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  Is the new Twitter just like the old?

  Life, James Hein, Published on 01/02/2023

  » The Twitter situation is complex and somewhat confusing. On the one hand, all kinds of people from The Babylon Bee satirical website to former US president Donald Trump have been allowed back on the platform. The stated aim is to allow freedom of speech to be supported by Twitter once again. On the other hand, you can be banned by linking to a public photo of a public person on a public platform. The rule for the latter appears to only be for friends of Elon Musk. A YouTube channel I enjoy watching, The Quartering, did this after someone else had been banned and was also almost instantly banned himself. This is of course wrong in every respect especially given the individual in question, apparently now hypocritically, is always banging on about freedom of speech. Update, the ban is permanent.

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  YouTube ramps up ads, moderation

  Life, James Hein, Published on 01/03/2023

  » If this was a YouTube video you would have to sit through up to 30 seconds of ads before you could even start. YouTube seems to be stepping up its advertising while at the same time providing less service. I still use it because it has things I'm interested in, like Chinese martial arts series and info on music products I like. If I'd written this using ChatGPT you would not see some of the material because the trust and safety filters on the AI product have repeatedly been found to be biased towards the US political left in the content it will return. Some people associated with ChatGPT have acknowledged this but it remains to be seen if anything will change.

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  X lifts ban on Taylor Swift searches

  Reuters, Published on 30/01/2024

  » BENGALURU - Social-media company X lifted the ban on searches for Taylor Swift Monday evening, after blocking users from searching for her following the spread of fake sexually explicit images of the pop singer on the social media site last week.

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  Apple to appeal US watch ban

  AFP, Published on 27/12/2023

  » WASHINGTON - Apple said on Tuesday it will appeal a US ban on its latest smartwatch models after the Joe Biden administration opted to not veto a ruling on patent infringements.

• TECH

  AI is causing concern again

  Life, James Hein, Published on 06/12/2023

  » There have been two big stories in the IT world over the past couple of weeks. The biggest one concerns OpenAI and its three-day boardroom drama. In a nutshell, the board voted Sam Altman and other members out of the company. The next day, Microsoft picked them up and anyone else who wanted to head over to a new division. That same day, 700-plus employees of OpenAI signed a letter saying they would go if a rogue board member did not quit and bring Sam Altman back. On the third day, Sam was back and three board members were gone.

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  The new normal of AI fakes

  Life, James Hein, Published on 11/10/2023

  » Following on from my last article, consider the following scenario. You've grabbed enough clear speech of someone to make a good AI model of them. You write up some text, pass it through the model and verify that the result sounds exactly the same as that individual. This is a little different from the previous example because it's a text to speech model, but essentially the same as using one voice to change to another. You now take a speech or interview from that person, change one word that will essentially change the context, and process this.

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  YouTube hypocrisy deserves flagging

  Life, James Hein, Published on 27/09/2023

  » YouTube is behaving badly again. A prominent presenter I occasionally watch, who has millions of subscribers, has been demonetised, for some possible actions 20 years ago. This is not a commentary on potential innocence or guilt, but on YouTube's processes. There are people whose lives are supported by revenue from their presentations on YouTube. This ranges from small fries all the way up to the big fish like the one here. When an individual is demonetised they can lose the ability to support themselves. In this case allegations were made by the media, not the police or authorities, and at the time of writing there have been zero charges made. YouTube is essentially saying, bring us all your viewers so we can hit them with ads and we can make lots of money, but you will be getting nothing for your work.

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  Hong Kong's top court backs same-sex civil unions

  Published on 05/09/2023

  » HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s top court ruled on Tuesday in favour of same-sex partnerships including civil unions but stopped short of granting full marriage rights in a partial win for the territory’s LGBTQ community.

• TECH

  Social media moderators seek improved working conditions in battling toxic content

  Reuters, Published on 14/06/2023

  » BERLIN: Hundreds of social media moderators in Germany – who remove harmful content from platforms such as Facebook and TikTok – are calling on lawmakers to improve their working conditions, citing tough targets and mental health issues.

• TECH

  Teenagers resent social media and efforts to take it away

  New York Times, Published on 24/05/2023

  » NEW YORK: In Manhattan, one high school freshman said he is trying to cut down on scrolling through TikTok, but questioned whether age restrictions on social media use could ever effectively stop tech-savvy teenagers.

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