Policy

popular-ai-“nudify”-sites-sued-amid-shocking-rise-in-victims-globally

Popular AI “nudify” sites sued amid shocking rise in victims globally

Popular AI “nudify” sites sued amid shocking rise in victims globally

San Francisco’s city attorney David Chiu is suing to shut down 16 of the most popular websites and apps allowing users to “nudify” or “undress” photos of mostly women and girls who have been increasingly harassed and exploited by bad actors online.

These sites, Chiu’s suit claimed, are “intentionally” designed to “create fake, nude images of women and girls without their consent,” boasting that any users can upload any photo to “see anyone naked” by using tech that realistically swaps the faces of real victims onto AI-generated explicit images.

“In California and across the country, there has been a stark increase in the number of women and girls harassed and victimized by AI-generated” non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII) and “this distressing trend shows no sign of abating,” Chiu’s suit said.

“Given the widespread availability and popularity” of nudify websites, “San Franciscans and Californians face the threat that they or their loved ones may be victimized in this manner,” Chiu’s suit warned.

In a press conference, Chiu said that this “first-of-its-kind lawsuit” has been raised to defend not just Californians, but “a shocking number of women and girls across the globe”—from celebrities like Taylor Swift to middle and high school girls. Should the city official win, each nudify site risks fines of $2,500 for each violation of California consumer protection law found.

On top of media reports sounding alarms about the AI-generated harm, law enforcement has joined the call to ban so-called deepfakes.

Chiu said the harmful deepfakes are often created “by exploiting open-source AI image generation models,” such as earlier versions of Stable Diffusion, that can be honed or “fine-tuned” to easily “undress” photos of women and girls that are frequently yanked from social media. While later versions of Stable Diffusion make such “disturbing” forms of misuse much harder, San Francisco city officials noted at the press conference that fine-tunable earlier versions of Stable Diffusion are still widely available to be abused by bad actors.

In the US alone, cops are currently so bogged down by reports of fake AI child sex images that it’s making it hard to investigate child abuse cases offline, and these AI cases are expected to continue spiking “exponentially.” The AI abuse has spread so widely that “the FBI has warned of an uptick in extortion schemes using AI generated non-consensual pornography,” Chiu said at the press conference. “And the impact on victims has been devastating,” harming “their reputations and their mental health,” causing “loss of autonomy,” and “in some instances causing individuals to become suicidal.”

Suing on behalf of the people of the state of California, Chiu is seeking an injunction requiring nudify site owners to cease operation of “all websites they own or operate that are capable of creating AI-generated” non-consensual intimate imagery of identifiable individuals. It’s the only way, Chiu said, to hold these sites “accountable for creating and distributing AI-generated NCII of women and girls and for aiding and abetting others in perpetrating this conduct.”

He also wants an order requiring “any domain-name registrars, domain-name registries, webhosts, payment processors, or companies providing user authentication and authorization services or interfaces” to “restrain” nudify site operators from launching new sites to prevent any further misconduct.

Chiu’s suit redacts the names of the most harmful sites his investigation uncovered but claims that in the first six months of 2024, the sites “have been visited over 200 million times.”

While victims typically have little legal recourse, Chiu believes that state and federal laws prohibiting deepfake pornography, revenge pornography, and child pornography, as well as California’s unfair competition law, can be wielded to take down all 16 sites. Chiu expects that a win will serve as a warning to other nudify site operators that more takedowns are likely coming.

“We are bringing this lawsuit to get these websites shut down, but we also want to sound the alarm,” Chiu said at the press conference. “Generative AI has enormous promise, but as with all new technologies, there are unanticipated consequences and criminals seeking to exploit them. We must be clear that this is not innovation. This is sexual abuse.”

Popular AI “nudify” sites sued amid shocking rise in victims globally Read More »

at&t-and-verizon-ask-fcc-to-throw-a-wrench-into-starlink’s-mobile-plan

AT&T and Verizon ask FCC to throw a wrench into Starlink’s mobile plan

Satellite to mobile service —

Carriers allege Starlink/T-Mobile will interfere with existing mobile networks.

Promotional image illustrating a satellite launch for the T-Mobile/Starlink partnership

T-Mobile

AT&T and Verizon are urging telecom regulators to reject a key part of SpaceX’s plan to offer cellular service with T-Mobile, claiming the satellite system will interfere with and degrade service for terrestrial mobile broadband networks.

Filings urging the Federal Communications Commission to deny SpaceX’s request for a waiver were submitted by AT&T and Verizon this week. The plan by SpaceX’s Starlink division also faces opposition from satellite companies EchoStar (which owns Dish and Hughes) and Omnispace.

SpaceX and T-Mobile plan to offer Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) for T-Mobile’s cellular network using SpaceX satellites. As part of that plan, SpaceX is seeking a waiver of FCC rules regarding out-of-band emission limits.

AT&T’s petition to deny the SpaceX waiver request said the FCC’s “recent SCS order appropriately recognized that SCS deployments should not present any risk to the vital terrestrial mobile broadband networks upon which millions of Americans rely today. The Commission authorized SCS as secondary to terrestrial mobile service, correctly explaining that the SCS framework must ‘retain service quality of terrestrial networks, protect spectrum usage rights, and minimize the risk of harmful interference.'”

AT&T said SpaceX’s requested “ninefold increase” to the allowable power flux-density limits for out-of-band emissions “would cause unacceptable harmful interference to incumbent terrestrial mobile operations. Specifically, AT&T’s technical analysis shows that SpaceX’s proposal would cause an 18% average reduction in network downlink throughput in an operational and representative AT&T PCS C Block market deployment.”

Verizon predicts phone problems

Verizon’s opposition to the waiver request similarly said that SpaceX’s proposal “would subject incumbent, primary terrestrial licensee operations in adjacent bands to harmful interference.” Wireless phone performance will suffer, Verizon said:

Assuming a handset antenna gain of -3 dBi, SpaceX’s proposal still results in an interference to noise (I/N) ratio of -3 dB—well above the ITU [International Telecommunication Union] threshold SpaceX claims would protect terrestrial devices. SpaceX’s proposed margin therefore fails to adequately protect terrestrial user equipment from potential interference from SCS satellite systems, including user equipment that may not fall within the flagship performance parameters, and should be rejected.”

SpaceX likewise provides no reasonable justification for why a service intended to supplement primary terrestrial services should be allowed to cause harmful interference in contravention of the Commission’s rules and policies.

AT&T and Verizon both intend to offer Supplemental Coverage from Space as part of separate deals with AST SpaceMobile. AT&T was running ads indicating that it already offered such coverage even though it isn’t available yet, and grudgingly agreed to change the ads after a complaint from T-Mobile.

