Hate speech on X was consistently 50% higher for at least eight months after tech billionaire Elon Musk bought the social media platform, new research has found. The research looked at the prevalence of overt hate speech including a wide range of racist, homophobic and transphobic slurs. The study, published today in PLOS ONE, was… Read more »
X’s attempt to have a $600,000 fine thrown out as it was issued to its previous company name has been rejected by an Australian court, in a significant legal win for the eSafety Commissioner. Federal Court of Australia Justice Michael Wheelahan ruled on Friday that X could not wriggle out of an Australian government infringement… Read more »
Artificial intelligence (AI) has begun to permeate many facets of the human experience. AI is not just a tool for analysing data – it’s transforming the way we communicate, work and live. From ChatGP through to AI video generators, the lines between technology and parts of our lives have become increasingly blurred. But do these… Read more »
Authorities in Brazil, the country with the world’s fifth largest number of internet users, have banned the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter). The ban came into effect over the weekend. It followed a long-running battle between Elon Musk, the owner of X, and Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes who had… Read more »
The social media platform formerly known as Twitter is chasing former Australian employees for money and threatening to take them to court after mistakenly overpaying them when they were fired in 2022. Twitter, now called X by its mercurial owner, Elon Musk, who was forced to buy the platform for $61 billion in mid-2022, went… Read more »
Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) is liable for hate speech posted on its platform and is subject to local Australian law despite being based in the US, a Queensland Tribunal has found, in a judgement that potentially sets a significant precedent. The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) ruled last week that X is subject… Read more »
Elon Musk has won the latest round in his Federal Court fight with Australia’s eSafety Commissioner over demands that his social media company X (aka Twitter) remove footage of a bishop being stabbed in Sydney last month. The decision by Justice Geoffrey Kennett limits the powers of Commissioner Julie Inman Grant and the country’s Online… Read more »
Do Australian courts have the right to decide what foreign citizens, located overseas, view online on a foreign-owned platform? Anyone inclined to answer “yes” to this question should perhaps also ask themselves whether they are equally happy for courts in China, Russia and Iran to determine what Australians can see and post online in Australia.… Read more »
Demonstrably false claims and misinformation have been prominently featured on X, including by Verified users, following the Bondi Junction attack, as the social media platform again fails to grapple with a major breaking news story. Twitter was once the go-to platform for real-time, breaking news stories, often led by journalists boasting verified blue ticks. But… Read more »
Australia’s online safety regulator, the eSafety Commission, has launched legal action against the Elon Musk’s rebranded Twitter company, X Corp, for its alleged failure to comply appropriately to requests to explain how the social media site was dealing with child sexual exploitation and abuse material. The civil case in the Federal Court of Victoria follows… Read more »
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Grant, has found X (formerly Twitter) guilty of serious non-compliance to a transparency notice on child sex abuse material. The commissioner has issued X with an infringement notice for A$610,500. The commissioner first issued transparency notices to Google, X (then Twitter), Twitch, TikTok and Discord in February under the Online Safety… Read more »
While owner Elon Musk denies X, his rebranded Twitter, is an even bigger cesspit of abuse, racism, and unfettered nastiness than it already was, perhaps one way to improve things is meditation, according to Kiwi academics. Researchers from University of Auckland (UaA) trawled through more than 60,000 Twitter posts by users who’d completed a two-month… Read more »
On Saturday, X (formerly Twitter) chairman Elon Musk tweeted he would be removing the microblogging platform’s block function. It would remain intact for direct messages, but would otherwise become obsolete. This is the latest in a series of controversial and often confusing moves from Musk since he took ownership of the platform in October 2022.… Read more »
To non-moguls, Elon Musk’s (perhaps temporary) rebrand of Twitter to “X” may seem high risk, amateurish, or even capricious. But it is likely doing exactly what he intended: generating enormous global interest, pushing Twitter closer to his other X brands (SpaceX, Tesla Model X, xAI), and clearing the way for a profitable merging of technologies.… Read more »
Today Meta launched its long-awaited new social media product Threads, a Twitter clone that syncs to Instagram accounts and offers a chaotic feed filled with influencers, news outlets, and brands vying for attention. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Threads was intended as “an open and friendly public space for conversation.” “We hope to take what… Read more »
Daily startup news and insights, delivered to your inbox.
