News of the Cyber World

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Tim Cook Knows if You’re Naughty or Nice:
Apple Wants to Use AI to Track Your Emotions

Apple is venturing further into the health and wellness sector with the development of an AI-powered health coaching service, codenamed Quartz, and the expansion of its health app to include new features aimed at tracking emotions. Tim Cook’s creepy vision of the future includes your iPhone determining your mood based on analyzing your speech, typed words, and other data from their devices.

Bloomberg reports that Apple is expanding its venture into the health and wellness market with the creation of Quartz, a health coaching service powered by artificial intelligence, and the addition of new features to its health app aimed at tracking emotions and mood.

The Quartz project aims to keep users inspired to work out, improve their eating routines, and sleep better. The AI-powered service will use data from the Apple Watch to create customized coaching programs suited to each user, according to sources familiar with the project. “The idea is to use AI and data from an Apple Watch to make suggestions and create coaching programs tailored to specific users,” said the insiders, who requested anonymity as the initiatives have not been officially announced.

...this move is a part of a larger health push by Apple. Along with Quartz, Apple also intends to release an iPad version of the iPhone health app, enabling users to view health information, like electrocardiogram results, in a more convenient format. The app’s popularity is anticipated to increase as a result of this expansion in healthcare settings, where tablets have already made headway.

The health app will soon include the tools for tracking emotions and feelings. Users of the emotion tracker’s initial iteration will be able to record their mood, respond to day-related questions, and track results over time. In the long run, Apple wants the iPhone to be able to detect a user’s mood by analyzing speech, typed words, and other data from their devices.

Elon Musk Meets with Senate Leadership to Discuss AI Regulation

Elon Musk met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Wednesday to discuss AI regulation, a topic on which the billionaire has been vocal on.

Musk, an early investor in OpenAI who later distanced himself from the project, is a critic of mainstream AI and has frequently warned about the technology’s harmful potential.

After being spotted on Capitol Hill, the big tech CEO revealed that he had been discussing AI regulation with Sen. Schumer and various members of Congress.

“Met with @SenSchumer and many members of Congress about artificial intelligence regulation today,” said Musk on Twitter. “That which affects safety of the public has, over time, become regulated to ensure that companies do not cut corners. AI has great power to do good and evil. Better the former.”

Despite being an early supporter of OpenAI, the organization that created ChatGPT, Musk has been increasingly critical of the project, targeting OpenAI for its closeness to Microsoft and ChatGPT for its political correctness.

Musk has promised to create an alternative AI chatbot called “TruthGPT,” arguing that an AI committed to the truth would be less likely to threaten humans.

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Republicans Subpoena Head of CDC
Over Big Tech Censorship Coordination

The U.S. House of Representatives has subpoenaed several top Biden administration officials, including the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over the administration’s coordination with Big Tech to censor users.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent the subpoenas on April 28 to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly, and James Rubin, an official at the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC).

All three have responded inadequately to requests to provide documents, including communications between their respective entities and social media platforms, Jordan said in letters accompanying the subpoenas. CISA and GEC have not responded at all to the requests, while the CDC has not provided any of the requested documents, he said.

“Freedom of speech is one of the most important rights we have in this country,” Jordan told the Washington Examiner. “The collusion between our federal government and Big Tech undermines First Amendment principles and should be investigated.”
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A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, CISA’s parent agency, said that the department “does not censor speech and does not request that content be taken down by social media companies.”

“Instead of working with the Department, as numerous committees have done this Congress, the House Judiciary Committee has unnecessarily escalated to a subpoena,” the spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email, adding that the agency “will continue cooperating appropriately with Congressional oversight requests, all while faithfully working to protect our nation from terrorism and targeted violence, secure our borders, respond to natural disasters, defend against cyberattacks, and more.”

Federal Court Rejects Google’s Motion to Dismiss Antitrust Lawsuit

A Virginia district court on April 28 rejected Google’s request to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) about the company’s advertising business.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, accuses Google of monopolizing key digital advertising technologies, known as the “ad tech stack,” in violation of antitrust laws. These technologies are crucial for website publishers to sell ads and for advertisers to reach potential customers.

Eric Mahr, Google’s lawyer, argued that the government’s claim of Google being a monopoly was not justified as the company’s ad business does not meet the 70 percent market share benchmark. He also cited other social media platforms such as Facebook and Tiktok as viable options for advertisers.

