Ah, the saga of X’s blue checkmarks! Originally a sign that someone was who they claimed to be, and later sold so that cryptocurrency scammers could see their posts boosted, the company is now coming full circle with some journalists.
Update: After a number of journalist accounts got unwanted blue checkmarks, Twitter has now made it impossible to hide it – see update at end …
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Redditors who took advantage of their privileged access to stock ahead of the IPO have seen Reddit share value rocket from $34 to $59.80 by yesterday’s close – an 86% increase.
Update: Subsequent share sales by the company’s CEO and COO – coupled to a report describing the stock as “grossly overvalued” – saw the price fall to $49.32, below the closing price on the day of the IPO …
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As 2024 looks like the year that Apple makes its big push into generative AI, the federal government is also encouraging the use of AI by its own agencies …
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly holding a series of closed-door briefings intended to persuade senators to force the sale of TikTok to a US company, rather than ban it outright.
This follows Congress voting overwhelmingly in favor of either a ban or forced sale, while passage through the Senate is less certain …
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We don’t yet know the exact cost of Reddit shares when they go on sale, but the company has indicated that the initial public offering (IPO) price will be between $31 and $34 per share.
Selected Redditors will get priority access ahead of the IPO, and unlike most preferential access deals, they will be free to sell their shares immediately if they wish to …
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The OpenAI mess was all but over as of last November, but there was one outstanding item: an official review into the actions of CEO Sam Altman. Update: The internal review is now complete, Altman has now been officially appointed to the board, with three new directors.
The board expressed full confidence in the leadership of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, but the mystery of what led to his removal in the first place remains unsolved – more at the end …
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The first invitations to participate in the Reddit Directed Share Program (DSP) – in which moderators and very active users will get preferential access to shares – have now been issued.
Some moderators and other users with high Reddit karma have been invited to register, but so far vocal users seem unimpressed …
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There’s growing recognition of the AI threats we may face as companies push further and faster with artificial intelligence tech. Responding to this, the US Justice Department has appointed its first ever federal law enforcement officer focused on AI …
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In a surprise development, bankruptcy lawyers say that FTX customers – once considered to have lost almost everything – are now expected to get their money back in full from the remains of the cryptocurrency company …
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The social network X is under formal investigation by the European Union, to decide whether the company has broken the law in no fewer than eight ways …
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A new industry group known as the AI Alliance believes that artificial intelligence models should be open-source, in contrast to the proprietary models developed by OpenAI and Google.
Meta, IBM, Intel, and NASA are just some of the organizations to sign up, believing that the approach offers three key benefits …
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The US, UK, and 16 other countries have signed an agreement pledging to take steps to make AI “secure by design.”
Although acknowledged to be a basic statement of principles, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has said that it’s an important first step …
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The mystery of what led the OpenAI board to take the precipitous step of firing CEO Sam Altman may now have been solved. A new report says a number of researchers warned them of a new breakthrough which they said could threaten humanity – after Altman seemingly failed to inform them.
In a letter to the board, the researchers suggested that the breakthrough – dubbed Q* and pronounced Q-Star – could let AI “surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks” …
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While not exactly our normal beat, it’s hard to ignore the biggest tech news of the day: the OpenAI drama which saw CEO Sam Altman abruptly fired from the ChatGPT developer. This happened without notice, and for reasons we can guess but which were not stated.
Latest updates: Almost all of the company’s 770 staff have now threatened to quit unless the board resigns and reinstates Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, and it appears that their return to the company is now a strong possibility – more at the bottom …
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The First Amendment doesn’t protect developers from lawsuits alleging that apps like Instagram and TikTok led to social media addiction among teenagers, a US district judge has ruled …
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A new report says that personal information sold by data brokers is even more sensitive and detailed than previously thought, making so-called anonymized data even easier to tie back to specific individuals.
The report says that those buying data are able to target people working in extremely sensitive professions, including military personnel and “decision makers” working in national security roles …
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Elon Musk reportedly thinks it may be simpler to block X in Europe, rather than fix the massive problem with disinformation on the platform.
The issue is now so bad that video game footage has been passed off as news coverage of the terrorist attack in Israel, and Musk himself has been promoting accounts known for racist content and conspiracy theories …
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There has been a lot of controversy surrounding X (formerly Twitter) since the company was acquired by Elon Musk last year. Earlier this year, Musk appointed former NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino as CEO of X. On Thursday, Yaccarino joined an interview at Vox Media’s Code 2023 conference, at which point she decided to show off her iPhone to the audience. To some people’s surprise, the X app is not on the first page of the Home Screen.
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A group of white hat hackers are competing to make AI go rogue – with the backing of the White House. The contest, at this year’s Def Con event, is intended to expose vulnerabilities in artificial intelligence systems, so that their developers can work on fixes.
A smaller event has already seen AI systems expose personal medical data and help plan a bank robbery, while some AI systems don’t seem to need any help from hackers, as they promote eating disorders …
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A form of Reddit verification is currently being tested, in the form of an “official” label for some accounts confirmed as authentic.
For now at least, verification is only available to organizations, and not individuals, and the current test is extremely limited …
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An investigation by the Stanford Internet Observatory has found worrying volumes of CSAM on Mastodon. Of particular concern is that the child sexual abuse material included many known examples that should have been automatically detected by digital fingerprinting.
Researchers say that a large part of the issue is the open and decentralized nature of the social media platform …
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Reddit protests have been continuing, despite threats by the company to take over subreddits which refuse to end them. The company has now carried out its threat against one of the biggest subreddits – a move which seems set to backfire.
Additionally, a fun crowdsourced art project on Reddit is now being used to post messages protesting against the company’s decision to charge extortionate amounts for API access …
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The Netflix Basic tier – which the company had previously attempted to hide – has now been withdrawn in both the US and UK, following the same move in Canada last month.
Removing the package will now force anyone wanting to dump the ads to pay more than twice as much for the Standard plan …
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If you’re finding lots of your Reddit chats missing, that is a feature, not a bug, says the site. The company did actually announce the plan, but in a very low-key way …
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