Jun 10, 2022
Congress makes progress on federal privacy law
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced a privacy bill last week that some observers including the Washington Post say faces a steep uphill battle. But the bill would require companies that use your data to only collect that data which is necessary for their businesses to function properly. It also proposes a number of other things such as a requirement for the Federal Trade Commission to keep a database of data brokers.
Amazon may have to pay for work-from-home equipment
A federal judge denied Amazon’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a California engineer who works for the company from home. The employee brought a class-action lawsuit against Amazon for failing to reimburse him for equipment and internet service required to carry out job-related duties. The case now heads to trial in California.
Family sues Meta for daughter’s self-harm, eating disorder
Remember the Facebook papers? that trove of documents company whistleblower Frances Haugen released last year showing that Facebook knew it was harming the self-esteem of young girls and continued doing it anyway? Well, the family of a 19 year old young woman is now suing Meta in the Northern District of California saying the company turned her daughter from a bright and happy child into one that has engaged in self-harm and been hospitalized for depression.
YouTube proves you can train AI to spew out hate speech automatically by feeding it 4Chan posts
A YouTuber ran an experiment training an algorithm on typical 4Chan posts spewing hate speech. For those who don’t know, 4Chan is a public bulletin board where anyone can make posts anonymously. 4Chan is known for its users’ racist, sexist, and nihilistic posts. So YouTuber and AI researcher Yannic Kilcher took 3.3 million 4Chan threads and fed them into an algorithm. He then set the algorithm to start posting on 4Chan, and lo and behold, the algorithm produced vile posts of its own. The research is important because it suggests that any bad actor can set an algorithm to post fake or misleading information by simply using a single algorithm.
Republicans jump behind Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter
Republicans jumped in to defend Elon Musk in his accusations that Twitter was attempting to thwart his $44 billion offer to buy the platform. Musk argued that Twitter was refusing to provide important documentation about bots on the platform. Texas AG Ken Paxton then launched an investigation into whether Twitter was using unlawful means to obstruct the deal. Twitter ended up granting Musk access to the information he requested, while arguing that Musk’s accusations about bots was simply a pretext to back out of the deal. Since Musk officially announced his plan to purchase the platform back in May, conservatives have rejoined the platform in droves.
Feds to investigate Tesla’s autopilot crashes
There’s a reason why you keep see ing Tesla’s bashed apart. It’s because the autopilot feature isn’t working properly in many of these vehicles, and it’s causing the cars to crash into stationary vehicles, including police cars. That’s according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has stepped up the probe it began conducting into Tesla’s autopilot feature last year.