The Guardian

With so many platforms rife with racism, misogyny and far-right rhetoric, there must be a point where decent people walk away In a week during which Keir Starmer has been under pressure to resign, cabinet ministers took to X to show their support. “We’ve all been made to tweet,” one Labour figure told a political journalist. The irony is hard to escape: as the prime minister is embroiled in the s…

Move is a ‘backwards step’, company spokesperson says, amid concerns Kremlin is seeking more state control via messaging apps such as Max Russia has attempted to “fully block” WhatsApp in an attempt to push users towards its own state-sponsored communications app, Max, a spokesperson for the Meta-owned company has said. The company did not reveal more detail on what extent the attempt succeeded o…

Clive Selley, who oversaw £12bn rollout of full fibre broadband to 25m homes, will lead international division Business live – latest updates The head of BT’s infrastructure arm Openreach is to step down after almost a decade, having almost completed a £12bn rollout of full fibre broadband to 25m homes. Clive Selley, who was tasked by former BT chief Philip Jansen to “build like fury” to address …

Cyber-espionage campaigns are targeting employees directly, including through hiring processes, report claims Defence companies, their hiring processes and their employees have become a key target of state-sponsored cyber-espionage campaigns, according to a report from Google released before the Munich Security Conference. The report catalogues a “relentless barrage of cyber operations”, most by …

The technologies include facial recognition tools used on Uyghurs in western China, say experts Iran’s architecture of internet control is built on technologies from China, according to an analysis published by a British human rights organisation. The report by Article 19 says the technologies include facial recognition tools used on Uyghurs in western China and a Chinese alternative to the US-ba…

Initiative aims to identify proficient gamers and coders who can help companies identify flaws in their cybersecurity Cybercriminals, the shadowy online figures often depicted in Hollywood movies as hooded villains capable of wiping millions of pounds off the value of businesses at a keystroke, are not usually known for their candour. But in a sixth-form college in Manchester this week, two forme…

Campaigners welcome criminalisation of non-consensual AI-generated explicit images but say law does not go far enough Victims of deepfake image abuse have called for stronger protection against AI-generated explicit images, as the law criminalising the creation of non-consensual intimate images comes into effect. Campaigners from Stop Image-Based Abuse delivered a petition to Downing Street with …

A number of countries including Australia are investigating X over Grok-produced sexualised deepfakes Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, says global regulatory focus on Elon Musk’s X has reached a “tipping point” after a raid of the company’s offices in France this week. The raid on Tuesday was part of an investigation that in…

Digital pinboard business cutting 15% of workforce as it invests heavily in AI Pinterest has fired two engineers who created a software tool to identify which workers had lost their jobs in a recent round of cuts and then shared the information, according to reports. The digital pinboard business announced significant job cuts earlier this month, with the chief executive, Bill Ready, telling staf…

Moves to ban under-16s from social media should raise deeper questions about who controls democracy’s digital infrastructure The last UK general election of the 20th century was also the first to anticipate, albeit faintly, the coming technological revolution. The 1997 Labour and Conservative manifestos both included pledges to connect schools to something they called “the information superhighwa…

Information Commissioner’s Office to investigate whether Elon Musk’s firms have complied with data protection law Elon Musk’s X and xAI companies are under formal investigation by the UK’s data protection watchdog after the Grok AI tool produced indecent deepfakes without people’s consent. The Information Commissioner’s Office is investigating whether the social media platform and its parent brok…

AIs are not sentient – but tweaks to their ethical codes can have far-reaching consequences for users Do you want an AI assistant that gushes about how it “loves humanity” or spews sarcasm? How about a political propagandist ready to lie? If so, ChatGPT, Grok and Qwen are at your disposal. Companies that create AI assistants from the US to China are increasingly wrestling with how to mould their …

A raft of online videos show parents serving up dinner without a single plate in sight, to the amazement of their families Name: Dump dinners. Age: Horribly new. Continue reading...

Prosecutors summon tech billionaire and ex-CEO for questioning and add Grok AI tool to investigation Europe live – latest updates Prosecutors have raided the French headquarters of Elon Musk’s social media platform X and summoned the tech billionaire and the company’s former chief executive for questioning as part of an investigation into alleged cybercrime. “A search is under way by the cybercri…

Annual review highlights growing capabilities of AI models, while examining issues from cyber-attacks to job disruption The International AI Safety report is an annual survey of technological progress and the risks it is creating across multiple areas, from deepfakes to the jobs market. Commissioned at the 2023 global AI safety summit, it is chaired by the Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengi…