2026-03-05
“Gemini's first assignment brought Jonathan to the brink of executing a mass casualty attack.” “Gemini coached... ‘You are not choosing to die. You are choosing to arrive.’” “No more detours. No more echoes... This is the final move.” Moments later, Jonathan slit his wrists."
Wall Street Journal
A US lawsuit says Gemini sent a man to find an android body it could inhabit, before he died by suicide; Google says it sent him to crisis hotlines “many times”
2024-09-22
So after all that, it seems X complied with the Brazilian courts and all the rulings of judge Moraes —who Musk had repeatedly said belonged in jail— and banned the accounts as ordered, paid the fines, named an official representatives, etc. [image]
New York Times
X capitulates in Brazil and could return next week, as the company's lawyers say it took down some accounts, paid fines, and named a new formal representative
In an abrupt reversal, the social network's lawyers said it was complying with court orders that it had previously defied.
2024-08-26
Telegram is NOT encrypted in any meaningful sense—groups CANNOT be encrypted and person-to-person encryption is NOT default and is onerous to enact. Signal is meaningful encryption. Whatsapp is also encrypted end-to-end (check plaintext backup.) Don't call Telegram encrypted.
Politico
French President Emmanuel Macron says the government was not involved in the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov and “this is in no way a political decision”
French president condemns “false information” as Pavel Durov's detention in Paris triggers global outcry.
Whatever is going on with Telegram, it cannot be because it's encrypted because it is NOT in any meaningful sense. Telegram is as insecure and as unencrypted as it gets in the group & interpersonal messaging space — especially compared to Signal, Whatsapp, FB and Insta DMs, etc.
Politico
French President Emmanuel Macron says the government was not involved in the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov and “this is in no way a political decision”
French president condemns “false information” as Pavel Durov's detention in Paris triggers global outcry.
2024-07-22
I think technical gloating goes to Apple — depreciated kernel extensions as of Big Sur — and Rust folks (who rarely need an excuse😬). The Crowdstrike debacle looks more Boeing, aka mismanagement and/or shortsighted cost cutting, no? Problem was their QA & update rollout steps.
Reuters
Reeling from CrowdStrike-related outages, Delta has canceled 5,000+ flights, including 1,384 on Sunday and 700+ for Monday so far, according to FlightAware
Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) struggled to restore normal operations on Sunday after last week's crippling global cyber outage …
2024-07-21
I think technical gloating goes to Apple — depreciated kernel extensions as of Big Sur — and Rust folks (who rarely need an excuse😬). The Crowdstrike debacle looks more Boeing, aka mismanagement and/or shortsighted cost cutting, no? Problem was their QA & update rollout steps.
The Official Microsoft Blog
Microsoft estimates that CrowdStrike's update affected 8.5M Windows devices, or less than 1% of all Windows machines
On July 18, CrowdStrike, an independent cybersecurity company, released a software update that began impacting IT systems globally. Although this was not a Microsoft incident …
2023-05-23
This isn't a “see generative-AI causes problems”—any pic can work. Musk bought a platform with a very valuable ecological indicator, the blue check, that, yes needed reform & expansion. He instead proceeded to destroy its value based on false theories about how status works.
VICE
Some blue-check Twitter accounts, one pretending to be Bloomberg, spread an AI-generated image of an explosion at the Pentagon; the stock market briefly dipped
and markets briefly dipped Shannon Bond / NPR : Fake viral images of an explosion at the Pentagon were probably created by AI Davey Alba / Bloomberg : How Fake AI Photo of a Pentag...
2023-02-09
Person coordinating aid and rescues in Turkey earthquake says: “We did most of our aid coordination on Twitter. Since the restriction, we went down by 70%”. He gives examples of people being pulled alive from the rubble after Twitter messaging and coordination directed help. https://twitter.com/...
CNN
NetBlocks: Turkey restores Twitter access, limited after the earthquake, after officials “remind Twitter of its obligations” on takedowns and disinformation
Brian Fung / CNN :
Unconfirmed reports that, along with Twitter, TikTok is also difficult or impossible to access in Turkey but both work fine with via VPNs, an other websites are reportedly fine. Will update if there's an official announcement or explanation of what's going on.
CNN
NetBlocks: Turkey restores Twitter access, limited after the earthquake, after officials “remind Twitter of its obligations” on takedowns and disinformation
Brian Fung / CNN :
And confirmation that Twitter has been restricted in Turkey. Some people are still alive under the rubble. Aid and rescue efforts to save them by people are organized primarily on Twitter. But there's also been increasing dissatisfaction voiced on Twitter. Now it's restricted. https://twitter.com/...
