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elon-musk:-ai-will-be-smarter-than-any-human-around-the-end-of-next-year

Elon Musk: AI will be smarter than any human around the end of next year

AI, Biz & IT, elon musk, Grady Booch, machine learning, Social Media, superintelligence, Twitter, X / /

smarter than the average bear —

While Musk says superintelligence is coming soon, one critic says prediction is “batsh*t crazy.”

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Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and the X (formerly Twitter) platform, attends a symposium on fighting antisemitism titled 'Never Again : Lip Service or Deep Conversation' in Krakow, Poland on January 22nd, 2024. Musk, who was invited to Poland by the European Jewish Association (EJA) has visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp earlier that day, ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto)

Enlarge / Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and the X (formerly Twitter) platform on January 22, 2024.

On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicted the imminent rise in AI superintelligence during a live interview streamed on the social media platform X. “My guess is we’ll have AI smarter than any one human probably around the end of next year,” Musk said in his conversation with hedge fund manager Nicolai Tangen.

Just prior to that, Tangen had asked Musk, “What’s your take on where we are in the AI race just now?” Musk told Tangen that AI “is the fastest advancing technology I’ve seen of any kind, and I’ve seen a lot of technology.” He described computers dedicated to AI increasing in capability by “a factor of 10 every year, if not every six to nine months.”

Musk made the prediction with an asterisk, saying that shortages of AI chips and high AI power demands could limit AI’s capability until those issues are resolved. “Last year, it was chip-constrained,” Musk told Tangen. “People could not get enough Nvidia chips. This year, it’s transitioning to a voltage transformer supply. In a year or two, it’s just electricity supply.”

But not everyone is convinced that Musk’s crystal ball is free of cracks. Grady Booch, a frequent critic of AI hype on social media who is perhaps best known for his work in software architecture, told Ars in an interview, “Keep in mind that Mr. Musk has a profoundly bad record at predicting anything associated with AI; back in 2016, he promised his cars would ship with FSD safety level 5, and here we are, closing on an a decade later, still waiting.”

Creating artificial intelligence at least as smart as a human (frequently called “AGI” for artificial general intelligence) is often seen as inevitable among AI proponents, but there’s no broad consensus on exactly when that milestone will be reached—or on the exact definition of AGI, for that matter.

“If you define AGI as smarter than the smartest human, I think it’s probably next year, within two years,” Musk added in the interview with Tangen while discussing AGI timelines.

Even with uncertainties about AGI, that hasn’t kept companies from trying. ChatGPT creator OpenAI, which launched with Musk as a co-founder in 2015, lists developing AGI as its main goal. Musk has not been directly associated with OpenAI for years (unless you count a recent lawsuit against the company), but last year, he took aim at the business of large language models by forming a new company called xAI. Its main product, Grok, functions similarly to ChatGPT and is integrated into the X social media platform.

Booch gives credit to Musk’s business successes but casts doubt on his forecasting ability. “Albeit a brilliant if not rapacious businessman, Mr. Musk vastly overestimates both the history as well as the present of AI while simultaneously diminishing the exquisite uniqueness of human intelligence,” says Booch. “So in short, his prediction is—to put it in scientific terms—batshit crazy.”

So when will we get AI that’s smarter than a human? Booch says there’s no real way to know at the moment. “I reject the framing of any question that asks when AI will surpass humans in intelligence because it is a question filled with ambiguous terms and considerable emotional and historic baggage,” he says. “We are a long, long way from understanding the design that would lead us there.”

We also asked Hugging Face AI researcher Dr. Margaret Mitchell to weigh in on Musk’s prediction. “Intelligence … is not a single value where you can make these direct comparisons and have them mean something,” she told us in an interview. “There will likely never be agreement on comparisons between human and machine intelligence.”

But even with that uncertainty, she feels there is one aspect of AI she can more reliably predict: “I do agree that neural network models will reach a point where men in positions of power and influence, particularly ones with investments in AI, will declare that AI is smarter than humans. By end of next year, sure. That doesn’t sound far off base to me.”

Elon Musk: AI will be smarter than any human around the end of next year Read More »

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X filing “thermonuclear lawsuit” in Texas should be “fatal,” Media Matters says

elon musk, First Amendment, free speech, hate speech, media matters for America, online hate speech, Policy, texas, Twitter, X / /
X filing “thermonuclear lawsuit” in Texas should be “fatal,” Media Matters says

Ever since Elon Musk’s X Corp sued Media Matters for America (MMFA) over a pair of reports that X (formerly Twitter) claims caused an advertiser exodus in 2023, one big question has remained for onlookers: Why is this fight happening in Texas?

In a motion to dismiss filed in Texas’ northern district last month, MMFA argued that X’s lawsuit should be dismissed not just because of a “fatal jurisdictional defect,” but “dismissal is also required for lack of venue.”

Notably, MMFA is based in Washington, DC, while “X is organized under Nevada law and maintains its principal place of business in San Francisco, California, where its own terms of service require users of its platform to litigate any disputes.”

