(08-25-2023, 06:31 AM)kyonides Wrote: [ -> ]
Quote:The US Justice Department filed a lawsuit against SpaceX on Thursday over its hiring practices, accusing Elon Musk’s rocket company of discriminating against asylum seekers and refugees.
“Our investigation found that SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said.
So... hold up.
The Biden Administration's DOJ wants to go after SpaceX for... OBEYING FEDERAL LAW!?
8 U.S. Code § 1324a - Unlawful employment of aliens
Quote:(a) Making employment of unauthorized aliens unlawful
(1) In general
It is unlawful for a person or other entity—
(A) to hire, or to recruit or refer for a fee, for employment in the United States an alien knowing the alien is an unauthorized alien (as defined in subsection (h)(3)) with respect to such employment, or
(b)
(i) to hire for employment in the United States an individual without complying with the requirements of subsection (b) or (ii) if the person or entity is an agricultural association, agricultural employer, or farm labor contractor (as defined in section 1802 of title 29), to hire, or to recruit or refer for a fee, for employment in the United States an individual without complying with the requirements of subsection (b).
Under the law, neither he nor anyone else knowingly hire known illegal aliens, nor hire firms that recruit them. These asylum seekers, for the most part, are those that have illegally crossed through the southern border of the United States. And the requirements of Subsection B merely covers discrimination based on country of origin, not legal status. It is because of their Citizenship status that prohibits. And do recall that we're also talking the high-security Starlink satellites.
Quote:In yet another sign of the Biden Administration’s determination to control, censor, and spy on American social media users, the draft of a proposed deal between Chinese-owned TikTok and the Biden administration shows the latter requesting extraordinary authority over the platform.
The proposed deal, outlined in a 100-page draft obtained by Forbes, would give the U.S. government the power to examine TikTok’s servers with no notice — something that could potentially allow the government to spy on American users.
In a sign of the administration’s preoccupation with censoring social media users, the agreement also reportedly gives the government the power to veto any changes to TikTok’s content moderation policies.
The draft agreement, as it was being negotiated at the time, would give government agencies like the DOJ or the DOD the authority to:
- Examine TikTok’s U.S. facilities, records, equipment and servers with minimal or no notice,
- Block changes to the app’s U.S. terms of service, moderation policies and privacy policy,
- Veto the hiring of any executive involved in leading TikTok’s U.S. Data Security org,
- Order TikTok and ByteDance to pay for and subject themselves to various audits, assessments and other reports on the security of TikTok’s U.S. functions, and,
- In some circumstances, require ByteDance to temporarily stop TikTok from functioning in the United States.
Quote:More than 3,000 Tesla shareholders are set to receive a payout of approximately $12,397 each, following a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against Elon Musk for his infamous “funding secured” tweet from 2018.
MarketWatch reports that in 2018, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent out a tweet that would quickly become infamous. Musk’s tweet claimed that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private at $420 per share. This led to a lawsuit filed by the SEC, accusing Musk of defrauding investors. According to the SEC filing, a total of 3,350 claimants will benefit from the payout, recouping 51.7 percent of their calculated recognized loss.
The SEC has asked a judge to give the payout plan final approval. In order to receive payment, shareholders must have submitted a claim form to the administrator, Rust Consulting, by September 2022. The lawsuit culminated in civil penalties of $40 million plus interest against Musk and Tesla. The SEC estimated that the tweet led to investor losses amounting to $80 million.
In 2022, Musk unsuccessfully petitioned a judge to end the SEC settlement. In particular, Musk seemed to be tired of being tasked to have his tweets reviewed by a Tesla executive popularly referred to as his “Twitter sitter.”
Quote:London’s Metropolitan Police force says it has stepped up security after a company that holds details of its officers and staff was hacked.
The force said late Saturday that there had been “unauthorized access to the IT system” of one of its suppliers. It said the company, which it did not name, had access to names, ranks, photos, vetting levels and payroll numbers for officers and staff, but did not hold personal information such as addresses, phone numbers or financial details.
The force said it was “working with the company to understand if there has been any security breach relating to Metropolitan Police data,” and had referred the incident to the National Crime Agency.
The Metropolitan Police Federation, a staff association for officers, said the breach had caused “incredible concern and anger.”
The breach follows an incident last month in which the Police Service of Northern Ireland acknowledged it had inadvertently published personal information of more than 10,000 officers and staff in response to a freedom of information request.