SpaceX and other entities interested in the proceeding have until August 22 to submit responses in the FCC docket. The deadline for replies to responses is August 29.

We contacted SpaceX today and will update this article if it provides a response. While the company hasn’t yet responded to the AT&T and Verizon filings, it looks like SpaceX will put forward a spirited defense.

SpaceX: Rivals will “make misleading claims”

SpaceX and T-Mobile representatives met with FCC staff on August 8, SpaceX said in a filing that describes the meeting. SpaceX and T-Mobile told FCC staff that their plan will not harm other wireless operations and predicted that competitors will make misleading claims:

With their commercial launch fast approaching, the parties also expressed an expectation that competitors would continue to make misleading claims and draconian demands to further delay Commission action and limit service to American consumers. Indeed, each time that SpaceX has demonstrated that it would not cause harmful interference to other operators—often based on those parties’ own claimed assumptions—those competitors have moved the goalposts or have claimed their analysis should not have been trusted in the first place. These operators’ shapeshifting arguments and demands should be seen for what they are: last-minute attempts to block a more advanced supplemental coverage partnership and siphon sensitive information to aid their own competing efforts. The Commission must not allow competitive gamesmanship to stand in the way of lifesaving service for American consumers.

In addition to requesting a waiver, SpaceX’s filing argued that the FCC’s emissions limit is too strict and should be changed. The FCC should “reconsider its inappropriately uniform out-of-band emissions PFD limit of -120 dBW/m2/MHz, which is an order of magnitude more restrictive than necessary to protect terrestrial operations adjacent to the PCS G Block,” SpaceX wrote. “The limit does not take into account the role of frequency in determining appropriate PFD limits to meet the internationally accepted -6 dB interference-to-noise (‘I/N’) threshold.”

T-Mobile told the FCC in last week’s meeting that “it has both the strong incentive and the obligation to ensure that out-of-band emissions do not cause harmful interference” because it has licenses in both the PCS G Block and adjacent PCS C Block. “Based on its review of SpaceX’s waiver request and petition for reconsideration, T-Mobile reiterated its confidence that the proposed operations in the PCS G Block would not cause harmful interference to adjacent-band terrestrial operations, including T-Mobile’s own adjacent-band operations,” the filing said.

SpaceX said it has launched over 100 satellites with direct-to-cellular capabilities so far, and that both it and T-Mobile “have made significant progress testing the early network, demonstrating the robust capabilities of the system.”

AT&T and Verizon ask FCC to throw a wrench into Starlink’s mobile plan Read More »

new-zealand-official-signs-extradition-order-to-send-kim-dotcom-to-us

New Zealand official signs extradition order to send Kim Dotcom to US

Dotcom won’t be megauploaded to US just yet —

12 years after Megaupload shutdown, Dotcom will keep fighting extradition to US.

Kim Dotcom smiling and speaking to reporters outside a courthouse

Enlarge / Kim Dotcom speaks to the media after a bail hearing at Auckland District Court on December 1, 2014, in Auckland, New Zealand.

Getty Images | Fiona Goodall

Kim Dotcom has lost yet another ruling in his attempt to avoid extradition from New Zealand to the United States, over a dozen years after the file-sharing site Megaupload was shut down. But he hasn’t run out of appeal options yet.

On Thursday, a government spokesperson confirmed that New Zealand Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith signed an extradition order for Dotcom, according to Reuters.

“I have received extensive advice from the Ministry of Justice on this matter,” Goldsmith said in a statement quoted by numerous news organizations. “I considered all of the information carefully and have decided that Mr. Dotcom should be surrendered to the US to face trial. As is common practice, I have allowed Mr. Dotcom a short period of time to consider and take advice on my decision. I will not, therefore, be commenting further at this stage.”

The latest extradition decision, like previous ones, is not final. Dotcom said this week that he will appeal. “By the time the appeals are done, if ever, the world will be a very different place,” he wrote.

“I love New Zealand. I’m not leaving,” he also posted today.

A New Zealand Herald article today said that Dotcom’s expected appeal could drag the case out another few years. “If extradition goes ahead, it could be years from now,” the newspaper wrote.

Dotcom blasts “obedient US colony”

Dotcom blasted the New Zealand government, writing that “the obedient US colony in the South Pacific just decided to extradite me for what users uploaded to Megaupload, unsolicited, and what copyright holders were able to remove with direct delete access instantly and without question.”

Megaupload was shut down by US authorities in January 2012. Dotcom and others were indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit racketeering, conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, criminal copyright infringement, aiding and abetting of criminal copyright infringement, and wire fraud.

Dotcom has been able to delay extradition despite numerous rulings against him. One New Zealand judge ordered Dotcom’s extradition in December 2015. The extradition order was upheld in 2017 by one appeals court and again in 2018 by another appeals court.

The New Zealand Supreme Court ruled against Dotcom and two other defendants, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, in December 2021. Ortmann and van der Kolk reached a deal that let them “avoid being extradited to the US in exchange for facing charges in New Zealand,” an Associated Press article in May 2022 said.

The AP article said that despite the Supreme Court ruling against the three Megaupload defendants, extradition still required approval from the justice minister. “And even that decision could be appealed,” the AP wrote.

After the 2021 Supreme Court ruling, Stuff quoted Victoria University law professor Geoff McLay as saying that judicial review of an extradition decision by the justice minister would likely involve hearings before the New Zealand High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. If the justice minister “makes a decision they should be extradited, I would imagine they would immediately judicially review his decision which will then kick off the whole shebang again,” McLay said at the time.

In a May 2022 podcast, New Zealand Herald investigative reporter David Fisher said, “I think there’s a good possibility that we have another three or five years in court wrangles through this case. You might have the justice minister sign the extradition warrant, but then that will get appealed to the High Court through judicial review, then it will go to the Court of Appeal and on to the Supreme Court. And when you get to a point three or five years down the track where Dotcom’s health may not be something the US system is able to deal with—and that could be good, fresh grounds for bouncing extradition.”

New Zealand official signs extradition order to send Kim Dotcom to US Read More »

artists-claim-“big”-win-in-copyright-suit-fighting-ai-image-generators

Artists claim “big” win in copyright suit fighting AI image generators

Back to the drawing board —

Artists prepare to take on AI image generators as copyright suit proceeds

Artists claim “big” win in copyright suit fighting AI image generators

Artists defending a class-action lawsuit are claiming a major win this week in their fight to stop the most sophisticated AI image generators from copying billions of artworks to train AI models and replicate their styles without compensating artists.