“Texas is not a fair or reasonable forum for this lawsuit,” MMFA argued, suggesting that “the case must be dismissed or transferred” because “neither the parties nor the cause of action has any connection to Texas.”

Last Friday, X responded to the motion to dismiss, claiming that the lawsuit—which Musk has described as “thermonuclear”—was appropriately filed in Texas because MMFA “intentionally” targeted readers and at least two X advertisers located in Texas, Oracle and AT&T. According to X, because MMFA “identified Oracle, a Texas-based corporation, by name in its coverage,” MMFA “cannot claim surprise at being held to answer for its conduct in Texas.” X also claimed that Texas has jurisdiction because Musk resides in Texas and “makes numerous critical business decisions about X while in Texas.”

This so-called targeting of Texans caused a “substantial part” of alleged financial harms that X attributes to MMFA’s reporting, X alleged.

According to X, MMFA specifically targeted X in Texas by sending newsletters sharing its reports with “hundreds or thousands” of Texas readers and by allegedly soliciting donations from Texans to support MMFA’s reporting.

But MMFA pushed back, saying that “Texas subscribers comprise a disproportionately small percentage of Media Matters’ newsletter recipients” and that MMFA did “not solicit Texas donors to fund Media Matters’s journalism concerning X.” Because of this, X’s “efforts to concoct claim-related Texas contacts amount to a series of shots in the dark, uninformed guesses, and irrelevant tangents,” MMFA argued.

On top of that, MMFA argued that X could not attribute any financial harms allegedly caused by MMFA’s reports to either of the two Texas-based advertisers that X named in its court filings. Oracle, MMFA said, “by X’s own admission,… did not withdraw its ads” from X, and AT&T was not named in MMFA’s reporting, and thus, “any investigation AT&T did into its ad placement on X was of its own volition and is not plausibly connected to Media Matters.” MMFA has argued that advertisers, particularly sophisticated Fortune 500 companies, made their own decisions to stop advertising on X, perhaps due to widely reported increases in hate speech on X or even Musk’s own seemingly antisemitic posting.

Ars could not immediately reach X, Oracle, or AT&T for comment.

X’s suit allegedly designed to break MMFA

MMFA President Angelo Carusone, who is a defendant in X’s lawsuit, told Ars that X’s recent filing has continued to “expose” the lawsuit as a “meritless and vexatious effort to inflict maximum damage on critical research and reporting about the platform.”

“It’s solely designed to basically break us or stop us from doing the work that we were doing originally,” Carusone said, confirming that the lawsuit has negatively impacted MMFA’s hate speech research on X.

MMFA argued that Musk could have sued in other jurisdictions, such as Maryland, DC, or California, and MMFA would not have disputed the venue, but Carusone suggested that Musk sued in Texas in hopes that it would be “a more friendly jurisdiction.”

X filing “thermonuclear lawsuit” in Texas should be “fatal,” Media Matters says Read More »

public-officials-can-block-haters—but-only-sometimes,-scotus-rules

Public officials can block haters—but only sometimes, SCOTUS rules

facebook, Policy, SCOTUS, Social Media, Twitter, X / /
Public officials can block haters—but only sometimes, SCOTUS rules

There are some circumstances where government officials are allowed to block people from commenting on their social media pages, the Supreme Court ruled Friday.

According to the Supreme Court, the key question is whether officials are speaking as private individuals or on behalf of the state when posting online. Issuing two opinions, the Supreme Court declined to set a clear standard for when personal social media use constitutes state speech, leaving each unique case to be decided by lower courts.

Instead, SCOTUS provided a test for courts to decide first if someone is or isn’t speaking on behalf of the state on their social media pages, and then if they actually have authority to act on what they post online.

The ruling suggests that government officials can block people from commenting on personal social media pages where they discuss official business when that speech cannot be attributed to the state and merely reflects personal remarks. This means that blocking is acceptable when the official has no authority to speak for the state or exercise that authority when speaking on their page.

That authority empowering officials to speak for the state could be granted by a written law. It could also be granted informally if officials have long used social media to speak on behalf of the state to the point where their power to do so is considered “well-settled,” one SCOTUS ruling said.

SCOTUS broke it down like this: An official might be viewed as speaking for the state if the social media page is managed by the official’s office, if a city employee posts on their behalf to their personal page, or if the page is handed down from one official to another when terms in office end.

Posting on a personal page might also be considered speaking for the state if the information shared has not already been shared elsewhere.

Examples of officials clearly speaking on behalf of the state include a mayor holding a city council meeting online or an official using their personal page as an official channel for comments on proposed regulations.

Because SCOTUS did not set a clear standard, officials risk liability when blocking followers on so-called “mixed use” social media pages, SCOTUS cautioned. That liability could be diminished by keeping personal pages entirely separate or by posting a disclaimer stating that posts represent only officials’ personal views and not efforts to speak on behalf of the state. But any official using a personal page to make official comments could expose themselves to liability, even with a disclaimer.

