James Farrell
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Amnesty says Meta amplified hatred during Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing of Rohingya
A lengthy report published today by Amnesty International had some stern words for Meta Platforms Inc., saying the company’s “algorithms proactively amplified and promoted content which incited violence, hatred, and discrimination against the Rohingya.” When Meta was still called Facebook, the company was accused of not doing enough to silence the hatred against the Rohingya ...
Pornhub is now using AI to persuade people not to search for illegal content
The world’s largest pornography website, Pornhub, today will begin employing artificial intelligence to prevent people from seeing child sexual abuse content. When people search for such material, and it seems they do, a chatbot will pop up on their screen and tell them they are attempting to find something they should not be looking for. ...
Oracle set to pay $23 million in second SEC foreign bribery settlement
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Oracle Corp. will pay a settlement of $23 million after being charged with bribing foreign officials in a number of foreign countries. The regulator alleged that between 2016 and 2019, subsidiaries of Oracle in India, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates created slush funds to bribe officials ...
Walmart goes after younger customers by putting itself in the metaverse
Walmart Inc. today announced that it’s launching two immersive experiences on the popular online game platform Roblox, an effort the company hopes will attract a younger kind of shopper. These new virtual worlds will be called “Walmart Land” and “Walmart’s Universe of Play,” both of which won’t give players the ability to buy stuff in ...
Meta showed bias when moderating Israel-Palestine conflict, says new report
An independent report commissioned by Meta Platforms Inc. shows that the company showed bias against Palestinians during the 2021 Israel-Palestine crisis. The report, released today, said that when the social media giant was moderating its platform during the conflict between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas, it unfairly removed content from Palestinians. That was ...
Meta reportedly is trying to cut costs by 10% by pushing staff out the door
Meta Platforms Inc. will attempt to cut costs by about 10% over the next few months, which will mean a bit of a shakeup at the company, the Wall Street Journal reported today. People familiar with the situation told the Journal that rather than outright lay people off, the route being taken is to shuffle various ...
Spotify says its new audiobook service in the US is ‘just the beginning’
Spotify Inc. launched its audiobook service today in the U.S., which might give Amazon.com Inc. something to think about. In a blog post today, the company said it has known for a long time that there is unlimited potential for audio, so launching an audiobooks service was the next natural step. It admitted that audiobooks ...
Pentagon asks for an audit of pro-US social media psyops operations
The Pentagon has begun an audit relating to how its discreet psychological operations personnel engage in information warfare on U.S. on social media platforms. Like the Russian Internet Research Agency, IRA, such operators infiltrate social media platforms in an effort to sway the minds of Americans and people in other nations to support U.S. foreign ...
California signs new bill into law that strengthens online protection for children
California Governor Gavin Newsom today signed the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, a law designed to protect younger people as they navigate the minefield of social media and other online services. The bill, named AB 2273, had unsurprisingly met with some resistance from certain factions of the tech industry, but in August this year, it ...
An anti-metaverse mail bomber targeted a US university VR lab
Law enforcement officials are currently investigating what looks like a mail bomb attack after a person was injured Tuesday night while opening a package at a virtual reality center at Northeastern University in Boston. The employee, who works at the VR center, suffered lacerations to his hands, but no other parts of his body. Initial ...