Twitter gives Elon Musk a pass on coronavirus disinformation tweets
Elon Musk is a huge asshole. COVID-19 has made him more so.
Twitter uses 'manipulated media' label for first time on clipped Biden video RTd by by Trump
It's about freaking time. Read the rest
Twitter bans posts that 'dehumanize' people for diseases like coronavirus
No COVID-19 shaming, please.
Twitter announced Thursday it will ban tweets that “dehumanize” people because they have a disease, disability, or because of their age, which happens to correspond to a spike in the number of tweets about the fast-spreading global coronavirus outbreak. Read the rest
Leaked Twitter demo shows red banners to indicate lies and disinformation under tweets
A leaked demo has bright red and orange marks on 'harmfully misleading' tweets
Twitter: We killed “a large network of fake accounts” and others for abusing API feature that matched phone numbers to usernames
Today, Twitter released a statement that says the platform has suspended “a large network of fake accounts,” as well as many others “located in a wide range of countries,” for abusing an API feature that allowed them to match phone numbers to usernames. Read the rest
Listen: loudspeakers broadcast corona virus closure messages to the empty streets of Shanghai Disneyland
Deutsche Welle's footage of the empty entrance plaza of Shanghai Disneyland as the PA system broadcasts a message that the park is "temporarily closed" for "prevention and control of the disease outbreak" is indeed "straight out of a Hollywood horror movie," as the caption says. Read the rest
Users to Twitter: Ban Nazis. Twitter: What if you could have emoji reactions to a Direct Message
Twitter, where Donald Trump posted 123 bonkers tweets today and Nazis and psyops bots roam free, is rolling out a pop-up feature that lets users add an emoji reaction to a Direct Message, kind of like a similar feature that exists in iOS iMessage. So fancy! Read the rest
Trump sets presidential record for most tweets in one day, all 123 of them stupid
Trump seemed awfully uptight today, didn't he. Can it be the impeachment trial?
By 4:25 PM today in Washington, DonaldTrump broke his own previous record of 123 tweets in a single day, a milestone he set just over one month ago, according to Factba.se, 'a service that compiles and analyzes data on Trump’s presidency.' Read the rest
Google spent ~$150 million on US lobbying over last decade, followed by Facebook at ~$81M, Amazon almost $80M: Federal filings
'Federal disclosures filed late Tuesday reveal Amazon and Facebook each spent roughly $17 million to battle back Washington in 2019'
Twitter to add “conversation participants” setting to limit who can reply to your tweets
“Getting ratio’d, getting dunked on, the dynamics that happen that we think aren’t as healthy are definitely part of... our thinking about this.”
Facebook & Twitter ban pro-Trump network that reached 55 million accounts with AI-generated faces, Epoch Media Group and Falun Gong links identified
They had 'American' faces, but these pro-Trump social media accounts all had algorithmically generated faces that only appeared 'American.'
Facebook and Twitter have banned a pro-Trump network that reached 55 million accounts and is said to be linked to a US-based media company called The BL which has ties to Epoch Media Group and the Chinese Falun Gong cult. Read the rest
Spectacular, tiny room hidden behind a hinged electrical outlet cover
Japanese artist Mozu makes incredible, miniature dioramas with tiny, winking electronic devices; their latest piece is The Secret Base of Kubito, a tiny workroom hidden behind an electrical outlet. Mozu says of it, "This work, which was born from the delusion that 'If I'm small, don't make a secret base in the wall', and the wifi router that flashes with a glowing TV are all handmade miniature works." (Sorry, wonky Bing translation!) Read the rest
Trump tweets something stupid on Impeachment Eve
Here is a tweet from Donald Trump, the man serving America as the 45th president. Read the rest
Twitter wants to develop an open, decentralized, federated social media standard...and then join it
Twitter is advertising for "a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media" with the goal of becoming "a client of that standard." Read the rest
Minor Problem: a punk anthem about Donald Trump's mockery of Greta Thunberg
Balazs Sarkadi from the Hungarian band Bankrupt ("a refreshingly energetic blend of 90s indie, hip hop and punk rock") writes, "President Trump mocked Greta Thunberg in a recent tweet, which sparkled the idea of a song in which he elaborates his point of view on climate change in a Twitter rant addressed to Greta. The mash-up music video of Minor Problem by Bankrupt is a funny and at the same time cringey compilation of Trump's most awkward moments and loosely associated footage. Read the rest
German researchers with ties to for-profit "neuromarketing" company want to use AI to guess peoples' "intelligence" from their writing
The annual Germeval natural language processing event solicits German-language "shared tasks"; one of this year's proposed tasks from the University of Hamburg is Prediction of Intellectual Ability and Personality Traits from Text, which proposes to mine test subjects' essays as a predictor of IQ. Read the rest
In defamation case, Elon Musk will testify that "pedo guy" is a common South African phrase and not an accusation of pedophilia
Vernon Unsworth is one of the rescue divers who helped free the children who'd been stuck in a cave in Thailand; Unsworth made some pointed remarks about the disutility of Elon Musk's proposal to bring the children out in a miniature sub, to which Musk replied by publicly calling Unsworth "pedo guy" and "child rapist" and then daring Unworth to sue him. Read the rest