Quote:Tesla’s first Supercharger diner is on its way to becoming a reality.
The company recently secured permit approval (pdf) from the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety for its drive-in movie and diner Supercharger station in Los Angeles, Teslarati reported.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has hinted over the past few years at the possibility of a drive-in movie theater and diner built into one of its Supercharger stations that would house a few dozen charging stalls, two screens to show movie clips, and an eatery with rooftop seating.
The goal is to provide drivers with something to do while they wait for their electric vehicles to charge.
In January 2018, Mr. Musk posted about building an “old school drive-in, roller skates & rock restaurant,” and the new architectural plans provide more detail.
...
Originally, there were plans for the eatery to be built on a few different lots in Santa Monica, but the project is now set to be built on a large site at 7001 W. Santa Monica Boulevard, Teslarati reported.
The current building, the former site of a Shakey's Pizza, will be torn down and replaced with Tesla’s Supercharger diner featuring a 3,800-square-foot enclosed lower level and a 5,500-square-foot outdoor seating and enclosed kitchen area above, Restaurant Business reported.
Tesla Supercharger stations can charge to a 200-mile capacity in 15 minutes.
Quote:Thousands of Australian charity donors have fallen victim to cyber-attacks after their personal details were published on the dark web.
In April, cyber criminals hacked Brisbane-based telemarketer Pareto Phone which provides services to more than 70 Australian charities.
These includes some of the country's largest charities including the Cancer Council, the Fred Hollows Foundation, and Canteen have been affected by the data breach
The personal information leaked to the dark web included phone numbers and email addresses of thousands of Australians.
In a statement, the Fred Follows Foundation said although it had ended the relationship with Pareto Phone for nine years, the telemarketer still kept the private details of 1,700 of its donors.
The charity said it was "deeply disappointed" by the incident.
"We worked with Pareto Phone only during 2013 and 2014. We were not aware our data was still held by them," they said in a statement, according to the Institute of Community Directors Australia.
"Under the Australian Privacy Principles, there is a requirement for personal information data to be destroyed or de-identified once it is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was collected," it continued.
...
Canteen, which provides help for young people struggling with cancer, said the breach had affected 2,600 of its donors whose personal details including name, data of birth, address, email and phone numbers were leaked.
However, the charity had assured that no financial information had been leaked.
Quote:The world's largest tech giants will now have to comply with new European Union regulations coming into effect this week, which will broadly affect their global operations.
Starting on Aug. 26, the sweeping EU Digital Services Act (DSA) will broadly affect everything from social media content moderation, user privacy, transparency, and combating counterfeit goods sold online.
The EU law also attempts to prevent the spread of personally harmful content or disinformation, ban or limit certain user-targeting advertising practices, and make companies share some internal data with regulators.
The DSA is the most ambitiously widespread effort passed by policymakers to regulate the tech industry and is intended to force companies to implement major software changes or face massive fines.
Any company found in breach of the new act will face a fine of up to 6 percent of its global turnover, and repeat offenders may be banned from operating in the EU altogether.
...
Although the DSA passed last year, the big tech companies have had until this week to prepare for its enforcement.
The expiration of the compliance period has put pressure on tech platforms, with more than 45 million users in the EU to follow the obligations set out in the legislation.
The new rules for online platforms will apply to 19 companies for now, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Snapchat, X, TikTok, and many others.
Strangely, some platforms, like eBay, Airbnb, Netflix and even PornHub, were omitted from the list, but it is possible that they may be added later on.
Quote:The United Nations says that it's battling mis- and disinformation on social media and beyond through what it calls a "digital army" located across the globe.
In an Aug. 19 statement, U.N. officials said peacekeepers throughout the world are building the digital army through smartphones, editing apps, and "innovative approaches" as part of efforts to "fight back against falsehoods that can trigger tensions, violence, or even death."
The intergovernmental organization has also been monitoring how mis- and disinformation and hate speech can "attack health, security, stability" as well as progress towards its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), officials said.
"Digital platforms are crucial tools that have transformed social, cultural, and political interactions everywhere. Across the world, they connect concerned global citizens on issues that matter," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a policy brief (pdf) published in June titled "Information Integrity on Digital Platforms."
Such platforms have "given people hope in times of crisis and struggle, amplified voices that were previously unheard, and breathed life into global movements," Mr. Guterres wrote.
However, they have also "exposed a darker side of the digital ecosystem," the U.N. secretary-general noted.