In court documents, Google drew a comparison to an unsuccessful antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, a concert promoter that was accused of holding a monopoly on outdoor amphitheaters. The lawsuit was dismissed because the plaintiffs did not consider alternative options such as indoor concert halls and arenas.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema highlighted that the key issue in the case will be how to define the market in which Google is accused of having a monopoly. However, she deemed the government’s claims plausible enough to continue with the case, even though the government’s burden of proof will increase during the trial.
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This marks Google’s second loss in the Alexandria federal court. Earlier, Google had tried to consolidate the case with a related lawsuit in New York, which had been ongoing for years. However, Brinkema rejected Google’s request and ordered the case to be heard in the Alexandria courthouse.

Nine states, including Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Washington, and West Virginia, joined eight others as plaintiffs in the antitrust lawsuit against Google earlier this month.

Many times we have heard these monopolistic giants say that limiting their share of the market deters investment and technological innovation. How easily they forget how they have been firing employees like never before.
 Were are those impressive investments?
What about all those professionals that were working on innovative projects that still got kicked out in the past 12 months?

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Media Publishers Could Charge Users Based on Article Clicks

Media publishers could charge users based on article clicks as soon as next month, Twitter Inc. CEO Elon Musk announced on Saturday.

“Rolling out next month, this platform will allow media publishers to charge users on a per article basis with one click,” the billionaire stated in a Twitter post.

The purpose of the new function is to provide a new option for readers who don’t have a monthly subscription to the media but still want to read an article from the media occasionally. Meanwhile, the media can benefit from this plan through some extra revenue.

It will be a “major win-win” for both media outlets and the public, Musk said.

Greg Autry, a professor at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, applauded Twitter’s new move and said it may help the media get more subscribers.
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John Tegland—a verified Twitter user who claims to be a former U.S. Marine Corps pilot—said the new function is the electronic version of buying a single newspaper or magazine.
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However, some are worried that the new feature will benefit the publishers only but not the readers as they have to pay to read an article.

New York Transit Authority Drops Twitter
for Real-Time Alerts, Says It’s ‘No Longer Reliable’

New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Agency (MTA) has announced that it’s “saying goodbye” to Twitter as a platform for delivering service alerts and information, citing reliability problems.

For over a decade, MTA has provided real-time information on service outages, delays, and other important transit updates for its 1.3 million Twitter followers.
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“For the MTA, Twitter is no longer reliable for providing the consistent updates riders expect,” the agency said in a tweet Friday. “So as of today, we’re saying goodbye to it for service alerts and information.”

The agency listed a series of other ways subway, train, and bus riders can get reliable transit information. This includes through its mta.info site, via email and text alerts, and by calling 511.

API Charge
The move comes after Twitter approached the cash-strapped agency with a request to pay a $50,000 fee to maintain access to Twitter’s API (application programming interface), an MTA official told The New York Post.

“The MTA does not pay tech platforms to publish service information and has built redundant tools that provide service alerts in real time,” MTA Acting Chief Customer Officer Shanifah Rieara said in a Thursday statement.

MTA has a $600 million budget deficit this year that’s expected to grow to $3 billion in 2025.

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Apple Legend Steve Wozniak Warns of
AI’s Potential to Create Scams and Hoaxes

Steve Wozniak, the legendary co-founder of Apple, has issued a warning about the risk that artificial intelligence will make it harder to spot hoaxes and false information, calling for clear labeling and regulation of AI-generated content.

Wozniak expressed his worries that bad actors could use sophisticated AI technology in an interview with the BBC. “AI is so intelligent it’s open to the bad players, the ones that want to trick you about who they are,” he said. Although he does not think AI will replace people because it lacks emotion, he warned about how sophisticated AI models like ChatGPT can produce text that “sounds so intelligent,” making it more difficult to detect scams and false information.

Wozniak, a tech industry veteran and computing pioneer, called for greater accountability on the part of major tech firms, stating, “A human really has to take the responsibility for what is generated by AI.” He also voiced skepticism about regulators’ ability to effectively address the issue, noting, “I think the forces that drive for money usually win out, which is sort of sad.”

Wozniak compared the present state of AI to the early days of the internet and stressed the significance of learning from missed opportunities in the past and better educating people to spot fraud and malicious attempts to access personal information. He believes that while “we can’t stop the technology,” society can adapt by educating individuals to be more vigilant in the face of potential threats.

Mailchimp Censors Senator J.D. Vance’s Press Release, Blames ‘Error’

The press team for Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) had their access to Mailchimp suspended after linking to a post on Truth Social by Donald Trump, in which the former president backed the Ohio senator’s new legislation on railway safety.

Mailchimp, one of the most widely-used email marketing platforms, took more than a day to restore access to Sen. Vance’s team, blaming the suspension on an error caused by Omnivore, the company’s automatic “abuse prevention” system.

“Mailchimp suspended my press team’s account after we announced President Trump’s support for the Railway Safety Act,” tweeted Sen. Vance. “But big tech censorship won’t stop us from fighting for the people of East Palestine.”

