The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Tesla "is poised to roll out its version of a robotaxi later this year, according to CEO Elon Musk." ("Musk made the announcement on social media saying 'Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8.' His cryptic post contained no other details about the forthcoming line of autonomous vehicles.")

Electrek thinks they know what it'll look like. "Through Walter Issacson's approved biography of Musk, we learned that Tesla Robotaxi will be 'Cybertruck-like'."

8/8 (of the year 2024) would be a Thursday — although CNBC adds one additional clarification: At Tesla, "unveil" dates do not predict a near-future date for a commercial release of a new product. For example, Tesla unveiled its fully electric heavy-duty truck, the Semi, in 2017 and did not begin deliveries until December 2022. It still produces and sells very few Semis to this day.
"Tesla shares rose over 3% in extended trading after Musk's tweet."

TechCrunch reports this week that Meta "is denying that it gave Netflix access to users' private messages..." The claim references a court filing that emerged as part of the discovery process in a class-action lawsuit over data privacy practices between a group of consumers and Facebook's parent, Meta. The document alleges that Netflix and Facebook had a "special relationship" and that Facebook even cut spending on original programming for its Facebook Watch video service so as not to compete with Netflix, a large Facebook advertiser. It also says that Netflix had access to Meta's "Inbox API" that offered the streamer "programmatic access to Facebook's user's private message inboxes...."

Meta's communications director, Andy Stone, reposted the original X post on Tuesday with a statement disputing that Netflix had been given access to users' private messages. "Shockingly untrue," Stone wrote on X. "Meta didn't share people's private messages with Netflix. The agreement allowed people to message their friends on Facebook about what they were watching on Netflix, directly from the Netflix app. Such agreements are commonplace in the industry...."

Beyond Stone's X post, Meta has not provided further comment. However, The New York Times had previously reported in 2018 that Netflix and Spotify could read users' private messages, according to documents it had obtained. Meta denied those claims at the time via a blog post titled "Facts About Facebook's Messaging Partnerships," where it explained that Netflix and Spotify had access to APIs that allowed consumers to message friends about what they were listening to on Spotify or watching on Netflix directly from those companies' respective apps. This required the companies to have "write access" to compose messages to friends, "read access" to allow users to read messages back from friends, and "delete access," which meant if you deleted a message from the third-party app, it would also delete the message from Facebook.

"No third party was reading your private messages, or writing messages to your friends without your permission. Many news stories imply we were shipping over private messages to partners, which is not correct," the blog post stated. In any event, Messenger didn't implement default end-to-end encryption until December 2023, a practice that would have made these sorts of claims a non-starter, as it wouldn't have left room for doubt.

Paid ChatGPT users can now edit AI-generated images using text prompts from within ChatGPT. Axios reports: In a demo shared on X (formerly Twitter), OpenAI showed off the new capability, using it to add bows to a poodle's ears in an image created by DALL-E. DALL-E will also begin letting people choose the aspect ratio of the desired image as well as to add styles, such as "motion blur" or "solarpunk."

Bill Toulas reports via BleepingComputer: Firmware security firm Binarly has released a free online scanner to detect Linux executables impacted by the XZ Utils supply chain attack, tracked as CVE-2024-3094. CVE-2024-3094 is a supply chain compromise in XZ Utils, a set of data compression tools and libraries used in many major Linux distributions. Late last month, Microsoft engineer Andres Freud discovered the backdoor in the latest version of the XZ Utils package while investigating unusually slow SSH logins on Debian Sid, a rolling release of the Linux distribution.

The backdoor was introduced by a pseudonymous contributor to XZ version 5.6.0, which remained present in 5.6.1. However, only a few Linux distributions and versions following a "bleeding edge" upgrading approach were impacted, with most using an earlier, safe library version. Following the discovery of the backdoor, a detection and remediation effort was started, with CISA proposing downgrading the XZ Utils 5.4.6 Stable and hunting for and reporting any malicious activity.

Binarly says the approach taken so far in the threat mitigation efforts relies on simple checks such as byte string matching, file hash blocklisting, and YARA rules, which could lead to false positives. This approach can trigger significant alert fatigue and doesn't help detect similar backdoors on other projects. To address this problem, Binarly developed a dedicated scanner that would work for the particular library and any file carrying the same backdoor. [...] Binarly's scanner increases detection as it scans for various supply chain points beyond just the XZ Utils project, and the results are of much higher confidence. Binarly has made a free API available to accomodate bulk scans, too.

