<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



The Supreme Court considers how responsible major social media platforms—Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, especially—are for their most dangerous posts, challenging broad protections that tech companies claim are necessary to keep the Internet from turning into a bleak wasteland, but that critics claim go too far.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



The Supreme Court&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/10/03/supreme-court-to-consider-whether-tech-companies-like-google-facebook-can-be-held-liable-for-content-recommendations/?sh=7afbc97f3c5c">will hear</a>&nbsp;oral arguments Monday in the case (Gonzalez v. Google) where family members of a victim in the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks sued Google, alleging YouTube (a Google company) should be held liable after its algorithm recommended ISIS recruitment videos to potential supporters, and hear arguments Wednesday in Twitter v. Taamneh, which takes similar aim against social media companies over their role in a 2017 terrorist attack in Turkey.



The first case challenges whether YouTube can be held liable for the recommendations it makes under <a href="https://www.theverge.com/21273768/section-230-explained-internet-speech-law-definition-guide-free-moderation" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Section 230</a> of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which shields social media platforms and other Internet companies from legal liability by saying they’re not legally responsible for third-party content posted on their platform.



Tech platforms including Google, Meta, Twitter, Microsoft, Yelp, Reddit, Craigslist, Wikipedia and others have argued in filings that a court ruling saying YouTube can be held liable would have disastrous consequences, resulting in online platforms broadly restricting any content that could possibly be considered legally objectionable—or taking the opposite approach and leaving everything up with no filtering of obviously problematic content.



First Amendment advocacy groups including the ACLU and Knight Foundation have warned such restrictions could chill free speech, and if tech platforms are forced to get rid of recommendation algorithms, Google argued the Internet could turn into a “disorganized mess and a litigation minefield.”



The Twitter case, which also involves Facebook and Google, doesn’t concern Section 230, but instead asks if social media companies can be held responsible under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows lawsuits against anyone who “aids and abets” an act of international terrorism.



After a lower court found that merely knowing terrorists were among the company’s users would be enough grounds for a lawsuit, Twitter argued a ruling against it would also result in “particularly broad liability” for social media companies, and Facebook and Google suggested that could extend to other organizations who may have to work, even indirectly, with terrorists, including humanitarian groups that work on the ground in countries like Syria.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CHIEF CRITIC</h2>



The plaintiffs who sued Google rejected the dire predictions made by tech companies in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1333/254251/20230207191257813_GonzalezRepyMeritsPrinted.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">brief</a>&nbsp;to the court, arguing they’re overbroad and “largely unrelated to the specific issues” in the case. “Predictions that a particular decision of this Court will have dire consequences are easy to make, but often difficult to evaluate,” the petitioners argued, noting that while social media companies still have other legal safeguards in place to protect them like the First Amendment, there’s “no denying that the materials being promoted on social media sites have in fact caused serious harm.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CONTRA</h2>



The Biden Administration has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1333/249441/20221207203557042_21-1333tsacUnitedStates.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">argued</a>&nbsp;the Supreme Court should narrow the scope of Section 230 to make it more possible to sue social media platforms, warning against an “overly broad reading” of the statute that could “undermine the importance of other federal statutes.” The White House argued Section 230 does not protect YouTube from lawsuits against harmful recommendations its algorithm makes, given that its recommendations are created by the company and not content from third parties. Supporters of the plaintiffs have also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-case-heads-to-supreme-court-with-powerful-internet-shield-law-at-stake-e548e241?mod=e2tw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">suggested</a>&nbsp;a ruling against Google could help social media platforms clean up algorithms that have resulted in harmful recommendations for minors, with the Electronic Privacy Information Center&nbsp;<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1333/249376/20221207151042885_21-1333%20Electronic%20Privacy%20Information%20Center%20Amicus%20Brief%20in%20Support%20of%20Neither%20Party.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">arguing</a>&nbsp;social media companies take advantage of Section 230’s broad nature and “use Section 230 as a shield instead of making their products safer.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



“Denying Section 230(c)(1)’s protection to YouTube’s recommendation display could have devastating spillover effects,” Google argued to the court in a brief, arguing that gutting Section 230 “would upend the internet and perversely encourage both wide ranging suppression of speech and the proliferation of more offensive speech.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



Rulings in the two cases will come by the time the Supreme Court’s term wraps up in late June or early July. It’s also possible the court won’t issue a sweeping ruling on when social media companies can be held liable under Section 230: Google argued if the court throws out the Twitter case by saying the victim’s family didn’t have grounds to sue, it could also dismiss the Google case on the same grounds without getting into Section 230 at all.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



The Google case comes to the Supreme Court after lower district and appeals courts have both sided with the social media platform, ruling it’s protected by Section 230 and can’t be sued. The case was heard together with the Twitter case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but the appeals court ruled against the social media platforms in the Twitter case, holding that Twitter, Facebook and Google could all be held liable under anti-terrorism laws even as it separately upheld Section 230’s protections. The social media cases come to the Supreme Court as the increasing power of Big Tech and platforms’ failure to successfully moderate harmful content have come under fire from both sides of the political aisle, and the Supreme Court took up the cases after conservative-leaning Justice Clarence Thomas suggested the court should&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/984440891/justice-clarence-thomas-takes-aims-at-tech-and-its-power-to-cut-off-speech" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">consider</a>&nbsp;the issue of Section 230.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



Republican lawmakers have particularly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/house-republicans-outline-principles-for-reforming-section-230.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">taken aim</a>&nbsp;at Section 230 and sought to hold social media companies more legally accountable, as they’ve accused social media companies of chilling conservatives’ speech. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) led 11 GOP lawmakers in filing a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1333/249351/20221207133438524_Gonzalez%20Amicus%2020221207%20FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">brief</a>arguing for the Supreme Court to narrow the scope of Section 230, arguing social media companies have used the broad interpretation of the statute to “[not be] shy about restricting access and removing content based on the politics of the speaker.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/10/03/supreme-court-to-consider-whether-tech-companies-like-google-facebook-can-be-held-liable-for-content-recommendations/?sh=7afbc97f3c5c">Supreme Court To Consider Whether Tech Companies—Like Google, Twitter—Can Be Held Liable For Content Recommendations</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.theverge.com/21273768/section-230-explained-internet-speech-law-definition-guide-free-moderation" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Everything you need to know about Section 230</a>&nbsp;(The Verge)



<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/18/tech/section-230-explainer/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">These 26 words ‘created the internet.’ Now the Supreme Court may be coming for them</a> (CNN)



By Alison Durkee, Forbes Staff

Twitter And Elon Musk Photo Illustrations

Should YouTube, Twitter Be More Responsible For Dangerous Content? Supreme Court Considers Tech Critics

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Apple has pushed back the targeted launch date for a new mixed-reality headset from April to June, according to<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-15/apple-pushes-back-mixed-reality-headset-debut-two-months-to-june?sref=9hGJlFio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;Bloomberg</a>, in the latest setback for the tech giant, which has not launched a major new product line since the Apple Watch in 2015.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



Apple developers are now reportedly hoping to unveil the headset at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference, after calling off a spring launch due to persistent issues in testing.



The most pressing problems still being worked on are sensor issues involving the eye and hand control mechanism, along with battery life, according to Bloomberg.



The headset is expected to offer a mix of full virtual reality and augmented reality—which overlays digital information onto a users’ real-world experience—and will reportedly utilize a new operating system similar to an iPhone interface.



Numerous concerns have also been raised about the headset’s<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2022/05/22/is-apple-about-to-debut-its-ar-headset-everything-we-know-so-far/?sh=605f1b943283">&nbsp;rumored $3,000 price tag</a>, which Bloomberg reports is a byproduct of using expensive materials like numerous cameras and 4K displays.



Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from&nbsp;Forbes.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Some within the company are reportedly concerned about the market Apple is entering, given the tens of billions Meta has invested in the metaverse and virtual reality<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/08/17/does-mark-zuckerberg-not-understand-how-bad-his-metaverse-looks/?sh=1b6924d237d4">&nbsp;with little commercial success</a>. Apple CEO<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/tim-cook/">&nbsp;Tim Cook</a>&nbsp;has publicly criticized the headset<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/03/apple-ceo-tim-cook-doesnt-like-metaverse-prefers-augmented-reality.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;approach</a>&nbsp;of Meta and other big tech companies, saying last year, “I’m really not sure the average person can tell you what the metaverse is.” Cook has instead predicted augmented reality will be the true game changer, calling it “a profound technology that will affect everything.” Apple executives are betting on the headset being the company’s biggest new revenue source since its smartwatch launched, though it’s hoping tweaks to some of its longtime staple products could also boost sales.<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-11/apple-working-on-adding-touch-screens-to-macs-in-major-turnabout" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;Bloomberg</a>&nbsp;reported last month the company is working to launch a touch-screen MacBook, despite company co-founder and longtime CEO Steve Jobs being adamantly opposed to the idea prior to his death in 2011.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



The major difference between the augmented reality Cook is pushing and the virtual reality experience&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-zuckerberg/?sh=4bfc38c13e06">Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg</a>&nbsp;has promoted is that users are still fully aware of their real-life environment in augmented reality, where they interact with virtual components a headset places over their real space. Virtual reality is completely separate from the real environment, immersing a headset user in a digital world. Meta’s headsets offer both virtual and augmented reality experiences, but Zuckerberg has repeatedly said he sees a largely virtual metaverse–envisioned as essentially a broad collection of virtual worlds–as a revolutionary technical innovation that the company will be a pioneer in developing.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-surprising-fact">SURPRISING FACT</h2>



Apple has also repeatedly pushed back the launch date<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/12/06/apple-scraps-plans-for-car-without-steering-wheel-or-pedals-report-says/?sh=47084c7da6db">&nbsp;for an autonomous vehicle</a>&nbsp;it has spent years developing in a secretive project, with 2026 the latest rumored target for release. The company<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-06/apple-scales-back-self-driving-car-and-delays-launch-until-2026" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;reportedly</a>&nbsp;scrapped plans last year for its car to run without a steering wheel or pedals.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-15/apple-pushes-back-mixed-reality-headset-debut-two-months-to-june?sref=9hGJlFio" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Apple Pushes Back Mixed-Reality Headset Debut Two Months to June</a>&nbsp;(Bloomberg)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2022/05/22/is-apple-about-to-debut-its-ar-headset-everything-we-know-so-far/?sh=605f1b943283">Is Apple About To Debut Its AR Headset? Everything We Know So Far</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/08/17/does-mark-zuckerberg-not-understand-how-bad-his-metaverse-looks/?sh=1b6924d237d4">Does Mark Zuckerberg Not Understand How Bad His Metaverse Looks?</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/12/06/apple-scraps-plans-for-car-without-steering-wheel-or-pedals-report-says/?sh=47084c7da6db">Apple Scraps Plans For Car Without Steering Wheel Or Pedals, Report Says</a> (Forbes)<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/"></a>



By Nicholas Reimann, Forbes Staff

American multinational technology company Apple store seen

Apple Delays Launch Of Mixed-Reality Headset By 2 Months, Report Says

Precision healthcare is growing exponentially due to the application of AI in oncolo- gy. MedTech entrepreneur Dr Kingsley Ndoh is leading in this regard from Rwanda, helping oncologists and their patients in sub-Saharan Africa.



By Tiana Cline



Dr Kingsley Ndoh lost his aunt over a decade ago to colorectal cancer. She was only 51 years old and prior to her diagnosis, she was having high-risk abdominal symptoms. But in Nigeria, where Ndoh was both born and studied medicine, the screening guidelines for colorectal cancer begin at the age of 50.



“She didn’t even get the chance to have a screening,” he says. “What I realized is that a lot of the guidelines and treatments don’t work for all populations. It has to be specific to genetics, to the epidemiology and to the clinical context of those regions.” This was one of the reasons Ndoh decided that he wanted to get more training in oncology and that meant moving to the United States (US) to study global health. “I wanted to work at a population level,” explains Ndoh, who ended up at the University of Washington which was followed by a short-term fellowship at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center – “my foray into the world of global oncology,” he says.



But it was sitting on a plane, flying back home to Nigeria that sparked Ndoh’s interest in technology – and more specifically, artificial intelligence (AI). 



“I read a book by Jerry Kaplan called Humans Need Not Apply and became fascinated by the possibilities of AI that were mentioned in healthcare. But when I started digging into it, I realized that a lot of the AI products that are being rolled out and tested in the different aspects of healthcare deal mainly with Caucasian data and not in the context of places like sub-Saharan Africa.”



Precision healthcare is a field that is growing exponentially due to the application of AI in oncology. But AI and machine learning models require a massive about of data and Ndoh came to the realization that while the technology is there, it cannot simply be imported into Africa “because our data is different, and because the clinical context is different”, he says. After many years of planning, Ndoh launched a medical tech startup called Hurone AI focused on democratizing high-quality cancer care. “The specific area that we wanted to tackle as an early-stage startup was side effects,” he says. And then he came across research that took him by surprise: “In the last 20 years, the oncology medications (the cancer medicines) that have been approved by the FDA; less than 3% of the trial participants were black. That means the full range of side effects are not really known.”



Ndoh brings up recent research which shows that some breast cancer medications which are commonly given to African-American women lead to poor outcomes – and worse side-effects. “Tying this all together heightened my sense of urgency that we need to start understanding the data of diverse populations better,” he says. “I saw Africa as a place where things could be leapfrogged and the specific problem we’re looking at is the deficit between the number of oncologists and patients.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-specialist-shortage">A SPECIALIST SHORTAGE</h3>



Currently, there is around one oncologist to 187 patients in the US but in sub-Saharan Africa, the number sits at one to 3,000. African oncologists are overworked and lack critical support services but Ndoh believes that AI can help make things easier. “When patients get a diagnosis, they are bound to have side-effects from chemotherapy and radiotherapy but they don’t have access to an oncologist because they are few and far between. This means patients will begin to look at other sources of information such as Dr Google, herbalists or native doctors (as they’re called in some parts of Africa),” he elaborates, “and this could lead to worsened outcomes, unexpected symptoms or even hospitalization.”



After a couple of research trips to Rwanda, Ndoh heard how patients, nurses and doctors felt separated from each other.



Not only did the patients feel disconnected from follow-up care, the doctors said that they didn’t have a grasp of managing their patients.



“This is why Hurone AI is a two-way system. It’s a web platform for doctors and nurses to enter demographic and clinical data – including any treatment regimens given – and track their patients better. On the other side, there is a USSD text-based app for patients to receive cancer care remotely so that even those without smartphones can still access valuable information,” says Ndoh. 



Once a patient has been registered, they will receive questions related to their well-being and the answers are graded into mild, moderate and severe categories. “On the other end, the data is organized so that the doctors and nurses can easily see how a patient is doing and 70% of the complaints can be addressed by text messaging,” he says. “It also means patients can take action in emergency situations.”



As Hurone AI helps those suffering from the side-effects of cancer treatment, Ndoh is building a database of much-needed clinical and demographic information. His hope is that when the company scales, he will not only be able to automate more medical processes but build models that could use AI to predict side-effects prior to treatment. “And it could eventually help doctors to choose more wisely on what drugs they could give with the same efficacy.”



While Hurone AI is currently doing beta trials in Rwanda, Ndoh has plans to expand throughout sub-Saharan Africa as well as into other low-to-middle income countries. The patient app, which is called Gukiza, means healing in Kinyarwanda “and we make it clear that the app cannot heal you, but it brings that positivity patients need after a cancer diagnosis when they feel like their whole world is falling apart”.

Screenshot 2023-02-09 at 16.31.50

The Good Doctor With An Eye For AI in Africa

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Twitter massively<a href="https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1623411536243965954?s=20&amp;t=wHgK-etn97RQrNcUtNXo9g" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;expanded</a>&nbsp;its tweet length limit for U.S.-based Twitter Blue subscribers Wednesday, marking just the second time in the company’s 16-year history it has tweaked its character count as it reportedly struggles to attract a paying user base.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



The character limit for subscribers in the U.S. is now 4,000—more than 14 times the existing 280-character limit, which remains in place for all non-subscribers and Twitter Blue users outside of the United States.



Users scrolling through their timelines will see 280-character snippets of lengthy tweets, with an option to expand—similar to formats on other social media platforms, like Facebook.



The move comes just two days after technology news outlet the<a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/musks-twitter-has-just-180-000-u-s-subscribers-two-months-after-launch" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;Information</a>&nbsp;reported Twitter Blue only had about 180,000 subscribers as of mid-January, accounting for less than 0.2% of monthly active users, who pay $8 a month for the service.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-surprising-fact">SURPRISING FACT</h2>



Twitter’s only other character length expansion came in 2017, when it doubled its initial 140-character limit to 280.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Nascent company owner and CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly suggested a significant increase in Twitter Blue users is the only way for Twitter to remain financially solvent in the long-term, warning staff shortly after he took over the company: “Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/10/musk-reportedly-bans-remote-work-at-twitter-and-warns-of-difficult-times-in-internal-email/?sh=2370b81a6031">&nbsp;Twitter will not survive</a>&nbsp;the upcoming economic downturn.” But Musk’s top selling points for Twitter Blue—limited ads, priority replies and a blue verification check mark—do not seem to be connecting for many users. Musk has also largely backed down from an early vow of forcing all users verified prior to his takeover to pay for a subscription to keep their blue check marks. Older verified accounts are now instead tagged as “legacy verified,” and include a disclaimer stating they “may or may not be notable.” Twitter’s financial problems have been compounded by a sizable drop in advertising revenue due to many<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/11/28/musk-says-apple-cutting-twitter-ads-here-are-the-other-companies-rethinking-their-ties/?sh=1a4550237032">&nbsp;prominent advertisers pulling funding</a>&nbsp;after Musk loosened some moderation guidelines and reinstated several banned accounts, including<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/20/elon-musk-reinstates-donald-trumps-twitter-account-after-users-vote-to-bring-him-back/?sh=359596357b60">&nbsp;former President Donald Trump’s</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



