EU rebukes Twitter for incomplete disinformation report
Twitter failed to provide a full report to the European Union on its efforts to combat online disinformation in accordance with the EU's voluntary 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation.
EU leaders are concerned about false information spreading on online platforms, particularly about the COVID-19 pandemic and Russian propaganda.
According to the EU, Twitter provided little specific information and no targeted data in its baseline report, which was at least half the length of those filed by other companies.
There are concerns about Twitter after Musk ended enforcement of its policy against COVID-19 misinformation and dissolved its Trust and Safety Council. Twitter's press office was also shut down and its communication team laid off after Musk bought the social media platform.
Other tech companies, including Google, TikTok, and Meta, received praise for their actions to combat disinformation.
Microsoft launches the new Bing, with AI built in
In November 2022 OpenAI released ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that has taken the web by storm, for its detailed responses and articulate answers.
Microsoft, who have invested $11 billion in OpenAI since 2019 has announced the integration of OpenAI’s latest GPT-4 into Bing for a ChatGPT-like experience within the search engine. They also launched a new version of its Edge browser with AI features built into the sidebar.
OpenAI claims that GPT-4 can provide more relevant answers, annotate these, and provide up-to-date results while providing a safer user experience compared to GPT-3, which ChatGPT uses.
The new Bing features an option to start a chat in its toolbar and can handle queries related to more recent events compared to ChatGPT which is limited to September 2021.
Bing will also prompt users with its own questions and suggest potential answers to those questions.
Twitter Blue introduces 4,000-character tweets
The Tweet character limit is up from the previous limit of 280 characters, but only for Twitter Blue
Twitter Blue is the platform’s paid tier, which offers additional features to users for a monthly fee. It is part of the company's efforts to diversify its revenue streams beyond advertising. Under Musk, blue tick verification marks were controversially rolled into Twitter Blue.
The company also plans on rolling out “half ads” to Twitter Blue subscribers in the coming weeks. "Half ads" refer to Twitter's plan to show fewer ads to its paying subscribers compared to non-paying users. Specifically, Twitter has stated that it will show one ad for every two paid tweets on Twitter Blue. This is meant to provide an ad-free or ad-light experience to Twitter Blue users as one of the perks of the paid subscription.
Rumours emerge that Meta is considering paid checkmarks
According to software “reverse engineer” Alessandro Paluzzi there’s a new mention in the codebase of both Facebook and Instagram of a ‘paid blue badge’. The developer shared a screenshot of the app’s code with TechCrunch.
With Twitter bringing in an estimated $7 million per quarter from Twitter Blue subscriptions, Meta may well be exploring this avenue given the apparent value in paid verification.
Meta has neither confirmed nor denied the project and has in the past said that it won’t charge a subscription fee to access its apps.
China is getting tough on ‘deepfakes’
Last month, China introduced first-of-its-kind regulation around ‘deepfakes’. The new rules governing deep synthesis technologies include getting user consent to produce digitally altered images and prohibiting the ‘dissemination of fake news’, reports say.
According to analysts, in a field with limited precedent, Beijing could influence how other governments deal with the machine learning and artificial intelligence that power deepfake technology, although some critics fear the measures will be used to further curtail free speech.
Susan Wojcicki stepping down as YouTube CEO
After nine years as head of the video platform, Susan Wojcicki is stepping down as YouTube’s CEO, but stated in a tweet that she will continue to work with her successor Neal Mohan during the transition - Mohan was formerly YouTube’s Chief Product Officer.
Wojcicki’s departure follows other high-profile female leaders who have left big technology companies. Earlier this week, Meta Chief Business Officer Marne Levine announced she would be leaving after 13 years at the company. Last year Sheryl Sandberg announced she was stepping down as chief operating officer after a 14-year stint at Meta.
In a post on YouTube’s blog Wojcicki stated she will take on an advisory role across Google and Alphabet at the invitation of Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO.
Wojcicki has been with Google for almost 25 years and was among the company's first 20 employees. The Washington post claims Wojcicki’s departure represents a major changing of the guard for YouTube and Google more widely.
Wojcicki oversaw tremendous growth, taking YouTube from around a billion users about a decade ago to 5 billion users worldwide currently.
During her tenure, YouTube has faced criticism over content moderation, misinformation, and child privacy.