In an order on Monday, US district judge William Orrick denied key parts of motions to dismiss from Stability AI, Midjourney, Runway AI, and DeviantArt. The court will now allow artists to proceed with discovery on claims that AI image generators relying on Stable Diffusion violate both the Copyright Act and the Lanham Act, which protects artists from commercial misuse of their names and unique styles.

“We won BIG,” an artist plaintiff, Karla Ortiz, wrote on X (formerly Twitter), celebrating the order. “Not only do we proceed on our copyright claims,” but “this order also means companies who utilize” Stable Diffusion models and LAION-like datasets that scrape artists’ works for AI training without permission “could now be liable for copyright infringement violations, amongst other violations.”

Lawyers for the artists, Joseph Saveri and Matthew Butterick, told Ars that artists suing “consider the Court’s order a significant step forward for the case,” as “the Court allowed Plaintiffs’ core copyright-infringement claims against all four defendants to proceed.”

Stability AI was the only company that responded to Ars’ request to comment, but it declined to comment.

Artists prepare to defend their livelihoods from AI

To get to this stage of the suit, artists had to amend their complaint to better explain exactly how AI image generators work to allegedly train on artists’ images and copy artists’ styles.

For example, they were told that if they “contend Stable Diffusion contains ‘compressed copies’ of the Training Images, they need to define ‘compressed copies’ and explain plausible facts in support. And if plaintiffs’ compressed copies theory is based on a contention that Stable Diffusion contains mathematical or statistical methods that can be carried out through algorithms or instructions in order to reconstruct the Training Images in whole or in part to create the new Output Images, they need to clarify that and provide plausible facts in support,” Orrick wrote.

To keep their fight alive, the artists pored through academic articles to support their arguments that “Stable Diffusion is built to a significant extent on copyrighted works and that the way the product operates necessarily invokes copies or protected elements of those works.” Orrick agreed that their amended complaint made plausible inferences that “at this juncture” is enough to support claims “that Stable Diffusion by operation by end users creates copyright infringement and was created to facilitate that infringement by design.”

“Specifically, the Court found Plaintiffs’ theory that image-diffusion models like Stable Diffusion contain compressed copies of their datasets to be plausible,” Saveri and Butterick’s statement to Ars said. “The Court also found it plausible that training, distributing, and copying such models constitute acts of copyright infringement.”

Not all of the artists’ claims survived, with Orrick granting motions to dismiss claims alleging that AI companies removed content management information from artworks in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Because artists failed to show evidence of defendants altering or stripping this information, they must permanently drop the DMCA claims.

Part of Orrick’s decision on the DMCA claims, however, indicates that the legal basis for dismissal is “unsettled,” with Orrick simply agreeing with Stability AI’s unsettled argument that “because the output images are admittedly not identical to the Training Images, there can be no liability for any removal of CMI that occurred during the training process.”

Ortiz wrote on X that she respectfully disagreed with that part of the decision but expressed enthusiasm that the court allowed artists to proceed with false endorsement claims, alleging that Midjourney violated the Lanham Act.

Five artists successfully argued that because “their names appeared on the list of 4,700 artists posted by Midjourney’s CEO on Discord” and that list was used to promote “the various styles of artistic works its AI product could produce,” this plausibly created confusion over whether those artists had endorsed Midjourney.

“Whether or not a reasonably prudent consumer would be confused or misled by the Names List and showcase to conclude that the included artists were endorsing the Midjourney product can be tested at summary judgment,” Orrick wrote. “Discovery may show that it is or that is it not.”

While Orrick agreed with Midjourney that “plaintiffs have no protection over ‘simple, cartoony drawings’ or ‘gritty fantasy paintings,'” artists were able to advance a “trade dress” claim under the Lanham Act, too. This is because Midjourney allegedly “allows users to create works capturing the ‘trade dress of each of the Midjourney Named Plaintiffs [that] is inherently distinctive in look and feel as used in connection with their artwork and art products.'”

As discovery proceeds in the case, artists will also have an opportunity to amend dismissed claims of unjust enrichment. According to Orrick, their next amended complaint will be their last chance to prove that AI companies have “deprived plaintiffs ‘the benefit of the value of their works.'”

Saveri and Butterick confirmed that “though the Court dismissed certain supplementary claims, Plaintiffs’ central claims will now proceed to discovery and trial.” On X, Ortiz suggested that the artists’ case is “now potentially one of THE biggest copyright infringement and trade dress cases ever!”

“Looking forward to the next stage of our fight!” Ortiz wrote.

Artists claim “big” win in copyright suit fighting AI image generators Read More »

disney-fighting-restaurant-death-suit-with-disney+-terms-“absurd,”-lawyer-says

Disney fighting restaurant death suit with Disney+ terms “absurd,” lawyer says

Raglan Road Irish Pub at Disney Springs in Orlando, Florida, USA.

Enlarge / Raglan Road Irish Pub at Disney Springs in Orlando, Florida, USA.

After a woman, Kanokporn Tangsuan, with severe nut allergies died from anaphylaxis due to a Disney Springs restaurant neglecting to honor requests for allergen-free food, her husband, Jeffrey Piccolo, sued on behalf of her estate.

In May, Disney tried to argue that the wrongful death suit should be dismissed because Piccolo subscribed to a one-month free trial of Disney+ four years before Tangsuan’s shocking death. Fighting back this month, a lawyer representing Tangsuan’s estate, Brian Denney, warned that Disney was “explicitly seeking to bar its 150 million Disney+ subscribers from ever prosecuting a wrongful death case against it in front of a jury even if the case facts have nothing to with Disney+.”

According to Disney, by agreeing to the Disney+ terms, Piccolo also agreed to other Disney terms vaguely hyperlinked in the Disney+ agreement that required private arbitration for “all disputes” against “The Walt Disney Company or its affiliates” arising “in contract, tort, warranty, statute, regulation, or other legal or equitable basis.”

However, Denney argued that “there is simply no reading of the Disney+ Subscriber Agreement, the only Agreement Mr. Piccolo allegedly assented to in creating his Disney+ account, which would support the notion that he was agreeing on behalf of his wife or her estate, to arbitrate injuries sustained by his wife at a restaurant located on premises owned by a Disney theme park or resort from which she died.”

“Frankly, any such suggestion borders on the absurd,” Denney said.

Denney argued that Disney’s motion to compel arbitration was “so outrageously unreasonable and unfair as to shock the judicial conscience.”