"They have enabled the rapid spread of lies and hate, causing real harm on a global scale," he wrote in the brief. "Optimism over the potential of social media to connect and engage people has been dampened as mis- and disinformation and hate speech have surged from the margins of digital space into the mainstream. The danger cannot be overstated."
The U.N. policy brief acknowledges that there are "no universally accepted definitions" of the term "disinformation" but says that the U.N.'s own working definition of the term refers to "false information that is disseminated intentionally to cause serious social harm."
So this article shows us that if people defend Trump or claim that the 2020 elections were stolen or they won't ever believe in global warming, they will be silenced by this new UN "Digital Army" that staunchly defends global censorship.
The doctor had been uploading videos on a couple of platforms only to see how they took it down in no time.
Quote:A Florida physician known for being outspoken about COVID-related topics has regained his board certification that was stripped because he publicly criticized COVID vaccines.
Now, Dr. John Littell is moving forward from the experience with plans to help future physicians defend themselves when disciplined for voicing viewpoints that are not in the majority, he told The Epoch Times.
Dr. Littell, a longtime family physician in Ocala and a medical school professor, began posting videos sharing his thoughts about COVID-19 testing, treatments, and vaccines early in the pandemic. He was frustrated to find his content often was pulled down from his YouTube channel.
But he fought against what he saw as censorship by moving the content to other platforms, such as Rumble, he said.
Then, in January 2022 and again five months later, he received warning letters from the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM), the organization that issued his certification for his medical specialty.
The letter stated that his videos on YouTube and Rumble spread “medical misinformation” and could put his board certification in jeopardy, he said.
The ABFM declined to comment on the matter because the board's "policy indicates we are unable to comment about professionalism cases," an unidentified spokesperson said in an email to The Epoch Times.
Quote:Hurricane Idalia and subsequent floods have created an electric vehicle (EV) fire risk in Florida as batteries exposed to saltwater become susceptible to combustion, based on statements from one of the fire departments in the state.
“WARNING. If you own a hybrid or electric vehicle that has come into contact with saltwater due to recent flooding within the last 24 hours, it is crucial to relocate the vehicle from your garage without delay. Saltwater exposure can trigger combustion in lithium-ion batteries. If possible, transfer your vehicle to higher ground,” Palm Harbor Fire Rescue (PHFR), Florida, said in an Aug. 31 Facebook post.
“This includes golf carts and electric scooters. Don’t drive these through water. PHFR crews have seen numerous residents out in golf carts and children on scooters riding through water.”
The issue with saltwater is that even if the water dries off, the residue can remain, potentially triggering electrical connections within the EV battery, which eventually sparks into a fire. In the post, PHFR pointed to two Tesla EVs in Dunedin that had caught fire.
EV fires in the wake of the storm are not an unforeseen occurrence. Prior to the storm surge, Florida Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis warned citizens that saltwater from the storms can trigger fires in electric vehicles “which cannot be easily suppressed.”
“The best fire teams can do is keep water on the battery until the fuel burns out,” he said. “If you’re evacuating and leaving an EV, or other lithium-ion powered devices like scooters or golf carts in your garage, you’re creating a real fire threat for your home, your communities, and first responders.”
Quote:Futurism reports that a recent study by Europol suggests that by 2026, up to 90 percent of online content could be artificially generated. This staggering figure has sent ripples through various sectors, from journalism and art to technology and law enforcement. Synthetic media, which refers to content generated or manipulated using artificial intelligence, is not a new phenomenon. However, its rapid proliferation has raised eyebrows and concerns alike.
“In most cases, synthetic media is generated for gaming, to improve services or to improve the quality of life,” the report states. While AI-generated content has its merits — such as enhancing user experience in gaming or streamlining customer service — it also opens the door to more nefarious uses. “The increase in synthetic media and improved technology has given rise to disinformation possibilities,” the report adds.
The report states: “On a daily basis, people trust their own perception to guide them and tell them what is real and what is not. Auditory and visual recordings of an event are often treated as a truthful account of an event. But what if these media can be generated artificially, adapted to show events that never took place, to misrepresent events, or to distort the truth?”
The report also raises existential questions for artists, writers, and other content creators. In a world increasingly dominated by AI-generated content, what is the role of human creativity? Will artists and writers adapt to this new landscape, or will they be overshadowed by algorithms that can produce content at scale?
...