Musk appeared to spontaneously come up with the<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/11/01/twitter-will-sell-coveted-blue-checkmark-for-8-a-month-musk-says-but-benefits-still-unclear/?sh=677ddf4f5ac2">&nbsp;$8-a-month price</a>&nbsp;for Twitter Blue subscriptions during a bizarre exchange with horror fiction author Stephen King last year, after King complained about reports that Twitter was considering a $20-per-month subscription. “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?” Musk replied.https://embedly.forbes.com/widgets/media.html?type=text%2Fhtml&amp;key=3ce26dc7e3454db5820ba084d28b4935&amp;schema=twitter&amp;url=https%3A//twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587312517679878144%3Fs%3D20%26t%3DQX7r2kWdRuxghDWqQJQZQA&amp;image=https%3A//i.embed.ly/1/image%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fabs.twimg.com%252Ferrors%252Flogo46x38.png%26key%3D3ce26dc7e3454db5820ba084d28b4935



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/musks-twitter-has-just-180-000-u-s-subscribers-two-months-after-launch" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Musk’s Twitter Has Just 180,000 U.S. Subscribers, Two Months After Launch</a>&nbsp;(The Information)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/10/musk-reportedly-bans-remote-work-at-twitter-and-warns-of-difficult-times-in-internal-email/?sh=2370b81a6031">Musk Reportedly Bans Remote Work At Twitter And Warns Of ‘Difficult Times’ In Internal Email</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/20/elon-musk-reinstates-donald-trumps-twitter-account-after-users-vote-to-bring-him-back/?sh=359596357b60">Elon Musk Reinstates Donald Trump’s Twitter Account After Asking Users To Vote</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/11/01/twitter-will-sell-coveted-blue-checkmark-for-8-a-month-musk-says-but-benefits-still-unclear/?sh=677ddf4f5ac2">Twitter Will Sell Coveted Blue Checkmark For $8 A Month, Musk Says—But Benefits Still Unclear</a> (Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/"></a>By Nicholas Reimann, Forbes Staff

Photo Illustrations

Twitter Boosts Character Limit To 4,000 For Twitter Blue Subscribers

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



The highly anticipated Harry Potter video game debuts this week, but it’s been plagued by controversy and boycotts as players grapple with whether to support J.K. Rowling’s franchise in light of her history of comments widely seen as transphobic.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



Hogwarts Legacy, a role-playing game set in the Harry Potter universe developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Bros. Games, will be&nbsp;<a href="https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/hogwarts-legacy-transgender-character-jk-rowling-harry-potter-wizarding-world-1235514416/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">released</a>&nbsp;February 10 on PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S.



The game has garnered largely&nbsp;<a href="https://www.metacritic.com/search/all/hogwarts%20legacy/results" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">positive reviews</a>&nbsp;on aggregator Metacritic, and has climbed the bestseller list of online vendors like Amazon and the Epic Store thanks to pre-orders.



However, some fans and gamers are boycotting the game in protest of J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter novel series who has a history of making comments offensive to the transgender community and stands to earn&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2023/01/12/the-hogwarts-legacy-debate-explained/?sh=af6fa126a32b">royalties</a>&nbsp;from game sales (though she was not involved in the game’s creation).



Some popular game review sites like Kotaku, Polygon and Eurogamer have not yet reviewed Hogwarts Legacy despite the review embargo lifting Monday, while others have denounced J.K. Rowling’s comments and voiced support for transgender people in their reviews.



Jessie Earl, a trans YouTuber and writer,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/jessiegender/status/1603942028555210752" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;in December that unlike consuming previously owned Harry Potter books or films, purchasing Hogwarts Legacy while Rowling is “using her ongoing platform to target and also justify her continued targeting of trans people is harmful to trans people” (Rowling responded, accusing her of “purethink”).



Some streamers on Amazon-owned Twitch video platform—including&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/Will_Overgard/status/1614874335839420416" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Will Overgard</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/NikatinePrime/status/1622312576897138688?s=20&amp;t=rb02d41dK_8NpoRZc_sefA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nikatine</a>—have publicly voiced opposition to the game.



Nikatine, whose name is Veronica Ripley, posted a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/NikatinePrime/status/1622312576897138688?s=20&amp;t=rb02d41dK_8NpoRZc_sefA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statement</a>&nbsp;to Twitter announcing a boycott of Twitch—which is known for its video game-related content—for hosting ads for Hogwarts Legacy, urging streamers to join in halting use of the platform until the ad campaign is suspended.



Hogwarts Legacy is set to feature the first&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/07/entertainment/harry-potter-legacy-trans-character-cec/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">transgender woman character</a>&nbsp;in the Harry Potter universe, though her name, Sirona Ryan, has attracted some&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thegamer.com/hogwarts-legacy-sirona-ryan-trans-character-name/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">criticism</a>&nbsp;for allegedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/hogwarts-legacy-trans-character-name-sirona-ryan/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sounding masculine</a>(beginning with the prefix “Sir” and ending with common male name “Ryan”)—but others&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/07/entertainment/harry-potter-legacy-trans-character-cec/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">noted</a>&nbsp;the name&nbsp;<a href="https://www.names.org/n/sirona/about" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sirona</a>&nbsp;refers to a Celtic goddess of healing and rebirth.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



J.K. Rowling has regularly come under fire in recent years for her views on biological sex and the transgender community, which many have criticized as transphobic. In June 2020, she ridiculed an article headline for using the phrase “people who menstruate” (“I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” she&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269382518362509313?s=20&amp;t=g0g80nrjW_NbQJgWZOhDbQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>), inspiring backlash from critics who said her tweet excludes transgender people. In response to backlash, she&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269389298664701952?s=20&amp;t=HvsofpXgAxn_rNRjnApwxQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>“if sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased,” adding that she knows and loves transgender people but criticized the alleged erasing of the concept of sex. She also published an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">essay</a>&nbsp;on her website, calling it unsafe to allow “any man who believes or feels he’s a woman” into changing rooms and bathrooms, and she’s since stirred controversy for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/31/1120299781/jk-rowling-new-book-the-ink-black-heart" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">authoring</a>&nbsp;a book about a character who is killed after facing accusations of transphobia and for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-63162533" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">calling</a>&nbsp;Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who supported a bill making it easier for transgender people to be legally recognized as their preferred gender, a “destroyer of women’s rights.” Her comments have been criticized as transphobic by LGBTQ rights organizations including the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hrc.org/news/hrc-president-alphonso-david-responds-to-j-k-rowlings-latest-transphobic-b" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Human Rights Campaign</a>, and actors from the Harry Potter films have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2022/01/18/harry-potter-stars-comments-author-j-k-rowling/6565240001/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">voiced support</a>&nbsp;for transgender people in response.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">HOGWARTS LEGACY REVIEWS</h2>



Early reviews for the Harry Potter game have been almost uniformly positive, though some publications have declined to review the game or have included statements critical of Rowling or in support of the transgender community in their reviews. Gamespot, a popular gaming website which has not yet reviewed Hogwarts Legacy, has instead published an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-to-help-trans-people-by-donating-to-charity/1100-6511097/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">article</a>&nbsp;listing charities in support of trans people, along with an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gamespot.com/articles/jk-rowlings-anti-transgender-stance-and-hogwarts-legacy/1100-6501632/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">analysis</a>&nbsp;of Rowling’s comments and rising anti-LGBTQ legislation and protests worldwide, the latter authored by Earl. In a positive&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/hogwarts-legacy-review-harry-potter-ps5-xbox-pc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">review</a>, IGN included a statement titled “Concerning J.K. Rowling,” affirming the publication’s support for human rights and stating the publication’s purpose is to “answer the question of whether or not we find Hogwarts Legacy to be fun to play and why; whether it’s ethical to play is a separate but still very important question.” Canadian outlet TheGamer&nbsp;<a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/02/06/hogwarts-legacy-jk-rowling-launch" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;it&nbsp;will not review Hogwarts Legacy or create any online guides for the game.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CONTRA</h2>



Though the game’s release has inspired vocal critics, it’s still on track to sell well and has plenty of supporters who believe Rowling’s controversy can be separated from the game. Popular streamer xQc, who has more than 11 million Twitch&nbsp;<a href="https://www.twitch.tv/xqc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">followers</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dexerto.com/hogwarts-legacy/xqc-slams-hogwarts-legacy-boycotters-after-making-streamer-cry-on-twitch-2054609/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">criticized</a>&nbsp;people for making others feel bad for purchasing a video game, claiming “people fund all sorts of evil with their purchases across the board in way worse ways.” It’s already a hit on Twitch, where users who have early access are streaming the game; Hogwarts Legacy has more than one million viewers and 120,000 followers on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Hogwarts%20Legacy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">platform</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