As a department of America's federal Health agency, the Food and Drug Administration is responsible for public health rules, including prescription medicines. And the FDA "has not changed its position that currently available clinical trial data do not demonstrate that ivermectin is effective against COVID-19," they confirmed to CNN this week. "The agency has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19."

But there was also a lawsuit. In "one of its more popular pandemic-era social media campaigns," the agency tweeted out "You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it." The post attracted nearly 106,000 likes — and over 46,000 reposts, and was followed by another post on Instagram. "Stop it with the #ivermectin. It's not authorized for treating #COVID."

Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik writes that the posts triggered a "groundless" lawsuit: It was those latter two lines that exercised three physicians who had been prescribing ivermectin for patients. They sued the FDA in 2022, asserting that its advisory illegally interfered with the practice of medicine — specifically with their ability to continue prescribing the drug. A federal judge in Texas threw out their case, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals — the source of a series of chuckleheaded antigovernment rulings in recent years — reinstated it last year, returning it to the original judge for reconsideration.

Now the FDA has settled the case by agreeing to delete the horse post and two similar posts from its accounts on the social media platforms X, LinkedIn and Facebook. The agency also agreed to retire a consumer advisory titled "Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19." In defending its decision, the FDA said it "has chosen to resolve this lawsuit rather than continuing to litigate over statements that are between two and nearly four years old."

That sounds reasonable enough, but it's a major blunder. It leaves on the books the 5th Circuit's adverse ruling, in which a panel of three judges found that the FDA's advisory crossed the line from informing consumers, which they said is all right, to recommending that consumers take some action, which they said is not all right... That's a misinterpretation of the law and the FDA's actions, according to Dorit Rubinstein Reiss of UC College of the Law in San Francisco. "The FDA will seek to make recommendations against the misuse of products in the future, and having that decision on the books will be used to litigate against it," she observed after the settlement.
"A survey by Boston University and the University of Michigan estimated that Medicare and private insurers had wasted $130 million on ivermectin prescriptions for COVID in 2021 alone."

Personal data from 73 million AT&T customers has leaked onto the dark web, reports CNN — both current and former customers.

AT&T has launched an investigation into the source of the data leak... In a news release Saturday morning, the telecommunications giant said the data was "released on the dark web approximately two weeks ago," and contains information such as account holders' Social Security numbers. ["The information varied by customer and account," AT&T said in a statement, " but may have included full name, email address, mailing address, phone number, social security number, date of birth, AT&T account number and passcode."]

"It is not yet known whether the data ... originated from AT&T or one of its vendors," the company added. "Currently, AT&T does not have evidence of unauthorized access to its systems resulting in exfiltration of the data set."

The data seems to have been from 2019 or earlier. The leak does not appear to contain financial information or specifics about call history, according to AT&T. The company said the leak shows approximately 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former account holders were affected.
CNN says the first reports of the leak came two weeks ago from a social media account claiming "the largest collection of malware source code, samples, and papers. Reached for a comment by CNN, AT&T had said at the time that "We have no indications of a compromise of our systems."

AT&T's web site now includes a special page with an FAQ — and the tagline that announces "We take cybersecurity very seriously..."

"It has come to our attention that a number of AT&T passcodes have been compromised..."

The page points out that AT&T has already reset the passcodes of "all 7.6 million impacted customers." It's only further down in the FAQ that they acknowledge that the breach "appears to be from 2019 or earlier, impacting approximately 7.6 million current AT&T account holders and 65.4 million former account holders." Our internal teams are working with external cybersecurity experts to analyze the situation... We encourage customers to remain vigilant by monitoring account activity and credit reports. You can set up free fraud alerts from nationwide credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. You can also request and review your free credit report at any time via Freecreditreport.com...

We will reach out by mail or email to individuals with compromised sensitive personal information and offering complimentary identity theft and credit monitoring services... If your information was impacted, you will be receiving an email or letter from us explaining the incident, what information was compromised, and what we are doing for you in response.