Decrypt reports that when professor Jane Friedman discovered books she didn’t write being attributed to her on Amazon, she was met with initial resistance from the e-commerce giant, which did not want to remove the bogus titles from sale. The titles, which Friedman referred to as “garbage books,” were likely created using generative AI and included guides like “Your Guide to Writing a Bestseller eBook on Amazon,” “Publishing Power: Navigating Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing,” and “Promote to Prosper: Strategies to Skyrocket Your eBook Sales on Amazon.
Quote:The Wall Street Journal reports that Tesla has found itself under the microscope of both the DOJ and SEC. The federal agencies are probing into a hush-hush initiative within the company, internally referred to as “Project 42.” The project, described as a “house for Chief Executive Elon Musk,” is under scrutiny for its use of company funds and whether it serves any personal benefits to Musk.
...
Inside Tesla, “Project 42” was known for its ambitious plans to erect a dramatic glass-walled building near the company’s headquarters. One design featured a structure resembling a twisted hexagon on waterfront property with Tesla’s factory in the distance. Other designs showed a large glass box with a residential area that appeared to include a kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms. This reportedly reminded people of Apple’s Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan.
However, the project drew attention and scrutiny from within the company. The company placed orders for specialized glass — the type of large-format panels used on building facades — totally millions of dollars. These orders sparked concern among some employees about what the materials would be used for. These concerns led to an internal investigation by Tesla’s board members to determine whether company resources had been misused and if Musk himself had a role in it.
According to sources, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is seeking information related to personal benefits that given to Elon Musk. They are also interested in knowing how much money Tesla spent on a project that involved constructing a large glass structure in the Austin, Texas region, and for what purpose it was intended.
Quote:Then-Vice President Joe Biden used a fourth alias, “auks@att.blackberry.net,” as early as 2010 to communicate with his family, according to the nonprofit Marco Polo, based on information from Hunter Biden’s “Laptop from Hell.”
The House Oversight Committee previously noted only three aliases in its August 17 request to the National Archives for documents related to Joe Biden’s email pseudonyms: “Robert Peters,” “Robin Ware,” and “JRB Ware.”
“Auks” is the mascot of Archmere Academy, a private Roman Catholic college preparatory school in Delaware and the alma mater of Joe and Hunter Biden.
Joe Biden’s “auks” alias received an email on May 10, 2011, from his niece, Casey Owens, who served as a special assistant for the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue at the Treasury Department.
Just days before she left the Treasury, Owens emailed “Uncle Joe” at auks@blackberry.net concerning the vice president’s remarks a day prior, during the opening session of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue:
Uncle Joe,
Just got home from work and couldn’t wait to send you an email. Today was truly a memorable day for me. I keep thinking about Mommom. Can you imagine her seeing us huddled up back stage together? She would have loved it. It chokes me up. I have so much to learn! Sitting back there with you was very, very humbling. I was just blown away. You ALWAYS make time to talk to me. Always. But today was really incredible. I still can’t believe you took the time to discuss the issues with me.
Joe Biden then forwarded the email to Hunter Biden, Beau Biden, and Valerie Biden Owens, Joe Biden’s sister.
Quote:Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm decided to show America how great electric cars are — and only proved the technology isn’t even close to ready.
“When Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm set out on a four-day electric-vehicle road trip this summer, she knew charging might be a challenge,” the welfare queens at NPR report. “But she probably didn’t expect anyone to call the cops.”
The cops were called because Granholm’s advance team used a gasoline-powered car to block access to an electric charging spot for her. On a “sweltering day,” the Granholm team’s gas guzzler just sat there, NPR reports, until a family with a baby got “so upset” they called the cops.
But even with advance teams trying to ease Granholm’s way in their gas guzzlers, the trip was still a debacle:
But between stops, Granholm’s entourage at times had to grapple with the limitations of the present. Like when her caravan of EVs — including a luxury Cadillac Lyriq, a hefty Ford F-150 and an affordable Bolt electric utility vehicle — was planning to fast-charge in Grovetown, a suburb of Augusta, Georgia.
Her advance team realized there weren’t going to be enough plugs to go around. One of the station’s four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy.
Quote:Threads, the app linked to Meta-owned Instagram and touted as a “sane” alternative to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, is blocking searches related to coronavirus and vaccines, per reports.
The two words are among a number of terms that are blocked in the app’s new search function, according to the Washington Post.