SCOTUS test for when blocking is OK

These clarifications came in two SCOTUS opinions addressing conflicting outcomes in two separate complaints about officials in California and Michigan who blocked followers heavily criticizing them on Facebook and X. The lower courts’ decisions have been vacated, and courts must now apply the Supreme Court’s test to issue new decisions in each case.

One opinion was brief and unsigned, discussing a case where California parents sued school district board members who blocked them from commenting on public Twitter pages used for campaigning and discussing board issues. The board members claimed they blocked their followers after the parents left dozens and sometimes hundreds of the same exact comments on tweets.

In the second—which was unanimous, with no dissenting opinions—Justice Amy Coney Barrett responded at length to a case from a Facebook user named Kevin Lindke. This opinion provides varied guidance that courts can apply when considering whether blocking is appropriate or violating constituents’ First Amendment rights.

Lindke was blocked by a Michigan city manager, James Freed, after leaving comments criticizing the city’s response to COVID-19 on a page that Freed created as a college student, sometime before 2008. Among these comments, Lindke called the city’s pandemic response “abysmal” and told Freed that “the city deserves better.” On a post showing Freed picking up a takeout order, Lindke complained that residents were “suffering,” while Freed ate at expensive restaurants.

After Freed hit 5,000 followers, he converted the page to reflect his public figure status. But while he primarily still used the page for personal posts about his family and always managed the page himself, the page went into murkier territory when he also shared updates about his job as city manager. Those updates included sharing updates on city efforts, posting screenshots of city press releases, and soliciting public feedback, like sharing links to city surveys.

Public officials can block haters—but only sometimes, SCOTUS rules Read More »

judge-mocks-x-for-“vapid”-argument-in-musk’s-hate-speech-lawsuit

Judge mocks X for “vapid” argument in Musk’s hate speech lawsuit

censorship, center for countering digital hate, defamation, elon musk, hate speech, online censorship, online hate speech, Policy, Twitter, X / /
Judge mocks X for “vapid” argument in Musk’s hate speech lawsuit

It looks like Elon Musk may lose X’s lawsuit against hate speech researchers who encouraged a major brand boycott after flagging ads appearing next to extremist content on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

X is trying to argue that the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) violated the site’s terms of service and illegally accessed non-public data to conduct its reporting, allegedly posing a security risk for X. The boycott, X alleged, cost the company tens of millions of dollars by spooking advertisers, while X contends that the CCDH’s reporting is misleading and ads are rarely served on extremist content.

But at a hearing Thursday, US district judge Charles Breyer told the CCDH that he would consider dismissing X’s lawsuit, repeatedly appearing to mock X’s decision to file it in the first place.

Seemingly skeptical of X’s entire argument, Breyer appeared particularly focused on how X intended to prove that the CCDH could have known that its reporting would trigger such substantial financial losses, as the lawsuit hinges on whether the alleged damages were “foreseeable,” NPR reported.

X’s lawyer, Jon Hawk, argued that when the CCDH joined Twitter in 2019, the group agreed to terms of service that noted those terms could change. So when Musk purchased Twitter and updated rules to reinstate accounts spreading hate speech, the CCDH should have been able to foresee those changes in terms and therefore anticipate that any reporting on spikes in hate speech would cause financial losses.

According to CNN, this is where Breyer became frustrated, telling Hawk, “I’m trying to figure out in my mind how that’s possibly true, because I don’t think it is.”

“What you have to tell me is, why is it foreseeable?” Breyer said. “That they should have understood that, at the time they entered the terms of service, that Twitter would then change its policy and allow this type of material to be disseminated?

“That, of course, reduces foreseeability to one of the most vapid extensions of law I’ve ever heard,” Breyer added. “‘Oh, what’s foreseeable is that things can change, and therefore, if there’s a change, it’s ‘foreseeable.’ I mean, that argument is truly remarkable.”

According to NPR, Breyer suggested that X was trying to “shoehorn” its legal theory by using language from a breach of contract claim, when what the company actually appeared to be alleging was defamation.

“You could’ve brought a defamation case; you didn’t bring a defamation case,” Breyer said. “And that’s significant.”

Breyer directly noted that one reason why X might not bring a defamation suit was if the CCDH’s reporting was accurate, NPR reported.

CCDH’s CEO and founder, Imran Ahmed, provided a statement to Ars, confirming that the group is “very pleased with how yesterday’s argument went, including many of the questions and comments from the court.”

“We remain confident in the strength of our arguments for dismissal,” Ahmed said.

Judge mocks X for “vapid” argument in Musk’s hate speech lawsuit Read More »

eu-accuses-tiktok-of-failing-to-stop-kids-pretending-to-be-adults

EU accuses TikTok of failing to stop kids pretending to be adults

child safety, default settings, Digital Services Act, DSA, European Commission, European Union, online child safety, Online Privacy, Policy, push notifications, Social Media, tiktok, Twitter, X / /

Getting TikTok’s priorities straight —

TikTok becomes the second platform suspected of Digital Services Act breaches.