Mailchimp would not disclose what it was in the press release that caused Omnivore to flag it. In emails seen by Breitbart News, the tech company said the system identified “possibility of harmful information being sent through our service.”

The company declined to explain what the reason was for the ban, and said “specific keywords and content” flagged by Omnivore are constantly changing.
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The list of conservatives and populists censored by the tech company, in error or otherwise, includes The Babylon Bee, Steve Bannon, the Northern Virginia Tea Party, and the Virginia Citizen’s Defense League, a nonprofit promoting the Second Amendment.

Jim Jordan Accuses Google of Defying Subpoena,
Threatens Enforcement Actions

In a letter to the legal team of Alphabet, owners of Google and YouTube, House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) accused the tech giant of providing an unconvincing response to the Committee’s subpoena of various internal communications.

What’s more, it seems that Google has redacted information in defiance of Committee instructions in the subpoenas it issued in February this year.
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“These redactions do not appear to be based on any applicable privilege— because Alphabet has asserted none and the Committee requires this material to be produced without redactions.”

Per the letter, Google also failed to provide an “appreciable volume” of key information to the Committee, including communications with third parties like the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), an organization that sought to blacklist conservative media and was in contact with every major tech company.

The letter also accuses Google of providing insufficient information about its communications and responses to censorship requests from the federal government.
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If Alphabet fails to comply with the Committee’s subpoena, several enforcement options are available, including a vote to hold the company in contempt of Congress — although that must ultimately be approved by a full vote of the House.

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Communist Vietnam Will Force
Local and Foreign Social Media Users
to Register Identity

Vietnamese state media reported on Monday that the communist government is set to issue an amendment to the national telecommunications law before the end of 2023 that requires both foreign and domestic social media users to register their identities with law enforcement.
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“There are times the authorities can identify social media account holders that violate the laws but cannot track them down because those criminals use cross-border applications. Unverified accounts, no matter on local or foreign platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, will be dealt with,” vowed deputy information minister Nguyen Thanh Lam.

Reuters noted that not all social media platforms operating in Vietnam currently offer identity verification services. It is not yet clear if the new law will force them to implement verification, or how much time they would be given to do so.

The BBC said Vietnamese authorities intend to “monitor and possibly block anonymous accounts” once the new restrictions go into effect.

Spotify Removes Thousands of AI-Generated Songs amid Fraud Concerns

Streaming music giant Spotify has taken action against AI music start-up Boomy, removing tens of thousands of songs from its platform amid growing concerns over streaming fraud and clutter.
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About seven percent of the tracks uploaded by Boomy were removed by the dominant audio streaming service because they were thought to have been artificially streamed by online bots posing as human listeners. The decision was made at a time when the music industry is grappling with issues related to the growing trend of AI-generated songs and the subsequent manipulation of streaming data.

A source with knowledge of the situation confirmed that Universal Music, a major recording company, alerted major streaming platforms to suspicious streaming activity on Boomy tracks. To address the AI streaming problem affecting the entire industry, Spotify responded by removing the flagged content.
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Universal’s Chief Digital Officer, Michael Nash, praised the vigilance of streaming services.

New York Times to Receive $100 Million from Google

The New York Times, one of the wealthiest media companies in the world with annual revenues of $2.3 billion, is about to receive a major payday: $100 million over three years from Google in a deal to feature the newspaper’s content on its platforms.

The corporate legacy media spent the bulk of its lobbying power over the past two years demanding Congress pass the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), a proposed bill that would have forced Big Tech to funnel money to a cartel made up of establishment media companies.

The deal follows other bonanza payments from Google to media companies, including Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, whose lobbyists pushed heavily for the JCPA while Democrats controlled Congress.

It was a News Corp publication, the Wall Street Journal, that broke news of the NYT’s upcoming big tech windfall.
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The deal includes the Times’ participation in Google News Showcase, a product that pays publishers to feature their content on Google News and some other Google platforms, some of the people said. The product has yet to be launched in the U.S., but is available in other countries including Germany, Brazil and Australia.

News Corp, parent of Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co., is among the publishers that previously have reached agreements with Google over Showcase and other elements.

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Musk picks advertising guru Linda Yaccarino to replace him as Twitter CEO

Yaccarino is a highly respected advertising executive who stepped down from NBCUniversal "effectively immediately" on Friday as rumors swirled that she would replace the mercurial tycoon as Twitter CEO.
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Musk on Thursday teased Yaccarino's hiring saying in a tweet that he had hired a woman to replace him as boss of Twitter and its newly named X Corporation parent, but without revealing the name.
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Yaccarino's departure from the company that owns NBC, Universal and Telemundo -- where she has been since 2011 -- came a few weeks after she interviewed Musk at a marketing conference in Miami.