“If you are not willing to give up a piece of entertainment in solidarity against the harm J.K. Rowling continues to enact; then how can trans people feel assured you’ll be willing to fight for us in more important areas, such as anti-trans violence, be it physical, mental, personal, systemic or legislative, especially as the discrimination continues to rise?” Jessie Earl wrote in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gamespot.com/articles/jk-rowlings-anti-transgender-stance-and-hogwarts-legacy/1100-6501632/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gamespot</a>&nbsp;essay.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2023/01/23/hogwarts-legacy-jk-rowling-trans/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Why the new game ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ is roiling the LGBTQ community</a>(The Washington Post)



<a href="https://www.gamespot.com/articles/jk-rowlings-anti-transgender-stance-and-hogwarts-legacy/1100-6501632/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">JK Rowling&#8217;s Anti-Transgender Stance And Hogwarts Legacy</a>(Gamespot)



<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/07/entertainment/harry-potter-legacy-trans-character-cec/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">‘Hogwarts Legacy’ game appears to introduce ‘Harry Potter’s’ first trans character</a>&nbsp;(CNN)



By Conor Murray, Forbes Staff

“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” World Premiere – Arrivals

‘Hogwarts Legacy’ Video Game Controversy: Boycotts And J.K. Rowling’s Comments On Transgender Community, Explained

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October, the social media platform has made many tweaks to the user experience, including an overhaul to the verification process and an emphasis on “freedom of speech.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



Since Elon Musk’s highly publicized — and controversial — acquisition of Twitter in October, he’s made a series of updates to the platform, often live-tweeting them along the way.



Among the most notable changes is the overhaul to the verification process: Previously, blue checkmarks denoted public figures that the platform had independently verified, but now users can purchase a verified checkmark by subscribing to <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitter-blue" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Twitter Blue</a> for $8 per month.



After&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593673339826212864?s=20&amp;t=6ANX0DjzIxKuKaV6BWa_Mw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">declaring</a>&nbsp;Twitter’s new policy to be “freedom of speech” in which negative or hate tweets will be “deboosted,” but not banned, Musk reinstated a number of accounts that were notably suspended, including Donald Trump,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593673844996288512?s=20&amp;t=6ANX0DjzIxKuKaV6BWa_Mw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jordan Peterson and Kathy Griffin</a>&nbsp;(Musk reinstated Trump’s account after conducting a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593767953706921985" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">poll</a>&nbsp;on Twitter — 51.8% of the 15 million respondents voted “yes” to return the former president’s account).



Each tweet now publicly displays how many views it has garnered, an update Musk made in an effort to&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1601112753271209985?s=20&amp;t=wkeaG5Nb24XxhUcRRNZ4aQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">show</a>&nbsp;how “Twitter is much more alive than people think.”



Twitter now splits a user’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/10/23549368/twitter-for-you-page-tiktok-following-tab" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">timeline</a>&nbsp;between a TikTok-esque “for you” page, an algorithm-curated feed with tweets it thinks the user will like, and a “following” page, which consists solely of tweets that user follows.



Twitter <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/19/tech/twitter-elon-musk-deletes-policy/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">backtracked</a> from a short-lived policy banning users from sharing links to other social media platforms — after less than a day of backlash, the platform deleted the policy from its website.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">NEW VERIFICATION PROCESS</h2>



One of the biggest — and most widely ridiculed — Musk-era Twitter updates is his drastic change to the verification process. Previously, blue verification badges confirmed that profiles of public figures, like celebrities, journalists or government officials, were legitimate. Those blue checks (which Twitter now refers to as “legacy” verified accounts) are still visible, but the platform has made blue checks available to anyone so long as they subscribe to&nbsp;<a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitter-blue" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Twitter Blue</a>, a service that permits users to preview new features. There’s no visual difference between the old and new blue checkmarks, which has raised concerns that people may impersonate public figures (though hovering over or tapping on the blue check reveals whether the account is subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account). Within hours of the new blue checks launching, users purchased checkmarks to impersonate people including Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Kobe Bryant,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/tech/twitter-impersonators-paid-verification/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CNN reported</a>. A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/11/twitter-blue-checkmark/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Washington Post</a>&nbsp;columnist got accounts impersonating comedian Blaire Erskine and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) verified within minutes. Twitter&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/11/twitter-fake-verified-accounts/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">temporarily suspended</a>&nbsp;the ability to purchase a blue check the following day, pledging to address impersonation issues. Musk has said he plans to get rid of legacy verified checkmarks,&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/12/elon-says-twitter-will-remove-all-legacy-verifications-in-a-few-months/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">claiming</a>&nbsp;that the old process of verification was “corrupt and nonsensical.” In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/tech/twitter-verification-relaunch/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">another shakeup</a>&nbsp;to the verification system, accounts owned by companies are denoted by gold checks while government entities and politicians are marked with gray checks.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRITICISM OVER UPDATES</h2>



Musk’s changes to the platform have been criticized for a number of reasons, ranging from being unnecessary and annoying to opening the door for hate speech. The ability of anyone to purchase verification has been condemned for making it easy to impersonate public figures and spread misinformation. In January, members of the Taliban&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/17/twitter-blue-verified-taliban" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">purchased</a>blue checks, though these were later removed following backlash. Musk also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/12/17/1143796992/twitter-lifts-suspensions-on-several-journalists-amid-rift-between-the-site-and-" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">came under fire</a>&nbsp;in December after Twitter suspended the accounts of several journalists who were critical of his ownership of the company (Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603600001057185792" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;these accounts “doxxed my exact location in real time”), though these accounts were later reinstated. Criticisms of the verification process as well as Musk’s massive layoffs have prompted more than 500 advertisers to pause spending on Twitter,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/twitter-manager-daily-revenue-has-dropped-40-500-top-advertisers-have-left" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Information reported</a>, causing a 40% drop in daily revenue. Some popular Twitter influencers&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/musk-making-twitter-worse-say-top-influencers-platform-rcna63606" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told NBC News</a>&nbsp;that daily use of the platform has gotten worse under Musk’s leadership, including an influx of hate speech in light of its new emphasis on freedom of speech, as well as an uptick in technical glitches as the company’s staff has been halved. These influencers — including Matt Nelson, who runs “<a href="https://twitter.com/dog_rates?s=20&amp;t=4h2872WW1RY106CSjpj1XA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">We Rate Dogs</a>,” an account with 9.3 million followers — told NBC News the verified notifications feature, which displays notifications received by verified accounts, is no longer useful as anyone can pay for a blue checkmark. The default “for you” feed has also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/01/13/twitter-faces-wave-complaints-tiktok-style-reboot/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">angered</a>&nbsp;some users who find the update unnecessary and now see tweets they are uninterested in. LGBTQ advocacy groups have also alleged that the platform’s “freedom of speech” approach is worsening anti-transgender speech on the platform. Among the accounts reinstated under Musk’s tenure are the Babylon Bee, a Christian satire news site, and author Jordan Peterson, who has previously made transphobic tweets,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-22/twitter-restores-anti-trans-accounts-and-fuels-hate-groups-say" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bloomberg reported.</a>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



Musk has discussed future updates that have yet to debut on the platform. He will increase the current 280 character limit to 4,000 in February — a massive increase for the platform long known for its brevity — and users will soon be able to use formatting features like bold, underline, and font sizes, a move Musk hopes will keep people on Twitter instead of using other websites to publish work. The company is also considering selling usernames that have been dormant for years to free up the handles and generate revenue.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



After months of back-and-forth and the threat of going to trial, Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/27/technology/elon-musk-twitter-deal-complete.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">purchased</a>&nbsp;Twitter in October in a highly publicized $44 million dollar deal. He quickly slashed the company’s workforce,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/technology/elon-musk-twitter-fired-criticism.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">claiming</a>&nbsp;that it could go bankrupt and needed to become “hard core” in order to survive, and began implementing his “free speech” vision for the platform. Musk had previously&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/27/musk-twitter-attacks/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">criticized</a>&nbsp;Twitter’s prior leadership, alleging they operated the platform with a “left-wing bias.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT WE DON’T KNOW</h2>



Will Musk actually step down as CEO of Twitter? He&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1605372724800393216" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;in December he will step down when he finds someone “foolish enough” to succeed him and will then run the company’s software and servers teams. He asked via Twitter&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604617643973124097?s=20&amp;t=fo6JvyaSKDLpmPKgPuAPCQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">poll</a>&nbsp;if he should step down, stating he would “abide by the results of this poll” — and “yes” won a clear victory, securing 57.5% of the poll’s 17.5 million votes. Musk has not provided updates or a timeline on the search for a successor since creating the poll.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



$149.4 billion. That’s Musk’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=6c332b5d7999">net worth</a>&nbsp;as of Wednesday according to the Forbes real-time net worth tracker, making him the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#776435d23d78">second-richest person</a>&nbsp;in the world behind French fashion tycoon Bernard Arnault and his family. Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/12/08/elon-musk-no-longer-worlds-richest-again-as-stock-hit-by-report-of-personal-margin-loan/?sh=ca7000927733">fell</a>&nbsp;from his prior position as the world’s richest person in December.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/11/4/23438917/twitter-verifications-blue-check-elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Twitter: Five ways Elon Musk has changed the platform for users</a>&nbsp;(BBC)



<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/17/twitter-blue-verified-taliban" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Twitter ‘verified’ check marks bought by Taliban appear to have been removed</a> (The Guardian)



By Conor Murray, Forbes Staff

Twitter Losing Its Most Active Users

Verification To View Counts: Here’s Every Twitter Change Under Elon Musk

The misuse of artificial intelligence and the cost of deepfakes in a post-truth era. 



