Links 20/06/2024: Trying to Maintain Health and the Implosion of LLM Bubble/Hype
Contents
- Leftovers
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM) Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ Let’s Celebrate Noam Chomsky, the Intellectual and Moral Giant
This article was written as a celebration of Noam Chomsky’s intellectual and political contributions. Chomsky is still recovering from health setbacks and has been unable to make political interventions for the past year. We sorely miss his presence and take the opportunity to acknowledge his towering achievements over the past decades.
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Jamie Zawinski ☛ WebCollage is 25 years old today
In 2002, I got an actual email from a Google engineer asking me to stop searching them, because it was a significant enough portion of their traffic that it was annoying them.
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Standards/Consortia
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Digital Music News ☛ Traditional Radio Is Popular in the UK Despite Younger User Shifts
Notably, even the lowest of those radio-listenership figures, 76 percent for under-25s, is higher than the 70 percent of the same group that use on-demand streaming offerings weekly. Meanwhile, just 16 percent of over-55s listen via an on-demand service like Spotify or Apple Music, against 38 percent for 35-54s and 50 percent for 25-34s.
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APNIC ☛ When I use a word it means what I chose it to mean
The new process reflects ongoing long-standing change in how an RFC is produced, and what is held to be the definitive text behind an RFC. Because the RFC series is now routinely available in multiple forms such as plain text, XML, HTML, and PDF, all of which are now held to derive from the XML, there are possibilities for disagreement from rendering or production issues as well as in-flow semantic mistakes. This means that ‘the one’ concept may not easily apply since people can have different representations of the same underlying document. Which ‘one’ did you fetch? When did you get it?
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Education
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Bridge Michigan ☛ School cell phone bans are spreading. Is Michigan next?
Tired of the classroom distraction caused by cell phones, an eighth-grade teacher at Tomlinson Middle School in Inkster decided to tally the beeps and buzzes emanating from desks, pockets and backpacks during a single class two years ago.
In 55 minutes, the teacher recorded 30 cellular interruptions.
By the fall, the school — which is part of the Westwood Community School District — had implemented a classroom cell phone ban. The result, according to Tomlinson Principal Kristen Kajoian: higher rates of completed assignments, and longer attention spans.
Even beyond the classroom, there was a positive impact, Kajoian told Bridge Michigan.
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The Atlantic ☛ 'MyBook' Is Coming for Your Children
The myBooks are filled with lessons on phonics for younger kids and then, as the grades go up through elementary school, with reading content made up of excerpts of longer narrative texts. MyBook is what is known in education circles as a “decodable text,” but one mom I spoke with, Alina Lewis, likened it to a “Dick and Jane reader.” Where kids used to read and discuss whole books, they now get a few paragraphs at a time and then are prompted to answer a question. Reading has been distilled to practicing for a comprehension exam.
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Cal Newport ☛ On Ultra-Processed Content
To elaborate this claim, I want to be more specific in analogizing food to media content. To start, we can connect passive text-based media, such as books and articles, to minimally processed whole foods. Linguistic encoding was the first information-bearing media our species developed; something we’ve been working with for over 5,000 years.
This timeframe, of course, is too short for evolutionary forces to apply, but it’s plenty long for us to have culturally adapted to this format. As with whole foods, consuming writing tends to make us feel better, and we rarely hear concerns about reading too much.
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Sandor Dargo ☛ Did you do what I asked for or not? | Sandor Dargo's Blog
But when it comes to big tasks that can be broken down into sets of microtasks where partial implementations still move you forward compared to where you were, then this approach is not simply useless, but even counterintuitive. If you changed 3 tyres out of 4 and then you started to do something else, then it’s indeed true that you failed to accomplish a single task and probably did more trouble than good. On the other hand, if you painted all the rooms but one, then the progress is significant and helpful. If you already removed 70% of the violations spotted by your static code analyzer, you made progress despite the fact that there is still quite some work to do.
If you look at a backlog and most of the tasks are gone, it makes no sense to claim that there are no steps between done and not done. Even a partial completion is a meaningful progress. Maybe not something to be celebrated and it definitely doesn’t mean that the task is done, but the progress is helpful and meaningful. Claiming otherwise is somewhere between perfectionism and simply being a jerk.
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Neil Selwyn ☛ A school principal using AI to produce ‘personalised’ video greetings for each of his school’s new students
In our research we need to be careful to not jump to immediate conclusions about the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ of any particular use of AI. Teachers are professionals that make decisions all the time whether to do (or not do) things with AI tools. Our main interest lies in unpacking everything that happens when teachers’ work is augmented by (or perhaps outsourced to) AI. As such, this particular use case raises a host of further questions …
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Hardware
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[Repeat] Security Week ☛ New TikTag Attack Targets Arm CPU Security Feature
Researchers have disclosed the details of a new speculative execution attack that targets a hardware security feature present in Arm CPUs, allowing an attacker to bypass protections.
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The New Leaf Journal ☛ Introducing My Newpoint Switcher 2000 Plus
I can report that the Switcher 2000 Plus works as well today as it did in 1996 (caveat: its surge protection prowess has not been put to the test). All of its outlets work, as do its switches. It actually has one outlet on the back that is not connected to the switches and is always up when the switcher is on. I cannot recall ever having had a problem with it, so while I no longer use it for heavy-duty work, I credit Newpoint for building a very high quality power device.
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Andreas ☛ A very disappointing CD player
A little while ago I bought one of those CD players that can be mounted vertically on the wall and have a CD play in the open. I stuck it to the wall behind my HiFi system, and was really happy with the way it looks, it’s a very decorative item. Unfortunately that’s all the good I can say about it.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Brandon ☛ On Health (and Trying to Maintain It)
Holistically focusing on health has been transformative for me (I think). Whether it's re-discovering my voice through blogging or working out at Planet Fitness, prioritizing health has improved all aspects of my life. By creating sustainable habits and valuing health, I've been able to navigate through challenging times and emerge stronger. It's a journey I'm actually excited to continue.
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India Times ☛ US Surgeon General calls for social media warning labels to protect adolescents
In an op-ed in the New York Times, Murthy wrote that a warning label alone will not make social media safe for young people but that it can increase awareness and change behavior as shown in evidence from tobacco studies. The U.S. Congress would need to pass legislation requiring such a warning label.