Asked by Yaccarino at the time how it's been going since the acquisition, Musk replied: "It's going well... It's entertaining... It's a trainwreck sometimes."
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In a tweet, Musk said he would remain in charge of design and technology at Twitter, with Yaccarino focusing primarily on business operations and turning Twitter into an "everything app" called X.

Musk's history with the letter X goes back to 1999 when he helped created X.com, an online bank that was bought and later morphed into PayPal.

YouTuber Confesses to Intentionally Crashing Plane
in Publicity Stunt, Faces Jail Time

NBC News reports that 29-year-old YouTuber Trevor Jacob has confessed to purposely causing the crash of his own airplane in a calculated attempt to boost viewership on his channel and secure a lucrative sponsorship agreement. Jacob’s admission came as part of a plea agreement filed in federal court in Los Angeles, where he pleaded guilty to the charge of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation. This offense carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

The video at the center of the controversy, titled “I Crashed My Airplane,” was uploaded by Jacob on December 23, 2021, and has attracted significant attention, accumulating nearly 3.1 million views at the latest count. The footage captures Jacob, described as an experienced pilot and skydiver, taking off from Lompoc City Airport in a Taylorcraft BL-65 approximately one month prior to its release.

Approximately one minute into the video, while flying over the picturesque landscape of Los Padres National Forest, a camera mounted on the aircraft captures a purported malfunction of the propeller. The footage shows Jacob hastily exiting the plane and deploying a parachute mere moments before the aircraft crashes into the mountains below.

Initially, Jacob vehemently denied any deliberate crash, stating to the New York Times shortly after the incident, “I’ll happily say I did not purposely crash my plane for views on YouTube.” However, the plea agreement reveals an alternative motive behind the crash.

As per the agreement, Jacob had planned to exploit the video for a sponsorship deal with an undisclosed wallet company. The video aimed to feature Jacob parachuting from the plane, followed by its dramatic descent and crash, subtly promoting the wallet brand.

...In an email exchange with an FAA investigator approximately one month after the crash, Jacob intentionally misled authorities by claiming ignorance regarding the wreckage’s whereabouts. In reality, he had enlisted the services of a helicopter company based in Paso Robles, which removed the wreckage from the mountains and transported it to a trailer. 

Not only did he crash the plane, he destroyed a portion of a protected area AND lied to the FAA, a federal agency, in the process WHILE removing the evidence from the crash site. He truly deserves to spend some good time in jail for all the absurd things he has done!

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Revised Spy Law Enables China to Arbitrarily Acquire IPs to Take Over US

A newly revised spy law enables China to arbitrarily acquire intellectual properties (IPs) to take over the United States, according to cyber security expert Casey Fleming.

On April 26, the Chinese communist regime passed the new version of its anti-espionage law, which will take effect on July 1.

The revision has expanded the definition of espionage, making it broader and vaguer, which increased the range of information and resources that Beijing considers relevant to national security.

For example, the scope of the subject of stealing secrets is expanded to “other documents, data, materials, and items related to national security and interests.”

The newly revised anti-espionage law also classifies selling out to espionage organizations and their agents as espionage, as well as “conducting cyberattacks against state organs, secret-related units, or key information infrastructure.”
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“Companies doing business in China are ordered by Chinese communist law to share all of their data and all of their IP with the Chinese Communist Party. And they’re ordered to work with a sister company in China, which is completely controlled by the CCP, and they are again ordered to turn over all data and intellectual property,” Fleming, CEO of intelligence and security strategy firm BlackOps Partners, recently told the “China in Focus” program on The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet NTD.

“Now think about that. You want us to turn over all of our research, and the Research and Development (R&D), all of our dollars that would cost us to develop that R&D, and to turn it over to our competitor who we know is going to use it against us economically, to produce our products at a much lower price to our customers, but even more so using our data against us in their weaponization of this data to weaken and take over the free world,” he added.
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“The biggest issue is they want to destroy the U.S. economy. They want to move our money, our economy into the Chinese Communist regime to support it. And that happens every time they steal intellectual property, [conduct] semiconductor theft,” he said.
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CBS News cited Bill Evanina, a former top counterintelligence official, who said that the Chinese-built commercial aircraft Comac C919 is “proof” of the Chinese regime’s espionage.

“And now every one of these C919, which is pretty much an exact copy, will take $100 million out of the U.S. economy and the French and EU economy because it’s also competitive with the Airbus 320 and 321. And that will power the CCP,” he said.

If you were ever planning to use CBDC's in Florida, you better think it twice...

