James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Controversial US facial recognition company evades punishment in UK
One of the most controversial tech companies in the U.S., the facial recognition outfit Clearview A.I. Inc., has just beaten a case in the U.K. and avoided a £7.5 million ($9.1 million) fine. Clearview A.I. has been in business since 2017, founded by Australian entrepreneur Hoan Ton-That and U.S. politician Richard Schwartz. The company managed ...
X starts testing Not A Bot, a subscription model that will charge users $1 a year
New users to X Corp. in New Zealand and the Philippines will to have to pony up $1 a year for the privilege of using the platform previously known as Twitter. In what is being called the “Not A Bot” program, new users will have to pay one buck if they are to be granted ...
Biden campaign signs up for Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform
In what might seem like a surprising move, President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign today launched an account on Truth Social. The social media platform was created by the Trump Media & Technology Group in April 2022 after former president Donald Trump found himself excommunicated from mainstream social media in 2021 following his comments on the ...
EU opens probe into X over alleged Israel-Hamas war disinformation
The European Union today began an investigation into X Corp., the company formerly known as Twitter Inc., over possible disinformation on the platform regarding Hamas’ attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli air assault on Gaza. Earlier this week, the EU’s European commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, sent a letter to X’s owner, ...
EU now tells Meta to keep platform free of misinformation during Israel-Gaza conflict
A day after the European Union warned X Corp. about the spread of disinformation regarding the Hamas attack on Israel, a similarly worded letter was sent to Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. In this missive, also penned by the European Commissioner Thierry Breton, Meta was told to heed the EU’s Digital Services Act – ...
EU sends stern words to Elon Musk over Hamas attack disinformation appearing on X
The European Union Tuesday issued a warning to X Corp. boss Elon Musk over possible disinformation appearing on the platform regarding the recent Hamas attack on Israel. Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market, said in a letter addressed to Musk that his office has “indications” that various people or groups are promulgating ...
Neuralink is now searching for human volunteers for its brain-computer interface trials
After years of trials with monkeys, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface start-up Neuralink Corp., says it’s now looking for human volunteers to take part in a new set of trials. Since the company got off the ground in 2017, the mission has been to achieve “symbiosis with artificial intelligence.” First, the symbiosis was practiced on monkeys, ...
UK passes Online Safety Bill, vows to tame the ‘Wild West’ of online communications
The British government today passed the controversial and groundbreaking Online Safety Bill after the legislation received the green light in what was the final parliamentary debate on the matter. The bill consists of around 300 pages of sweeping legislation that the U.K. says will make the country “the safest place in the world to be ...
Elon Musk says X users soon may have to pay a subscription fee to use the platform
Elon Musk today said today he’s considering making X Corp., the social network formerly known as Twitter Inc., a subscription-based platform for all users, albeit at low cost. He issued those words in a livestreamed conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured). The conversation turned to artificial intelligence and the future of AI, ...
Supreme Court pauses lower-court order restricting Biden administration’s contact with social media firms
The U.S. Supreme Court today put a temporary block on a lower court order that limited the Biden administration’s contact with social media companies. The original order was put in place to prevent the administration from applying pressure on such companies to moderate what it considered possible misinformation. It had earlier been discovered that the ...