Meta has intervened to take down about 20 covert influence operations around the world this year, it has emerged – though the tech firm said fears of AI-fuelled fakery warping elections have not materialised in 2024.Nick Clegg, the president of global affairs at the company that runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said Russia was still the No 1 source of the adversarial online activity but said in a briefing it was “striking” how little AI was used to try to trick voters in the busiest ever year for elec ...

A Delaware judge ruled on Monday that the Tesla chief, Elon Musk, still is not entitled to receive a $56bn compensation package despite shareholders of the electric vehicle company voting to reinstate it.The ruling by the judge, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the court of chancery, follows her January decision that called the pay package excessive and rescinded it, surprising investors, and cast uncertainty over Musk’s future at the world’s most valuable carmaker.Tesla has said in court filings that the ...

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has retired, with David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus named as interim co-CEOs. Though demand for semiconductor chips has never been higher or more lucrative, Intel has struggled to match the success of its rivals.Gelsinger, whose career has spanned more than 40 years, also stepped down from the company’s board. He started at Intel in 1979 at Intel and was its first chief technology officer. He returned to Intel as chief executive in 2021. Intel said Monday that it will cond ...

Core Viewpoint - Meta's moderation of self-harm content on Instagram is severely inadequate, allowing harmful content to proliferate rather than being effectively removed [1][3][8] Group 1: Study Findings - Danish researchers created a private self-harm network on Instagram, sharing 85 pieces of self-harm-related content, which included increasingly severe images [2] - The study aimed to test Meta's claims of improved content moderation, which the company asserts uses AI to remove about 99% of harmful content before it is reported; however, not a single image was removed during the month-long experiment [3][4] - Digitalt Ansvar found that Instagram's algorithm was not only failing to shut down the self-harm network but was actively helping it to expand, connecting vulnerable users with members of the self-harm group [7][8] Group 2: Meta's Response and Policies - A Meta spokesperson stated that content encouraging self-injury violates their policies, claiming that over 12 million pieces related to suicide and self-injury were removed in the first half of 2024, with 99% being proactively taken down [6] - Despite these claims, the study indicated that Meta's AI technology could identify 38% of self-harm images and 88% of the most severe ones, suggesting that the company has the capability to address the issue but is not implementing it effectively [4][6] Group 3: Implications and Expert Opinions - The inadequate moderation of self-harm content raises concerns about compliance with EU laws, specifically the Digital Services Act, which mandates the identification of systemic risks to physical and mental well-being [5] - Experts, including psychologists, have expressed alarm over Meta's failure to remove explicit self-harm content, indicating that this negligence could trigger vulnerable individuals and contribute to rising suicide rates [11][13][14] - The situation is described as a matter of life and death for young users, with accusations that Meta prioritizes engagement and profit over user safety [14]

Google is in trouble. As my colleague Dan Milmo reported, 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 move follows a major court ruling last August in which a federal judge determined that Google had violated antitrust laws and held an illegal monopoly over search services. The justice department’s suggestion is blunt: “Google must divest Chrome ...

If it pays to have friends in high places, few among us can claim to be better placed than Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and one of the only people to have cosy relationships with both Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. His commercial and political connections to both may prove pivotal as the feud between the US and China plays out over the next four years, particularly as Trump promises steep tariffs.Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, once supported Joe Biden. But his relationship with the curre ...

The US Department of Justice has proposed a range of punchy remedies to address Google’s dominance of the internet search market, including the forced divestment of its Chrome browser.Google said the proposals represented a “radical interventionist agenda” that would harm America’s standing as a tech superpower.Big tech’s power, and whether and how it should be tamed, has become a political and regulatory talking point on both sides of the Atlantic. This will be one of the defining confrontations of that de ...

Alphabet’s Google must sell its Chrome browser, share data and search results with competitors and take a range of other measures to end its monopoly on searching the internet, US prosecutors have argued to a judge.Such changes would essentially result in Google being highly regulated for 10 years, subjecting it to oversight by the same Washington federal court that ruled the company maintained an illegal monopoly in online search and related advertising.Google controls about 90% of the online search market ...

The AI chipmaker Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company and the engine of the artificial-intelligence boom, rolled out another set of quarterly results on Wednesday to investors’ delight.The company, whose value has soared by $2.2tn this year to $3.6tn on the back of near-doubling of chip sales, said it had sales of $35.08bn, against expectations of $33.15bn.Analysts anticipated Nvidia to report earnings of $0.75 per share; the company reported $0.81. Shares of Nvidia fell about 5% in extended trading fo ...

US justice department officials plan to ask a judge to force Google to sell off its Chrome browser to dismantle the monopoly it has over the internet search market, in a major intervention against one of the world’s biggest tech companies.The Department of Justice (DoJ) last month filed court papers saying it is considering enforcing “structural remedies” to prevent Google from using some its products.The DoJ will reportedly push for Google, which is owned by Alphabet, to sell the browser and also ask a jud ...