“In short,” she says, “I've got no control over what my brain chooses to process, and there's all sorts of things that trigger it and create stress.” And so when it comes to podcasts, sound design is especially important for Benjamin and other people with auditory processing disorder, because they hear lots of sounds that other people may not pick up on.

By Monday, rumors were circulating on Reddit and across social media that the mass disemboweling of Parler's data had been carried out by exploiting a security vulnerability in the site's two-factor authentication that allowed hackers to create "millions of accounts" with administrator privileges.

President Trump and his enablers in government and right-wing media will shoulder the blame for Wednesday’s insurrection at the US Capitol, but internet platforms—Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter, in particular—have played a fomenting and facilitating role that no one should overlook.

But it turns out that when Trump got into stuff that really violated policy—like Covid or election misinformation, or what might be interpreted as calls to violence—Facebook and Twitter began to place warning labels on his posts.

Facebook’s project comes as more AI researchers, including the social network’s VP of artificial intelligence , say the field needs to broaden its horizons if computers are to become capable of handling complex, real world situations.

Trump’s proposed executive order could face legal review, and TikTok has vowed that it’s “not planning on going anywhere.” But regardless of how this all shakes out, the president’s declaration stinks of rank hypocrisy.But it’s free and open, even in ways that other platforms aren’t.

Twitter’s announcement, she said, suggests that the company has gotten more serious about the real-world consequences of activity on its platform.

Now, the Omidyar Network has a new tool kit, designed to get tech workers talking about the way their products shape society, democracy, and more.Some companies in Silicon Valley have even created internal corporate positions to focus on those issues, like Salesforce’s Office of Ethical and Humane Use.

On Monday morning, the streaming video platform Twitch temporarily suspended Donald Trump’s campaign account for violating its policies against “hateful content.” The company cited comments made in two recent streams.

They say it allows anyone with a laptop and less than a thousand dollars of equipment—just a telescope and a $400 electro-optical sensor—to listen in on any sounds in a room that's hundreds of feet away in real-time, simply by observing the minuscule vibrations those sounds create on the glass surface of a light bulb inside.

Zuckerberg has given Trump and other conservatives an even wider berth, beginning with his 2015 decision to leave up Trump’s anti-Muslim post that seemingly violated the company’s hate speech policy.

Most significantly, it will ask the Federal Communications Commission to propose regulations that “clarify” the meaning of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—the federal law that gives internet platforms broad legal immunity over how they choose to regulate, or not, the content of user posts.

“In so many ways, Bernie Sanders’ run in 2016 and, less so, in 2020, cemented the fact that insurgent candidates running a strong, robust challenge to institutionally validated candidates can use the internet as an extremely powerful tool,” says Daniel Kreiss, a professor of political communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Speaking Simulator, by developer Affable Games, puts the player in the head of a robot that has to puzzle out, syllable by syllable, how to talk.Simulator games aren't supposed to make you think, really.

The White House is live-streaming the State of the Union from its YouTube channel.

She was there to proclaim the power and importance of “internet freedom.” In the previous few years, she said, online tools had enabled people all around the world to organize blood drives, plan demonstrations, and even mobilize in mass demonstrations for democracy.

So, for argument’s sake, let’s take Zuckerberg at his word when he says Facebook is taking inspiration from the First Amendment, and instead ask a different question: Does the decision to not fact-check politicians actually embody First Amendment values.

We had canvassed thousands of the world's leading experts in technology and culture, and had begun the long task of interpreting the more than 700 responses to the final question in our survey:In the next decade, will public discourse online become more or less shaped by bad actors, harassment, trolls, and an overall tone of griping, distrust, and disgust.

Maybe the most powerful part of the speech was when he said, “I’m not going to be around forever,” and so he thinks it essential to deeply embed free speech values into Facebook so the company continues giving voice to people long after he’s gone.

A dangerous hacker group resurfaced, Mark Zuckerberg delivered a long-winded defense of Facebook, and Volvo is going green.You can sign up right here to make sure you get the news delivered fresh to your inbox every weekday!

That essay is notable not just for its well-argued points but for who wrote it: Dave Willner is Facebook’s former head of content standards.

A lofty Elon Musk promise may soon be realized, a teen activist blistered members of the UN, and we have some recommendations for fitness trackers.You can sign up right here to make sure you get the news delivered fresh to your inbox every weekday!

My hunch was confirmed later that year, at a tech conference in Oslo, when Dame Marina Warner, the visionary polymath and today the president of the Royal Society of Literature, fielded a disturbing question about pornography from the illustrious philosopher and early Edge member John Searle.

What Happens Now. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince announced Sunday that his company would stop providing protection for internet for 8chan, after a series of mass shooting manifestos were posted on the forum.

If such AI tools are entrusted with the power to police content online, they have the potential to suppress legitimate speech and censor the use of specific words, particularly by vulnerable groups.

Facebook has begun pilot tests of new content moderation tools and policies after an external audit raised numerous issues with the company’s current approach to tackling hate speech.

“We exist in a society where people value and cherish free expression, and the ability to say things including satire,” Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday. It wasn’t long after Mark Zuckerberg took the stage at the Aspen Ideas Festival Wednesday that he was heckled by the audience.

In its third Content Standards Enforcement Report, Facebook laid out the sheer amount of prohibited content that appears on its platform, including fake accounts, spam, terrorist propaganda, child sexual exploitation, hate speech, bullying, nudity, violence, and the sale of regulated goods.

Facebook’s last creative gasp was an effort called Creative Labs, which launched long-forgotten apps like Slingshot and Rooms, and was shuttered in 2015.Or consider the team I worked on while at Facebook, ads.

CEO Sundar Pichai called that a “milestone” because it means software that traditionally lives in Google’s cloud servers can be installed in Pixel smartphones Google will launch later this year, allowing the devices to respond to a person’s voice much more quickly.