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"Users who once came to Facebook to connect with friends and family are increasingly complaining of random, spammy, junk content - much of it apparently generated by artificial intelligence - showing up in their feeds. Sometimes it's obviously fake, AI-generated images, like the now-infamous "Shrimp Jesus." Other times, it's old posts from real creators that look like they're being reshared by bot accounts for engagement. In some cases, it's pages sharing streams of seemingly benign but random content - memes or movie clips, shared every few hours."

"Murky and misty streets, coughing townsfolk, and the distant toll of a plague doctor's bell all feature in Hogne's most-watched video, which has racked up 53 million views. It has sparked fascination among many, but historian Dr Amy Boyington describes the medieval-themed video as "amateurish" and "evocative and sensational" rather than historically accurate. "It looks like something from a video game as it shows a world that is meant to look real but is actually fake." She points out inaccuracies like the depiction of houses with large glazed windows and a train track running through the town which wouldn't have existed in the 1300s. Historian and archaeologist Dr Hannah Platts has also noticed significant inaccuracies in a video depicting the eruption of Mount Vesuvius at Pompeii. "Due to Pliny the Younger's eyewitness account of the eruption, we know that it didn't start with lava spewing everywhere so to not use that wealth of historical information available to us feels cheap and lazy.""

This is the problem with a database with such economic value!

"Many services retain the data they harvest indefinitely, and some have been caught storing (and losing) the data without encryption: for example, in 2017 the Greater Manchester Police were found to have lost data from victims of violent and sexual crimes, which had been stored unencrypted on DVDs and sent through the post."

"TikTok is battling to remove a graphic video of a livestreamed suicide, after the footage was uploaded to the service on Sunday night from Facebook, where it was initially broadcast. Although the footage was rapidly taken down from TikTok, users spent much of Monday re-uploading it, initially unchanged, but later incorporated into so-called bait-and-switch videos, which are designed to shock and upset unsuspecting users."

"Some have argued for much greater policing of content online, and companies like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have talked about hiring thousands to staff up their moderation teams.8 8. April Glaser, Want a Terrible Job? Facebook and Google May Be Hiring,Slate (Jan. 18, 2018), https://slate.com/technology/2018/01/facebook-and-google-are-building-an-army-of-content-moderators-for-2018.html (explaining that major platforms have hired or have announced plans to hire thousands, in some cases more than ten thousand, new content moderators).On the other side of the coin, companies are increasingly investing in more and more sophisticated technology help, such as artificial intelligence, to try to spot contentious content earlier in the process.9 9. Tom Simonite, AI Has Started Cleaning Up Facebook, But Can It Finish?,Wired (Dec. 18, 2018), https://www.wired.com/story/ai-has-started-cleaning-facebook-can-it-finish/.Others have argued that we should change Section 230 of the CDA, which gives platforms a free hand in determining how they moderate (or how they don't moderate).10 10. Gohmert Press Release, supra note 7 ("Social media companies enjoy special legal protections under Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, protections not shared by other media. Instead of acting like the neutral platforms they claim to be in order obtain their immunity, these companies have turned Section 230 into a license to potentially defraud and defame with impunity… Since there still appears to be no sincere effort to stop this disconcerting behavior, it is time for social media companies to be liable for any biased and unethical impropriety of their employees as any other media company. If these companies want to continue to act like a biased medium and publish their own agendas to the detriment of others, they need to be held accountable."); Eric Johnson, Silicon Valley's Self-Regulating Days "Probably Should Be" Over, Nancy Pelosi Says, Vox (Apr. 11, 2019), https:/

"After a decade or so of the general sentiment being in favor of the internet and social media as a way to enable more speech and improve the marketplace of ideas, in the last few years the view has shifted dramatically-now it seems that almost no one is happy. Some feel that these platforms have become cesspools of trolling, bigotry, and hatred.1 1. Zachary Laub, Hate Speech on Social Media: Global Comparisons, Council on Foreign Rel. (Jun. 7, 2019), https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hate-speech-social-media-global-comparisons.Meanwhile, others feel that these platforms have become too aggressive in policing language and are systematically silencing or censoring certain viewpoints.2 2. Tony Romm, Republicans Accused Facebook, Google and Twitter of Bias. Democrats Called the Hearing 'Dumb.', Wash. Post (Jul. 17, 2018), https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/17/republicans-accused-facebook-google-twitter-bias-democrats-called-hearing-dumb/?utm_term=.895b34499816.And that's not even touching on the question of privacy and what these platforms are doing (or not doing) with all of the data they collect."

"Tesla denied liability, saying Lee consumed alcohol before getting behind the wheel. The electric-vehicle maker also claims it was unclear whether the autopilot feature was engaged at the time of the crash. Tesla has been testing and rolling out its autopilot and more advanced full self-driving (FSD) system, which its chief executive, Elon Musk, has touted as crucial to his company's future but has drawn regulatory and legal scrutiny. Tesla won an earlier trial in Los Angeles in April with a strategy of saying that it tells drivers that its technology requires human monitoring, despite the "autopilot" and "full self-driving" names."

"U.K.-based startup Yepic AI claims to use "deepfakes for good" and promises to "never reenact someone without their consent." But the company did exactly what it claimed it never would. In an unsolicited email pitch to a TechCrunch reporter, a representative for Yepic AI shared two "deepfaked" videos of the reporter, who had not given consent to having their likeness reproduced. Yepic AI said in the pitch email that it "used a publicly available photo" of the reporter to produce two deepfaked videos of them speaking in different languages. The reporter requested that Yepic AI delete the deepfaked videos it created without permission."

"The governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, has signed sweeping social media legislation requiring explicit parental permissions for anyone under 18 to use platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. He also signed a bill prohibiting social media companies from employing techniques that could cause minors to develop an "addiction" to the platforms."

"Air Canada came under further criticism for later attempting to distance itself from the error by claiming that the bot was "responsible for its own actions". Amid a broader push by companies to automate services, the case - the first of its kind in Canada - raises questions about the level of oversight companies have over the chat tools."

"The rapid online spread of deepfake pornographic images of Taylor Swift has renewed calls, including from US politicians, to criminalise the practice, in which artificial intelligence is used to synthesise fake but convincing explicit imagery. The images of the US popstar have been distributed across social media and seen by millions this week. Previously distributed on the app Telegram, one of the images of Swift hosted on X was seen 47m times before it was removed."