"Today's most effective corporate lobbying no longer involves wooing members of Congress..." writes the Wall Street Journal. Instead the lobbying sector "now works in secret to influence lawmakers with the help of an unlikely ally: you." [Lobbyists] teamed up with PR gurus, social-media experts, political pollsters, data analysts and grassroots organizers to foment seemingly organic public outcries designed to pressure lawmakers and compel them to take actions that would benefit the lobbyists' corporate clients...

By the middle of 2011, an army of lobbyists working for the pillars of the corporate lobbying establishment — the major movie studios, the music industry, pharmaceutical manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — were executing a nearly $100 million campaign to win approval for the internet bill [the PROTECT IP Act, or "PIPA"]. They pressured scores of lawmakers to co-sponsor the legislation. At one point, 99 of the 100 members of the U.S. Senate appeared ready to support it — an astounding number, given that most bills have just a handful of co-sponsors before they are called up for a vote. When lobbyists for Google and its allies went to Capitol Hill, they made little headway. Against such well-financed and influential opponents, the futility of the traditional lobbying approach became clear. If tech companies were going to turn back the anti-piracy bills, they would need to find another way.

It was around this time that one of Google's Washington strategists suggested an alternative strategy. "Let's rally our users," Adam Kovacevich, then 34 and a senior member of Google's Washington office, told colleagues. Kovacevich turned Google's opposition to the anti-piracy legislation into a coast-to-coast political influence effort with all the bells and whistles of a presidential campaign. The goal: to whip up enough opposition to the legislation among ordinary Americans that Congress would be forced to abandon the effort... The campaign slogan they settled on — "Don't Kill the Internet" — exaggerated the likely impact of the bill, but it succeeded in stirring apprehension among web users.

The coup de grace came on Jan. 18, 2012, when Google and its allies pulled off the mother of all outside influence campaigns. When users logged on to the web that day, they discovered, to their great frustration, that many of the sites they'd come to rely on — Wikipedia, Reddit, Craigslist — were either blacked out or displayed text outlining the detrimental impacts of the proposed legislation. For its part, Google inserted a black censorship bar over its multicolored logo and posted a tool that enabled users to contact their elected representatives. "Tell Congress: Please don't censor the web!" a message on Google's home page read. With some 115,000 websites taking part, the protest achieved a staggering reach. Tens of millions of people visited Wikipedia's blacked-out website, 4.5 million users signed a Google petition opposing the legislation, and more than 2.4 million people took to Twitter to express their views on the bills. "We must stop [these bills] to keep the web open & free," the reality TV star Kim Kardashian wrote in a tweet to her 10 million followers...

Within two days, the legislation was dead...

Over the following decade, outside influence tactics would become the cornerstone of Washington's lobbying industry — and they remain so today.
"The 2012 effort is considered the most successful consumer mobilization in the history of internet policy," writes the Washington Post — agreeing that it's since spawned more app-based, crowdsourced lobbying campaigns. Sites like Airbnb "have also repeatedly asked their users to oppose city government restrictions on the apps." Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other gig work companies also blitzed the apps' users with scenarios of higher prices or suspended service unless people voted for a 2020 California ballot measure on contract workers. Voters approved it."

The Wall Street Journal also details how lobbyists successfully killed higher taxes for tobacco products, the oil-and-gas industry, and even on private-equity investors — and note similar tactics were used against a bill targeting TikTok. "Some say the campaign backfired. Lawmakers complained that the effort showed how the Chinese government could co-opt internet users to do their bidding in the U.S., and the House of Representatives voted to ban the app if its owners did not agree to sell it.

"TikTok's lobbyists said they were pleased with the effort. They persuaded 65 members of the House to vote in favor of the company and are confident that the Senate will block the effort."

The Journal's article was adapted from an upcoming book titled "The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government." But the Washington Post argues the phenomenon raises two questions. "How much do you want technology companies to turn you into their lobbyists? And what's in it for you?"

Hillary Clinton and U.S. election officials said they are concerned disinformation generated and spread by AI could threaten the 2024 presidential election [non-paywalled link]. WSJ: Clinton, a former secretary of state and 2016 presidential candidate, said she thinks foreign actors like Russian President Vladimir Putin could use AI to interfere in elections in the U.S. and elsewhere. Dozens of countries are running elections this year. "Anybody who's not worried is not paying attention," Clinton said Thursday at Columbia University, where election officials and tech executives discussed how AI could impact global elections.