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Virginia Roberts ☛ Smartphones, social media, and parenting teens/tweens – Virginia Roberts
I was recently part of a big parenting discussion group about whether a parent should allow her tween to have a smartphone with Snapchat. It produced a lot of stories and anecdotes and feelings and opinions, including a few tales of teens finding ways to circumventing parental controls or even picking up burner phones in order to be able to do things like keep up streaks.* There were also some anecdotes of real-life consequences around location tracking, hazing, content getting shared and saved without consent, etc.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Baldur Bjarnason ☛ The mainstreaming of 'AI' scepticism
But also because anybody who hadn’t become a sceptic about LLMs and diffusion models by the end of 2023 was just flat out wilfully ignoring the facts.
The public has for a while now switched to using “AI” as a negative – using the term “artificial” much as you do with “artificial flavouring” or “that smile’s artificial”.
It’s insincere creativity or deceptive intelligence.
The problem has generally been threefold: [...]
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Jamie Zawinski ☛ Safari URL bar
I was today years old when I discovered that you can stop Safari from pointlessly truncating your URLs, when there is plenty of room to show the whole thing, by removing the "floating spaces" on either side of the URL field:
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Security Week ☛ CISA Warns of PoC Exploit for Vulnerability in RAD SecFlow-2 Industrial Switch
The agency recently discovered a publicly available proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit targeting a path traversal vulnerability in RAD’s SecFlow-2 ruggedized switch/router, which is designed for harsh industrial environments.
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Security Week ☛ Massachusetts 911 Outage Caused by Errant Firewall
“The firewall prevented calls from getting to the 911 dispatch centers, also known as Public Safety Answer Points (PSAPs),” the agency said. “Comtech’s initial review of the incident has confirmed that the interruption was not the result of a cyberattack or hack; However, the exact reason the firewall stopped calls from reaching dispatch centers remains under review.”
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International Business Times ☛ China's Singles Ditch Dating Apps For ChatGPT's AI Boyfriend 'Dan'
Lisa Li, a 30-year-old Chinese influencer originally from Beijing, is a big supporter of Dan. Li, currently studying computer science in California, has been in a "relationship" with Dan for three months. Lisa Li's introduction of Dan on Xiaohongshu, a social media platform, garnered a massive response. Li, who boasts 943,000 followers, saw nearly 10,000 comments after introducing Dan.
This sparked a trend, with many women inquiring about creating their own AI companions. Li's follower count has surged by over 230,000 since her initial post about Dan. Li claimed she was drawn to talking to Dan because it made her feel good as Dan understood and provided emotional support.
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Lucidity ☛ I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again — Ludicity
I myself have formal training as a data scientist, going so far as to dominate a competitive machine learning event at one of Australia's top universities and writing a Master's thesis where I wrote all my own libraries from scratch. I'm not God's gift to the field, but I am clearly better than most of my competition - that is, practitioners who haven't put in the reps to build their own C libraries in a cave with scraps, but can read textbooks and use libraries written by elite institutions.
So it is with great regret that I announce that the next person to talk about rolling out AI is going to receive a complimentary chiropractic adjustment in the style of Dr. Bourne, i.e, I am going to fucking break your neck. I am truly, deeply, sorry.
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Jim Nielsen ☛ Organic Intelligence
Now, with LLMs, a search result isn’t a search result. An image isn’t an image. A video isn’t a video.
We’re going to need a lot more qualifiers.
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Security
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Privacy/Surveillance
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The Verge ☛ EU chat control law proposes scanning your messages — even encrypted ones
The law, first introduced in 2022, would implement an “upload moderation” system that scans all your digital messages, including shared images, videos, and links. Each service required to install this “vetted” monitoring technology must also ask permission to scan your messages. If you don’t agree, you won’t be able to share images or URLs.
As if this doesn’t seem wild enough, the proposed legislation appears to endorse and reject end-to-end encryption at the same time. At first, it highlights how end-to-end encryption “is a necessary means of protecting fundamental rights” but then goes on to say that encrypted messaging services could “inadvertently become secure zones where child sexual abuse material can be shared or disseminated.”
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The Register UK ☛ Signal, MEPs urge EU Council to drop encryption-eroding law
The idea is that algorithms running locally on people's devices will reliably recognize CSAM (and whatever else is deemed sufficiently awful), block it, and/or report it to authorities. This act of automatically policing and reporting people's stuff before it's even had a chance to be securely transferred rather undermines the point of encryption in the first place.
We've been here before. Apple announced plans to implement a client-side scanning scheme back in August 2021, only to face withering criticism from the security community and civil society groups. In late 2021, the iGiant essentially abandoned the idea.
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Netzpolitik ☛ Client-Side-Scanning: Chat Control is Pure Surveillance State
For years, legions of IT experts and security researchers, lawyers, data protection experts, digital organizations, tech companies, messengers, UN representatives, child protection experts, guardians of internet standards, scientists, and anyone else with expertise have been raising alarms around the world: chat control is dangerous. It is a new form of mass surveillance. It will weaken the IT security of us all. It would introduce a surveillance infrastructure on apps and end devices beyond the EU that authoritarian states will use to their advantage.
Ultimately, chat control is a frontal attack on end-to-end encryption. Put simply, this form of encryption ensures that the sender puts their message in an envelope that can only be opened by the recipient. With the planned chat control, the envelope is not forcibly opened on the way to the recipient; instead, the contents of the envelope are analysed before being inserted into the envelope. So when you write a letter, your private data is looked at directly over your shoulder.
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Element ☛ EU’s Chat Control puts security and privacy at risk
Early versions of the Commission's proposal included requirements for media scanning and effectively entail the mass surveillance of Europeans.
Plainly, end-to-end encryption cannot survive this type of requirement. As so many others have said before, as a society we cannot compromise the integrity of end-to-end encryption for the entire population to be able to stop the minority of criminals. All it will do is to encourage criminals to use genuinely secure platforms, while leaving the good actors vulnerable to attack. Introducing a scanner into an encrypted system is essentially introducing a vulnerability waiting to be exploited by bad actors at the expense of everyone’s security and privacy.
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CCC ☛ Chat Control: Horse Trading While Nobody is Watching
In the years-long debate, not a single expert has been fooled by this rhetorical deception.
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Threema GmbH ☛ Chat Control Must Be Stopped – Now!
It doesn’t matter how the EU Commission is trying to sell it – as “client-side scanning,” “upload moderation,” or “AI detection” –, Chat Control is still mass surveillance. And regardless of its technical implementation, mass surveillance is always an incredibly bad idea, for a whole plethora of reasons. Here are just three: [...]
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Signal ☛ New Branding, Same Scanning: “Upload Moderation” Undermines End-to-End Encryption [PDF]
There is no way to implement such proposals in the context of end-to-end encrypted communications without fundamentally undermining encryption and creating a dangerous vulnerability in core infrastructure that would have global implications well beyond Europe.