It’s particularly shocking, Denney argued, because of a “glaring ambiguity” that Disney “ignores”—that Piccolo more recently agreed to other Disney terms that “directly conflict” with the terms that Disney prefers to reference in its motion.

Denney argued that Disney is “desperately” clinging to “Piccolo’s purported consent to the Disney Terms of Use in November of 2019, because the My Disney Experience Terms and Conditions he allegedly consented to in 2023″—when purchasing tickets on Disney’s website to Epcot that went unused—”do not contain an arbitration provision.”

Those terms instead “rather expressly contemplate that the parties may file lawsuits and requires those suits to be filed in Orange County Florida and to be governed by Florida law,” Denney said. They also specify that the My Disney Experience terms prevail amid any conflict with other terms.

This renders “the arbitration provision in the Disney Terms of Use unenforceable,” Denney argued, requesting Disney’s motion be denied and suggesting that Disney is attempting “to deprive the Estate of Kanokporn Tangsuan of its right to a jury trial.”

He also reminded the court that in nursing home cases, Florida courts have “repeatedly held that a resident’s estate will not be bound by an arbitration agreement signed by a spouse or other family member in their individual capacity.”

Disney is hoping that its Disney+ terms argument will push the litigation out of the court and behind closed doors of arbitration, arguing that “Piccolo’s remaining claims against Great Irish Pubs”—which does business as Raglan Road Irish Pub—”should be stayed as well.” That would be proper, Disney argued, because Piccolo’s claims against Disney “are based entirely on Great Irish Pubs’ alleged misconduct” and “it would be problematic for this litigation to continue since each tribunal may decide the issues differently.”

Disney also noted that the litigation should also be stayed if Great Irish Pubs joined the arbitration, which Disney “would not oppose.”

Denney argued that Disney’s motion to compel arbitration was “fatally flawed for numerous independent reasons.”

“There is not a single authority in Florida that would support such an inane argument,” Denney argued. It’s “preposterous,” he said, that Disney is arguing that “when Jeffrey Piccolo, individually, allegedly signed himself up for a free trial of Disney+ back in 2019 or bought Epcot tickets in 2023, he somehow bound the non-existent Estate of Kanokporn Tangsuan (his wife, who was alive at both times) to an arbitration agreement buried within certain terms and conditions.”

Disney fighting restaurant death suit with Disney+ terms “absurd,” lawyer says Read More »

isps-worry-that-killing-fcc-net-neutrality-rules-will-come-back-to-haunt-them

ISPs worry that killing FCC net neutrality rules will come back to haunt them

Illustration of ones and zeroes overlaid on a US map.

Getty Images | Matt Anderson Photography

ISPs asked the US Supreme Court to strike down a New York law that requires broadband providers to offer $15-per-month service to people with low incomes. On Monday, a Supreme Court petition challenging the state law was filed by six trade groups representing the cable, telecom, mobile, and satellite industries.

Although ISPs were recently able to block the FCC’s net neutrality rules, this week’s petition shows the firms are worried about states stepping into the regulatory vacuum with various kinds of laws targeting broadband prices and practices. A broadband-industry victory over federal regulation could bolster the authority of New York and other states to regulate broadband. To prevent that, ISPs said the Supreme Court should strike down both the New York law and the FCC’s broadband regulation, although the rulings would have to be made in two different cases.

A situation in which the New York law is upheld while federal rules are struck down “will likely lead to more rate regulation absent the Court’s intervention,” ISPs told the Supreme Court. “Other States are likely to copy New York once the Attorney General begins enforcing the ABA [Affordable Broadband Act] and New York consumers can buy broadband at below-market rates. As petitioners’ members have shown, New York’s price cap will require them to sell broadband at a loss and deter them from investing in expanding their broadband networks. As rate regulation proliferates, those harms will as well, stifling critical investment in bringing broadband to unserved and underserved areas.”

The New York law was upheld in April by the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which reversed a 2021 District Court ruling. New York Attorney General Letitia James agreed last week not to enforce the $15 broadband law while the Supreme Court considers whether to take up the case.

“Although New York has agreed not to enforce its rate-regulation law while the Court resolves this petition, New York continues to assert that it has the right to do what the FCC cannot,” ISPs wrote. “This case thus presents the question whether broadband services will remain protected from common-carrier treatment and rate regulation by individual States.”

NY law’s fate tied to FCC regulation

The fate of the New York law is tied in part to the Federal Communications Commission’s April 2024 decision to revive net neutrality rules and regulate ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. When New York enacted its affordability law, the FCC was not regulating ISPs under Title II. The lack of federal regulation gave states more leeway to implement their own laws.

When judges at the 2nd Circuit upheld the New York law, they wrote that “a federal agency cannot exclude states from regulating in an area where the agency itself lacks regulatory authority.” If the FCC’s revived common-carrier regulations are upheld, ISPs would have a better chance at overturning the New York law.

But ISPs are trying to get the net neutrality and common-carrier regulations overturned—and having success on that front. The US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit stayed enforcement of the FCC regulations while litigation is pending, and a panel of judges said that ISPs are likely to win the case. The “broadband providers have shown that they are likely to succeed on the merits,” 6th Circuit judges wrote.

ISPs are worried that if they succeed in killing the FCC regulation, they will be subject to many state laws like New York’s. “The upshot of the Sixth Circuit and Second Circuit decisions is that each State can now do what the FCC cannot—subject an interstate information service to common-carrier regulation, including rate regulation,” ISP lobby groups said in their Supreme Court petition. This will be “to the detriment of providers, consumers, and the nation,” they claimed.

ISPs asked the Supreme Court to “confirm that the federal Communications Act—not a patchwork of state laws—governs the regulation of interstate communications services such as broadband.”

ISPs worry that killing FCC net neutrality rules will come back to haunt them Read More »

elon-musk’s-preferred-judge-recuses-himself-from-x’s-case-against-advertisers

Elon Musk’s preferred judge recuses himself from X’s case against advertisers

Judge not —

Judge who had stock in Tesla and Unilever drops X case over alleged ad boycott.

Elon Musk frowns while sitting on stage during a conference interview.

Enlarge / Elon Musk speaks at the Satellite Conference and Exhibition on March 9, 2020 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images | Win McNamee

US District Judge Reed O’Connor today recused himself from Elon Musk’s lawsuit alleging that advertisers targeted X with an illegal boycott.

O’Connor was apparently Musk’s preferred judge in the lawsuit filed last week against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and several large corporations. In order to land O’Connor, the Musk-owned X Corp. sued in the Wichita Falls division of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

O’Connor purchased Tesla stock, a fact that generated controversy in a different X lawsuit that he is still overseeing. He also invested in Unilever, one of the defendants in X’s advertising lawsuit. The Unilever investment appears to be what drove O’Connor’s recusal decision.