DeSantis Signs Bills Banning Central Bank Digital Currency,
Protecting Gun Owner Rights

After a flurry of bill-signing throughout the week, Florida Gov. Ron Desantis signed into law two more measures on May 12—one banning central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the state, and the other protecting the privacy of gun buyers.

Allowing centralized digital currency would give too much power to the federal government, DeSantis said at a press conference in Fort Myers. And credit card companies shouldn’t be able to flag transactions of gun retailers and purchasers, he said, before signing the two bills.

The Biden administration is considering the implementation of CBDC, which is much like cryptocurrency, but controlled by the Federal Reserve. Use of it would quickly lead to a “Big Brother” situation, with the government tracking Americans’ purchases, DeSantis warned.

It was a reference to a fictional tyrant and symbol in the dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” by George Orwell. In the story, “Big Brother is watching you” is a slogan used as a warning to keep inhabitants submissive to the complete control of the totalitarian state described in the 1949 work.

Use of CBDC could lead to the federal government withholding funds, in an effort to fulfill social agendas, DeSantis said. For example, the government may control how much gasoline a person was allowed to buy, or whether someone could purchase a gun.

It could tie the use of money to “social credit scores,” like those used in China, he said. Social credit scores can be used to rank citizens, meting out punishment for unauthorized behavior, and rewarding actions considered good or acceptable.

With the signing of Senate Bill 7054 into law, CBDC was banned in Florida, because the state’s uniform commercial code does not accept it within its definition of money, DeSantis said.

The bill also forbids using CBDCs issued by foreign government reserves and central banks, including China’s digital yuan.

If you think  this is an exaggeration, remember what happened in Canada during the time the truckers were protesting near Ottawa while Trudeau was hiding somewhere else.

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CBP Is Using Sophisticated AI Tool to Monitor Americans’ Social Media Activity

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is using an artificial intelligence (AI) data collection tool to collect information from social media activity that can in some cases be linked to individuals’ social security or driver’s license numbers, according to a CBP document describing the software tool. The document was obtained by Vice magazine’s tech site Motherboard via a Freedom of Information Act request, and described in a May 17 report.

The CBP document describes the open-source AI tool, dubbed Babel X, which was developed by Babel Street, a U.S. company focused on intelligence gathering. Babel Street’s top leadership and board of advisors include tech industry experts, veteran military leadership, and former intelligence officers.

CBP is a federal agency under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). CBP submitted the document, termed a Privacy Threshold Analysis (PTA), to DHS to “continue to pilot the use of Babel Street’s Babel X platform.”
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The PTA describes Babel X as a multilingual tool that gathers publicly available information, including social media activity. Designed for use by the intelligence community and law enforcement, the sophisticated tool allows CBP to screen travelers, including U.S. citizens, refugees, and people seeking asylum.

Babel X is “geo-enabled,” analyzes texts, and can monitor web activity on the public, “dark,” and “deep” webs. The dark web is a portion of the internet that is not indexed by search engines and functions on a different software infrastructure. It is often used for organized criminal activity.

The Babel X platform can search for keywords or phrases on more than 52 social media websites, in millions of web addresses, and in 200 languages, allowing users to enter English terms and return foreign language results.

CBP says it uses the tool to detect information that is “derogatory” or could show a threat to national security or CBP personnel.

 Babel already sounded weird but the tool's capabilities make it look as a precursor of SkyNet's total control of the internet traffic.

Twitter Blames Microsoft For Data Misuse in Potential Future Conflict Over AI

In a May 18 letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Twitter said that Microsoft “may have been in violation” of multiple provisions of the Twitter Developer Agreement for an “extended period of time.” Such violations include “excessive or abusive” use of Twitter APIs, using it for “unauthorized uses and purposes” like sharing data with government agencies, and utilizing the APIs for “expressly prohibited use cases.”

“For years, Microsoft has used Twitter’s standard developer APIs free of charge in order to benefit from Twitter’s data and services in key Microsoft products that generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue for Microsoft annually.”

But in April, Microsoft stopped using these APIs after Twitter began charging for the access. Microsoft refused to pay “even a discounted rate for continued access to Twitter’s APIs and content,” the letter said.

Until then, Microsoft is said to have operated eight separate Twitter API apps that provided data and functionality to at least five Microsoft products and services—Xbox One, Ads, Bing Pages, Power Platform, and Azure.

Twitter’s letter comes as companies with large swathes of data attempt to stop AI systems from free or cheap access to such data. As big tech firms race to build AI models, data ownership is increasingly becoming a conflict point.

BT to Cut up to 55,000 Jobs by 2030 Amid Shift to AI

Vodafone would cut another 11,000 jobs

The UK’s largest broadband and mobile provider will cut up to 55,000 jobs—more than 40 percent of its workforce—by the end of the decade amid plans to shift to artificial intelligence (AI) and automated services.