By Tiana Cline



In the beginning, it was a lot of fun. Anyone could create a deepfake video to merge their face with that of a celebrity. At first, these videos were shared across social media as a parody and everyone laughed. What could be better than becoming the star of your favorite streaming series? But now the technology has evolved. It has become more sophisticated to the point where it’s not as easy to tell what is real or not. From misinformation to identity theft, deepfake porn and copyright infringements, the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) is far from entertaining – it’s an epidemic.  



“As technology&#8217;s power increases, so the ability to cause harm increases exponentially,” says Professor Johan Steyn, a Research Fellow at the School of Data Science and Computational Thinking at Stellenbosch University in South Africa and Adjunct Professor at the School of Business at Woxsen University in India.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“From both a legal and a government ethics point of view, it’s a massive problem and I don’t know how it is going to be regulated. How do you present evidence to a court of law when you cannot confirm if a video or voice is authentic? There’s almost no way of proving deepfakes are authentic.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



There are currently over 80 different deepfake software apps, many of which are free and allow anyone to take advantage of the advancement of AI. Deepfakes use artificial neural networks – data pattern-recognition systems that are trained to identify (and reconstruct) patterns. The technology is mind-blowing.&nbsp;&nbsp;



It gained Miles Fisher – a Tom Cruise lookalike and AI entrepreneur – nearly four million followers on social media. His TikTok account, ‘deeptomcruise’, has unofficially made him the poster child of the deepfake movement. The person behind the videos, Chris Ume, is a Belgian visual effects artist and the co-founder of an AI-generated content company called Metaphysic.ai.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“There’s a big philosophical, ethical and societal lens to deepfakes,” adds Steyn. “We&#8217;re living in a world where we cannot trust almost anything. There are limited ways in verifying the authenticity of something and the technology that should have brought us together and empowered us with knowledge is doing the exact opposite.”&nbsp;



One of the most interesting deepfake use cases is happening in the advertising sector. Where actors were once paid undisclosed sums for appearing in TV advertisements, some agencies are resorting to using deepfakes instead – with or without their consent. An advert for a Russian telecoms company starring Bruce Willis went viral and it was reported that the actor sold his image rights. It turned out that Willis was a deepfake and the agency that made the advert (called Deepcake) simply mapped a digital version of his appearance onto another actor. If images and videos of Willis are readily available to do this, it questions how anyone can protect their own identity.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“In the future of AI, people will not be quantum physicists or machine learning engineers but philosophers and ethicists. We’re now in a post-truth era and thanks to the power of technology. You can no longer trust anything or anyone,” warns Steyn. “If you’re a critical thinker, fake news should be relatively easy to pick up. Deepfakes are more serious. What happens when a bank, for example, accepts voice as a proof of identity?”&nbsp;



The link between deepfakes and cybercrime is inevitable. Throughout Africa, phishing remains one of the continent’s biggest threats and by using deepfake technology, cybercriminals will be able to increase the effectiveness of their attacks exponentially. “Any new technology, development or technology will inevitably be exploited by criminals to target the vulnerable or unwary,” says Carl Wearn, Mimecast’s Head of Threat Intelligence Analysis and Future Ops. “The quicker they can utilize a new technology, before it is properly understood or awareness of it is raised, the more likely they are able to monetize some form of it.”&nbsp;



With deepfakes, cybercrime can be socially engineered because threat actors (posing as friends, family, or colleagues) exploit the inherent trust that comes with interpersonal relationships. “Deepfakes are at their core seeking to exploit key relationships to compel action,” adds Wearn. “As the technology matures – aided by machine learning and AI – this will almost certainly become indistinguishable to the real thing for ordinary humans when undertaking virtual or telephony-communication medium reliant interactions.”&nbsp;&nbsp;



Deepfakes scams are increasing. They’re not only being used in cyberbullying and smear campaigns to harass and silence individuals; synthetic identity fraud can cost businesses and government millions. “People are, for example, edited into a humiliating video that is then spread on social media highlights the risk for public figures and activists,” says Vladislav Tushkanov, a Lead Data Scientist at Kaspersky. Scammers recently used a deepfake interview with Elon Musk to promote a cryptocurrency scam called BitVex. The CEO of a British energy firm was tricked out of $243,000 by a voice deepfake from the head of his parent company requesting an emergency transfer of funds. And in the United Arab Emirates, bank robbers deepfaked the voice of a company executive to an unsuspecting bank manager – it was reported that he recognized the voice and then authorized a transfer of $35 million.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“Deepfakes can significantly undermine trust in audio and video content,” adds Tushkanov. “Deepfakes, and mis- and disinformation, is a rising concern around the globe. It is particularly worrying that deepfakes can be used to incite violence and stoke civil unrest. This places high importance on public education and raising awareness about this technology, as well as furthering digital literacy.”  



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-to-spot-a-deepfake">How to spot a deepfake?&nbsp;</h2>



“It all starts by having good cybersecurity procedures and practices in place – not only in the form of antivirus software, but also in the form of developed IT skills and cybersecurity awareness of the employees,” says Tushkanov. “The following are key characteristics of deepfake videos to be aware of and look out for, to avoid becoming a victim: jerky movement; shifts in lighting from one frame to the next; shifts in skin tone; strange blinking or no blinking at all; lips poorly synched with speech; digital artifacts in the image; and video is intentionally encoded down in quality with poor lighting.”

3D virtual reality space and people

When Seeing Is No Longer Believing: An African Take On The Cost Of Deepfakes

When award-winning artwork can be generated by algorithms, where does that leave artists?



By Tiana Cline 



What is an artist? In the age of artificial intelligence, machine learning and text-to-image tools, it’s questionable. Anyone with a computer can generate stunning images in seconds thanks to tools like Midjourney, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion and Craiyon. These algorithmic programs, which work with text prompts and data sets, are already starting to shift the creative economy. In August 2022, an American game designer named Jason Allen won first place at the Colorado State Fair Fine Arts Competition. His award-winning work – which has been described as ‘Renaissance meets steampunk’ – was created using Midjourney. And even though the category in which Allen came first was ‘digital arts/digitally-manipulated photography’, it left a lot of people in the creative world angry, questioning whether this kind of AI-generated art could replace human artists.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“There&#8217;s no doubt that the whole visual world is totally oversaturated with imagery. I know a lot of people who do AI art. I see it on Instagram or Facebook and some of the images have stuck in my head,” says Roger Ballen, an American artist who lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. “So, I think they’re successful from the point of view of conveying an aesthetic message from one person to another. And how they were able to achieve this, is this important or not important?”&nbsp;&nbsp;



For some industries, AI-generated art is simply a natural progression of where we’re heading – it’s a key part of Web3, the metaverse and how AI algorithms can be integrated into different industries. According to Midjourney founder David Holz, business owners, game designers and people in the movie industry use the tool for storyboarding, strategy and content development. But that’s not where AI-art ends. The Economist used Midjourney to produce one of its 2022 covers and The Atlantic chose AI-generated art for an editorial in lieu of hiring an illustrator – going so far as to credit Midjourney as the artist.&nbsp;&nbsp;



For Ballen, AI-generated art is similar to a computer beating a world chess champion – it’s inevitable. “You look at the work that&#8217;s been done and some of it is amazing. This is where we&#8217;re going – going into a world where our lives and viewpoints and experiences are more virtual rather than physical and it’s happening at an accelerating pace, he says. “I’ve been doing photography for 54 years now. When I started, you needed to go to university and there was a lot of training that took place to get there. Now anyone can do photography. For one photograph that was produced 30 years ago, there may be 50,000 now.”&nbsp;



Plagiarism by machine&nbsp;



There are many ethical considerations around creating (and selling) AI-generated art. AI often reflects human bias which means that the images contained in online datasets are subjective to what is available online.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Ballen questions being able to put a price on an artwork when the material comes from endless sources. He also asks if there is a difference between using an image of a tree (as one example) or from a well-known artist. “Some of these people are trying to produce works of art but actually, the work itself isn&#8217;t necessarily theirs – it&#8217;s an amalgamation of other people&#8217;s work compiled by a computer. So, the issue then is can that person sell it as their own when it&#8217;s ultimately other people&#8217;s work?”&nbsp;