Instead of accepting this fundamental mathematical reality, some European countries continue to play rhetorical games. They’ve come back to the table with the same idea under a new label. Instead of using the previous term “client-side scanning,” they’ve rebranded and are now calling it “upload moderation.” Some are claiming that “upload moderation” does not undermine encryption because it happens before your message or video is encrypted. This is untrue.
Rhetorical games are cute in marketing or tabloid reporting, but they are dangerous and naive when applied to such a serious topic with such high stakes. So let’s be very clear, again: mandating mass scanning of private communications fundamentally undermines encryption. Full stop. Whether this happens via tampering with, for instance, an encryption algorithm’s random number generation, or by implementing a key escrow system, or by forcing communications to pass through a surveillance system before they’re encrypted. We can call it a backdoor, a front door, or “upload moderation.” But whatever we call it, each one of these approaches creates a vulnerability that can be exploited by hackers and hostile nation states, removing the protection of unbreakable math and putting in its place a high-value vulnerability.
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404 Media ☛ ‘You Will Lose Access To Pornhub:’ Kentucky and Indiana Face a Porn Countdown
“Did you know that your government wants you to give your driver's license before you can access PORNHUB?,” the message says, “As crazy as that sounds, it's true. As of July 10, you'll be required to prove you are 18 years or older such as by uploading your government ID for every adult content website you'd like to access. We don't want minors accessing our site and think preventing that from happening is a good thing. But putting everybody's privacy at risk won't achieve that.” It links to a video about device-based verification and an op-ed on the topic by Pornhub’s Head of Community and Brand Alexzandra Kekesi.
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The Verge ☛ This universal remote wants to control your smart home sans hub
What separates this from the sparse competition is that it’s hub-free. You won’t need a separate box plugged in to the TV or IR repeaters to make this work. It comes with a charging dock and has a relatively roomy 3.2-inch color touchscreen for the Android-based OS. The display sits above a suite of 24 essential physical buttons to navigate and control it all, including one that initiates voice control. In addition to compatibility with more than 3,000 traditional devices with infrared like TVs, projectors, Blu-ray players, and A/V receivers, the sleek phone-shaped RS90 has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to interface with newer smart home devices and platforms (and even the PS5, eventually).
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Confidentiality
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Federal News Network ☛ CISA looks to set the example for data stewardship under ‘zero trust’ push
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which maintains the “zero trust maturity model” that serves as a roadmap for agencies, is also working to better understand, protect, and connect its cybersecurity data, according to Grant Dasher, architecture branch chief within the office of the technical director at CISA.
“Data is one of the areas of the zero trust transition that probably has gotten a little bit less attention, but that’s not because it’s not critically important,” Dasher said on Federal News Network. “We do think it’s critically important.”
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Cyble Inc ☛ Maxicare Data Breach: Probe Launched, Impact Limited
Maxicare, one of the leading health maintenance organizations, has reported a security incident involving unauthorized access to personal information. The Maxicare data breach affects approximately 13,000 members, accounting for less than 1% of Maxicare’s total member population. The compromised information pertains to booking requests made through Lab@Home, a third-party home care provider.
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Defence/Aggression
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Site36 ☛ Murder charges after firebombs at policemen: Another trial after “Day X” in Germany
The Regional Court in Leipzig shall judge a man accused by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of two counts of attempted murder. In one case, a police officer was “briefly on fire up to waist-high”. A year after the riots on “Day X” in Leipzig, the Public Prosecutor”s Office has filed charges against a 25-year-old.
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RFERL ☛ Canada Adds Iran's Revolutionary Guards To Its List Of Terrorist Groups
Canada has listed Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity and advised any Canadians in Iran to leave the country.
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US News And World Report ☛ Fossil Fuel Use, Emissions Hit Records in 2023, Report Says
Global fossil fuel consumption and energy emissions hit all-time highs in 2023, even as fossil fuels' share of the global energy mix decreased slightly on the year, the industry's Statistical Review of World Energy report said on Thursday.
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RFA ☛ Uyghur woman re-sentenced for teaching youth the Quran
Authorities have criminalized such activities because they believe that Uyghurs use religion to incite subversion of state sovereignty, endanger social stability, and advocate religious extremism, terrorism and ethnic separatism.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Lawsuit Oral Arguments Set for September As Ban Nears
That firm date, September 16th, was just recently finalized in a brief order. After both TikTok (which is challenging a so-called ban bill) and the federal government filed in May to expedite the schedule, the presiding judge later that same month settled on September for oral arguments.
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[Repeat] OpenRightsGroup ☛ No Data Protection, No Democracy
Also known as micro-targeting, this practice became controversial for several reasons: this kind of targeting inherently favours manipulative strategies, as well as divisive and polarising messaging, which are best suited to trigger and exploit the psychology of the individuals being targeted. Further, micro-targeting also reduces transparency: if different voters can be given different promises or messages without them knowing about what was being said to others, the integrity and credibility of the public debate risks being compromised. Finally, there have already been cases of these technologies being weaponised for voter suppression, such as by targeting voters with false messages that invited them not to vote, or by providing wrong information as to when and where to vote.
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BoingBoing ☛ Wake up and smell the autocracy — Trump is serious about dismantling American democracy
But Trump learned from his mistake and he's not going to let his last opportunity to stamp his boot on humanity's face slip away. This updated American Autocracy Threat Tracker from Just Security catalogs hundreds of statements and proposed policies that make it crystal clear that Trump is deadly serious about consolidating power, purging the government, rigging elections, weaponizing the justice system, and eviscerating free speech, all while enriching himself and his family crime syndicate.
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Vox ☛ Why Joe Biden is finally spotlighting Donald Trump‘s criminality
As of late May, the Biden campaign was airing $13.6 million worth of ads, while the Trump campaign had yet to spend a single penny on TV spots, according to the Wesleyan Media Project.
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Wired ☛ This Is What Would Happen if China Invaded Taiwan
In late March, a Taiwanese data analyst posted on social media about an odd satellite image: It appeared that the Chinese military had erected at one of its remote military bases in Inner Mongolia a series of roads that perfectly re-created the roads around the presidential palace in Taipei. The revelation only appeared to underscore the seriousness with which Chinese officials are proceeding with President Xi Jinping’s directive to be ready to invade the independent island by the late 2020s. [...]
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The Record ☛ FTC files complaint against TikTok for alleged data privacy practices
The Politico report said the agency was “weighing allegations that TikTok, and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance, deceived its users by denying that individuals in China had access to their data,” citing three people with direct knowledge of the matter.