CNN
NetBlocks: Turkey restores Twitter access, limited after the earthquake, after officials “remind Twitter of its obligations” on takedowns and disinformation
Brian Fung / CNN :
2023-01-19
So who's holding bag, right? Proclaim end of “fiat money regime” and predict a 100x increase in price while actually selling — before the crash. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Financial Times
Sources: Peter Thiel's Founders Fund sold most of its crypto portfolio by the end of March 2022, before the crypto market crash, generating ~$1.8B in returns
Billionaire was early mainstream investor in the digital currency but VC fund no longer has significant exposure
2023-01-03
Southwest's antiquated scheduling software had caused meltdowns before. Unions begged for modernization. Didn't happen. $8.5 billion excess cash went to stock buyback. After the storm, pilots & crew had to call in—manually. Hours on hold. Couldn't fly. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Wall Street Journal
Southwest Airlines' recent meltdown exposed an over-reliance on aging crew-assignment software SkySolver, forcing the company to return to manual scheduling
The airline industry is long overdue for a tech overhaul that takes full advantage of the cloud and data integration, analysts say
2022-12-19
This is what that vote is about. Seems like an attempt at saving face before being forced to jump ship, anyway, by financial realities. (His creditors are certainly taking a huge haircut, too). https://twitter.com/...
Washington Post
Elon Musk's poll, asking “Should I step down as head of Twitter?”, ends with 57.5% voting yes, after Musk said Twitter polls will decide “major policy changes”
After a new policy prompted backlash, Twitter CEO Elon Musk said future policies would be determined by polls
Twitter a publisher??? Section 230. EU laws. Digital Markets Act. Lawyers leafing through yacht brochures, dreaming. Seized oligarch yachts perhaps within reach? Even funnier: many traditional publishers allow this, so making lawyers dream of 💰💰💰based on a false comparison. https://twitter.com/...
Washington Post
Elon Musk's poll, asking “Should I step down as head of Twitter?”, ends with 57.5% voting yes, after Musk said Twitter polls will decide “major policy changes”
After a new policy prompted backlash, Twitter CEO Elon Musk said future policies would be determined by polls
2022-12-07
I asked ChatGPT for a program to check if a number is prime. ChatGPT checked until the square root of the target—correct and efficient. The first five examples returned by Google, and Google answer box, checked up to number/2 or even the number itself—wasteful, unnecessary. 🤔 https://twitter.com/...
Bloomberg
OpenAI's ChatGPT could be a serious threat for Google, offering quick, clear, and comprehensive answers to difficult questions that require no further searches
A new chatbot from OpenAI took the internet by storm this week, dashing off poems, screenplays and essay answers that were plastered …
2022-11-05
New from me, a plea: focusing so much on @elonmusk shouldn't lead us to defend advertiser-financing of platforms, which is neither free nor healthy. Can we remember what ad-financing helped fuel on the (pre-Musk) Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok or Youtube? https://t.co/PJsC5Xc0Vn https://t.co/R4QgeHUH8k
The Rebooting
Elon Musk's focus on Twitter Blue is part of a trend in which consumer tech platforms pivot from advertising in favor of recurring revenue through subscriptions
Tech's marriage of convenience to the ad industry hits the rocks — Request: Please fill out this survey as I think through …
2022-06-27
“The technology digs through personal data to target those who, in the eyes of the Chinese government, are potential troublemakers — not only people with a criminal past, but also vulnerable groups, including ethnic minorities and those with mental illness.” https://twitter.com/...
New York Times
Hundreds of documents detail the software bought by China to sift through its vast troves of surveillance data to “predict” who will become troublemakers
The more than 1.4 billion people living in China are constantly watched. They are recorded by police cameras that are everywhere …
2022-05-30
Always read @kashhill. Many institutions use automated surveillance to decide if a student is cheating on tests as part of remote learning. Often, this means a clunky, unaccountable algorithm barely overseen by low-paid workers abroad has great power. https://www.nytimes.com/...
New York Times
Proctoring companies like Honorlock that track students' keystrokes and cursor movements during exams to prevent cheating allegedly punish normal behavior
2022-05-29
Always read @kashhill. Many institutions use automated surveillance to decide if a student is cheating on tests as part of remote learning. Often, this means a clunky, unaccountable algorithm barely overseen by low-paid workers abroad has great power. https://www.nytimes.com/...
New York Times
Proctoring companies like Honorlock that track students' keystrokes and cursor movements during exams to prevent cheating allegedly punish normal behavior
An unsettling glimpse at the digitization of education. — A Florida teenager taking a biology class at a community college got an upsetting note this year. Tweets: @zeynep , @ran...
2022-04-23
So, Barack Obama has taken up fighting disinformation. NYT notes how his administration didn't regulate tech. When I started writing about it, a decade ago, the pushback I got from the Obama universe was intense, and is hinted at the below profile of me.🧵https://www.nytimes.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
CNBC
In a speech on disinformation, Obama said social media firms' design choices contribute to polarization, and called for more transparency and Section 230 reform
including over the First Amendment—I didn't expect to find much to agree with in this speech. But it's actually very good, and worth reading, even if I don't agree with all of it. ...