Telecoms giant BT Group has around 130,000 employees but said it plans to reduce that number to between 75,000 and 95,000 by 2030, which means between 40,000 and 55,000 roles could be cut.

The company has been working through a transformation plan to build a national fibre network and roll out high-speed 5G mobile services.

Chief executive Philip Jansen said that BT will rely on a much smaller workforce and significantly reduced cost base after completing the fibre roll-out, digitising the way it works, adopting AI, and simplifying its structure.
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On Tuesday BT’s rival Vodafone announced plans to cut 11,000 jobs worldwide over a three-year period—the biggest job cuts in the history of the company, which employs around 100,000 people in Europe and Africa.

UK: Internet Trolls Who Encourage Serious Self-Harm Face 5 Years in Jail

Additions to the Online Safety Bill will make it a crime to encourage someone to cause serious self-harm, regardless of whether or not victims go on to injure themselves.

The offence will add to existing laws which make it illegal to encourage or assist someone to take their own life.

Ministers previously announced the promotion of self-harm would be criminalised but on Thursday confirmed the maximum penalty for the offence upon conviction would be imprisonment for five years.

Police or prosecutors will only have to prove communication was intended to encourage or assist serious self-harm amounting to grievous bodily harm—this could include serious injuries such as broken bones or permanent scarring.

General encouragement of self-harm, starving, and not taking prescribed medication will be covered by the law, the MoJ said.

The offence will apply even where the perpetrator does not know the person they are targeting.

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Twitter News

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Judge Throws out Shareholder Lawsuit Against Elon Musk Over Twitter Buyout

A judge dismissed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Elon Musk that claimed he cheated Twitter shareholders several times last year in the course of buying the social media company for $44 billion.

In a decision on Monday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said plaintiff William Heresniak lacked standing to sue because he challenged “wrongs associated with” Musk’s buyout, not the fairness of the buyout itself.

Breyer said Heresniak did not show harm from Musk’s belated disclosure of a 9.2 percent Twitter stake, which the suit said let him buy more shares at lower prices before the buyout was announced, or from the closing’s taking place 1 1/2 months later than planned.

The judge also found no proof that Musk helped two friends then on Twitter’s board, co-founder Jack Dorsey and Silver Lake private equity firm managing partner Egon Durban, breach their fiduciary duties by favoring their own and Musk’s interests.

Breyer said letting Dorsey roll over his approximately $1 billion of Twitter shares into an equity stake in the new company merely reduced how much Musk had to pay at closing, and did not “improperly divert” money from other shareholders.

DeSantis to Launch 2024 Campaign on Twitter With Elon Musk on Wednesday

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will launch his 2024 presidential campaign on May 24 in a Twitter Spaces interview with Elon Musk, The Epoch Times confirmed.

The news of the campaign launch follows months of speculation about the Florida governor’s formal entry into the 2024 race. DeSantis is jumping into the expanding GOP field currently dominated by former President Donald Trump.

Bryan Griffin, the press secretary for the DeSantis campaign operation, confirmed the plans in a text message to The Epoch Times. Fox News was the first to report the story. Elon Musk retweeted a message from a Fox News reporter breaking the story.

Trump, the frontrunner in the GOP field, has spent weeks attacking DeSantis in Truth Social posts and ads on national television. The ads attack DeSantis for supporting a national sales tax while in Congress, among other issues. DeSantis has largely refrained from attacking Trump.

The announcement event will take place at 6 p.m. on Wednesday on Twitter Spaces. The Spaces feature allows for a large group of people to participate in a voice conversation. The feature’s current iteration does not allow for video.

Social Media News

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Newly Appointed Twitter CEO Responds to Meta’s Plan to Launch Clone Rival

“Game on!” Yaccarino said in a May 22 tweet while responding to an article about Instagram developing a Twitter clone. The news was first reported by Moneycontrol. “We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests,” a Meta spokesperson said, according to the outlet.

The text-based content app will reportedly support the decentralized social networking protocol ActivityPub which powers apps like Twitter rival Mastodon. Meta’s Twitter clone, codenamed P92, will be partially linked to Instagram, and users will be able to log into the new app using their existing credentials.

Instagram users who do not sign up for P92 will be shown to users who do sign up for the Twitter clone, with the company hoping that new P92 users would recommend the app to their unsigned friends, said Moneycontrol.
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The Meta team is also said to be planning to make use of Instagram user data, whether they have signed up for P92 or not, for analytics, ranking, and product improvement on the new app.

P92 is said to include tappable links in posts with previews and verification badges. Though the app will allow for followers and likes, it is unsure whether messaging and commenting features would be present in the initial version.

