deal with company
A decade has passed, but at last the star of the internet meme showing a boy glancing sideways in confusion with a cup in his hand while standing in line at a Popeyes is capitalizing on his viral fame.
Dieunerst Collin, an 18-year-old player for the football team at Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio, can finally cash in on his online fame thanks to a change in policy from an organization which governs collegiate sports in the US that in 2021 enabled student athletes to earn money from sponsorship opportunities.
Continue reading...‘Chilling’ new criminal law penalizing internationally funded journalism comes as repression in the country is on the rise
Since graduating from the University of Havana’s faculty of journalism in 2021, Pedro Sosa, 24, has photographed families of political prisoners and written about the chronic lack of medicine and syringes in Cuba’s fraying medical system.
It was risky work on an island that brooks little dissent, but in September things came to a head: he was interrogated by state security and told that if he didn’t renounce his work for the independent media outlets El Toque (the Touch) and El Estornudo (the Sneeze) he could face jail.
Continue reading...Rebel Tories drop amendment after ministers agree to make managers criminally liable for persistent breaches of duty of care
Tech executives whose platforms persistently fail to protect children from online harm will face criminal charges after ministers reached a deal with Conservative backbenchers.
Rishi Sunak was facing the prospect of defeat in a Commons vote on Tuesday after a rebel amendment to the online safety bill won opposition support. However, supporters have now withdrawn the amendment after the government agreed to change the legislation.
Continue reading...Irish regulator fines Facebook owner €390m after EU rejects argument for use of data to drive personalised ads
The business model of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta empire has been dealt a blow following a ruling that its legal justification for targeting users with personalised ads broke EU data laws.
Campaigners said the move could force the Facebook and Instagram owner to ask users to “opt in” to having their data used for targeted ads.
Continue reading...Authority says it is holding digital assets until they can be returned to creditors and former customers
The Bahamas securities regulator has said it has seized assets worth $3.5bn (£2.9bn) from the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX and plans to return them to creditors and former customers.
The Securities Commission of the Bahamas said it had transferred all digital assets under the custody or control of FTX Digital Markets, a Bahamas subsidiary of the FTX operation, to its own digital wallets for “safekeeping”.
Continue reading...Former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison among politicians and celebrities whose details were in sample of allegedly hacked data published online
The former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison appears to have been caught up in a leak of partial data on 400 million Twitter users, along with celebrities including the model Cara Delevingne, US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and pop singer Shawn Mendes.
Morrison’s Twitter account was included in a sample of data released by an alleged cybercriminal last week.
Continue reading...Top official confirms feature was removed but only temporarily, following Reuters report that prompted criticism of Elon Musk
Twitter has restored a feature that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking up certain content, after coming under pressure from users and consumer safety groups.
The feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, placed a banner at the top of search results for certain topics, listing contacts for support organizations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, Covid-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression.
In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org
Continue reading...ByteDance said four employees were fired for examining data of two journalists in attempt to find leak source
ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of popular video app TikTok, said on Thursday that some employees improperly accessed TikTok user data of two journalists and were no longer employed by the company, an email seen by Reuters shows.
ByteDance employees accessed the data as part of an unsuccessful effort to investigate leaks of company information earlier this year, and were aiming to identify potential connections between two journalists, a former BuzzFeed reporter and a Financial Times reporter, and company employees, the email from ByteDance general counsel Erich Andersen said.
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