X

X adds a dedicated video tab to fill the TikTok void
20 Jan

X adds a dedicated video tab to fill the TikTok void

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TikTok bid adieu to its US users over the weekend before returning for an encore with no clear ending. But, it's now joined by a few copycats, including X (formerly Twitter). X announced late Sunday night in owner Elon Musk's typical cringy fashion (see here) that its US users now have a dedicated tab for vertical videos.The new video tab exists in the app's bottom bar represented by a play button icon. Previously, users had to click on a video and then scroll up or down to see more content — this pretty much just cuts out having to choose…
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The EU wants to know just how X’s recommendation algorithm works
17 Jan

The EU wants to know just how X’s recommendation algorithm works

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As part of an ongoing investigation into X, the European Commission has from the company related to how its work. The European Union's regulatory arm is particularly interested in any recent changes to the algorithm. The EC said it asked X to provide the information by February 15 as it steps up the Digital Services Act (DSA) probe.On top of that, regulators asked for access to certain APIs that X provides so it can conduct “direct fact-finding on content moderation and virality of accounts.” The Commission has also slapped X with a retention order. This requires the company to retain…
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Mark Zuckerberg Turns His Back on the Media
17 Jan

Mark Zuckerberg Turns His Back on the Media

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There was a time when Mark Zuckerberg didn’t regard mainstream media as the enemy. He even allowed me, a card-carrying legacy media person, into his home. In April 2018, I ventured there to hear his plans to do the right thing. It was part of my years-long embed into Facebook to write a book. For the past two years, Zuckerberg’s company had been roundly criticized for its failure to rein in disinformation and hate speech. Now the young founder had a plan to address this.Part of the solution, he told me, was more content moderation. He was going to hire…
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X’s new parody labels won’t fix its impersonation problem
11 Jan

X’s new parody labels won’t fix its impersonation problem

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X is further aiming to clamp down on by rolling out a label for parody accounts to help make them distinct from the real deal. Users will now start seeing the label on posts as well as profile pages.The company says that the goal of the label is to improve transparency, but there's a fatal flaw in how X is going about that. As it stands, the label is not yet mandatory. And as notes, operators of parody accounts have to apply it manually (by going to the "your account" section" in settings, then to "account information" and enabling “Parody,…
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X’s Grok AI assistant is now a standalone app
09 Jan

X’s Grok AI assistant is now a standalone app

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Grok, the AI assistant that's for some reason baked into X, is now available as a standalone app. Like the version that exists as a tab on the social media platform, the Grok app can be used to generate images, summarize text and answer questions, with a conversational tone xAI, the AI assistant's creator, calls "humorous and engaging."The app was first tested with a limited set of users in December 2024, right around the same time X debuted a free tier of Grok that's available to anyone. Prior to that, you needed to pay at least $8 a month for…
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The X-ification of Meta
08 Jan

The X-ification of Meta

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“Meta has perennially been a home for Russian, Chinese, and Iranian disinformation,” claims Gordon Crovitz, co-CEO of NewsGuard, a company that provides a tool to evaluate the trustworthiness of online information. “Now, Meta apparently has decided to open the floodgates completely."Again, fact-checking isn’t perfect; Croviz says that NewsGuard has tracked several “false narratives” on Meta’s platforms already. And the community notes model with which Meta will replace its fact-checking battalions can still be somewhat effective. But research from Mahavedan and others has shown that crowdsourced solutions miss vast swaths of misinformation. And unless Meta commits to maximal transparency in how…
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Meta’s Fact-Checking Partners Say They Were ‘Blindsided’ by Decision to Axe Them
07 Jan

Meta’s Fact-Checking Partners Say They Were ‘Blindsided’ by Decision to Axe Them

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Meta’s fact-checking partners claim they were “blindsided” by the company’s decision to abandon third-party fact-checking on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in favor of a Community Notes model, and some say they are now scrambling to figure out if they can survive the hole this leaves in their funding.“We heard the news just like everyone else,” says Alan Duke, cofounder and editor in chief of fact-checking site Lead Stories, which started working with Meta in 2019. “No advance notice.”The news that Meta was no longer planning on using their services was announced in a blog post by chief global affairs officer…
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Meta Ditches Fact-Checkers Ahead of Trump’s Second Term
07 Jan

Meta Ditches Fact-Checkers Ahead of Trump’s Second Term

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Facebook has already contributed to the demise of journalism and this will be the final nail in the coffin,” Nina Jankowicz, the former Biden administration disinformation czar who is now CEO of the American Sunlight Project, said in an emailed statement. “Newsrooms get grants from Facebook to provide fact-checks. That money allows them to do other journalism. Zuckerberg’s announcement is a full bending of the knee to Trump and an attempt to catch up to Musk in his race to the bottom. Fact-checking was not a panacea to disinformation on Facebook but it was an important part of moderation.”In what…
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Elon Musk, SpaceX reportedly under federal review for undisclosed meetings with foreign leaders
18 Dec

Elon Musk, SpaceX reportedly under federal review for undisclosed meetings with foreign leaders

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Elon Musk and SpaceX are under three federal reviews from three different US military departments for allegedly failing to comply with reporting protocols. reported that Musk and his private aerospace company have repeatedly disregarded requirements to disclose trips and meetings with foreign leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin.The three reviews of Musk and SpaceX’s suspected activity were opened by the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General, the Air Force and the Pentagon’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. The Air Force also reportedly denied Musk’s request for high-level security access because of concerns over potential…
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