In a May 19 tweet, Lia Haberman, author of social media newsletter ICYMI, said that Meta is briefing creators about its upcoming Twitter clone, with a potential launch as early as June.

Meta News

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Instagram Back Up After Global Outage Affecting Thousands of Users

Meta Platform Inc.’s Instagram was back up for most users, the company said on Sunday, after a technical issue that disrupted services to thousands of people had been resolved.

“Earlier today, a technical issue caused some people to have trouble accessing Instagram. We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted,” a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.

The company did not disclose the number of users affected by the disruption. Outage tracking website Downdetector.com showed more than 100,000 incidents in the United States, 24,000 in Canada, and over 56,000 in Britain.

More than 180,000 users reported issues with accessing Instagram at the peak of the outage.

Instagram was down for some users on Sunday from around 5:45 p.m. EST (2145 GMT), according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. The number of outages eased to just over 7,000 reports as of 8:30 p.m. EST.

Downdetector tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources, including users.

WhatsApp Allows Users to Edit Messages

WhatsApp has granted users one of its most awaited features—the ability to edit messages.

“For the moments when you make a mistake or simply change your mind, you can now edit your sent messages on WhatsApp,” the Meta Platforms Inc-owned messaging app said in a blog post on Monday.

With the feature rolling out globally in the coming weeks, senders will be able to modify their messages within 15 minutes of hitting send.

The function can be accessed by long-pressing the message and choosing “edit” in the drop-down menu. The modified message will carry the label “edited,” without showing edit history.

Video Game News

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CCP Little Pinkies Call for Nintendo Boycott
Accuse New Game Legend of Zelda
of Supporting Anti-Extradition Protests, Insulting China

Nintendo launched its new game on May 12, on the same day as the 15th anniversary of China’s destructive 8.0 magnitude Sichuan Earthquake in 2008. Angry mainland netizens accused the game manufacturer of carrying secret messages in the game’s dialogues.

Since then, some have been actively calling for boycotts on Twitter and other social media channels.
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It is common for “little pinkies” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to accuse something or someone of “humiliating China.” The party’s trollers have recently turned against Japanese game manufacturer Nintendo and its newly launched game.

Netizens screenshot the dialogue in question. A character commented on Princess Zelda’s energy and catch phrase, “I can sense the energy of ‘light’ and ‘time’ from you.”

The words “light” and times” were short names for the unofficially banned protest slogan in Chinese: “Liberate Hong Kong’ Revolution of our times.”

Meanwhile, after accusing Legend of Zelda of its May 12 launch date, other mainland netizens claimed that the game plot, divided into three levels: The Heaven, The Earth, and The Underworld, was also insulting to their motherland.

They believed that the game release on May 12 notably suggested that after the Sichuan Earthquake in 2008, some people survived on Earth, some people died and went to the Underworld, and others went to Heaven.

They called the plot “disgusting.”

However, a group of anti-CCP netizens ridiculed that something was constantly and seemingly humiliating the communist party every day for 365 days: May 12 (Sichuan Earthquake in 2008), June 4 (Tiananmen Square Massacre), Sept. 18 (The 918 Incident, also known as the Japanese Invasion of Manchuria, China, in 1931), Oct. 10 (Taiwan’s National Day). They mocked the party-supporting little pinkies for accusing the entire world, except China, of being born to humiliate China.

[kyonides]

Fidelity: Value of Elon Musk’s Twitter Plummets
to Just One-Third of Purchase Price

Fidelity holds a stake in Twitter after backing Musk’s takeover.

Bloomberg reports that Twitter is now only worth a third of the $44 billion that tech tycoon Elon Musk paid for the social media giant according to Fidelity Investments. “Twitter’s value has seen a significant decline since Musk’s takeover,” a Fidelity spokesperson said. “Our recent evaluation of our equity stake in the company reflects this downturn.”

Elon Musk, who paid $44 billion for Twitter, including $33.5 billion in equity, has openly acknowledged that he overpaid for the service. “Twitter is worth less than half what I paid for it,” Musk confessed in a recent statement.
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Under Musk’s management, the company has a $13 billion debt load. As Musk revealed in March, his erratic decision-making and difficulties with content moderation have caused a 50 percent decline in advertising revenue. Selling Twitter Blue subscriptions in an effort to make up for lost income has so far not been successful. Less than one percent of Twitter’s monthly users had signed up as of the end of March.

In April, Musk openly admitted that legal pressure was the driving force behind his purchase of the social media firm. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the most recent markdown subtracts about $850 million from Musk’s $187 billion fortune. Musk’s wealth has increased by more than $48 billion this year, largely as a result of a 63 percent increase in the share price of Tesla.