Joh Del, a Cape Town-based artist and illustrator’s understanding that that all artists learn from other pieces of art – both human and AI. “Every time you put something out into the world, someone else can see it, and learn from it. I think almost all species of animals on earth learn from each other,” says Del.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Mikhael Subotzky, an award-winning artist based in South Africa, doesn’t see AI-generated art as something fundamentally new or different. “I think that the power and relevance of art is that its boundaries are always expanding – there should be space for every kind of art,” he says. For Subotzky, the trickiest issue is copyright. “There really should be a way for artists to opt in or out of the algorithms learning from their work. Or even a royalty system where they get a cent or whatever for every time their work is used in this way. Of course, this would require a fundamental change in how images circulate. I wish that the blockchain crowd would focus on this type of thing rather than the latest NFT prices.”&nbsp;



For now, the law is yet to catch up with the advances in AI technology. Under copyright law, copyright depends on human input and AI-generated art is made by machine. In order to avoid future legal issues, Getty Images has banned the sale of AI generative artwork created using image synthesis models. “In one way, it’s an image that somebody initiated to put on a wall and show other people and on the other hand, it’s a mixture of other people’s property. In the commercial world you have copyrights, you have patents, you have rights of property and with this, it’s not as clear because it’s a mishmash of thousands of things that are put together into an artwork,” says Ballen. “You have to look at the image itself. You have to deal with the aesthetics in the image, the message in the image, the type of artwork, where the information came from, how it was put together – there&#8217;s all sorts of things that make it almost impossible to come up with a clear answer… where this ends and where it begins, I don’t know.” 



But Is It Art?&nbsp;



“I’m the type of person who believes in the autonomy of the work, that you don’t necessarily need to know anything about the artist, the place, the time – anything,” says Roger Ballen. “It doesn&#8217;t matter whether you know anything about anything. Art should be like coming into contact with a flower. All of a sudden, you smell it, you feel it, the color leaves an imprint on you and you don’t necessarily need to be a botanist, all that matters is the experience of the art itself.”&nbsp;&nbsp;

Screenshot 2023-01-13 at 19.07.53

The Rise Of AI Art: An African Perspective

While researchers applaud Amazon’s safeguards to ensure the tech is safe for kids, some experts are concerned that generative AI could lead children to believe these algorithms are more intelligent than they actually are.



Generative AI, which is known for churning out fantastical art based on text prompts, is now sneaking into one of the most sacred bonding experiences for parents and children: bedtime storytelling.



Amazon is hopping into the generative AI craze with a new Alexa feature that creates short, five-scene stories for kids based on a few prompts. Called ‘Create With Alexa,’ the feature lets children and parents select from given themes like underwater, enchanted forest and space exploration and pick a character, a descriptive word and a color. Then, they sit back and wait as the AI comes up with different stories, visuals, audio dialogues and background music.



With Amazon hopping aboard the generative AI craze, some experts say that the company has created safeguards to ensure that the technology isn’t spouting anything inappropriate for young ears, and Create With Alexa could help foster more shared experiences for children and parents. But AI researchers also warn that stories made with generative AI could mystify children’s understanding of AI’s capabilities and intelligence.



The feature, which is available on Echo Show devices, relies on generative AI, algorithms that use existing content to create new content. Specifically, it implements language models, which ingest large amounts of text to learn how to create sentences similar to how people talk. The algorithm that powers Create With Alexa is trained on a database of commercially available visuals as well as Amazon’s own proprietary content.



Eshan Bhatnagar, head of product for Alexa AI at Amazon, says that Create With Alexa was designed with safety in mind. The technology has three safeguards in place, including content filtering, training the AI on a curated dataset that is free of toxic content, and most importantly, setting up a structured and restricted experience. “We wanted to avoid the garbage in garbage out kind of tendency of AI,” says Bhatnagar, referencing the likelihood of AI to render improper content based on the type of inputs fed into it. “We are being cautious, and conservative in our approach to how we want to expose some of the generative capabilities to our customers.”



Stefania Druga, a researcher on creative AI at the University of Washington, says Amazon’s decision to build Alexa’s new storytelling feature by structuring it around a few input prompts that ask users to select from a given set of templates can help make generative AI safer for kids. “I think this approach of providing curated templates, and really trying to curate the experience and control the types of generations that can be entered into the system is very promising,” Druga told Forbes.



But these safeguards can’t fully protect kids from the influence of intelligent computer systems like Alexa. Druga found in her research paper &#8220;<a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3078072.3084330" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hey Google is it OK if I eat you?&#8221; Initial Explorations in Child-Agent Interaction</a>” that interacting with voice assistants like Alexa and Google Home can influence how children understand the intelligence of computers. She says Create With Alexa could mystify the abilities of AI for children, influencing their judgments about how intelligent the computer actually is and whether it’s a trustworthy source.



“What I’ve seen in my research is that the kids don&#8217;t even know how to read and write when they start interacting with a voice assistant. And if that&#8217;s their first introduction into searching anything on the web, that really colors their experience on how they process information,” Druga says. “Because if it&#8217;s spoken to them with a nice voice as a human would talk, they don&#8217;t really see that this is just like the first result from a search on the web, then it&#8217;s harder to develop this critical sense of whether they should trust this or not.”



Rather than showcasing generative AI as a magical and all-knowing technology, it should be seen as a technology that can be tinkered with and used to further a craft, Druga says. In order to do so, it’s also important to make sure children understand the technology and know what is happening under the hood. “I think it&#8217;s important to not give them these applications and content already pre-chewed but also to give them tools of creation with this technology,” she says.



Sandra Cortesi, a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet &amp; Society at Harvard University, says that parents should steer clear of technologies that would make their children passively consume media. In the case of Create With Alexa, Cortesi questions whether parents want to expose their children to more screen time in the form of video storytelling. “I prefer technologies that have some kind of active character to it than just another thing where you watch and consume,” says Cortesi.



This isn’t the first time Amazon has ventured into storytelling technology. In 2017, the company launched Magic Door, an interactive adventure game that lets users decide each step of a story. The nonlinear experience doesn’t use any kind of AI but has 200 different scenes. Similar to ‘Create With Alexa,’ it gives users the agency to choose prompts such as settings like forests, seas, and enchanted lands and decide which scene will appear next. Earlier this year, Amazon also launched CodeWhisperer, a machine learning-powered coding assistant.



Over the last year, high-profile startups have launched buzzy text-to-image generative AI models like Dall-E 2 and Stable Diffusion, which have captured the imaginations of millions on social media. Startups behind these types of algorithms such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2022/09/07/stability-ai-funding-round-1-billion-valuation-stable-diffusion-text-to-image/?sh=1486bf0d24d6">Stability AI</a>and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2022/12/05/runway-ml-series-c-funding-500-million-valuation/?sh=330de10a2e64">Runway ML</a>&nbsp;have raised tens of millions of dollars in venture funding and garnered high valuations. OpenAI, the company that released Dall-E 2, unveiled ChatGPT last week, a chatbot that is able to write essays, code and provide detailed (but sometimes inaccurate) answers to questions.



These companies use machine learning to generate new text and image content rather than combining the two in a video format as Amazon Alexa has done. But other generative AI tools focus on storytelling, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.storywizard.ai/?ref=producthunt" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Storywizard AI</a>, which uses generative AI to create stories with images based on plots that illustrate moral concepts like friendship and overcoming fear, and Novel AI, which touts itself as “a GPT-powered sandbox for your imagination.”



Storytelling that uses generative AI can be a means of inspiration and creativity among children. Cortesi says that the stories produced by generative AI could inspire users to build fanfiction communities online and create additional stories that build on what the AI produces.



Amazon Alexa’s Bhatnagar says the tablet will never replace the storybook; instead, it will augment the experience. Cortesi adds that traditional storytelling is far from being thrown out for a digital version.



“For parents and children, stories are something we can be nostalgic about,” says Cortesi. “I still remember when my parents told me stories.”



“I hope that for parents, who already have a ton of tasks and responsibilities, they will not just give this tool to their children and say, ‘You go ahead, do the story. Good night.’&#8221;



By Rashi Shrivastava, Forbes Staff

Mother holding ill son’s hand sleeping on bed

Amazon Alexa Wants To Put Your Child To Bed With Generative AI Storytelling

Daniel Marfo is managing operations in Africa for Zipline, ensuring that life-saving medical products are sent almost instantly to inaccessible areas using drones. The company has operated 300,000 flights in Ghana and Rwanda over the last five years. Up next: Kenya and Côte d&#8217;Ivoire, also alleviating food insecurity on the continent.



When logistics system Zipline began operations in Africa, it piqued the interest of Daniel Marfo, a Ghanaian pharmacist, because he wanted to use technology to solve healthcare issues in the developing world.



He saw a chance to solve a logistical challenge; with all the roads that need constructing and maintenance in Africa, he knew infrastructure development would take too long, and so he joined Zipline in October 2018.


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It was a long road from the world of pharmaceuticals, but with the same purpose: helping save lives.



As Senior Vice President of Zipline’s operations in Africa, at 35 years old, he is leading the market efforts across the continent, expanding the company’s reach geographically and expanding the use cases for drones.