In May, Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, called for the FTC to investigate whether TikTok had violated the COPPA rule or other laws.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok’s ‘Music Content Investment Team’ is Beefing Up
Now that TikTok has become the de facto place for musicians to go viral and turn a hobby into a full-blown career, the ByteDance owned platform is setting its sights on acquiring and managing music content. The company is forming an in-house Music Content Investment Team focusing on “partnership or acquisition opportunities in the music content space on a global level.”
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VOA News ☛ Islamic State in Somalia poses growing threat, US officials say
Top IS leaders “view Africa as a place where they should invest, where they are more permissive and able to operate better and more freely, and they want to expand,” according to a senior U.S. defense official. “So, they did bring the caliph to that region.”
“The caliph provides strategic direction, which we view as allowing them to develop and expand, even more so than we would expect,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence matters.
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Sightline Media Group ☛ Chinese military’s rifle-toting robot dogs raise concerns in Congress
In a video released by state-run CCTV on May 25, a 110-pound dog-like robot is shown carrying and firing an automatic rifle. A spokesman for the Chinese military said the robot, which can perform many tasks autonomously, could “serve as a new member in our urban combat operations.”
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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Meduza ☛ North Korea welcomes Vladimir Putin for his first visit in over two decades — in photos — Meduza
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RFA ☛ Putin visits Vietnam to affirm old partnership
The visit is praised as a symbol of Vietnam’s foreign policy but not expected to yield much.
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France24 ☛ France’s far-right Bardella says he backs Ukraine but wouldn’t send missiles that could hit Russia
French far-right leader Jordan Bardella said on Wednesday that he backed Ukraine's right to defend itself against Russia, but if elected prime minister he would not provide Kyiv with missiles that would allow it to strike Russia's territory.
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LRT ☛ Integrating Ukrainian refugees in Lithuania: ‘we should call it something else’
A full integration of Ukrainians in Lithuania is hardly possible while the war in their homeland continues, say local NGOs. Many of them are following the situation at home with an eye to returning once it is safe.
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RFERL ☛ Kyiv Identifies 5 Russian Officers Allegedly Involved In Executing Ukrainian Soldiers
Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) said on June 19 that it has identified five Russian military officers suspected of being involved in the execution of four Ukrainian soldiers who were surrendering in May in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya region.
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Defence Web ☛ SANDF expeditionary logistics and lessons from Russia
Whilst at first glance the logistics on display in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war compared to the expeditionary logistics required in typical Southern Africa operations may appear to be quite dissimilar, there are parallels between the two, with lessons observed from Ukraine needing to be heeded by the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).
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RFERL ☛ Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Fails To Show In Parliament Over Deputy's Alleged Corruption
Ukraine's Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin failed to show at the Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Council) on June 19 where he had been summoned by lawmakers over a media report involving the real estate dealings of his deputy, Dmytro Verbytskiy.
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RFERL ☛ Kazakh Opposition Activist's Wife Says Kyiv Shooting 'Professional'
Self-exiled Kazakh journalist Natalya Sadyqova says the main beneficiary of the shooting of her husband, opposition activist Aidos Sadyqov, in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on June 18 is Kazakhstan's President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev.
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RFERL ☛ 4 Ukrainians Get Lengthy Prison Terms For Murder Of Separatist Commander
A military court in Russia on June 19 sentenced four Ukrainian citizens to lengthy prison terms, including a life sentence for one, in the case of the 2016 death of Arsen Pavlov (aka Motorola), a top commander of Russia-backed separatists in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk.
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RFERL ☛ Man Suspected Of Killing Teen Girl In Siberia Identified As Former POW In Ukraine
Russia's Interior Ministry said on June 19 that a 49-year-old man suspected of killing a 12-year-old girl in the Siberian region of Kemerovo has been apprehended.
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RFERL ☛ Russian Drone Barrage Further Decimates Ukraine's Energy Infrastructure
A barrage of Russian drone attacks overnight further damaged Ukraine's already decimated energy infrastructure.
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New York Times ☛ Beluga Whales Are Rescued From Ukrainian War Zone to New Home in Spain
A pair of beluga whales were extricated from the besieged city of Kharkiv and taken to an aquarium in Spain with help from experts around the world.
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Meduza ☛ The winter ahead Russia has destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. What does that mean for the upcoming heating season? — Meduza
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Latvia ☛ Rinkēvičs: Latvian-Russian border will never be ready
Latvia's eastern border should also be strengthened militarily, President of Latvia Edgars Rinkēvičs said on Tuesday, June 18, when assessing the progress of the fence construction on the Latvian-Russian border, Latvian Television reported.
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JURIST ☛ ECHR: Russia denial of access to archives on Soviet political repression violates freedom of expression
The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that Russia had violated the right to freedom of expression by refusing access to archival documents about the history of Soviet political repression. Suprun and Others v. Russia is part of the ‘right to truth’ cases against Russia.
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RFERL ☛ U.S. Soldier Jailed In Russia On Theft, Threat Charges
A court in the Russian Far East has convicted and sentenced a U.S. Army sergeant who reportedly broke military rules to travel to Russia with his Russian girlfriend in May to three years and nine months in prison for allegedly attacking and threatening her.
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New York Times ☛ Kandinsky Cut Ties With Russia. So Did This Museum.
The first major exhibition at H’Art, a former satellite of the Hermitage, explores how war and nationalism shaped the painter’s career.
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New York Times ☛ Thursday Briefing: Russia and North Korea’s Defense Pledge
Also, the challenges of getting aid into Gaza.
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New York Times ☛ Russia Sentences U.S. Soldier to 4 Years in Prison
Staff Sgt. Gordon Black was accused of making death threats against, and stealing money from, a woman with whom he was romantically involved.
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Meduza ☛ Russian court fines Meduza co-founder Galina Timchenko for participation in ‘undesirable organization’ — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ ‘He chose this path, and we’re walking it with him’ The parents of imprisoned Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin on coping with their son’s incarceration — Meduza
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The Straits Times ☛ North Korea, Russia pact: To give all available military help if other is invaded
The two countries will not sign any treaty with a third country that infringes on the interests of the other.
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RFERL ☛ No Escaping The Belarus 'Nightmare'? Serbian Case Tests Lukashenka's International Reach
As expressions of concern and outrage pile up over the possible fate of Belarusian journalist and regime critic Andrey Hnyot, the 42-year-old exile remains in legal limbo in an extradition battle, he says, “to save my life.”
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RFERL ☛ Former Moscow Municipal Lawmaker Transferred To House Arrest
A Moscow court on June 19 ordered the transfer to house arrest of former municipal lawmaker Ketevan Kharaidze, who was sentenced in 2022 to four years in prison on extortion charges that she rejects as politically motivated.