Ministry of Truth: Nikon and Leica Are Adding
Adobe-NYT ‘Misinformation’ Tech to Cameras

The software works by embedding information about a picture’s origin from the moment the picture is captured.

The Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), which was launched by Adobe in collaboration with Twitter and the New York Times last year announced a partnership with Nikon and Leica to bring image marking technology to the Nikon Z9 and Leica M11 cameras.

The technology, at least according to CAI, will increase trust in photographers’ digital work by securing provenance information at the point of capture, including location, time, and how the image was taken.

Provenance is the facts of a piece of digital content like origin. CAI, launched in 2019, aims to restore trust in images people see online by embedding provenance information from the time an image is first captured.

The CAI also joined forces with Project Origin, a similar effort started by Microsoft and the BBC, also focused on tracing the history of digital images, to create the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA).

C2PA describes itself as “an open technical standard providing publishers, creators, and consumers the ability to trace the origin of different types of media,” with the goal of “address[ing] the prevalence of misleading information online through the development of technical standards for certifying the source and history (or provenance) of media content.”

Promoted by the media, deep state, and left-wing NGOs, “misinformation” in the Trump years became synonymous with censoring conservative voices on social media platforms.

Twitter Engineering Chief Resigns
Day After DeSantis Campaign Launch Glitches

Foad Dabiri, whose LinkedIn profile says he is Twitter’s engineering lead for growth, announced his resignation but did not mention what prompted the move. He later noted that his decision and timing were “independent of any recent events.”

In his resignation statement, Dabiri reflected on his time at Twitter, which he divided into two distinct eras: pre- and post-acquisition by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk last year.

“After almost four incredible years at Twitter, I decided to leave the nest yesterday,” Dabiri wrote in a heartfelt message offering gratitude to colleagues.

Both eras, he said, “came with their fair share of challenges, but they also shared a grand mission and a team of extraordinary individuals,” he said.

During the “Twitter 2.0” phase under Musk’s leadership, the company underwent significant changes aimed at achieving profitability, resulting in a substantial reduction in the workforce within the initial months.
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In response to a request for comment, Dabiri directed The Epoch Times to a new post: “And since some have asked, my decision and the timing of it are independent of any recent events,” the post reads.
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Hosted on Twitter Spaces by Musk and tech entrepreneur David Sacks, the event encountered intermittent sound issues during its initial moments.

With over 500,000 Twitter users joining the event, it was eventually paused and then restarted, causing a delay of nearly half an hour before DeSantis could deliver his announcement.

Facebook Owner Meta Slashes Business Operations Staff
in Final Round of Mass Layoffs

Meta Platforms Inc., owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, slashed jobs across its business and operations units on Wednesday as part of a plan announced last fall to eliminate 10,000 jobs in the course of a broader restructuring program.

Dozens of Meta employees from enterprise engineering, marketing, corporate communications, site security, program management, and content strategy took to LinkedIn to announce that they had been laid off.

According to the LinkedIn posts, the social media giant also cut staff working on its privacy and integrity teams.

This is the third round of layoffs at Meta since last November, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a blog post that he would let go of more than 11,000 employees—some 13 percent of Meta personnel—after overestimating the e-commerce growth trend in the wake of some 18 years of seemingly unstoppable expansion.
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According to Zuckerberg, some 4,000 people were let go in April. These layoffs primarily hit tech teams—mostly staff from content design and user-experience research, while programmers were retained.

This month’s layoffs should be the last round of redundancies at Meta, following Zuckerberg’s pledge to restructure business teams “substantially” and return to a “more optimal ratio of engineers to other roles.”

The company’s shares gained ground slightly this week in a broadly weaker market.

Trespassing TikTok Prankster Mizzy Charged Again
2 Days After Receiving Court Order

A teenage TikTok prankster was arrested and charged with breaching a court order two days after he was given the order for entering a private home without permission.

Bacari-Bronze O’Garro, 18, known on social media platforms as Mizzy, appeared at Thames Magistrates’ Court on Saturday morning, three days after he had appeared at the same court.

O’Garro pleaded not guilty to three counts of breaching a Criminal Behaviour Order. He was remanded into custody until the next hearing, which is scheduled for Tuesday.

During Saturday’s hearing, Rose Edwin, prosecuting, said O’Garro had posted two videos on social media without the consent of the people featured and one video of him visiting Westfield Centre in Stratford—activities he had been banned from doing.

The teenager from Hackney gained notoriety recently after videos of him pranking people went viral on TikTok.

In one of the videos taken on May 15 for a TikTok trend of walking into random houses, he entered a private home, where a family with children live.

Appearing in court on Wednesday, O’Garro admitted to one count of breaching a community protection notice (CPN) issued on May 11, 2022.

He really wants the  judge to send him straight to jail for several years if deemed necessary.