Project Waterworth, which involves cable longer than Earth’s circumference, to also reach South Africa and Brazil
Meta has announced plans to build the world’s longest underwater cable project, which aims to connect the US, India, South Africa, Brazil and other regions.
The tech company said Project Waterworth involved a 50,000km (31,000-mile) subsea cable, which is longer than the Earth’s circumference.
Continue reading...President brought suit under X’s previous leadership after he was banned from platform following January 6 events
Elon Musk’s social media platform X will pay Donald Trump $10m to settle a lawsuit the president filed after he was banned from the platform following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, according to a report.
The lawsuit was filed against X under the leadership of its previous CEO, Jack Dorsey. After Musk purchased X, reinstated Trump’s account, began developing a relationship with the president and spent $250m on his re-election campaign, Trump’s legal team considered abandoning the lawsuit, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the case.
Continue reading...Amplifying misinformation is now part of radical right strategy, says Dutch study of tweets by MPs in 26 countries
Far-right populists are significantly more likely to spread fake news on social media than politicians from mainstream or far-left parties, according to a study which argues that amplifying misinformation is now part and parcel of radical right strategy.
“Radical right populists are using misinformation as a tool to destabilise democracies and gain political advantage,” said Petter Törnberg of the University of Amsterdam, a co-author of the study with Juliana Chueri of the Dutch capital’s Free University.
Continue reading...Burnley’s Oliver Ryan suspended as details emerge about Trigger Me Timbers group
Downing Street has announced a mini-reshuffle following the sacking of Andrew Gwynne as a health minister over the weekend.
Ashley Dalton is replacing Gwynne as a health minister. Dalton was a backbencher.
Forcing those whose asylum applications have been rejected or who have overstayed their visas on to planes has never been the most effective way to return people and never will be. Being punitive just scares people into hiding. They lose contact with the authorities, living a life on the margins.
Voluntary returns are far more effective, and the government should know this because it was the last Labour administration that commissioned independent agencies to run a voluntary programme that saw numbers increase. Building trust with refugee and migrant communities and treating people with dignity and humanity was far more successful than an enforcement approach.
Continue reading...Parents of Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe also criticise televising of Axel Rudakubana’s sentencing
The parents of two of the girls murdered in Southport have spoken of the moment they were told “something awful has happened” to their children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
The families of Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe also called for more protection for children from the internet and criticised the decision to televise the sentencing of Axel Rudakubana, who was jailed last month for a minimum term of 52 years.
Continue reading...Doug Gurr will lead board as watchdog rules on Microsoft and Amazon’s dominance of cloud computing market
The new chair of the UK competition watchdog will have to assess whether to curb the position of his former employer, Amazon, after an independent inquiry found that a lack of competition in the £9bn cloud computing market could mean British businesses are overpaying for services.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which last week announced the surprise appointment of former Amazon UK boss Doug Gurr as its interim chair, said that Microsoft and Amazon’s dominance of the cloud computing market could mean that British businesses are paying as much as £430m more annually for services than in a “well-functioning market”.
Continue reading...Report reveals that teen who killed one student in Nashville area interacted with Wisconsin shooter who killed two
Two teenagers who carried out deadly shootings before killing themselves at their respective high schools in attacks roughly a month apart from each other appear to have crossed paths online, according to a new joint report from ProPublica and Wisconsin Watch.
The first shooting took place on 16 December at the Abundant Life Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin. Two people – a teacher and a 14-year-old student – were killed by the shooter, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, before she killed herself.
Continue reading...London mayor calls for stricter laws on harmful online content and takes aim at Elon Musk
The west must face up to a century-defining battle against a resurgent far right that is on the march across the developed world, Sadiq Khan warns today, as he calls on ministers to take on extremism ahead of Donald Trump’s second inauguration as US president.
In the most strident rallying call of any senior British politician against the march of the right in the US, France and Germany, the London mayor warns of a “resurgent fascism” online and says that stricter laws on harmful content will be needed to stem the tide.
Continue reading...Musk’s company has been accused of manipulating systems to give far-right posts and politicians greater visibility
The European Commission has asked X to hand over internal documents about its algorithms, as it steps up its investigation into whether Elon Musk’s social media platform has breached EU rules on content moderation.
The EU’s executive branch told the company it wanted to see internal documentation about its “recommender system”, which makes content suggestions to users, and any recent changes made to it, by 15 February.
Continue reading...The demise of NBN’s fibre-to-the-node technology is welcome but making the internet more affordable would have a much bigger impact
The announcement of the demise of NBN’s fibre-to-the-node technology will be welcomed by those who have endured poor speeds and service for the past few years, but making the internet more affordable would have a much bigger impact.
When Tony Windsor sided with Labor in the 2010 election, he put the NBN as one of the key issues, saying famously: do it once, do it right, and do it with fibre.