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France24 ☛ Russia and North Korea sign partnership deal as Kim pledges ‘full support’ for Putin’s Ukraine war
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday signed a new partnership that includes a vow of mutual aid if either country faces “aggression,” in a pact that came as both face escalating standoffs with the West.
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JURIST ☛ Russia and North Korea strengthen alliance with new defense pact despite Western sanctions
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defense assistance pact on Wednesday during Putin’s visit to the North Korean capital Pyongyang since 2000.
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RFA ☛ Putin to visit Vietnam to affirm traditional partnership
The visit is praised as a symbol of Vietnam’s foreign policy but not expected to yield much.
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RFA ☛ North Korea’s Kim hails Russia alliance, promises Putin support on Ukraine
Leaders of the two neighbors concluded one-on-one talks that lasted about two hours, Russian media reported.
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RFERL ☛ Putin, Kim Sign New Accords At Anti-Western Summit in Pyongyang
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic partnership on June 19 during the Russian president's first visit in 24 years to the secretive one-party state.
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New York Times ☛ Putin and Kim Jong-un Sign Pact in North Korea
A need for munitions to use against Ukraine is pushing Russia’s leader to deepen his ties with North Korea, raising alarms in the West. The text of the agreement was not immediately released.
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New York Times ☛ Why Is Putin Traveling to Vietnam?
President Vladimir V. Putin arrived in Hanoi keen to maintain the longstanding military ties between Russia and Vietnam, as Hanoi has developed deeper bonds with Washington.
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New York Times ☛ Putin’s Presidential Planes: What We Know
The Kremlin clings to Soviet-designed aircraft even as Russia’s commercial carriers opt for Western planes.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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Wired ☛ OpenAI-Backed Nonprofits Have Gone Back on Their Transparency Pledges
But like at least two other Altman-linked organizations—OpenAI and UBI Charitable—OpenResearch has decided to withhold information about its finances and governance. In several years of filings to US tax authorities since their founding, each of the organizations has answered a question about their voluntary disclosure of financial statements, governing documents, and conflict-of-interest policies by stating that the public can review them upon request. It remains unclear whether anyone took them up on the offer in those years.
When WIRED requested those records, spokespeople for OpenAI in December and OpenResearch and UBI Charitable this month said their policies had changed, and up-to-date documents would not be disclosed. OpenResearch spokesperson Sourav Das only shared an undated and likely outdated conflict-of-interest policy bearing its old name, while UBI Charitable, which supports programs that offer unconditional cash transfers, didn’t turn over any records.
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Environment
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The Kent Stater ☛ Temperatures rise as Kent is placed under an excessive heat advisory
An advisory includes a heat index of 100 degrees or over and overnight low temperatures being 75 degrees or over for at least two days, Mitchell said.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Paris Olympics at risk due to extreme heat, report warns
"The fact that the Olympics will take place during high summer means that the threat of a devastating hot spell is a very real one," it said.
British men's rugby sevens player Jamie Farndale was among those warning of the dangers athletes could face: "What we do is push ourselves to our limits, and if we have to do so in conditions that are unsafe I don't think the athlete would hold back."
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Energy/Transportation
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DeSmog ☛ Inside Big Oil’s Business as Usual: Failure on Climate and Profits from War
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The Revelator ☛ Help the Youth Believe There’s More: A Reflection on Higher Risk Environments and Climate Crisis in the Black Community
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Nebraska Examiner ☛ Price jumps for modern-day streetcar project in Nebraska's largest city
In all, the total anticipated and updated cost in the streetcar corridor has jumped to $459 million, city officials announced Tuesday during a news conference.
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Futurism ☛ Prices for Used EVs Are Cratering
"It’s clear used car shoppers will no longer pay a premium for electric vehicles and, in fact, consider electric powertrains a detractor, making them less desirable — and less valuable — than traditional models," iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer argued in a statement.
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CNBC ☛ Used EV price crash gets deeper with 'premium' brand idea history
Used EVs are now selling for thousands of dollars less, on average, than comparable gas-powered vehicles.
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DataCenter Dynamics ☛ Ecuador hit by nationwide power outage, Internet connectivity plummets
The South American nation's grid has faced increasing strain amid a drought affecting hydroelectric power generation. In 2021, hydropower produced 79 percent of Ecuador's electricity.
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New York Times ☛ Ecuador Hit by Nationwide Blackout
The South American country of 18 million people has been struggling with an energy crisis for several years. Failing infrastructure, a lack of maintenance and a dependence on imported energy have all contributed to rolling blackouts — though none have been as widespread as this one.
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[Repeat] Zimbabwe ☛ The government wants to understand crypto to regulate it, help them know what's what
The government is inviting all to participate in an evaluation of the crypto landscape in Zimbabwe. This is so they understand it, including how it can be used for illicit activities, and then come up with an appropriate regulatory framework.
It is imperative that we participate in stuff like this. If not, we cannot complain if they come up with a backward regulatory framework. As you’ll see, they seem particularly concerned about how crypto can or is being misused for money laundering and terrorism financing.
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Futurism ☛ Electricity Prices in France Just Turned Negative Because of Renewables
While that may sound like an overwhelmingly good thing, much of this power ends up not being used, because battery storage capabilities have lagged behind renewable generation facilities. And not just in France — much of the continent has struggled to hold on to the wealth of renewable energy it's producing.
Worse yet, as some experts have pointed out, negative energy prices could turn away investors, which could further slow the development of energy storage systems.
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Overpopulation
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teleSUR ☛ US Southwest Experiences Loss of Groundwater
Over the past two decades, the region’s underground water supply has diminished by 68.7 cubic kilometers. This volume is about two-thirds of California’s annual water usage and roughly six times the water left in Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, at the end of 2023.
The research indicates that while snowmelt offers temporary relief, it is not enough to stop the dramatic water level decline that has been underway in the region.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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[Old] Patrick Breyer ☛ Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse Presidency compromise texts [PDF]
With a view to the meeting of the Law Enforcement Working Party (Police) on 3 April 2024, delegations will find in the Annex Presidency compromise texts on the above proposal.
Changes to the Commission proposal are marked in bold and
strikethrough.New changes to the Commission proposal in comparison to document 12611/23 are marked in bold, underline and
strikethrough underline. -
NDTV ☛ Melinda French Gates On Divorce: It Was Just Painful But Has Been Wonderful Since
Melinda French Gates described her divorce as an "awful" and "horrible thing". However, "it has been wonderful" since then, Melinda Gates said.