Meta acknowledged in a statement to The Washington Post that Threads is intentionally blocking the search terms and said that other terms are being blocked, but the company declined to provide a list of them. A search by The Post discovered that the words “sex,” “nude,” “gore,” “porn,” “coronavirus,” “vaccines” and “vaccination” are also among blocked words.
“The search functionality temporarily doesn’t provide results for keywords that may show potentially sensitive content,” the statement said, adding that the company will add search functionality for terms only “once we are confident in the quality of the results.”
Lucky Tran, director of science communication at Columbia University, discovered this himself when he attempted to use Threads to seek out research related to covid, something he says he does every day. “I was excited by search [on Threads],” he said. “When I typed in covid, I came up with no search results.”
Rather than deal with messy disputes over what’s allowed and not allowed with regards to coronavirus-related discussion (and perhaps avoid having to disclose more of its internal communications, many of which were the result of requests related to coronavirus censorship), it appears Meta has decided to block searches for any kind of discussion on the topic.
Quote:OpenAI, the developers of the massively popular AI chatbot ChatGPT, has officially acknowledged that AI writing detectors are not as reliable as once thought, casting doubt on the efficacy of automated tools in distinguishing between human and machine-generated content.
Ars Technica reports that in a recent FAQ section accompanying a promotional blog post for educators, OpenAI admits what many in the tech industry have suspected: AI writing detectors are not not very good. “While some (including OpenAI) have released tools that purport to detect AI-generated content, none of these have proven to reliably distinguish between AI-generated and human-generated content,” the company stated.
This revelation comes after experts have criticized such detectors as “mostly snake oil,” often yielding false positives due to their reliance on unproven detection metrics. OpenAI itself had released an experimental tool called AI Classifier, designed to detect AI-written text, which was discontinued due to its abysmal 26 percent accuracy rate. This is quite a big deal in academia, given that some college professors have flunked entire classes, alleging that students wrote their essays with ChatGPT.
The FAQ also tackled another common misconception: that ChatGPT, OpenAI’s conversational AI model, can identify whether a text is AI-generated or not. “Additionally, ChatGPT has no ‘knowledge’ of what content could be AI-generated. It will sometimes make up responses to questions like ‘did you write this [essay]?’ or ‘could this have been written by AI?’ These responses are random and have no basis in fact,” OpenAI clarified.
The company also warned against relying solely on ChatGPT for research purposes. “Sometimes, ChatGPT sounds convincing, but it might give you incorrect or misleading information (often called a ‘hallucination’ in the literature),” they cautioned. This warning comes on the heels of an incident where a lawyer cited six non-existent cases that he had sourced from ChatGPT.
Quote:Tesla CEO Elon Musk raged against creepy Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates for shorting Tesla stock, questioning Gates’s commitment to environmental sustainability. The revelations come from a new book about Musk, in which he calls Gates an “a** to the core” that is “categorically insane.”
Fortune reports that when two of the world’s richest men, Elon Musk and Bill Gates, share a tumultuous relationship that has been further strained by financial bets and contrasting philosophies.
The feud between Musk, the CEO of Tesla, and Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has been public knowledge for some time. But new details continue to emerge based on the publication of a Musk biography written by Walter Isaacson. These feud centers around an incident where Gates shorted Tesla stock, betting that the company’s value would go down based on Musk’s erratic leadership.
The two met in March 2022 at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin to discuss philanthropy, but the conversation took a bitter turn. “Once he heard I’d shorted the stock, he was super mean to me,” Gates told biographer Walter Isaacson. “But he’s super mean to so many people, so you can’t take it too personally.”
Musk’s take on the meeting was more blunt. He sent Isaacson a message reading, “At this point, I am convinced that he is categorically insane (and an asshole to the core). I did actually want to like him (sigh).”
Gates justified his bearish stance on Tesla by stating that he believed the supply of electric vehicles (EVs) would soon outweigh demand. For Musk, who views Tesla as a leading force in combating climate change, Gates’ actions were unforgivable. “How can someone say they are passionate about fighting climate change and then do something that reduced the overall investment in the company doing the most? It’s pure hypocrisy,” Musk expressed after the meeting.
Perhaps he did that because it never was about the so called climate change from the very beginning...
Just
implying here.
Quote:Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used a break in New York City on Sunday to urge tech giant Elon Musk to open his next Tesla factory in Turkey.