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EU accuses TikTok of failing to stop kids pretending to be adults

The European Commission (EC) is concerned that TikTok isn’t doing enough to protect kids, alleging that the short-video app may be sending kids down rabbit holes of harmful content while making it easy for kids to pretend to be adults and avoid the protective content filters that do exist.

The allegations came Monday when the EC announced a formal investigation into how TikTok may be breaching the Digital Services Act (DSA) “in areas linked to the protection of minors, advertising transparency, data access for researchers, as well as the risk management of addictive design and harmful content.”

“We must spare no effort to protect our children,” Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for Internal Market, said in the press release, reiterating that the “protection of minors is a top enforcement priority for the DSA.”

This makes TikTok the second platform investigated for possible DSA breaches after X (aka Twitter) came under fire last December. Both are being scrutinized after submitting transparency reports in September that the EC said failed to satisfy the DSA’s strict standards on predictable things like not providing enough advertising transparency or data access for researchers.

But while X is additionally being investigated over alleged dark patterns and disinformation—following accusations last October that X wasn’t stopping the spread of Israel/Hamas disinformation—it’s TikTok’s young user base that appears to be the focus of the EC’s probe into its platform.

“As a platform that reaches millions of children and teenagers, TikTok must fully comply with the DSA and has a particular role to play in the protection of minors online,” Breton said. “We are launching this formal infringement proceeding today to ensure that proportionate action is taken to protect the physical and emotional well-being of young Europeans.”

Likely over the coming months, the EC will request more information from TikTok, picking apart its DSA transparency report. The probe could require interviews with TikTok staff or inspections of TikTok’s offices.

Upon concluding its investigation, the EC could require TikTok to take interim measures to fix any issues that are flagged. The Commission could also make a decision regarding non-compliance, potentially subjecting TikTok to fines of up to 6 percent of its global turnover.

An EC press officer, Thomas Regnier, told Ars that the Commission suspected that TikTok “has not diligently conducted” risk assessments to properly maintain mitigation efforts protecting “the physical and mental well-being of their users, and the rights of the child.”

In particular, its algorithm may risk “stimulating addictive behavior,” and its recommender systems “might drag its users, in particular minors and vulnerable users, into a so-called ‘rabbit hole’ of repetitive harmful content,” Regnier told Ars. Further, TikTok’s age verification system may be subpar, with the EU alleging that TikTok perhaps “failed to diligently assess the risk of 13-17-year-olds pretending to be adults when accessing TikTok,” Regnier said.

To better protect TikTok’s young users, the EU’s investigation could force TikTok to update its age-verification system and overhaul its default privacy, safety, and security settings for minors.

“In particular, the Commission suspects that the default settings of TikTok’s recommender systems do not ensure a high level of privacy, security, and safety of minors,” Regnier said. “The Commission also suspects that the default privacy settings that TikTok has for 16-17-year-olds are not the highest by default, which would not be compliant with the DSA, and that push notifications are, by default, not switched off for minors, which could negatively impact children’s safety.”

TikTok could avoid steep fines by committing to remedies recommended by the EC at the conclusion of its investigation.

Regnier told Ars that the EC does not comment on ongoing investigations, but its probe into X has spanned three months so far. Because the DSA does not provide any deadlines that may speed up these kinds of enforcement proceedings, ultimately, the duration of both investigations will depend on how much “the company concerned cooperates,” the EU’s press release said.

A TikTok spokesperson told Ars that TikTok “would continue to work with experts and the industry to keep young people on its platform safe,” confirming that the company “looked forward to explaining this work in detail to the European Commission.”

“TikTok has pioneered features and settings to protect teens and keep under-13s off the platform, issues the whole industry is grappling with,” TikTok’s spokesperson said.

All online platforms are now required to comply with the DSA, but enforcement on TikTok began near the end of July 2023. A TikTok press release last August promised that the platform would be “embracing” the DSA. But in its transparency report, submitted the next month, TikTok acknowledged that the report only covered “one month of metrics” and may not satisfy DSA standards.

“We still have more work to do,” TikTok’s report said, promising that “we are working hard to address these points ahead of our next DSA transparency report.”

EU accuses TikTok of failing to stop kids pretending to be adults Read More »

elon-musk’s-x-allows-china-based-propaganda-banned-on-other-platforms

Elon Musk’s X allows China-based propaganda banned on other platforms

AI, Artificial Intelligence, disinformation, election integrity, election misinformation, elon musk, generative ai, Google, Meta, openai, Policy, Social Media, tiktok, Twitter, X / /

Rinse-wash-repeat. —

X accused of overlooking propaganda flagged by Meta and criminal prosecutors.

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Elon Musk’s X allows China-based propaganda banned on other platforms

Lax content moderation on X (aka Twitter) has disrupted coordinated efforts between social media companies and law enforcement to tamp down on “propaganda accounts controlled by foreign entities aiming to influence US politics,” The Washington Post reported.