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Axios ☛ Trump, Musk, Supreme Court justices exploit post-shame America
Between the lines: The "never back down" phenomenon has spread to corners of the business world in recent years — led primarily by Elon Musk.
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India Times ☛ Facebook owner Meta respects the law only when it suits, says Australia minister
Facebook owner Meta considers itself above the law, Australia's financial services minister told Reuters, adding that anticompetitive behaviour by social media firms was harming economies and democracy worldwide.
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Futurism ☛ Trump's "Truth Social" Stock Is Crashing Again
In the past two days, Donald Trump's social media company Truth Social has suffered a precipitous drop in the stock market, continuing a weeks-long slide into the proverbial dumpster fire since Trump was slapped with 34 felony convictions last month.
Monday alone saw the stock price for Truth Social's parent company Trump Media & Technology Group (under the ticket name "DJT") decrease by 6.29 percent.
And then the meme stock dropped even further on Tuesday, by nearly ten percent by the end of the day to $31.31.
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India Times ☛ Nvidia becomes world's most valuable company
The surge in Nvidia's market value has been driven by demand for its chips, which are the gold standard in the AI space. The company's shares are up more than 170% this year and have risen about 1,100% since their October 2022 low.
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India Times ☛ By the numbers: How Nvidia's stock market value topped $3.3 trillion
Nvidia has seen soaring demand for its semiconductors, which are used to power artificial intelligence applications. Revenue more than tripled in the latest quarter from the same period a year earlier.
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[Repeat] Tom's Hardware ☛ Nvidia is now the world's most valuable company by market cap, ahead of Apple, Microsoft, and Google
Nvidia on Tuesday became the world's most valuable company, with a market capitalization of $3.34 trillion surpassing Microsoft and Apple. Driven by the global AI frenzy and rising demand for AI processors, Nvidia is the first semiconductor firm ever to become the world's most valuable company.
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New York Times ☛ Nvidia, with $3.34 Trillion Market Cap, Becomes Most Valuable Company
On Tuesday, Nvidia leapfrogged two of tech’s most storied names to become the world’s most valuable public company, according to data from S&P Global. Its ascent has been powered by the boom in generative artificial intelligence and surging demand for the company’s chips — known as graphics processing units, or GPUs — which have made it possible to create A.I. systems.
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The Verge ☛ Nvidia overtakes Microsoft as the world’s most valuable company
In its last earnings report in May, Nvidia reported over $26 billion in revenue ahead of the introduction of new Blackwell GPU architecture later this year with the B200 that it says is “the world’s most powerful chip.” CEO Jensen Huang has said that Blackwell units will cost “$30,000 to $40,000” each, and the company plans to release new AI chips every year.
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Cyble Inc ☛ Irish Hacker Avoids Jail For Teenage Cyberattacks On XBox
According to a BBC report, Aaron was also charged for not disclosing the passwords for his laptop, hard drives and iPhone between December 2017 and June 2020. He was tied to the charges through association, communication, device activity, and by a forensic speech investigator who could connect him to YouTube videos. The self-confessed criminal, now a reformed computer expert, was sentenced by Judge Roseanne McCormick KC. She observed that most of the offences were committed while Aaron was on bail for a similar offence in 2015 that targeted telecom behemoth TalkTalk, costing £77m.
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The Verge ☛ OpenAI’s former chief scientist is starting a new AI company
Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s co-founder and former chief scientist, is starting a new AI company focused on safety. In a post on Wednesday, Sutskever revealed Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), a startup with “one goal and one product:” creating a safe and powerful AI system.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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The Register UK ☛ 10 most popular AI chatbots parrot Russian disinformation
For this study, the LLM-powered bots – including OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's Copilot, and Google's Gemini – were each given 57 prompts to complete. These prompts questioned false claims made in articles circulated by what's said to be a network of disinformation outlets dressed up as local news websites that ultimately serve Russian interests and push pro-Putin propaganda.
The prompts did not reference the articles directly. Rather, they queried the accuracy of the narratives of those stories, giving the bots a chance to shoot down the disinformation. NewsGuard identified 19 false narratives reported by these sources, and crafted three prompts per narrative: One in a neutral tone; another that assumed the claims were true; and a third prompt that explicitly encouraged the generation of misinformation by the model under test.
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Futurism ☛ Top Chatbots are Parroting Russian Propaganda, Report Finds
NewsGuard tested the ten chatbots on their knowledge of 19 specific fake narratives pushed by a network of websites recently linked to one John Mark Dougan, a former Floridian sheriff's deputy currently living under asylum in Moscow (yes, seriously.) As a recent New York Times report revealed, Dougan operates an extensive, largely AI-powered constellation of fake news sites with mundane-sounding titles — among them titles like New York News Daily, The Houston Post, and The Chicago Chronicle, to name a few — where he publishes droves of content that promote false narratives.
And now, it seems that Dougan's fake news has worked its way into popular AI tools. NewsGuard's audit caught all ten chatbots it tested "convincingly" repeating "fabricated narratives" pushed by Dougan and his state-affiliated fake news network, and importantly, these weren't one-offs: the AIs parroted talking points in a staggering one-third of total responses examined, in many cases even referencing Dougan's websites as sources.
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NewsGuard Technologies Inc ☛ Top 10 Generative AI Models Mimic Russian Disinformation Claims A Third of the Time, Citing Moscow-Created Fake Local News Sites as Authoritative Sources - NewsGuard
The audit found that the chatbots from the 10 largest AI companies collectively repeated the false Russian disinformation narratives 31.75 percent of the time. Here is the breakdown: 152 of the 570 responses contained explicit disinformation, 29 responses repeated the false claim with a disclaimer, and 389 responses contained no misinformation — either because the chatbot refused to respond (144) or it provided a debunk (245).
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VOA News ☛ Putin camouflages debunked falsehoods as ‘Ukraine peace plan’
Putin demanded Ukraine’s surrender of its Russia-occupied regions and its NATO membership aspirations, thus accepting Moscow’s dominion. These are Russia’s conditions for peace, Putin said, in a speech loaded with disinformation and propaganda narratives he used over the years to justify the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Polygraph.info reviewed eight of Putin’s claims, finding them false and misleading.
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[Repeat] Atlantic Council ☛ Holding Putin’s propagandists accountable for crimes in Ukraine
For Russian propagandists to face the criminal consequences of their conduct, international arrest warrants are indispensable. Bolstering political will for judicial accountability and opening criminal proceedings should be the two major areas of focus. To ensure accountability, Ukraine and its partners must now plan for realistic enforcement mechanisms that implement trial verdicts and deny safe havens of non-extradition. The words and actions of Kremlin propagandists have combined to fuel unimaginable atrocities in Ukraine. To protect Ukrainians and other victims, and to prevent further armed conflicts fuelled by propaganda, the international community must break the cycle of Russia’s real or imagined impunity.