When Marfo began, he made a point to visit as many rural areas of Ghana before deploying the technology – once having to take a ferry, followed by canoes and a long hike.



“The people, they&#8217;re dependent on whatever means of transportation that exist to be able to access their medications. When we started service, and they received their first supply of medications by drone, it was remarkable, you had just changed their lives,” he says.



He refers to a small village called Gbintri in the north eastern region of Ghana. Anytime it rains, access to roads gets cut off, and the health facility shuts down.



In 2019, it was the first time the health facility didn’t shut down.



A challenge they faced was integrating a new system into an old way of operating; so Zipline created a department called systems integration, which looked at ways to merge drone technology with existing health systems and existing aviation systems.



It’s one of the hardest parts, he says, as they’re asking airspace regulators to allow hundreds of drones to fly every day.



Another challenging aspect has been community integration, as a lot of people in the rural areas have never seen a drone until now. He says the first impression of drones from people was that they were military or spy vehicles.



Marfo now takes dummy drones into the communities and uses community champions to explain the functions of the service.



When they launched the fifth center in Ghana, they were connecting to a health facility. Two elderly gentlemen happened to be sitting under a tree, enjoying the day. A drone swooped in, dropped the package, catching them by surprise, as they together exclaimed that “God had just delivered something from heaven”.



Health staff had to explain that this is the new way they receive medication – and they were still blown away.



When speaking about the potential of drone use in Africa, Marfo mentions that the airspace in Africa isn’t as busy as Europe or America – positing that in the future, Africa could have the most advanced drone network and regulatory systems.



Zipline has operated 300,000 flights in Ghana and Rwanda combined over the last five years. Usually, the flights are round trips of 100 or more kilometers.



They started using it to deliver blood in Rwanda, and realized they could use it for medical products.



When Covid hit, they delivered over a million doses of vaccines in Ghana.



In Ghana, 70,000 malaria test kits and nearly 1.3 million courses of malaria treatment were delivered partnering with Ghana’s Health Service. In five months, 5,000 malaria vaccines were transported to piloted districts by May 2022.



“In Africa, the other use case that resonated deeply with me was food security. If I can make sure that people have access to food and [their] livelihood, I&#8217;m actually fulfilling 50% of our healthcare mission.”



In January 2022, they piloted their agriculture use case, focusing on animal health, delivering semen for artificial insemination in pigs. They extended the use case to delivering animal vaccines.



He adds that they have scaled to sending nutrients for kids two years old and younger in rural areas.



“It&#8217;s just become an amazing way of how drones have morphed from being seen as a spy or a military tech to a recreational tech, and now, it&#8217;s really a life-transforming tech.”



Soon, they will open operations in Kenya, beginning with Kisumu, a port city on Lake Victoria. From there, they can reach 13 counties from one location. They are also moving to Côte d&#8217;Ivoire.



“We are very excited about our planned expansion into the Ivory Coast. It&#8217;s the first French-speaking country that we are entering…It also brings about its own set of challenges, cultural understanding and cultural integration.”



Marfo says if they want to be a truly global company, this is part of the evolution.



In June 2022, they commissioned the first distribution center in Nigeria in Kaduna State. He says the uptake of the service has been good, with medical products, vaccines and blood being distributed.



There’s been a lot of interest in agricultural use cases in Nigeria too, and they are planning to open another facility in Bayelsa State by the first quarter of 2023, as well as Cross River State. There was flooding affecting 33 out of 36 states in Nigeria by October 2022.



“No one prays for natural disasters, but in case it ever comes again, we are in a position to bring at least some relief to people during such a difficult time.”



In Rwanda, from February to November, the company introduced animal health deliveries, which now make up 17%-18% of deliveries.



“Sixty percent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa are farmers, and so, we are making sure that farmers are able to get the vaccines for the animals so that they don&#8217;t lose any of these animals, to be able to get them better semen so that they can get a better breed of animals, which generates more meat, means that we are actually changing the economy of these people&#8217;s lives.”



If the farmers are earning $10 a month from agriculture, he posits they may be earning double with the addition of drone technology. These are the use cases that excite him; technology that is not just saving lives with much-needed blood for transfusions or vaccines, but improving food security and putting more money in the hands of the people who matter, and who are the bulk of the population of the continent.



In Ghana, they also began focusing on poultry vaccines for farmers, specifically for Newcastle disease, in partnership with CowTribe – a Ghana-based for-profit organization focused on supporting livestock farmers via a mobile platform.



“Newcastle&#8217;s disease ravages about 70% of the chicken population, and it&#8217;s really terrible. But over the last few months, we&#8217;ve been able to make sure that farmers within our catchment areas have been able to get all their vaccines and they haven&#8217;t lost animals.”



For some, this is going to be the first time in years that the disease didn&#8217;t affect most of their flock. Marfo says around Christmas, farmers sell a lot of chicken and beef, and this will put more money in their pockets.



By September, Zipline and a leading e-commerce platform Jumia partnered up in Ghana to deliver retail products, with the goal of expanding into the other countries Jumia operates in.



“In increasing access for consumers, we’re also helping the small and medium businesses that use Jumia grow.”



The partnership makes Jumia’s existing logistics system more efficient and sustainable as the electric fleet reduces carbon emissions by 98% compared to delivery by car, according to Marfo.



“I think we are at that point where we did healthcare for five years, we&#8217;ve added on agriculture and even with agriculture we are just scraping the surface.”



When he began at Zipline four years ago, they were delivering a product to a health facility every four minutes. Now, they deliver every two minutes.



He wants to continue working on improving in terms of use cases, volume and scale – and make it so every minute, someone is getting a necessary or life-saving product.

Zipline Aircraft

‘Life-Transforming Tech’: Using Drones To Change Economies In Africa

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Twitter will relaunch Blue—its subscription service that offers verification badges to users who pay a monthly fee—on Monday, the company announced Saturday, a much-delayed move that comes more than a month after the original rollout of the service was plagued by “verified” impersonator accounts sowing chaos on the platform.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



The company&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1601692766257709056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1601692766257709056%7Ctwgr%5E3212198c03f98a379240e6ea3cb1f866cdc98ef7%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2022%2F12%2F10%2F23503355%2Ftwitter-blue-verification-elon-musk-phone-number-ads" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced the relaunch in a tweet</a>, noting Twitter Blue subscriptions will cost $8 a month for those who sign up on the website and $11 per month for those who subscribe through the Twitter iPhone app.



As previously&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/30/twitter-blue-launch-reportedly-delayed-again-as-musk-takes-issue-with-apple-store-fees/">reported</a>, the higher price for the iPhone app subscription is to cover the cost of Apple’s 30% fee on all in-app purchases—but users who sign up on the website should be able to access all of Twitter Blue’s benefits on the app.



Subscribers will need to register their phone number with Twitter in order to receive a blue verified badge, part of an effort to combat impersonator accounts that plagued the original rollout of Twitter Blue.



Twitter Blue subscribers who change their display name, profile picture, or handle will lose their verified badge until the account is reviewed again.



Aside from the verification badge, Twitter Blue subscribers will have the ability to edit tweets, upload higher-quality videos and access a reader mode.



The company is also promising a set of upcoming perks for subscribers that includes fewer ads, the ability to post long-form videos and their accounts being boosted in search results or replies.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT WE DON’T KNOW</h2>



The addition of a phone number verification process could mitigate some concerns around impersonator accounts, but it&#8217;s unclear how Twitter will use customers&#8217; phone numbers to confirm that their accounts are genuine. Twitter also hasn&#8217;t specified whether it plans to manually review all subscribers before granting a verified badge or if the process will be automated. Before Musk purchased Twitter, verification checkmarks were generally only available to people the company&nbsp;<a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/legacy-verification-policy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">deemed notable</a>, and the company often required proof of identity from a news outlet or an ID.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



Aside from rolling out Twitter Blue once again, the platform is also set to make changes to how it displays other verified accounts.&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/esthercrawford/status/1601693276225998848" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">According to</a>Twitter’s Head of Product Esther Crawford verified business accounts on Twitter will soon display gold checkmarks, while government and other official accounts will carry gray checkmarks.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



In a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1601851685915095040" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cryptic tweet</a>&nbsp;early on Sunday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk wrote: “The bots are in for a surprise tomorrow.” Although it is unclear if this is linked to the relaunch of Blue, Musk has previously pitched the service as a means to combat spam and bot accounts on the platform.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Twitter first rolled out the $8 per month Twitter Blue subscription last month as part of a broader effort by the company to shore up revenue and reduce its reliance on advertisers, many of whom left over content moderation concerns. It was Twitter’s first high-profile product launch since Musk closed his purchase of the social media company in late October. The rollout was a disaster, as the platform was soon&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/10/twitter-tries-to-clamp-down-on-verified-impersonator-accounts-as-musk-hints-at-more-changes/?sh=4681c88b7afb">flooded by impersonator accounts</a>&nbsp;with “verified” badges which made them hard to distinguish from real high-profile accounts. Musk, who had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.platformer.news/p/elon-only-trusts-elon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ignored repeated</a>&nbsp;warnings about a rapid rollout of the service from his own trust and safety team, attempted to resolve the issue by first issuing diktats about parody accounts. The company, however, was eventually forced to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/11/twitter-blue-new-signups-for-paid-verification-appear-suspended-after-impersonator-chaos/?sh=3940684a385c">suspend new signups</a>&nbsp;to deal with the chaos.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/11/25/elon-musk-says-twitter-is-launching-a-new-color-coded-verification-scheme-next-week---heres-what-we-know-so-far/?sh=3d6ae307617b">Elon Musk Says Twitter Is Launching A New Color-Coded Verification Scheme Next Week — Here’s What We Know So Far</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/30/twitter-blue-launch-reportedly-delayed-again-as-musk-takes-issue-with-apple-store-fees/?sh=1b5a99965d9b">Twitter Blue Launch Reportedly Delayed—Again—As Musk Takes Issue With Apple Store Fees</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



By Siladitya Ray, Forbes Staff

Twitter Blue Subscription Service Relaunched Monday—Here’s Everything You Need To Know

ElonMusk has received praise for his attempts to tackle Twitter’s long-documented child exploitation problems. Yet Forbes finds many users who appear to be trading egregious illegal content.