“I hereby recuse myself from the above numbered case,” O’Connor wrote in a filing today. The case was reassigned to District Judge Ed Kinkeade. Both judges were appointed by President George W. Bush. O’Connor is based in Fort Worth, while Kinkeade is based in Dallas.

A financial disclosure report for calendar year 2022 shows that O’Connor owned stock in Unilever valued at $15,000 or less. The investment generated a dividend of $1,000 or less during 2022, the filing indicates. Unilever is one of the defendants named in X’s advertising lawsuit, along with Mars, Incorporated; CVS Health Corporation; and Ørsted A/S.

The 2022 disclosure also listed a purchase of Tesla stock valued between $15,001 and $50,000. “It is unclear whether O’Connor has sold his investment of up to $50,000 in Tesla stock, because the judge’s disclosure form covering the 2023 calendar year is not publicly available,” NPR wrote on Friday. “He has requested a filing extension, according to an official with the administrative office of US courts who was not authorized to speak on the record.”

Kinkeade filed a 2023 financial disclosure report, which is much shorter than O’Connor’s and lists several rental properties and bank interest.

Media Matters questioned judge’s impartiality

O’Connor’s Tesla stock has been a point of contention in X’s case against Media Matters for America, which O’Connor has not recused himself from. O’Connor remaining on the Media Matters case while recusing himself from the advertising case suggests that his Unilever investment is the main factor in the recusal.

Media Matters drew Musk’s ire when it published research on ads being placed next to pro-Nazi content on X. Musk’s lawsuit blames Media Matters for the platform’s advertising losses.

Media Matters argued in a July court filing that Tesla, the Musk-led electric carmaker, should be listed by X as an “interested party” in the case. “Here, if the Court indeed owns stock in Tesla, recusal would be required under two separate provisions of the judicial recusal statue,” Media Matters wrote. “By failing to disclose Tesla, however, X has deprived the Court of information it needed to make an informed recusal decision.”

Media Matters said there is a public association between Musk and the Tesla brand, and that this association leads to doubts “about whether a judge with a financial interest in Musk could impartially adjudicate” the case filed by X.

“Because an investment in Tesla is, in large part, a bet on Musk’s reputation and management choices—key issues in this case—ownership of Tesla stock would be disqualifying,” Media Matters wrote.

X, previously named Twitter, has argued that O’Connor shouldn’t have to recuse himself from the Media Matters case. Tesla does not exert any control over X, and Media Matters’ argument that Tesla has an interest in the case is “tenuous and speculative,” X wrote in a court filing.

O’Connor gave X a victory in April when he denied a Media Matters motion to delay discovery until its motion to dismiss is resolved. Media Matters has complained about the financial toll of the lawsuit, telling the court that “X’s discovery requests are extremely broad and unduly burdensome.” Media Matters also issued a statement to the press saying it needed to lay off staff because of a “legal assault on multiple fronts.”

O’Connor was assigned to the Media Matters case in November 2023 after the original judge recused himself.

Elon Musk’s preferred judge recuses himself from X’s case against advertisers Read More »

5th-circuit-rules-geofence-warrants-illegal-in-win-for-phone-users’-privacy

5th Circuit rules geofence warrants illegal in win for phone users’ privacy

Illustration of map pins on a cityscape in an abstract representation of network connections

Getty Images |

A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that geofence warrants, which are used to identify all users or devices in a geographic area, are prohibited by the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches.

The ruling was issued by the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which is generally regarded as the most conservative appeals court. The 5th Circuit holding creates a circuit split with the 4th Circuit, which last month rejected a different Fourth Amendment challenge to geofence warrants.

“This court ‘cannot forgive the requirements of the Fourth Amendment in the name of law enforcement.’ Accordingly, we hold that geofence warrants are general warrants categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment,” the August 9 ruling from the 5th Circuit said.

The case, United States v. Smith, involves three Mississippi men convicted of a 2018 armed robbery of a mail truck. Despite ruling geofence warrants to be unconstitutional, the 5th Circuit denied the convicts’ motion to suppress evidence because “law enforcement acted in good faith in relying on this type of warrant.”

“We hold that geofence warrants are modern-day general warrants and are unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. However, considering law enforcement’s reasonable conduct in this case in light of the novelty of this type of warrant, we uphold the district court’s determination that suppression was unwarranted under the good-faith exception,” the court said.

4th Amendment scholar stunned

Despite the evidence being allowed, the court’s overall holding against geofence warrants is significant. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called the 5th Circuit ruling “a major decision.”

“Closely following arguments EFF has made in a number of cases, the court found that geofence warrants constitute the sort of ‘general, exploratory rummaging’ that the drafters of the Fourth Amendment intended to outlaw. EFF applauds this decision because it is essential that every person feels like they can simply take their cell phone out into the world without the fear that they might end up a criminal suspect because their location data was swept up in an open-ended digital dragnet,” the nonprofit group focused on digital rights said.

The ruling impressed Berkeley Law Professor Orin Kerr, a Fourth Amendment scholar. The 5th Circuit decision “makes my jaw drop,” he wrote in a post on Reason’s Volokh Conspiracy blog.

“The case creates a split with the Fourth Circuit on one important issue, and it creates another split with the Colorado Supreme Court on an even more important issue,” Kerr wrote.

The 4th Circuit ruling on July 9, in United States v. Chatrie, said “that the government did not conduct a Fourth Amendment search when it obtained two hours’ worth of Chatrie’s location information, since he voluntarily exposed this information to Google.” The 4th Circuit panel vote was 2-1.

It’s no coincidence that Google was involved in both the 4th and 5th Circuit cases. “Geofence warrants require a provider—almost always Google—to search its entire reserve of user location data to identify all users or devices located within a geographic area during a time period specified by law enforcement,” the EFF explained in December 2023 after Google implemented a technical change that could make it harder to provide mass location data in response to such warrants.

Geofence warrants skyrocketed

Requests for geofence warrants have skyrocketed since Google received its first such request in 2016. “In 2019, Google was receiving about 180 geofence warrant requests per week from law enforcement around the country, amounting to about 9,000 geofence requests for that year,” the 5th Circuit ruling said. “By 2020, that number went up to 11,500 geofence warrant requests. By 2021, geofence warrants comprised more than 25 percent of all warrant requests Google received in the United States.”

Kerr’s post explained why he thinks the 5th Circuit ruling is so significant:

The Fifth Circuit makes two important holdings. First, accessing any amount of geofence records is a search under an expansive reading of Carpenter v. United States [a 2018 Supreme Court ruling]. That’s the issue that creates the split with the Fourth Circuit in United States v. Chatrie. As I noted just a few weeks ago, Chatrie held that accessing such records is not a search in the first place, at least if the records sought are relatively limited in scale. The Fifth Circuit expressly disagrees.

Second, and much more dramatically, the Fifth Circuit rules that because the database of geofence records is so large, and because the whole database must be scanned through to find matches, the Fourth Amendment does not allow courts to issue warrants to collect those records. In legal terms, it is impossible to have a warrant particular enough to authorize the surveillance. The government can’t gather these kinds of online records at all, in other words, even with a warrant based on probable cause. This holding conflicts with a recent ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court, People v. Seymour, and more broadly raises questions of whether any digital warrants for online contents are constitutional.

After the 2018 mail-truck robbery, video from a camera at a nearby farm office appeared to show a suspect using a cell phone. But in November 2018, “nine months after the robbery, the Postal Inspection Service had not been able to identify any suspects from video footage or witness interviews,” the 5th Circuit ruling said.

Postal inspectors who were on the case initially didn’t know what a geofence warrant is. When they learned about this type of warrant, they applied for one “seeking information from Google to locate potential suspects and witnesses in connection to the robbery.” The geofence warrant “authorized an hour-long search… within a geofence covering approximately 98,192 square meters around the Lake Cormorant Post Office.”

5th Circuit rules geofence warrants illegal in win for phone users’ privacy Read More »

ex-twitter-staffer-wins-$600k-over-musk’s-click-yes-or-resign-ultimatum

Ex-Twitter staffer wins $600K over Musk’s click-yes-or-resign ultimatum

Please, be reasonable —

Elon Musk’s 24-hour email ultimatum unfairly dismissed Twitter staff, court says.

Ex-Twitter staffer wins $600K over Musk’s click-yes-or-resign ultimatum

Elon Musk had no business sending Twitter employees an email giving them 24 hours to click “yes” to keep their jobs or else voluntarily resign during his takeover in 2022, an Irish workplace watchdog ruled Monday.

Not only did the email not provide staff with enough notice, the labor court ruled, but also any employee’s failure to click “yes” could in no way constitute a legal act of resignation. Instead, the court reviewed evidence alleging that the email appeared designed to either get employees to agree to new employment terms, sight unseen, or else push employees to volunteer for dismissal during a time of mass layoffs across Twitter.

“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore,” Musk wrote in the all-staff email. “This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

With the subject line, “A Fork in the Road,” the email urged staff, “if you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below. Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance. Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.”

In a 73-page ruling, an adjudication officer for the Irish Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), Michael MacNamee, ruled that Twitter’s abrupt dismissal of an Ireland-based senior executive, Gary Rooney, was unfair, the Irish public service broadcaster RTÉ reported. Rooney had argued that his contract clearly stated that his resignation must be provided in writing, not by refraining to fill out a form.

A spokesperson for the Department of Enterprise, Trade, and Employment, which handles the WRC’s media inquiries, told Ars that the decision will be published on the WRC’s website on August 26 after both parties have “the opportunity to consider it in full.”

Now, instead of paying Rooney the draft severance amount worth a little more than $25,000, Twitter, which is now called X, has to pay Rooney more than $600,000. According to many outlets, this is a record award from the WRC and included about $220,000 “for prospective future loss of earnings.”

The WRC dismissed Rooney’s claim regarding an allegedly owed performance bonus for 2022 but otherwise largely agreed with his arguments on the unfair dismissal.

Rooney had worked for Twitter for nine years prior to Musk’s takeover, telling the WRC that he previously loved his job but had no way of knowing from the “Fork in the Road” email “what package was being offered” or “implications of agreeing to stay working for Twitter.” He hesitated to click yes, not knowing how his benefits or stock options might change, while discussing his decision to potentially leave with other Twitter employees on Slack and claiming he would be leaving on Twitter.

Twitter tried to argue that the Slack discussions and Rooney’s tweets about the email indicated that he intended to resign, but the court disagreed that these were relevant.

“No employee when faced with such a situation could possibly be faulted for refusing to be compelled to give an open-ended unqualified assent to any of the proposals,” MacNamee said.

In total, 35 Twitter staffers didn’t click “yes”

A lot of laid-off employees sued Twitter after Musk’s takeover, and so far, X has seemed to come out ahead. The company has beaten at least one lawsuit while also threatening to claw back money it claims it “overpaid” Australian employees who were laid off. (X says it bungled the conversion from Australian to US dollars.) Rooney’s suit is among the first major victories for laid-off Twitter staffers fighting Musk’s allegedly unfair and penny-pinching severance packages.

X’s senior director of human resources, Lauren Wegman, testified that of the 270 employees in Ireland who received the email, only 35 did not click yes. After this week’s ruling, it seems likely that X may face more complaints from any of those dozens of employees who took the same route Rooney did.

X has not commented on the ruling but is likely disappointed by the loss. The social media company had tried to argue that Rooney’s employment contract “allowed the company to make reasonable changes to its terms and conditions,” RTÉ reported. Wegman had further testified that it was unreasonable for Rooney to believe his pay might change as a result of clicking yes, telling the WRC that his “employment would probably not have ended if he had raised a grievance” within the 24-hour deadline, RTÉ reported.

Rooney’s lawyer, Barry Kenny, told The Guardian that Rooney and his legal team welcomed “the clear and unambiguous finding that my client did not resign from his employment but was unfairly dismissed from his job, notwithstanding his excellent employment record and contribution to the company over the years.”

“It is not okay for Mr. Musk, or indeed any large company to treat employees in such a manner in this country,” Kenny said. “The record award reflects the seriousness and the gravity of the case.”

Twitter will be able to appeal the WRC’s decision, The Journal reported.

Ex-Twitter staffer wins $600K over Musk’s click-yes-or-resign ultimatum Read More »

google-abruptly-shuts-down-adsense-in-russia-as-tensions-with-kremlin-escalate

Google abruptly shuts down AdSense in Russia as tensions with Kremlin escalate

“Kind of strange” —

Russia-based YouTubers, in particular, will likely lose significant revenues.

Google abruptly shuts down AdSense in Russia as tensions with Kremlin escalate

Google announced Monday that it’s shutting down all AdSense accounts in Russia due to “ongoing developments in Russia.”

This effectively ends Russian content creators’ ability to monetize their posts, including YouTube videos. The change impacts accounts monetizing content through AdSense, AdMob, and Ad Manager, the support page said.