Now propaganda is “flourishing” on X, The Post said, while other social media companies are stuck in endless cycles, watching some of the propaganda that they block proliferate on X, then inevitably spread back to their platforms.

Meta, Google, and then-Twitter began coordinating takedown efforts with law enforcement and disinformation researchers after Russian-backed influence campaigns manipulated their platforms in hopes of swaying the 2016 US presidential election.

The next year, all three companies promised Congress to work tirelessly to stop Russian-backed propaganda from spreading on their platforms. The companies created explicit election misinformation policies and began meeting biweekly to compare notes on propaganda networks each platform uncovered, according to The Post’s interviews with anonymous sources who participated in these meetings.

However, after Elon Musk purchased Twitter and rebranded the company as X, his company withdrew from the alliance in May 2023.

Sources told The Post that the last X meeting attendee was Irish intelligence expert Aaron Rodericks—who was allegedly disciplined for liking an X post calling Musk “a dipshit.” Rodericks was subsequently laid off when Musk dismissed the entire election integrity team last September, and after that, X apparently ditched the biweekly meeting entirely and “just kind of disappeared,” a source told The Post.

In 2023, for example, Meta flagged 150 “artificial influence accounts” identified on its platform, of which “136 were still present on X as of Thursday evening,” according to The Post’s analysis. X’s seeming oversight extends to all but eight of the 123 “deceptive China-based campaigns” connected to accounts that Meta flagged last May, August, and December, The Post reported.

The Post’s report also provided an exclusive analysis from the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), which found that 86 propaganda accounts that Meta flagged last November “are still active on X.”

The majority of these accounts—81—were China-based accounts posing as Americans, SIO reported. These accounts frequently ripped photos from Americans’ LinkedIn profiles, then changed the real Americans’ names while posting about both China and US politics, as well as people often trending on X, such as Musk and Joe Biden.

Meta has warned that China-based influence campaigns are “multiplying,” The Post noted, while X’s standards remain seemingly too relaxed. Even accounts linked to criminal investigations remain active on X. One “account that is accused of being run by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security,” The Post reported, remains on X despite its posts being cited by US prosecutors in a criminal complaint.

Prosecutors connected that account to “dozens” of X accounts attempting to “shape public perceptions” about the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government, and other world leaders. The accounts also comment on hot-button topics like the fentanyl problem or police brutality, seemingly to convey “a sense of dismay over the state of America without any clear partisan bent,” Elise Thomas, an analyst for a London nonprofit called the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told The Post.

Some X accounts flagged by The Post had more than 1 million followers. Five have paid X for verification, suggesting that their disinformation campaigns—targeting hashtags to confound discourse on US politics—are seemingly being boosted by X.

SIO technical research manager Renée DiResta criticized X’s decision to stop coordinating with other platforms.

“The presence of these accounts reinforces the fact that state actors continue to try to influence US politics by masquerading as media and fellow Americans,” DiResta told The Post. “Ahead of the 2022 midterms, researchers and platform integrity teams were collaborating to disrupt foreign influence efforts. That collaboration seems to have ground to a halt, Twitter does not seem to be addressing even networks identified by its peers, and that’s not great.”

Musk shut down X’s election integrity team because he claimed that the team was actually “undermining” election integrity. But analysts are bracing for floods of misinformation to sway 2024 elections, as some major platforms have removed election misinformation policies just as rapid advances in AI technologies have made misinformation spread via text, images, audio, and video harder for the average person to detect.

In one prominent example, a fake robocaller relied on AI voice technology to pose as Biden to tell Democrats not to vote. That incident seemingly pushed the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday to propose penalizing AI impersonation.

It seems apparent that propaganda accounts from foreign entities on X will use every tool available to get eyes on their content, perhaps expecting Musk’s platform to be the slowest to police them. According to The Post, some of the X accounts spreading propaganda are using what appears to be AI-generated images of Biden and Donald Trump to garner tens of thousands of views on posts.

It’s possible that X will start tightening up on content moderation as elections draw closer. Yesterday, X joined Amazon, Google, Meta, OpenAI, TikTok, and other Big Tech companies in signing an agreement to fight “deceptive use of AI” during 2024 elections. Among the top goals identified in the “AI Elections accord” are identifying where propaganda originates, detecting how propaganda spreads across platforms, and “undertaking collective efforts to evaluate and learn from the experiences and outcomes of dealing” with propaganda.

Elon Musk’s X allows China-based propaganda banned on other platforms Read More »

amc-to-pay-$8m-for-allegedly-violating-1988-law-with-use-of-meta-pixel

AMC to pay $8M for allegedly violating 1988 law with use of Meta Pixel

AMC, facebook, free speech, Google, hidive, Meta, Online Privacy, Policy, shudder, streaming services, sundancenow, Twitter, video privacy protection act, vppa, X / /

Stream like no one is watching —

Proposed settlement impacts millions using AMC apps like Shudder and AMC+.

