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Category Archives: Social Media

What did they know, and when did they know it? The Microsoft Bing edition

Gary Marcus – Substack – The Road to AI We Can Trust – A new discovery that makes a curious story a whole lot more curious. “We all know by now just how off the rails Bing can get. Here’s a timeline, deliberately leaving out one surprising thing out until the end. March 23, 2016: Microsoft… Continue Reading

Russian propagandists are buying Twitter blue-check verifications

Washington Post: “Accounts pushing Kremlin propaganda are using Twitter’s new paid verification system to appear more prominently on the global platform, another sign that Elon Musk’s takeover is accelerating the spread of politically charged misinformation, a nonprofit research group has found. The accounts claim to be based outside of Russia, so they can pay for… Continue Reading

Twitter Just Weakened Account Security For Almost 368 Million Users

Forbes: “The latest twist in the Twitter tale since Elon Musk bought the company is one of the most worrying to date. In a truly bizarre move, which appears to put penny-pinching before account security, Twitter has announced it will limit the use of SMS-based two-factor authentication (2FA) to Twitter Blue subscribers from March 20.… Continue Reading

American Views 2022: Part 2, Trust Media And Democracy

“As part of Knight Foundation’s belief that a strong Fourth Estate is paramount to a thriving democracy, the organization has worked with Gallup to study Americans’ trust in the news media, consistently finding that their level of confidence is driven by perceptions of news organizations’ accuracy, bias and transparency. However, a new report finds that… Continue Reading

AI-powered Bing Chat loses its mind when fed Ars Technica article

Ars Technica: “Over the past few days, early testers of the new Bing AI-powered chat assistant have discovered ways to push the bot to its limits with adversarial prompts, often resulting in Bing Chat appearing frustrated, sad, and questioning its existence. It has argued with users and even seemed upset that people know its secret internal… Continue Reading

What the First Amendment really says – 4 basic principles of free speech in the US

Via LLRX – What the First Amendment really says – 4 basic principles of free speech in the US – Lynn Greenky, Associate Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, Syracuse University delves into Elon Musk’s claim that he believes in free speech no matter what. He calls it a bulwark against tyranny in America and promises… Continue Reading

TNI’s State of Power report: Who has digital power today?

TNI – Let’s start with a big open question that is at the heart of TNI’s: Who has digital power today? – Interview with Cory Doctorow – “Cory Doctorow is a prolific writer and a brilliant science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist. He is a special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org (external… Continue Reading

Why you shouldn’t trust AI search engines

MIT Technology Review: “…Approximately two seconds after Microsoft let people poke around with its new ChatGPT-powered Bing search engine, people started finding that it responded to some questions with incorrect or nonsensical answers, such as conspiracy theories. Google had an embarrassing moment when scientists spotted a factual error in the company’s own advertisement for its chatbot Bard,… Continue Reading

Original Tweets Only: Retweeters Not Liable for Defamation

ABA: “Re-posters of digital content are not liable for statements they did not author. Only the original creators of digital content can be held liable for defamatory statements, not the re-posters of slanderous posts. The court in Banaian v. Bascom held that persons who reshared original content should not be held to the same standard… Continue Reading

5 New Web Search Apps to Make Google Better or Replace Google

Make Use Of: “Google is the biggest web search engine in the world. But the web keeps changing, and you need tools to find the right content quickly, when Google can’t. These new search apps offer different ways to make Google better. Some augment search results with ChatGPT or social media searches, while others offer… Continue Reading

Mastodon for writers/readers

Robert Kingett – BlindJournalist: “I finally did it. I deleted Twitter completely. I requested my data] (https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/accessing-your-twitter-data), move completely to the Fediverse, and checked to see who I follow is on the Fediverse at large. Shockingly, more than half my followers and almost all of my friends have made the switch. I started using social… Continue Reading