Erdogan’s entreaty makes him just the latest in a long line of leaders to lobby one of the world’s richest men.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who met Musk in June, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, have also tried to lure him to their respective countries.
In March the Mexican government announced Tesla will invest about $5 billion in a massive new factory in the northern city of Monterrey.
Erdogan was in New York to attend the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting, which he is scheduled to address on Tuesday.
AP reports the two men have held a series of meetings both in Turkey and on the sidelines of international forums, developing a seeming friendship that they extended in New York.
Turkish television on Monday showed Musk entering New York’s Turkish House, a new skyscraper across from the United Nations building, with his son, whom he held on his lap during the talks.
A Credit Card Coalition warns you that...
Quote:Big-box retailers like Walmart are doing well for themselves these days. In their August earnings report, Walmart announced revenue was up more than five percent, and their stock’s shares are up about ten percent for the year. Part of the reason for Walmart’s success is their sheer size and massive influence on suppliers, but it’s also their habit of lobbying Congress for favors.
This summer, big-box retailer lobbyists were successful in getting Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Roger Marshall (R-KS), J.D. Vance (R-OH), and Peter Welch (D-VT) to introduce legislation that would create new credit card routing mandates. These mandates would allow Walmart to process credit card transactions based solely on what is cheapest for them without regard to the value that consumers derive from rewards and anti-fraud programs.
Although Walmart is promoting this bill under the guise of “competition,” it’s really a ruse. The bill actually gives the federal government massive power to further control payments in Walmart’s favor, cutting out the credit unions and banks who currently invest millions in anti-fraud technology and rewards systems. This isn’t about competition, it’s about cronyism.
This “Big-Box Bait-and-Switch” would add billions of dollars to the bottom lines of mega-retailers every year while eliminating almost all the funding that goes towards popular credit card rewards programs, weakening cybersecurity protections, and reducing access to credit, particularly for Americans that need it most.
Essentially, Walmart and other big-box retailers want to enjoy the many benefits of accepting credit cards without having to pay for that privilege. Currently, most businesses pay an interchange fee of 1-3 percent of every transaction to accept credit cards. This fee has remained stable for roughly a decade. What Walmart doesn’t want to acknowledge is that financial institutions—including payment networks and banks of all sizes—are constantly investing money to improve America’s payment ecosystem to ensure that consumers and retailers have the safest and smartest payment system in the world.
It’s not the first time Walmart has lobbied for the government to make new rules that favor them. In 2010, Walmart teamed up with Target and other mega-retailers to add the Durbin Amendment to the must-pass Dodd-Frank bill. The Durbin Amendment instituted price controls on debit card fees, and it didn’t even get a hearing. Instead, Sen. Durbin slipped it into the bill as a last-minute favor. As is always the case, these price controls backfired and had a ripple effect on the entire economy. Big-box retailers got to pocket billions, while consumers lost massive benefits like debit card rewards and free checking.
Quote:The move comes in the wake several women making allegations of sexual assault against the UK comedian-turned-influencer, as Breitbart News reported.
AP reports YouTube said monetization of Brand’s account, which has 6.6 million subscribers, has been suspended “following serious allegations against the creator.” His agent has also dropped him.
“This decision applies to all channels that may be owned or operated by Russell Brand,” the Google-owned video service said.
Brand, 48, vehemently denies allegations of sexual assault made by four women initially made public in a Channel 4 television documentary and The Times and Sunday Times newspapers.
The accusers, who have not been named, include one who said she was sexually assaulted during a relationship with him when she was 16. Another woman alleges Brand raped her in Los Angeles in 2012.
...
Promoters have since postponed the remaining dates in a string of live gigs by the comedian.
Quote:CNBC reports that Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, has once again made headlines, this time for his plans to overhaul the social media landscape. During a livestreamed conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Musk announced that X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, may implement a monthly subscription fee for all users. The move is part of a broader strategy to combat the proliferation of bots on the platform.
“Moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system,” Musk said, although he did not disclose the exact cost or features that would be included in the new subscription model. The announcement comes as Musk boasts of 550 million active monthly users on Twitter/X who generate between 100 and 200 million posts per day. Although the number seems impressive, it isn’t clear what percentage of these accounts are bots instead of people, and Musk is not disclosing the platform’s metrics according to measurements formerly used by Twitter, so a historical comparison of the platform’s health is difficult.
