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Julie Inman Grant’s order for Elon Musk’s company to take down tweets containing video of a Sydney stabbing has implications for tech platforms globally

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The legal battle between Australia’s online safety regulator and Elon Musk’s X is shaping up as the first true test of the power governments can wield over tech platforms, not just within Australia but globally.

There have been skirmishes between Musk and the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, before. But tensions rose in the aftermath of the stabbing of bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel on 15 April while he was giving a livestreamed service at the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church in the Sydney suburb of Wakeley.

Technology | The Guardian


Symptoms include paranoia, anxiety and a compulsion to snoop on your neighbours. I’m not judging – I’ve had a brush with it myself

One of my many guilty pleasures is lurking on my former home’s Facebook group. The New York apartment complex, which houses the population of a small town, is classified as a , which means there are a lot of people in the group with time and energy to devote to petty feuds. The gossip is unrivalled and often a little unhinged. At one point there was a heated debate about that resulted in at least one person getting banned.

Recently, a mania of sorts has swept the group. An influential neighbour rather belatedly learned about video doorbells. When he bought one it set off a spate of other people buying the devices – and obsessively monitoring them to check for package thieves. Every other Facebook post now seems to be a photo of some hapless stranger taken by a video doorbell with a panicked caption along the lines of “stranger danger”.

Technology | The Guardian


Revenue at Amazon Web Services increases to $25bn as retail giant releases earnings report surpassing Wall Street expectations

Amazon profits soared once again in the first quarter of 2024, the company announced on Tuesday – the latest in a series of robust earnings reports for the retail giant. The company attributed the boost to artificial intelligence and advertising sales.

Amazon reported overall revenue of $143.3bn in the first three months of the year – up 13% from the same period in 2023 and surpassing Wall Street expectations of $142.65bn. The e-commerce giant reported an increase of more than 200% to $15bn, with net income more than tripling to $10.4bn from $3.17bn at the same time in 2023.

Technology | The Guardian


Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty and stepped down as CEO of the crypto trading company last year

Changpeng Zhao, the former head of the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading company, was sentenced to four months in jail on Tuesday in a Seattle courtroom. Zhao pleaded guilty late last year to money-laundering violations and stepped down as CEO of Binance. The company itself was . Zhao was fined $50m last year.

Judge Richard Jones told Zhao that there were a number of mitigating factors in his sentencing, including that he had cooperated with law enforcement. Jones also cited numerous letters the court had received that testified to Zhao’s character, and stated that he did not believe Zhao was likely to reoffend.

Technology | The Guardian


The Chicago Tribune, Denver Post and others file suit saying the tech companies ‘purloin millions’ of articles without permission

A group of eight US newspapers is suing ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the technology companies have been “purloining millions” of copyrighted news articles without permission or payment to train their artificial intelligence chatbots.

The New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post and other papers filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in a New York federal court.

Technology | The Guardian


With his interchangeable T-shirts and short neat hair, Facebook’s founder famously ‘never tried to be cool’. Is his makeover just a distraction from what’s going on at Meta?

A vibe shift is afoot in Silicon Valley. For aeons, the movers and shakers of the tech industry signalled that they were serious people working on serious things via their simple outfits. Crypto mogul always looked as if he had rolled out of bed and forgotten to change out of his pyjamas. The late Steve Jobs famously adopted a uniform of black polo necks. Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, once boasted that he owned and wore multiple versions of the because it was efficient.

“I’m not a cool person and I’ve never really tried to be cool,” Zuckerberg said in . “I really want to clear my life so that I have to make as few decisions as possible … I feel like I’m not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous.” That attitude seemed to extend to his hair, which has always been kept Lego-style short.

Technology | The Guardian


Girl of between 12 and 16 was making her first appearance at Evo Japan as contests previously finished past her bedtime

A girl scored a win at one of Japan’s top fighting video game contests, in a competitive puzzle game released before she was born.

The girl, known as “Money Idol-chan” after the game she competed in, has grown up playing competitive video games. Since 2022, her parents have run Anegasaki Shooting Star, a tiny arcade on the east side of Tokyo Bay. Her name has not been released and her age has been given only as between 12 and 16.

Technology | The Guardian


Action against Facebook owner comes amid deep concerns about how it is dealing with fake news

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Fears that Vladimir Putin is trying to fill the European parliament with more pro-Russia MEPs were behind the EU’s blunt message to the Silicon Valley owner of Facebook on Tuesday.

It gave Meta just five days to explain how it will root out fake news, fake websites and stop adverts funded by the Kremlin or face severe measures.

Technology | The Guardian


Rachel Coster’s TikTok show, which documents the extremely messy dwelling spaces of New York’s young men, has clearly struck a nerve

Snowboarding boots on the kitchen table. A steering wheel in the bedroom. And clothes absolutely everywhere, with no system to determine which, if any, are clean.

These are just a few of the sights that indicate you’re in a boy room. It’s a bedroom with no form and little function, inhabited by an adult male who doesn’t think much about either concept. The decor, if you can call it that, generally consists of arbitrary trinkets – a favorite old skateboard on the wall, a handful of childhood action figures on the windowsill. The floor is often difficult to see thanks to the density of piled-up sneakers or trash. The best you can say for the furniture is that there might be some; otherwise the resident sleeps on a bare mattress set directly on the floor, with a single pillow and a coverless duvet insert.

Technology | The Guardian


Brussels to act later this week against Facebook and Instagram owner over policies on deceptive advertising and political content, reports say

The EU is set to launch formal proceedings against Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, amid concerns it is not doing enough to counter Russian disinformation before the EU elections in June, according to reports.

It is also expected to express concerns about the lack of effective monitoring of election content and a potentially inadequate mechanism for flagging illegal content.