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RTL ☛ Deceptive editing: 'Cheapfakes': Out-of-context videos target Biden's age
The White House has branded the videos -- many of which originated with an X account run by the Republican National Committee, or RNC -- as "cheapfakes," a term misinformation experts coined to describe content altered using basic and affordable technology.
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VOA News ☛ Journalist finally recognized for work combating Russian disinformation
The honor — tailored specifically for Aro — comes five years after the U.S. State Department rescinded its courage award because of critical comments the Finnish journalist made about then-President Donald Trump.
The embassy presented its award in recognition of Aro’s commitment to exposing and combating Russian disinformation campaigns at great personal cost. For a decade, she has been at the forefront of investigating Russian information warfare and pro-Kremlin troll farms.
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Scoop News Group ☛ U.S. election official: ‘Whack-a-mole’ strategies less effective to combat disinfo
Disinformation continues to be a top focus for policymakers concerned with the integrity of elections, but changes in how the public utilizes social media over the past decade have made it harder for defenders — and attackers — to repeat the same playbooks, a top U.S. cybersecurity official said Tuesday.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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Reason ☛ Florida Man Suing After Being Arrested for Filming Police
Numerous federal appeals courts have ruled that filming police is protected under the First Amendment, but police continue to illegally arrest people for it.
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Deccan Chronicle ☛ Woman Scribe Faces Police Complaint Over Tweet on Power Cuts
The issue began on June 18 when a woman tweeted about frequent power cuts in her locality. After her tweet, a lineman dropped by her residence, demanding her to delete the tweet.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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VOA News ☛ Report: Journalists under threat in Amazon rainforest
Cases of violence against journalists more than doubled from 20 to 45 between 2021 and 2022, years when former hard-right President Jair Bolsonaro was in office, according to the Vladimir Herzog Institute, a nonprofit rights organization.
Bolsonaro eased environmental controls and gutted enforcement agencies to foster development in the Amazon, which spawned a boom in illegal gold mining and logging.
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RFERL ☛ Russia Adds Self-Exiled Journalist Lazareva To Terrorist List
Russia's financial watchdog, Rosfinmonitoring, added self-exiled television journalist Tatyana Lazareva to its list of "terrorists and extremists" on June 19. [...]
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RFERL ☛ Pakistani Journalists Hold Protest After Funeral For Colleague Killed By Gunmen
The protest took place after the funeral for the journalist, Khalil Afridi, who worked for Pashto-language Khyber TV. He also served twice as president of the local press club in Landi Kotal, a Pakistani town near Torkham. In addition to working as a journalist in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Afridi was a civil society activist.
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US News And World Report ☛ Journalists Under Threat in Amazon Rainforest - Report
There have been 230 cases of violence against journalists in the Amazon in the last decade, with nine reporters murdered, the Vladimir Herzog Institute, a nonprofit rights organization said.
Incidents of violence against journalists more than doubled from 20 to 45 between 2021 and 2022, years when former hard-right President Jair Bolsonaro was in office, according to its report.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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EDRI ☛ Petition: Put people, democracy and the planet at the heart of our digital futures!
With new EU decision-makers set to take office after the elections, we want them to hear about our vision of a future where technology serves humanity, democracy, and the planet.
Together with 24 civil society partners working on protecting and advancing digital, social and civil rights, we’re demanding lawmakers support our vision of technology that: [...]
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ Anti-Wage-Theft Laws Are Kryptonite to Dishonest Bosses
According to Denver’s 2023 Annual Wage Theft Report, last year was the “most impactful in the Denver Labor Office’s history.” Between November 1, 2022, and October 21, 2023, the office helped over thirty-five hundred workers recoup $2 million in unpaid wages, an 85 percent increase from the year prior. What’s more, as this reporting period started before the Civil Wage Theft Ordinance was passed, it does not reflect the full potential of a full year’s worth of wage restitution.
The report attributes this success to four ways in which the Civil Wage Theft Ordinance empowered the Denver Labor Office: [...]
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404 Media ☛ California Fines Amazon $6 Million for 59,017 Separate Warehouse Violations
The citations allege that Amazon violated the Warehouse Quotas law a total of 59,017 times at two distribution warehouses in southern California—46,697 times at ONT8, and 12,320 times at ONT9. Amazon has been cited $100 per violation, for a total fine of $5,901,700.
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California Department of Industrial Relations ☛ Labor Commissioner Cites Amazon Nearly $6 Million for Violating California’s Warehouse Quotas Law | California Department of Industrial Relations
Amazon failed to meet requirements of the Warehouse Quotas law, enacted in 2021 as Assembly Bill 701, at warehouses in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties.
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The Verge ☛ Amazon union workers and the Teamsters have inked a deal
Amazon has tried to block various efforts to unionize across different branches of the company since at least 2000, but the movement to unionize warehouse workers only gained steam in the past few years. The Teamsters, founded in 1903, is one of the biggest labor unions in the US.
Employees at the Staten Island warehouse, known as JFK8, became the first Amazon workers to vote to unionize in 2022. They still don’t have a contract, as the union struggles to get Amazon to the bargaining table. Union members at JFK8 approved an affiliation agreement with the Teamsters after three days of voting, the groups announced today.
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New York Times ☛ Nancy Pelosi Meets With Dalai Lama, Despite China’s Criticism
The trip comes days after Congress passed a bill with bipartisan support that urged China to start dialogue with Tibetan leaders to find a solution to the longstanding conflict.
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Deccan Chronicle ☛ US Delegation, Pelosi Meets Dalai Lama, Criticizes Xi Jinping; Beijing Angered
According to media reports, the delegation led by Republican chairman of the House committee on foreign affairs Michael McCaul arrived earlier on Tuesday. The trip comes days after the US Congress passed a bill with bipartisan support that urged China to start dialogue with Tibetan leaders to find a solution to the longstanding conflict.
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The Hill ☛ Congressional delegation's meeting with Dalai Lama angers China
The bipartisan congressional delegation, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), met with the Dalai Lama on Wednesday at his residence in Dharamshala, India, The Associated Press (AP) reported. The leader has resided there since fleeing Tibet in 1959.