The conversation with Netanyahu was initially intended to focus on the theoretical risks of artificial intelligence technology and its potential regulation. However, Musk seized the opportunity to address allegations of hate speech and antisemitism on Twitter/X. The platform has been under scrutiny for amplifying bigotry, leading Musk to threaten legal action against the Anti-Defamation League, a leftist organization.
Quote:Ars Technica reports that Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its Starlink internet services have not lived up to its own lofty expectations, missing its projected targets by a wide margin. In a 2015 presentation aimed at investors, SpaceX had projected that Starlink would boast 20 million subscribers and generate nearly $12 billion in revenue by the end of 2022. These figures were part of the company’s ambitious plan to revolutionize the internet landscape.
However, according to a Wall Street Journal report, the actual numbers tell a different story. Starlink’s revenue for 2022 was reported to be $1.4 billion, a far cry from the projected $12 billion. Moreover, the company had just over 1.5 million customers worldwide, including consumer users and businesses, as opposed to the 20 million it had anticipated.
“Starlink hasn’t signed up customers as quickly as SpaceX had hoped,” the Wall Street Journal noted. The report also highlighted that the documents did not specify whether Starlink is currently profitable, leaving a cloud of uncertainty over the project’s financial health.
SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell stated in February that Starlink is expected to turn a profit this year. However, without specific numbers, it’s hard to gauge the project’s actual profitability. The company’s Q1 2023 numbers reportedly included a $55 million profit on $1.5 billion in revenue, but it remains unclear how much of this was attributed to Starlink.
One of the significant challenges facing Starlink is its struggle to penetrate high-density areas like cities. “The majority of the world’s population that the business could serve and that can afford high-speed broadband lives in cities. In those regions, Internet service is readily available, usually offers cheaper monthly costs than Starlink and doesn’t require specialized equipment,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Quote:The ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Google has reignited debates about the company’s market dominance and the legal frameworks used to evaluate such cases. One expert believes the case and how the judge views Google’s stranglehold on the search market will come down to the consumer welfare standard and how the court views Google’s “effects on innovation.”
In a recent article published by the Hill and titled “How To Think About the Google Antitrust Case,” Joel Thayer, president of the Digital Progress Institute, discusses how to view the current antitrust case that the Department of Justice has brought against Google.
Thayer believes the case comes down to the consumer welfare standard, writing:
Since the 1980s, courts have used the consumer welfare standard to evaluate whether the actions of a firm with market power violate federal law. The standard takes into account prices, of course, but also considers other factors that are harder to measure. As the D.C. Circuit in the AT&T/Time Warner case put it, the standard extends “beyond higher prices for consumers, including decreased product quality and reduced innovation.” Or, as former FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson explained, the standard considers the effect of “competition on quality … in the analysis of vertical restraints” and requires an evaluation of the “effects on innovation.”
...Microsoft had market power; it leveraged that market power to deny consumers the ability to choose a competitor, and the resulting lack of competition reduced innovation in the browser market. In other words, Microsoft had violated the antitrust laws with its “free” browser.
Google’s tactics mirror Microsoft’s. Google has arranged for service providers, browsers and device manufacturers to make its Search the default engine. For example, Google pays Apple over $15 billion per year to make Search the default search engine for Safari — a direct competitor to Google’s browser, Chrome. Google requires device manufacturers that use its Android operating system to preinstall certain apps that use Google Search as their default search engine.
Quote:Fortune reports that AI is at the epicenter of the labor dispute gripping Hollywood. Among those raising the alarm is British actor and author Stephen Fry, who recently spoke at the CogX Festival in London about his unsettling experience of having his voice digitally replicated without his permission.
...
The core issue for actors like Fry is the potential for studios to use AI to digitally clone their likeness without fair compensation. Union president Fran Drescher emphasized that AI “poses an existential threat” to creative industries. “Actors need protection from having their identity and talent exploited without consent and pay,” Drescher stated.
To drive home his point, Fry played a clip at the CogX Festival of an AI system mimicking his voice to narrate a documentary. “I said not one word of that—it was a machine. Yes, it shocked me,” Fry revealed. “They used my reading of the seven volumes of the Harry Potter books, and from that dataset, an AI of my voice was created, and it made that new narration.”
Fry is not alone in his concerns. Emmy-winning actor Brian Cox shared that a friend in the industry had been told “in no uncertain terms” that a studio would keep his image and do what they liked with it. Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey and Star Trek star Simon Pegg have also expressed apprehensions about the rise of AI in Hollywood.