She added: "It could only be a very small handful of people in St. Petersburg or Moldova or wherever they are right now who are lighting the fire, but because of the algorithms everyone gets burned." Clinton said Putin tried to undermine her before the 2016 election by spreading disinformation on Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat about "all these terrible things" she purportedly did. "I don't think any of us understood it," she said. "I did not understand it. I can tell you my campaign did not understand it. The so-called dark web was filled with these kinds of memes and stories and videos of all sorts portraying me in all kinds of less than flattering ways." Clinton added: "What they did to me was primitive and what we're talking about now is the leap in technology."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge, written by Nilay Patel: Today, I'm talking to Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky Social, which is a decentralized competitor to Twitter, er, X. Bluesky actually started inside of what was then known as Twitter — it was a project from then-CEO Jack Dorsey, who spent his days wandering the earth and saying things like Twitter should be a protocol and not a company. Bluesky was supposed to be that protocol, but Jack spun it out of Twitter in 2021, just before Elon Musk bought the company and renamed it X. Bluesky is now an independent company with a few dozen employees, and it finds itself in the middle of one of the most chaotic moments in the history of social media. There are a lot of companies and ideas competing for space on the post-Twitter internet, and Jay makes a convincing argument that decentralization -- the idea that you should be able to take your username and following to different servers as you wish -- is the future. It's a powerful concept that's been kicking around for a long time, but now it feels closer to reality than ever before. You've heard us talk about it a lot on Decoder: the core idea is that no single company -- or individual billionaire -- can amass too much power and control over our social networks and the conversations that happen on them.

Bluesky's approach to this is something called the AT Protocol, which powers Bluesky's own platform but which is also a technology that anyone can use right now to host their own servers and, eventually, interoperate with a bunch of other networks. You'll hear Jay explain how building Bluesky the product alongside AT Protocol the protocol has created a cooperate-compete dynamic that runs throughout the entire company and that also informs how it's building products and features -- not only for its own service but also for developers to build on top of. Jay and I also talked about the growth of the Bluesky app, which now has more than 5 million users, and how so many of the company's early decisions around product design and moderation have shaped the type of organic culture that's taken hold there. Content moderation is, of course, one of the biggest challenges any platform faces, and Bluesky, in particular, has had its fair share of controversies. But the idea behind AT Protocol and Bluesky is devolving control, so Bluesky users can pick their own moderation systems and recommendation algorithms -- a grand experiment that I wanted to know much more about.

Finally, Jay and I had the opportunity to get technical and go deeper on standards and protocols, which are the beating heart of the decentralization movement. Bluesky's AT Protocol is far from the only protocol in the mix -- there's also ActivityPub, which is what powers Mastodon and, soon, Meta's Threads. There's been some real animosity between these camps, and I asked Jay about the differences between the two, the benefits of Bluesky's approach, and how she sees the two coexisting in the future.

Dave Plummer, a former Microsoft developer, has shared the story behind the Format drive dialog box in Windows, which has remained unchanged for nearly three decades. According to Plummer, the dialog box was created as a temporary solution during the porting of code from Windows 95 to Windows NT, due to differences between the two operating systems. Plummer jotted down all the formatting options on a piece of paper and created a basic UI, intending it to be a placeholder until a more refined version could be developed. However, the intended UI improvement never materialized, and Plummer's temporary solution has persisted through numerous Windows versions, including the latest Windows 11.

Plummer also admitted that the 32GB limit on FAT volume size in Windows was an arbitrary decision he made at the time, which has since become a permanent constraint.

CNN looks back to when "dial-up internet (and its iconic dial tone) was 'still a thing..." "File-sharing services like Napster and LimeWire were just beginning to take off... And in sweaty dorm rooms and sparse basements across the world, people brought their desktop monitors together to set up a local area network (LAN) and play multiplayer games — "Half-Life," "Counter-Strike," "Starsiege: Tribes," "StarCraft," "WarCraft" or "Unreal Tournament," to name just a few. These were informal but high-stakes gatherings, then known as LAN parties, whether winning a box of energy drinks or just the joy of emerging victorious. The parties could last several days and nights, with gamers crowded together among heavy computers and fast food boxes, crashing underneath their desks in sleeping bags and taking breaks to pull pranks on each other or watch movies...