While Google has declined requests to provide details on what prompted the change, it’s the latest escalation of Google’s ongoing battle with Russian officials working to control the narrative on Russia’s war with Ukraine.

In February 2022, Google paused monetization of all state-funded media in Russia, then temporarily paused all ads in the country the very next month. That March, Google paused the creation of new Russia-based AdSense accounts and blocked ads globally that originated from Russia. In March 2022, Google also paused monetization of any content exploiting, condoning, or dismissing Russia’s war with Ukraine. Seemingly as retaliation, Russia seized Google’s bank account, causing Google Russia to shut down in May 2022.

Since then, Google has “blocked more than 1,000 YouTube channels, including state-sponsored news, and over 5.5 million videos,” Reuters reported.

For Russian creators who have still found ways to monetize their content amid the chaos, Google’s decision to abruptly shut down AdSense accounts comes as “a serious blow to their income,” Bleeping Computer reported. Russia is second only to the US in terms of YouTube web traffic, Similarweb data shows, making it likely that Russia-based YouTubers earned “significant” revenues that will now be suddenly lost, Bleeping Computer reported.

Russia-based creators—including YouTubers, as well as bloggers and website owners—will receive their final payout this month, according to a message from Google to users reviewed by Reuters.

“Assuming you have no active payment holds and meet the minimum payment thresholds,” payments will be disbursed between August 21 and 26, Google’s message said.

Google’s spokesperson offered little clarification to Reuters and Bleeping Computer, saying only that “we will no longer be able to make payments to Russia-based AdSense accounts that have been able to continue monetizing traffic outside of Russia. As a result, we will be deactivating these accounts effective August 2024.”

It seems likely, though, that Russia passing a law in March—banning advertising on websites, blogs, social networks, or any other online sources published by a “foreign agent,” as Reuters reported in February—perhaps influenced Google’s update. The law also prohibited foreign agents from placing ads on sites, and under the law, foreign agents could include anti-Kremlin politicians, activists, and media. With new authority, Russia may have further retaliated against Google, potentially forcing Google to give up the last bit of monetization available to Russia-based creators increasingly censored online.

State assembly member and Putin ally Vyacheslav Volodin said that the law was needed to stop financing “scoundrels” allegedly “killing our soldiers, officers, and civilians,” Reuters reported.

One Russian YouTuber with 11.4 million subscribers, Valentin Petukhov, suggested on Telegram that Google shut down AdSense because people had managed to “bypass payment blocks imposed by Western sanctions on Russian banks,” Bleeping Computer reported.

According to Petukhov, the wording in Google’s message to users was “kind of strange,” making it unclear what account holders should do next.

“Even though the income from monetization has fallen tenfold, it hasn’t disappeared completely,” Petukhov said.

YouTube still spotty in Russia

Google’s decision to end AdSense in Russia follows reports of a mass YouTube outage that Russian Internet monitoring service Sboi.rf reported is still impacting users today.

Officials in Russia claim that YouTube has been operating at slower speeds because Google stopped updating its equipment in the region after the invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported.

This outage and the slower speeds led “subscribers of over 135 regional communication operators in Russia” to terminate “agreements with companies due to problems with the operation of YouTube and other Google services,” the Russian tech blog Habr reported.

As Google has tried to resist pressure from Russian lawmakers to censor content that officials deem illegal, such as content supporting Ukraine or condemning Russia, YouTube had become one of the last bastions of online free speech, Reuters reported. It’s unclear how ending monetization in the region will impact access to anti-Kremlin reporting on YouTube or more broadly online in Russia. Last February, a popular journalist with 1.64 million subscribers on YouTube, Katerina Gordeeva, wrote on Telegram that “she was suspending her work due to the law,” Reuters reported.

“We will no longer be able to work as before,” Gordeeva said. “Of course, we will look for a way out.”

Google abruptly shuts down AdSense in Russia as tensions with Kremlin escalate Read More »

rfk-jr’s-anti-vaccine-group-can’t-sue-meta-for-agreeing-with-cdc,-judge-rules

RFK Jr’s anti-vaccine group can’t sue Meta for agreeing with CDC, judge rules

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Enlarge / Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Children’s Health Defense (CHD), an anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr, has once again failed to convince a court that Meta acted as a state agent when censoring the group’s posts and ads on Facebook and Instagram.

In his opinion affirming a lower court’s dismissal, US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Eric Miller wrote that CHD failed to prove that Meta acted as an arm of the government in censoring posts. Concluding that Meta’s right to censor views that the platforms find “distasteful” is protected by the First Amendment, Miller denied CHD’s requested relief, which had included an injunction and civil monetary damages.

“Meta evidently believes that vaccines are safe and effective and that their use should be encouraged,” Miller wrote. “It does not lose the right to promote those views simply because they happen to be shared by the government.”

CHD told Reuters that the group “was disappointed with the decision and considering its legal options.”

The group first filed the complaint in 2020, arguing that Meta colluded with government officials to censor protected speech by labeling anti-vaccine posts as misleading or removing and shadowbanning CHD posts. This caused CHD’s traffic on the platforms to plummet, CHD claimed, and ultimately, its pages were removed from both platforms.

However, critically, Miller wrote, CHD did not allege that “the government was actually involved in the decisions to label CHD’s posts as ‘false’ or ‘misleading,’ the decision to put the warning label on CHD’s Facebook page, or the decisions to ‘demonetize’ or ‘shadow-ban.'”

“CHD has not alleged facts that allow us to infer that the government coerced Meta into implementing a specific policy,” Miller wrote.

Instead, Meta “was entitled to encourage” various “input from the government,” justifiably seeking vaccine-related information provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as it navigated complex content moderation decisions throughout the pandemic, Miller wrote.

Therefore, Meta’s actions against CHD were due to “Meta’s own ‘policy of censoring,’ not any provision of federal law,” Miller concluded. “The evidence suggested that Meta had independent incentives to moderate content and exercised its own judgment in so doing.”

None of CHD’s theories that Meta coordinated with officials to deprive “CHD of its constitutional rights” were plausible, Miller wrote, whereas the “innocent alternative”—”that Meta adopted the policy it did simply because” CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Meta “share the government’s view that vaccines are safe and effective”—appeared “more plausible.”

Meta “does not become an agent of the government just because it decides that the CDC sometimes has a point,” Miller wrote.

Equally not persuasive were CHD’s notions that Section 230 immunity—which shields platforms from liability for third-party content—”‘removed all legal barriers’ to the censorship of vaccine-related speech,” such that “Meta’s restriction of that content should be considered state action.”