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AMC to pay $8M for allegedly violating 1988 law with use of Meta Pixel

On Thursday, AMC notified subscribers of a proposed $8.3 million settlement that provides awards to an estimated 6 million subscribers of its six streaming services: AMC+, Shudder, Acorn TV, ALLBLK, SundanceNow, and HIDIVE.

The settlement comes in response to allegations that AMC illegally shared subscribers’ viewing history with tech companies like Google, Facebook, and X (aka Twitter) in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA).

Passed in 1988, the VPPA prohibits AMC and other video service providers from sharing “information which identifies a person as having requested or obtained specific video materials or services from a video tape service provider.” It was originally passed to protect individuals’ right to private viewing habits, after a journalist published the mostly unrevealing video rental history of a judge, Robert Bork, who had been nominated to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan.

The so-called “Bork Tapes” revealed little—other than that the judge frequently rented spy thrillers and British costume dramas—but lawmakers recognized that speech could be chilled by monitoring anyone’s viewing habits. While the law was born in the era of Blockbuster Video, subscribers suing AMC wrote in their amended complaint that “the importance of legislation like the VPPA in the modern era of datamining is more pronounced than ever before.”

According to subscribers suing, AMC allegedly installed tracking technologies—including the Meta Pixel, the X Tracking Pixel, and Google Tracking Technology—on its website, allowing their personally identifying information to be connected with their viewing history.

Some trackers, like the Meta Pixel, required AMC to choose what kind of activity can be tracked, and subscribers claimed that AMC had willingly opted into sharing video names and URLs with Meta, along with a Facebook ID. “Anyone” could use the Facebook ID, subscribers said, to identify the AMC subscribers “simply by entering https://www.facebook.com/[unencrypted FID]/” into a browser.

X’s ID could similarly be de-anonymized, subscribers alleged, by using tweeterid.com.

AMC “could easily program its AMC Services websites so that this information is not disclosed” to tech companies, subscribers alleged.

Denying wrongdoing, AMC has defended its use of tracking technologies but is proposing to settle with subscribers to avoid uncertain outcomes from litigation, the proposed settlement said.

A hearing to approve the proposed settlement has been scheduled for May 16.

If it’s approved, AMC has agreed to “suspend, remove, or modify operation of the Meta Pixel and other Third-Party Tracking Technologies so that use of such technologies on AMC Services will not result in AMC’s disclosure to the third-party technology companies of the specific video content requested or obtained by a specific individual.”

Google and X did not immediately respond to Ars’ request to comment. Meta declined to comment.

All registered users of AMC services who “requested or obtained video content on at least one of the six AMC services” between January 18, 2021, and January 10, 2024, are currently eligible to submit claims under the proposed settlement. The deadline to submit is April 9.

In addition to distributing the $8.3 million settlement fund among class members, subscribers will receive a free one-week digital subscription.

According to AMC’s notice to subscribers (full disclosure, I am one), AMC’s agreement to avoid sharing subscribers’ viewing histories may change if the VPPA is amended, repealed, or invalidated. If the law changes to permit sharing viewing data at the core of subscribers’ claim, AMC may resume sharing that information with tech companies.

That day could come soon if Patreon has its way. Recently, Patreon asked a federal judge to rule that the VPPA is unconstitutional.

Patreon’s lawsuit is similar in its use of the Meta Pixel, allegedly violating the VPPA by sharing video views on its platform with Meta.

Patreon has argued that the VPPA is unconstitutional because it chills speech. Patreon said that the law was enacted “for the express purpose of silencing disclosures about political figures and their video-watching, an issue of undisputed continuing public interest and concern.”

According to Patreon, the VPPA narrowly prohibits video service providers from sharing video titles, but not from sharing information that people may wish to keep private, such as “the genres, performers, directors, political views, sexual content, and every other detail of pre-recorded video that those consumers watch.”

Therefore, Patreon argued, the VPPA “restrains speech” while “doing little if anything to protect privacy” and never protecting privacy “by the least restrictive means.”

That lawsuit remains ongoing, but Patreon’s position is likely to be met with opposition from experts who typically also defend freedom of speech. Experts at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, like AMC subscribers suing, consider the VPPA one of America’s “strongest protections of consumer privacy against a specific form of data collection.” And the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has already moved to convince the court to reject Patreon’s claim, describing the VPPA in a blog as an “essential” privacy protection.

“EFF is second to none in fighting for everyone’s First Amendment rights in court,” EFF’s blog said. “But Patreon’s First Amendment argument is wrong and misguided. The company seeks to elevate its speech interests over those of Internet users who benefit from the VPPA’s protections.”

AMC to pay $8M for allegedly violating 1988 law with use of Meta Pixel Read More »

bluesky-finally-gets-rid-of-invite-codes,-lets-everyone-join

Bluesky finally gets rid of invite codes, lets everyone join

at protocol, bluesky, content moderation, decentralized social media, elon musk, federation, Jack Dorsey, Policy, social media app, Twitter, X / /
Bluesky finally gets rid of invite codes, lets everyone join

After more than a year as an exclusive invite-only social media platform, Bluesky is now open to the public, so anyone can join without needing a once-coveted invite code.