It's this nostalgia that prompted writer and podcaster Merritt K to document the era's gaming culture in her new photobook "LAN Party: Inside the Multiplayer Revolution." After floating the idea on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, she received an immediate — and visceral — response from old-school gamers all too keen to share memories and photos from LAN parties and gaming conventions across the world... It's strange to remember that the internet was once a place you went to spend time with other real people; a tethered space, not a cling-film-like reality enveloping the corporeal world from your own pocket....

Growing up as a teenager in this era, you could feel a sense of hope (that perhaps now feels like naivete) about the possibilities of technology, K explained. The book is full of photos featuring people smiling and posing with their desktop monitors, pride and fanfare apparent... "It felt like, 'Wow, the future is coming,'" K said. "It was this exciting time where you felt like you were just charting your own way. I don't want to romanticize it too much, because obviously it wasn't perfect, but it was a very, very different experience...."

"We've kind of lost a lot of control, I think over our relationship to technology," K said. "We have lost a lot of privacy as well. There's less of a sense of exploration because there just isn't as much out there."
One photo shows a stack of Mountain Dew cans (remembering that by 2007 the company had even released a line of soda called "Game Fuel"). "It was a little more communal," the book's author told CNN. "If you're playing games in the same room with someone, it's a different experience than doing it online. You can only be so much of a jackass to somebody who was sitting three feet away from you..."

They adds that that feeling of connecting to people in other places "was cool. It wasn't something that was taken for granted yet."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Former president Donald Trump'sTruth Social, a shameless Twitter clone, is set to become a publicly traded company as soon as next week. Shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp. voted on Friday to merge with Trump Media and Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social. The vote is a culmination of a years-long saga attempting to merge Trump Media with a publicly traded company in what's known as a SPAC deal. The company will trade under the ticker DJT once it goes public. [...] Truth Social looks nearly identical to Twitter, with some key distinctions. Instead of "tweeting," users post a "truth." A "retweet" is called a "retruth." Unlike many right-wing Twitter clones, the site functions well, has remained mostly online, and actually appears to have a somewhat active user base. But since launching in February 2022, after Trump was kicked off of mainstream platforms for inciting violence during the January 6 riot at the Capitol, the company has been mired in controversy.

Instagram has been limiting recommended political content by default without notifying users. Ars Technica reports: Instead, Instagram rolled out the change in February, announcing in a blog that the platform doesn't "want to proactively recommend political content from accounts you don't follow." That post confirmed that Meta "won't proactively recommend content about politics on recommendation surfaces across Instagram and Threads," so that those platforms can remain "a great experience for everyone." "This change does not impact posts from accounts people choose to follow; it impacts what the system recommends, and people can control if they want more," Meta's spokesperson Dani Lever told Ars. "We have been working for years to show people less political content based on what they told us they want, and what posts they told us are political."

To change the setting, users can navigate to Instagram's menu for "settings and activity" in their profiles, where they can update their "content preferences." On this menu, "political content" is the last item under a list of "suggested content" controls that allow users to set preferences for what content is recommended in their feeds. There are currently two options for controlling what political content users see. Choosing "don't limit" means "you might see more political or social topics in your suggested content," the app says. By default, all users are set to "limit," which means "you might see less political or social topics." "This affects suggestions in Explore, Reels, Feed, Recommendations, and Suggested Users," Instagram's settings menu explains. "It does not affect content from accounts you follow. This setting also applies to Threads." "Did [y'all] know Instagram was actively limiting the reach of political content like this?!" an X user named Olayemi Olurin wrote in an X post. "I had no idea 'til I saw this comment and I checked my settings and sho nuff political content was limited."

"This is actually kinda wild that Instagram defaults everyone to this," another user wrote. "Obviously political content is toxic but during an election season it's a little weird to just hide it from everyone?"

In a Threads post today, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the Twitter rival is rolling out a beta of its fediverse integration in the U.S., Canada, and Japan. With the feature enabled, Threads users will be able to cross-post and view likes from other federated platforms, like Mastodon. The Verge reports: Threads previewed its fediverse integration earlier this week during the FediForum. As outlined on its support page, Meta says that you must have a public account to turn on fediverse sharing, which will allow users on other servers to "search for and follow your profile, view your posts, interact with your content, and share your content to anyone on or off their server."

There are still a few limitations, though. The beta currently doesn't let users view replies and follows from the fediverse, for example. Meta also can't promise that when you delete a federated post on Threads, it will also get deleted on the other platforms it was shared on.

Neuralink, the brain-chip startup founded by Elon Musk, showed its first patient using his mind to play online chess. Reuters reports: Noland Arbaugh, the 29-year-old patient who was paralyzed below the shoulder after a diving accident, played chess on his laptop and moved the cursor using the Neuralink device. The implant seeks to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using only their thoughts. Arbaugh had received an implant from the company in January and could control a computer mouse using his thoughts, Musk said last month.

"The surgery was super easy," Arbaugh said in the video streamed on Musk's social media platform X, referring to the implant procedure. "I literally was released from the hospital a day later. I have no cognitive impairments. I had basically given up playing that game," Arbaugh said, referring to the game Civilization VI, "you all (Neuralink) gave me the ability to do that again and played for 8 hours straight."

Elaborating on his experience with the new technology, Arbaugh said that it is "not perfect" and they "have run into some issues." "I don't want people to think that this is the end of the journey, there's still a lot of work to be done, but it has already changed my life," he added.

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday appeared skeptical of a challenge on free speech grounds to how President Joe Biden's administration encouraged social media platforms to remove posts that federal officials deemed misinformation, including about elections and COVID-19. From a report: The justices heard oral arguments in the administration's appeal of a lower court's preliminary injunction constraining how White House and certain other federal officials communicate with social media platforms. The Republican-led states of Missouri and Louisiana, along with five individual social media users, sued the administration.

They argued that the government's actions violated the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment free speech rights of users whose posts were removed from platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, now called X. The case tests whether the administration crossed the line from mere communication and persuasion to strong arming or coercing platforms - sometimes called "jawboning" - to unlawfully censor disfavored speech, as lower courts found.

Soon you might be able to compete in games against friends and colleagues and even the office next door on LinkedIn. From a report: The Microsoft-owned company is reportedly planning to add a new game experience to the platform. According to TechCrunch, the experience is designed to tap into the same popularity of games like Wordle. Players' scores will be sorted by their workplace and ranked, allowing you to take on another office or even across the country. App researcher Nima Owji posted photos of the gaming experience on Twitter/X on Saturday. A representative from LinkedIn confirmed to TechCrunch that the company is working on adding puzzle-based games to the LinkedIn experience as a way to "unlock a bit of fun, deepen relationships, and hopefully spark the opportunity for conversations."

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Apex Legends Global Series is currently in regional finals mode, but the North America finals have been delayed after two players were hacked mid-match. First, Noyan "Genburten" Ozkose of DarkZero suddenly found himself able to see other players through walls, then Phillip "ImperialHal" Dosen of TSM was given an aimbot. Genburten's hack happened part of the way through the day's third match. A Twitch clip of the moment shows the words "Apex hacking global series by Destroyer2009 & R4ndom" repeating over chat as he realizes he's been given a cheat and takes his hands off the controls. "I can see everyone!" he says, before leaving the match.

ImperialHal was hacked in the game immediately after that. "I have aimbot right now!" he shouts in a clip of the moment, before declaring "I can't shoot." Though he continued attempting to play out the round, the match was later abandoned. The volunteers at the Anti-Cheat Police Department have since issued a PSA announcing, "There is currently an RCE exploit being abused in [Apex Legends]" and that it could be delivered via from the game itself, or its anti-cheat protection. "I would advise against playing any games protected by EAC or any EA titles", they went on to say.

As for players of the tournament, they strongly recommended taking protective measures. "It is advisable that you change your Discord passwords and ensure that your emails are secure. also enable MFA for all your accounts if you have not done it yet", they said, "perform a clean OS reinstall as soon as possible. Do not take any chances with your personal information, your PC may have been exposed to a rootkit or other malicious software that could cause further damage." The rest of the series has now been postponed, "Due to the competitive integrity of this series being compromised," as the official Twitter account announced. They finished by saying, "We will share more information soon."

