TikTok removes Russian state media accounts, Telegram agrees to hand over data
TikTok has said it has removed accounts associated with Russian state media for “engaging in covert influence operations”. It’s part of the site’s efforts to prevent disinformation in the run up to November’s US presidential election. Accounts affected are those from media group Rossiya Segodnya, which owns the RIA Novosti and Sputnik news services; and TV-Novosti, the parent body of the RT news channel. TikTok said the accounts were previously restricted in the UK and EU, and that their worldwide content was marked as state-controlled media. Sky News
Social media owners, politicians and governments are the biggest threats to a trustworthy online news environment, according to an expert group studying misinformation whose work is modelled on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) said owners of social media platforms topped a survey of concerns, followed by domestic and foreign governments and politicians. The Guardian
The messaging app Telegram has said it will hand over users’ IP addresses and phone numbers to authorities who have search warrants or other valid legal requests. The change to its terms of service and privacy policy “should discourage criminals”, CEO Pavel Durov said in a Telegram post on Monday. “While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk,” he continued. BBC
OpenAI has claimed that creating ChatGPT would have been impossible without using copyrighted works. LinkedIn is using user resumes to polish up its artificial intelligence model. And Snapchat says if you use a certain AI feature, it might put your face in an ad. These days, people’s social media posts — not just what they write, even their images — are increasingly being used by companies for and with their AI systems, whether they realize it or not. CNN
The Samsung Galaxy Ring has barely been out for two months at the time of writing, but it’s already been lauded as one of the best smart rings, and new models are allegedly already in the pipeline. Up until now, Samsung has made Samsung Galaxy Rings ranging between US ring sizes 5, its smallest option, and US ring size 13. However, two more rings are on the way, sized for larger fingers (US ring sizes 14 and 15) according to a recent post on X by All About Samsung blogger and leaker Max Jambor, from Germany. Tech Radar
Elon Musk is facing a backlash after announcing that the block button on X (fomerly Twitter) will no longer prevent people from viewing posts. The billionaire, who took over the social media app in 2022, said the update was long overdue, having previously claimed that the feature “makes no sense” and should be removed entirely. “High time this happened,” Mr Musk wrote on X. “The block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public post.” Independent
Nintendo has submitted a mysterious new wireless device to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this weekend, and it isn’t the Switch 2 console we’re expecting to be revealed before next April. The CLO-001 model number doesn’t reveal what it actually is, but it appears to be an entirely new product line given the “001” codes used on devices like the original Switch (HAC-001) and DS (NTR-001) consoles. It’s tagged only as a “wireless device,” not a “wireless game console” or any kind of controller like a Joy-Con. The Verge