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Continue reading...Ian Russell, whose daughter died viewing harmful content, says Online Safety Act a ‘disaster’
The father of a 14-year-old girl who died after viewing harmful content on social media has told Keir Starmer that the UK is “going backwards” on online safety.
Ian Russell, chair of the Molly Rose Foundation set up in memory of Molly, who took her own life in 2017, said the regulator Ofcom’s implementation of the Online Safety Act has been a “disaster” in a letter to the prime minister on Saturday.
Continue reading...Technology secretary Peter Kyle has the task of making Britain a leading player in the AI revolution, but says economic growth will not come at the cost of online safety
With the NHS still struggling, a prisons crisis still teetering and Britain’s borrowing costs soaring, there are few easy jobs going in Keir Starmer’s cabinet at present.
But even in such difficult times, the task of convincing Silicon Valley’s finest to help make Britain a leader in the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution – all while one leading tech boss uses the Labour government as a regular punching bag and others ostentatiously move closer to Donald Trump – is among the most challenging.
Continue reading...X owner and far-right politician appear to agree on everything, as Musk faces accusations of meddling in German election
Elon Musk has praised the co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, as he repeated his claim that “only the AfD can save Germany” during a controversial live talk on his social media platform X.
The virtual encounter between Musk and Alice Weidel on Thursday took place amid growing criticism over the US billionaire’s vocal support of far-right, anti-establishment parties across Europe, and accusations he is meddling in the campaign for Germany’s 23 February election.
Continue reading...Prime minister told Commons any new inquiry into child abuse would delay progress however spokesperson says he has not ruled one out
Reform UK has also tabled a reasoned amendment to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill motion tonight. It says:
That this house declines to give a second reading to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill because the secretary of state for the Home Department has not launched a UK-wide public inquiry into grooming gangs and has not committed to updating Members of this House every quarter on the progress of the inquiry.
The Conservatives are using the victims of this scandal as a political football.
The Conservatives alongside Reform, goaded along by Elon Musk will be voting for a motion which will not secure a national inquiry for victims of child sexual abuse, but instead it would kill these crucial child protection measures completely.
Continue reading...New head of National Cyber Security Centre to warn of risk to infrastructure in first major speech
The UK is underestimating the severity of the online threat it faces from hostile states and criminal gangs, the country’s cybersecurity chief will warn.
Richard Horne, the head of GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, will cite a trebling of “severe” incidents amid Russian “aggression and recklessness” and China’s “highly sophisticated” digital operations.
Continue reading...Researchers say parent company Meta is failing to remove explicit images on the social media site
Meta is actively helping self-harm content to flourish on Instagram by failing to remove explicit images and encouraging those engaging with such content to befriend one another, according to a damning new study that found its moderation “extremely inadequate”.
Danish researchers created a private self-harm network on the social media platform, including fake profiles of people as young as 13 years old, in which they shared 85 pieces of self-harm-related content gradually increasing in severity, including blood, razor blades and encouragement of self-harm.
Continue reading...He’s said $42.45bn spent by the US for rural internet isn’t efficient. His Starlink company stands to benefit if he reduces that investment
Elon Musk, named by Donald Trump to co-lead a commission aimed at reducing the size of the federal government, is poised to undermine funding for rural broadband services to benefit his satellite internet services company, Starlink.
Musk has long been a critic of the Biden administration’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (Bead) Program, which provides $42.45bn through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill to expand high-speed internet access in rural communities. Starlink, the satellite internet services subsidiary of SpaceX, has largely been shut out of this funding after government agencies deemed it too slow to qualify.
Continue reading...Child safety experts say similar move in Britain would penalise young people for the failings of tech companies
Child safety experts have warned the UK government against enacting an Australian-style social media ban for children under 16, which they called a “retrograde step” that would “do more harm than good”.
On Thursday, Australia became the first country in the world to ban under-16s from using social media platforms. The move was supported by a large majority of the Australian public – but academics, politicians and child rights groups said it could backfire, driving teenagers to the dark web, or make them feel more isolated.
Continue reading...Discussion platform takes fifth place in rankings and is the fastest growing large social media platform in the UK
Reddit, the American online discussion platform, has overtaken X to become the fifth most popular social media platform in the UK, according to the communications watchdog.
Ofcom said Reddit, where users post on discussion threads within topic-based communities, was visited by 22.9 million UK adults in May this year, compared with 22.1 million on X.
Continue reading...Court filing comes after landmark ruling in August and judge will consider arguments from both sides next year
The US Department of Justice has proposed a far-reaching overhaul of Google’s structure and business practices, including the sale of its Chrome browser, in a bid to end its monopoly on internet search.
The DoJ proposals follow a landmark court ruling in August in which a federal judge ruled that Google maintained an illegal monopoly over search services.
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