Published scientific papers include language that appears to have been generated by AI-tools like ChatGPT, showing how pervasive the technology has become, and highlighting longstanding issues with some peer-reviewed journals. From a report: Searching for the phrase "As of my last knowledge update" on Google Scholar, a free search tool that indexes articles published in academic journals, returns 115 results. The phrase is often used by OpenAI's ChatGPT to indicate when the data the answer it is giving users is coming from, and the specific months and years found in these academic papers correspond to previous ChatGPT "knowledge updates."

"As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, there is no widely accepted scientific correlation between quantum entanglement and longitudinal scalar waves," reads a paper titled "Quantum Entanglement: Examining its Nature and Implications" published in the "Journal of Material Sciences & Manfacturing [sic] Research," a publication that claims it's peer-reviewed. Over the weekend, a tweet showing the same AI-generated phrase appearing in several scientific papers went viral.

Most of the scientific papers I looked at that included this phrase are small, not well known, and appear to be "paper mills," journals with low editorial standards that will publish almost anything quickly. One publication where I found the AI-generated phrase, the Open Access Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, advertises "low publication charges," an "e-certificate" of publication, and is currently advertising a call for papers, promising acceptance within 48 hours and publication within four days.

Newsweek points out that a Chinese government post arguing the bill is "on the wrong side of fair competition" was flagged by users on X. "TikTok is banned in the People's Republic of China," the X community note read. (The BBC reports that "Instead, Chinese users use a similar app, Douyin, which is only available in China and subject to monitoring and censorship by the government.")

Newsweek adds that China "has also blocked access to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Google services. X itself is also banned — though Chinese diplomats use the microblogging app to deliver Beijing's messaging to the wider world."

From the Wall Street Journal: Among the top concerns for [U.S.] intelligence leaders is that they wouldn't even necessarily be able to detect a Chinese influence operation if one were taking place [on TikTok] due to the opacity of the platform and how its algorithm surfaces content to users. Such operations, FBI director Christopher Wray said this week in congressional testimony, "are extraordinarily difficult to detect, which is part of what makes the national-security concerns represented by TikTok so significant...."

Critics of the bill include libertarian-leaning lawmakers, such as Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), who have decried it as a form of government censorship. "The Constitution says that you have a First Amendment right to express yourself," Paul told reporters Thursday. TikTok's users "express themselves through dancing or whatever else they do on TikTok. You can't just tell them they can't do that." In the House, a bloc of 50 Democrats voted against the bill, citing concerns about curtailing free speech and the impact on people who earn income on the app. Some Senate Democrats have raised similar worries, as well as an interest in looking at a range of social-media issues at rival companies such as Meta Platforms.

"The basic idea should be to put curbs on all social media, not just one," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) said Thursday. "If there's a problem with privacy, with how our children are treated, then we need to curb that behavior wherever it occurs."
Some context from the Columbia Journalism Review: Roughly one-third of Americans aged 18-29 regularly get their news from TikTok, the Pew Research Center found in a late 2023 survey. Nearly half of all TikTok users say they regularly get news from the app, a higher percentage than for any other social media platform aside from Twitter.

Almost 40 percent of young adults were using TikTok and Instagram for their primary Web search instead of the traditional search engines, a Google senior vice president said in mid-2022 — a number that's almost certainly grown since then. Overall, TikTok claims 150 million American users, almost half the US population; two-thirds of Americans aged 18-29 use the app.
Some U.S. politicians believe TikTok "radicalized" some of their supporters "with disinformation or biased reporting," according to the article.

Meanwhile in the Guardian, a Duke University law professor argues "this saga demands a broader conversation about safeguarding democracy in the digital age." The European Union's newly enacted AI act provides a blueprint for a more holistic approach, using an evidence- and risk-based system that could be used to classify platforms like TikTok as high-risk AI systems subject to more stringent regulatory oversight, with measures that demand transparency, accountability and defensive measures against misuse.
Open source advocate Evan Prodromou argues that the TikTok controversy raises a larger issue: If algorithmic curation is so powerful, "who's making the decisions on how they're used?" And he also proposes a solution.

"If there is concern about algorithms being manipulated by foreign governments, using Fediverse-enabled domestic software prevents the problem."