In a blog, Bluesky said that requiring invite codes helped Bluesky “manage growth” while building features that allow users to control what content they see on the social platform.

When Bluesky debuted, many viewed it as a potential Twitter killer, but limited access to Bluesky may have weakened momentum. As of January 2024, Bluesky has more than 3 million users. That’s significantly less than X (formerly Twitter), which estimates suggest currently boasts more than 400 million global users.

But Bluesky CEO Jay Graber wrote in a blog last April that the app needed time because its goal was to piece together a new kind of social network built on its own decentralized protocol, AT Protocol. This technology allows users to freely port their social media accounts to different social platforms—including followers—rather than being locked into walled-off experiences on a platform owned by “a single company” like Meta’s Threads.

Perhaps most critically, the team wanted time to build out content moderation features before opening Bluesky to the masses to “prioritize user safety from the start.”

Bluesky plans to take a threefold approach to content moderation. The first layer is automated filtering that removes illegal, harmful content like child sexual abuse materials. Beyond that, Bluesky will soon give users extra layers of protection, including community labels and options to enable admins running servers to filter content manually.

Labeling services will be rolled out “in the coming weeks,” the blog said. These labels will make it possible for individuals or organizations to run their own moderation services, such as a trusted fact-checking organization. Users who trust these sources can subscribe to labeling services that filter out or appropriately label different types of content, like “spam” or “NSFW.”

“The human-generated label sets can be thought of as something similar to shared mute/block lists,” Bluesky explained last year.

Currently, Bluesky is recruiting partners for labeling services and did not immediately respond to Ars’ request to comment on any initial partnerships already formed.

It appears that Bluesky is hoping to bring in new users while introducing some of its flashiest features. Within the next month, Bluesky will also “be rolling out an experimental early version of ‘federation,’ or the feature that makes the network so open and customizable,” the blog said. The sales pitch is simple:

On Bluesky, you’ll have the freedom to choose (and the right to leave) instead of being held to the whims of private companies or black box algorithms. And wherever you go, your friends and relationships can go with you.

Developers interested in experimenting with the earliest version of AT Protocol can start testing out self-hosting servers now.

In addition to allowing users to customize content moderation, Bluesky also provides ways to customize feeds. Anyone joining will be defaulted to only see posts from users they follow, but they can also set up filters to discover content they enjoy without relying on a company’s algorithm to learn what interests them.

Bluesky users who sat on invite codes over the past year have joked about their uselessness now, with some designating themselves as legacy users. Seeming to reference Twitter’s once-coveted blue checks, one Bluesky user responding to a post from Graber joked, “When does everyone from the invite-only days get their Bluesky Elder profile badge?”

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Elon Musk drops price of X gold checks amid rampant crypto scams

cloudsek, Cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency scam, cyber threat analysts, elon musk, Ethereum, Google, hacker, Mandiant, NFTs, phishing scam, Policy, Twitter, X / /
Elon Musk drops price of X gold checks amid rampant crypto scams

There’s currently a surge in cryptocurrency and phishing scams proliferating on X (formerly Twitter)—hiding under the guise of gold and gray checkmarks intended to mark “Verified Organizations,” reports have warned this week.

These scams seem to mostly commandeer dormant X accounts purchased online through dark web marketplaces, according to a whitepaper released by the digital threat monitoring platform CloudSEK. But the scams have also targeted high-profile X users who claim that they had enhanced security measures in place to protect against these hacks.

This suggests that X scammers are growing more sophisticated at a time when X has launched an effort to sell even more gold checks at lower prices through a basic tier announced this week.

Most recently, the cyber threat intelligence company Mandiant—which is a subsidiary of Google—confirmed its X account was hijacked despite enabling two-factor authentication. According to Bleeping Computer, the hackers used Mandiant’s account to “distribute a fake airdrop that emptied cryptocurrency wallets.”

A Google spokesperson declined to comment on how many users may have been scammed, but Mandiant is investigating and promised to share results when its probe concludes.

In September, a similar fate befell Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who had his account hijacked by hackers. The bad actors posted a fake offer for free non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with a link to a fake website designed to empty cryptocurrency wallets. The post was only up for about 20 minutes but drained $691,000 in digital assets from Buterin’s unsuspecting followers, according to CloudSEK’s research.

Another group monitoring cryptocurrency and phishing scams linked to X accounts is MalwareHunterTeam (MHT), Bleeping Computer reported. This week, MHT has flagged additional scams targeting politicians’ accounts, including a Canadian senator, Amina Gerba, and a Brazilian politician, Ubiratan Sanderson.

On X, gold ticks are supposed to reassure users that an account can be trusted by designating that an account is affiliated with an official organization or company. Gray ticks signify an account is linked to government organizations. CloudSEK estimated that hijacked gold and gray checks could be sold online for between $1,200 to $2,000, depending on how old the account is or how many followers it has. Bad actors can also buy accounts affiliated with gold accounts for $500 each.