“That Section 230 operates in the background to immunize Meta if it chooses to suppress vaccine misinformation—whether because it shares the government’s health concerns or for independent commercial reasons—does not transform Meta’s choice into state action,” Miller wrote.

One judge dissented over Section 230 concerns

In his dissenting opinion, Judge Daniel Collins defended CHD’s Section 230 claim, however, suggesting that the appeals court erred and should have granted CHD injunctive and declaratory relief from alleged censorship. CHD CEO Mary Holland told The Defender that the group was pleased the decision was not unanimous.

According to Collins, who like Miller is a Trump appointee, Meta could never have built its massive social platforms without Section 230 immunity, which grants platforms the ability to broadly censor viewpoints they disfavor.

It was “important to keep in mind” that “the vast practical power that Meta exercises over the speech of millions of others ultimately rests on a government-granted privilege to which Meta is not constitutionally entitled,” Collins wrote. And this power “makes a crucial difference in the state-action analysis.”

As Collins sees it, CHD could plausibly allege that Meta’s communications with government officials about vaccine-related misinformation targeted specific users, like the “disinformation dozen” that includes both CHD and Kennedy. In that case, it appears possible to Collins that Section 230 provides a potential opportunity for government to target speech that it disfavors through mechanisms provided by the platforms.

“Having specifically and purposefully created an immunized power for mega-platform operators to freely censor the speech of millions of persons on those platforms, the Government is perhaps unsurprisingly tempted to then try to influence particular uses of such dangerous levers against protected speech expressing viewpoints the Government does not like,” Collins warned.

He further argued that “Meta’s relevant First Amendment rights” do not “give Meta an unbounded freedom to work with the Government in suppressing speech on its platforms.” Disagreeing with the majority, he wrote that “in this distinctive scenario, applying the state-action doctrine promotes individual liberty by keeping the Government’s hands away from the tempting levers of censorship on these vast platforms.”

The majority agreed, however, that while Section 230 immunity “is undoubtedly a significant benefit to companies like Meta,” lawmakers’ threats to weaken Section 230 did not suggest that Meta’s anti-vaccine policy was coerced state action.

“Many companies rely, in one way or another, on a favorable regulatory environment or the goodwill of the government,” Miller wrote. “If that were enough for state action, every large government contractor would be a state actor. But that is not the law.”

RFK Jr’s anti-vaccine group can’t sue Meta for agreeing with CDC, judge rules Read More »

push-alerts-from-tiktok-include-fake-news,-expired-tsunami-warning

Push alerts from TikTok include fake news, expired tsunami warning

Broken —

News-style notifications include false claims about Taylor Swift, other misleading info.

illustration showing a phone with TikTok logo

FT montage/Getty Images

TikTok has been sending inaccurate and misleading news-style alerts to users’ phones, including a false claim about Taylor Swift and a weeks-old disaster warning, intensifying fears about the spread of misinformation on the popular video-sharing platform.

Among alerts seen by the Financial Times was a warning about a tsunami in Japan, labeled “BREAKING,” that was posted in late January, three weeks after an earthquake had struck.

Other notifications falsely stated that “Taylor Swift Canceled All Tour Dates in What She Called ‘Racist Florida’” and highlighted a five-year “ban” for a US baseball player that originated as an April Fool’s day prank.

The notifications, which sometimes contain summaries from user-generated posts, pop up on screen in the style of a news alert. Researchers say that format, adopted widely to boost engagement through personalized video recommendations, may make users less critical of the veracity of the content and open them up to misinformation.

“Notifications have this additional stamp of authority,” said Laura Edelson, a researcher at Northeastern University, in Boston. “When you get a notification about something, it’s often assumed to be something that has been curated by the platform and not just a random thing from your feed.”

Social media groups such as TikTok, X, and Meta are facing greater scrutiny to police their platforms, particularly in a year of major national elections, including November’s vote in the US. The rise of artificial intelligence adds to the pressure given that the fast-evolving technology makes it quicker and easier to spread misinformation, including through synthetic media, known as deepfakes.

TikTok, which has more than 1 billion global users, has repeatedly promised to step up its efforts to counter misinformation in response to pressure from governments around the world, including the UK and EU. In May, the video-sharing platform committed to becoming the first major social media network to label some AI-generated content automatically.

The false claim about Swift canceling her tour in Florida, which also circulated on X, mirrored an article published in May in the satirical newspaper The Dunning-Kruger Times, although this article was not linked or directly referred to in the TikTok post.

At least 20 people said on a comment thread that they had clicked on the notification and were directed to a video on TikTok repeating the claim, even though they did not follow the account. At least one person in the thread said they initially thought the notification “was a news article.”

Swift is still scheduled to perform three concerts in Miami in October and has not publicly called Florida “racist.”

Another push notification inaccurately stated that a Japanese pitcher who plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers faced a ban from Major League Baseball: “Shohei Ohtani has been BANNED from the MLB for 5 years following his gambling investigation… ”

The words directly matched the description of a post uploaded as an April Fools’ day prank. Tens of commenters on the original video, however, reported receiving alerts in mid-April. Several said they had initially believed it before they checked other sources.

Users have also reported notifications that appeared to contain news updates but were generated weeks after the event.

One user received an alert on January 23 that read: “BREAKING: A tsunami alert has been issued in Japan after a major earthquake.” The notification appeared to refer to a natural disaster warning issued more than three weeks earlier after an earthquake struck Japan’s Noto peninsula on New Year’s Day.

TikTok said it had removed the specific notifications flagged by the FT.

The alerts appear automatically to scrape the descriptions of posts that are receiving, or are likely to receive, high levels of engagement on the viral video app, owned by China’s ByteDance, researchers said. They seem to be tailored to users’ interests, which means that each one is likely to be limited to a small pool of people.

“The way in which those alerts are positioned, it can feel like the platform is speaking directly to [users] and not just a poster,” said Kaitlyn Regehr, an associate professor of digital humanities at University College London.

TikTok declined to reveal how the app determined which videos to promote through notifications, but the sheer volume of personalized content recommendations must be “algorithmically generated,” said Dani Madrid-Morales, co-lead of the University of Sheffield’s Disinformation Research Cluster.

Edelson, who is also co-director of the Cybersecurity for Democracy group, suggested that a responsible push notification algorithm could be weighted towards trusted sources, such as verified publishers or officials. “The question is: Are they choosing a high-traffic thing from an authoritative source?” she said. “Or is this just a high-traffic thing?”

Additional reporting by Hannah Murphy in San Francisco and Cristina Criddle in London.

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

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