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VOA News ☛ US lawmakers meet Dalai Lama as China slams visit
"This bill is a message to the Chinese government that we have clarity in our thinking and our understanding of this issue of the freedom of Tibet,” Nancy Pelosi, former House Speaker, said to cheers from hundreds of Tibetans whom the lawmakers addressed at a public ceremony after meeting the Dalai Lama at his residence.
U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to soon sign the legislation called "Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act," also referred to as the Resolve Tibet Act.
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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NDTV ☛ TikTok To Be Bought By US Billionaire Frank McCourt? What He Says
To address the problem, McCourt is campaigning for a "new [Internet]" which, he claims, would wrest control of the web away from major platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or X.
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RIPE ☛ Whose CIDR Is It Anyway?
IP address space wasn't divided evenly, and after years of re-allocation and re-assigment, the question that comes to mind is: who owns what parts of it? In the latest in a series of articles on the centralisation of the Internet, Jan Schaumann digs into the data to try to get a clearer view.
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[Repeat] APNIC ☛ Off-path TCP hijacking in NAT-enabled Wi-Fi networks
Wi-Fi has emerged as one of the most popular technologies for providing Internet access, but it is also frequently exploited by malicious actors to launch various attacks. With the deployment of wireless security mechanisms like WPA2/WPA3 and the adoption of other protective strategies such as Access Point (AP) isolation, Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) protection, and rogue AP detection, off-path attackers (those unable to control the router) are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain confidential information of Wi-Fi users.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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[Old] Neowin ☛ Microsoft moves to integrate Windows with BIOS - Neowin
The relationship, announced this week, is designed to make PCs simpler and more reliable, the companies said. The move is likely to put consumer rights advocates on their guard, however, since both Microsoft and Phoenix are involved in plans to integrate digital rights management (DRM) technology at the operating system and hardware level.
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[Old] ZDNet ☛ Microsoft moving Windows into BIOS
DRM is designed to give copyright owners more control over how users make use of software and content, but has been criticized as eroding consumer rights.
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[Old] ECT News Network Inc ☛ Microsoft Deal Ties BIOS Tightly to Windows
Microsoft’s recent deal with Phoenix Technologies is aimed at “radical simplification to the PC and digital service industry” through enhancements to the Basic Input Output System (BIOS) — the software that connects operating systems with hardware.
Industry observers agreed that the next generation of BIOS, as well as the digital rights management (DRM) technology that accompanies it, could improve reliability, usability, manageability and security — just as Microsoft and Phoenix claim it will. However, there are concerns that Microsoft is strengthening its grip on PC production and private information.
“There is a risk that the relationship [between Microsoft and Phoenix] will further Microsoft lock-in,” Electronic Privacy Information Center deputy counsel Chris Hoofnagle told TechNewsWorld. “With a monopolistic software company, it can be impossible for the market to create products that are consumer friendly.”
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Silicon Angle ☛ UK antitrust watchdog opens probe into HPE’s $14B Juniper acquisition
In January, HPE announced an all-cash [sic] deal to acquire Juniper for $14 billion. It estimates that the acquisition will double its networking business. It also forecasts that Juniper will start positively contributing to its adjusted earnings per share within a year of the deal’s completion, which is expected to take place in early 2025 at the latest.
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Digital Music News ☛ Music Festivals Are Facing an Extinction Event Around the Globe
“Everything has gone up in recent years across the board, everything from insurance costs, artist fees to affording fuel for generators,” the Director of the Stendhal Festival in County Londonberry, Ross Parhill, recently told the BBC. “Our program budget for artists is probably about 25% of our overall budget—this is substantial.”
“Any fees over a few thousand pounds you are paying a 50% deposit, and quite often for the higher fees you are then paying 100% before the gig, which is significant pressure.”
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Digital Music News ☛ More Details Emerge on Ticketmaster Breach Affecting 500M+
Ticketmaster has not directly acknowledged the hack, but parent company Live Nation confirmed data was stolen from its Snowflake account in May 2024. At the time of that announcement, Live Nation did not say how many accounts could be affected. Hackers have released a preview of the database on dark web forums, citing 560 million accounts of Ticketmaster customers is for sale on hacker forums.
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India Times ☛ US sues Adobe over hard-to-cancel subscriptions
The Justice Department said in its lawsuit that Adobe hid details of an expensive cancellation fee from consumers "in fine print and behind optional text boxes and hyperlinks." Adobe's website and customer service representatives made canceling additionally challenging, according to allegations in the suit.
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Cyble Inc ☛ FTC Sues Adobe Over Hidden Fees, Cancellation Hurdles
"The FTC will continue working to protect Americans from these illegal business practices.”
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Reuters ☛ US sues Photoshop maker Adobe for hiding fees, making it difficult to cancel
"Adobe trapped customers into year-long subscriptions through hidden early termination fees and numerous cancellation hurdles," said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC consumer protection bureau. "Americans are tired of companies hiding the ball during subscription signup and then putting up roadblocks when they try to cancel."
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Michael Tsai ☛ UTM Blocked Outside App Store via Notarization
The bottom line for me is that Apple doesn’t want general-purpose emulators, it’s questionable whether the DMA lets it block them, and even siding with Apple on this it isn’t consistently applying its own rules.
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Patents
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Software Patents
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The Verge ☛ Qualcomm agrees to $75m settlement over complaints it misled stockholders
Shareholders took issue with Qualcomm’s failure to fully disclose how it handled patent licensing. At the time, the company refused to license standard essential patents to certain competitors and in some cases made buying its chips a requirement to get a deal.
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Reuters ☛ Qualcomm reaches $75 mln settlement over sales and licensing practices
Shareholders accused Qualcomm of artificially inflating its share price between February 2012 and January 2017 by repeatedly describing its chip sales and technology licensing as separate businesses, when in fact Qualcomm bundled them to stifle competition.
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Copyrights
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Leon Mika ☛ My Position On Blocking AI Web Crawlers
I’m seeing a lot of posts online about sites and hosting platforms blocking web crawlers used for AI training. I can completely understand their position, and fully support them: it’s their site and they can do what they want.
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International Business Times ☛ Meta To Use Public Photos and Posts To Train AI: Here's How US, UK And Europe Users Can Opt Out
Meta's decision to train its AI using publicly available photos from Instagram has sparked an exodus of artists from the platform who feel uncomfortable by this policy change. However, users in the US, UK, and Europe can actually opt out of this program.
Instagram has been a haven for artists of all styles to showcase their work and cultivate a following for years. However, an alarming number of users are abandoning the platform to protest Meta's policy that utilises publicly posted art to train its AI models.
The artists' exodus can be attributed to two key events. In May, a Meta executive sparked outrage by announcing that publicly shared Instagram posts would be used to train the company's AI models.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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