A CloudSEK spokesperson told Ars that its team is “in the process of reporting the matter” to X.

X did not immediately respond to Ars’ request to comment.

CloudSEK predicted that scams involving gold checks would continue to be a problem so long as selling gold and gray checks remains profitable.

“It is evident that threat actors would not budge from such profit-making businesses anytime soon,” CloudSEK’s whitepaper said.

For organizations seeking to avoid being targeted by hackers on X, CloudSEK recommends strengthening brand monitoring on the platform, enhancing security settings, and closing out any dormant accounts. It’s also wise for organizations to cease storing passwords in a browser, and instead use a password manager that’s less vulnerable to malware attacks, CloudSEK said. Organizations on X may also want to monitor activity on any apps that become connected to X, Bleeping Computer advised.

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Elon Musk told bankers they wouldn’t lose any money on Twitter purchase

elon musk, Policy, syndication, Twitter, X / /

Value destruction —

Lenders unlikely to get even 60 cents on the dollar for the bonds and loans.

–

Elon Musk and a twitter logo

Elon Musk privately told some of the bankers who lent him $13 billion to fund his leveraged buyout of Twitter that they would not lose any money on the deal, according to five people familiar with the matter.

The verbal guarantees were made by Musk to banks as a way to reassure the lenders as the value of the social media site, now rebranded as X, fell sharply after he completed the acquisition last year.

Despite the assurances, the seven banks that lent money to the billionaire for his buyout—Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, MUFG, BNP Paribas, Mizuho and Société Générale—are facing serious losses on the debt if and when they eventually sell it.

The sources did not specify when Musk’s assurances were made, although one noted Musk had made them on several occasions. But the billionaire’s behavior, both in attempting to back out of the takeover in 2022 and more recently in alienating advertisers, has more broadly stymied the banks’ efforts to offload the debt since he engineered the takeover.

Large hedge funds and credit investors on Wall Street held conversations with the banks late last year, offering to buy the senior-most portion of the debt at roughly 65 cents on the dollar. But in recent interviews with the Financial Times, several said there was no price at which they would buy the bonds and loans, given their inability to gauge whether Linda Yaccarino, X’s chief executive, could turn the business around.

One multibillion-dollar firm that specializes in distressed debt called X’s debt “uninvestable.”

Selling the $12.5 billion of bonds and loans below 60 cents on the dollar—a price many investors believe the banks would be lucky to achieve in the current market—would imply losses before accounting for X’s interest payments of $4 billion or more, writedowns that have not yet been publicly reported by the syndicate of lenders, according to FT calculations. The debt is split between $6.5 billion of term loans, as well as $6 billion of senior and junior bonds and a $500 million revolver.

Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, MUFG, BNP Paribas, Mizuho and Société Générale declined to comment. A spokesperson for X declined to comment. Musk did not return a request for comment.

The banks have held the debt on their balance sheets instead of selling at a steep loss in the hope that X’s performance will improve following a series of cost-cutting measures. Several people involved in the transaction noted that there was no plan to sell the debt imminently, with one saying there was no guarantee the banks would be able to offload the debt even in 2024.

The people involved in the deal cautioned that Musk’s guarantee was not based on any formal contract. One said they understood it as a boastful statement that the entrepreneur had never let his lenders down.

“I have never lost money for those who invest in me and I am not starting now,” he told Axios earlier this month, when asked about a separate fundraising push by his company X.ai Corp.

Some on Wall Street view Musk’s personal guarantees with skepticism, given that he tried to back out of his agreement to buy Twitter despite a watertight contract, before relenting.

Nevertheless, the guarantee from a man whose net worth Forbes pegs at about $243 billion has helped some of the bankers make the pitch to their internal committees that they can ascribe a higher price to the debt while they hold it on their balance sheets.

Morgan Stanley, the largest lender on the deal, in January disclosed $356 million in mark-to-market losses on corporate loans it planned to sell and loan hedges. Banks rarely report specific losses tied to an individual bond or loan, and often report write-downs of multiple deals together.

Wall Street was saddled with the Twitter buyout loan at the same time they were holding a smattering of other hung bridge loans—deals they were forced to fund themselves after failing to raise cash in public bond and loan markets. The FT has previously reported on large losses tied to other hung loans at the time, including the buyouts of technology company Citrix and television rating provider Nielsen.

How the debt has been marked on bank balance sheets has been an open question for traders and investors across Wall Street, given how much X’s business has deteriorated since Musk bought the company.

Musk, already out of favor with marketers for loosening content moderation, last month lost more advertisers after endorsing an antisemitic post. In November he followed by telling brands that were boycotting the business over his actions to “go fuck” themselves, criticizing Disney’s Bob Iger in particular.

According to a report last week from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, in November 2023 total US ad spend among the top 100 advertisers on X was down nearly 45 percent compared with October 2022, prior to Musk’s takeover.

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