Last week, influential podcaster Liz Wheeler, who describes herself as “unapologetically one of the conservative movement&#8217;s boldest voices,” took to Twitter to praise its new CEO, Elon Musk, for purging the site of “child pornography and child trafficking hashtags.” (Child advocates have long argued these terms indicate legitimacy and compliance on the part of the victim, and that such content should be called “child sexual abuse material.”)



“Think about how many little children he’s saving from sexual abuse, exploitation &amp; torture,” she added. Responding to Wheeler’s comments on Tuesday, Musk tweeted, “This will forever be our top priority.”



Yet such illegal material remains alarmingly easy to find on Twitter—in multiple languages. Hashtags and search terms long related to child sexual abuse material (CSAM) still return lots of associated content. And recently departed Twitter employees, from the rank-and-file to the executive level, told&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;the issue will be far more difficult to combat now that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2022/11/18/elon-musk-twitter-csam-lawsuit/?sh=3b76e95b3733">Musk has obliterated the teams charged with policing it</a>, as well as their institutional knowledge.



As one such team member explained: “No one is left who is an expert on these issues and can do the work. . . . It’s a ghost town.”



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“No one is left who is an expert on these issues and can do the work. . . . It’s a ghost town.”Recently departed Twitter executive</blockquote>



While it is true that some hashtags previously used by those trading child sexual abuse material (CSAM) appear to have been rendered useless—something for which Musk was <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/while-blue-checks-whine-about-extremism-elon-musk-protecting-sexually-exploited-children-opinion-1761383" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">recently celebrated</a>—plenty have not.



In under an hour of searching on Tuesday,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;found dozens of users offering to buy and sell child sexual abuse images and videos. One offered footage of nude children ages 5 to 17. Another mentioned an exchange of images of children being abused on Telegram. Both these tweets, as well as nearly 30 others either promoting or seeking CSAM, were posted in the last week.



Simply searching the same words in banned hashtags revealed advertisements for much of the same content. One Twitter search for links to a well-known online storage platform returned a number of tweets offering videos of young boys and girls having sex with fathers and “with adult,” as well as images of “forced sex.”



Other questionable hashtags were still searchable. One containing an abbreviation long associated with CSAM returned ads, including one containing the image of what appeared to be an underage girl, offering an RFID tag that could be scanned and promised to take the user through to a CSAM-themed website.&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;also found multiple Spanish-language users offering what appeared to be images of minor girls over on Telegram, with Spanish hashtags attached.



Such posts often had other hashtags attached. These could be clicked on to reveal yet more problematic content, such as a tweet with a cartoon depiction of a minor and male genitalia, with overlaid text asking for, “anything illegal or legal. This person is horny.”



Even some hashtags that were ostensibly banned before Musk took over Twitter returned a handful of problematic results. While no new posts were visible when searching one such hashtag, one popped up from June in which a user said they were looking for images of newborns. That user was still on Twitter as of Tuesday. With only three posts, all carrying the same text and image, it’s possible they were a bot, another bugbear Musk has promised to tackle. It’s unclear why the account remains online. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“I don’t see any meaningful action taken by Musk so far.”Carolina Christofoletti, CSAM threat analyst for TRM Labs</blockquote>



Experts who have long studied the pervasiveness of this material on social media have warned that reducing Twitter’s CSAM problem to a handful of hashtags is a gross oversimplification. They say Musk is essentially being applauded for something he hasn’t done, or even tried to do.



“I don&#8217;t see any meaningful action taken by Musk so far,” said Carolina Christofoletti, a CSAM threat analyst for TRM Labs and researcher at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. She&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/carolina-christofoletti-26b0a01b1_elon-musks-says-the-issue-of-child-sexual-activity-7000611728015118336-1kBu/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">has cautioned</a>&nbsp;that the issue “is far bigger than a bunch of hashtags” and “much bigger than ‘easy to catch’ fishes.” She noted that the wiping of some troubling CSAM hashtags and other associated actions “were all things done under the previous leadership.”



“He has drained the child safety team on Twitter without any risk impact whatsoever,” she added, pointing to a Musk tweet asking users—rather than his internal team—for ideas on how to better tackle CSAM. “Twitter is exactly how it was, nothing new under the sun here,” she wrote in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/carolina-christofoletti-26b0a01b1_after-acquisition-elon-musk-taking-down-activity-7000390970529742848-zLcG/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop#" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a LinkedIn post</a>. “The CSAM networks are still there, as active as before.”



Meanwhile, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation is warning that Musk’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/01/elon-musk-twitter-paywalled-video/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported plans</a>&nbsp;to move forward with a paywalled video feature, akin to OnlyFans, would only exacerbate the already urgent children’s safety issues on the site. “Musk cannot confront child sexual abuse material on Twitter while creating another means that would only fuel sexual abuse and exploitation on the platform,” Lina Nealon, director of corporate and strategic initiatives, said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/if-elon-musk-is-serious-about-confronting-child-exploitation-he-must-shut-down-idea-of-an-onlyfans-competitor/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">public statement</a>&nbsp;Tuesday.



At least one person who remains at the company said the leadership shakeup has not changed Twitter’s policy on, or employees’ commitment to, the issue. A current child safety specialist said Musk is “fully aware” of Twitter’s “<a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/sexual-exploitation-policy#:~:text=Twitter%20has%20zero%20tolerance%20towards,%2C%20or%20computer%2Dgenerated%20images." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">zero tolerance</a>” approach to child exploitation material and that “our team is working 24/7” across three regions—San Francisco, Singapore and Dublin—to keep children safe.



“I&#8217;m proud of the work we do for our team,” she wrote to Forbes over LinkedIn. “And despite all the outside/internal noise, our team is focused on our work.”



By Thomas Brewster, Forbes Staff and Alexandra S. Levine Forbes Staff

If Child Protection Is Musk’s ‘Top Priority,’ Why Is It So Easy To Find Users Selling Images Of Nude Minors On Twitter?

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



Apple may fall short of its production target for its flagship iPhone 14 Pro models by nearly 6 million units worldwide, Bloomberg&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-28/apple-to-lose-6-million-iphone-pros-from-tumult-at-china-plant" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>&nbsp;Monday, after workers at the world&#8217;s largest iPhone manufacturing plant in Zhengzhou, China, protested delayed bonus payments, poor living conditions caused by China’s stringent Covid restrictions.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



According to Bloomberg, the exact size of the shortfall still remains unclear and will likely depend on manufacturer Foxconn’s ability to hire enough workers for the iPhone assembly line to keep up with production targets.



Earlier this month, Apple had cut its production target for the iPhone 14 by 3 million units due to Covid-related disruptions at the Foxconn plant and that number has now been revised by double, the report adds.



Workers at the Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou—sometimes referred to as “iPhone city”—have been forced to live on-site in a closed bubble, only being allowed to move from the factory floor to their dorm rooms due to the city’s Covid control measures.



While sales of the cheaper iPhone 14 and 14 Plus have slowed down, the pricier iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max have continued to remain in strong demand in the U.S., the report adds.



While the company has diversified its manufacturing line by making some of its devices in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/26/apple-starts-manufacturing-the-iphone-14-in-india.html#:~:text=Apple%20on%20Monday%20said%20it,on%20the%20outskirts%20of%20Chennai." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">India</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/08/24/iphone-shipments-from-vietnam-saw-major-growth-in-q2-2022" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Vietnam</a>, nearly all of its flagship iPhone 14 Pro models are made in the Zhengzhou factory.



Apple’s shares were down 1.87% in pre-market trading on Monday morning following the report.



Forbes&nbsp;has reached out to Apple for a comment.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



90 million. That was Apple’s initial target for the total number of iPhone 14 series devices that Apple planned to manufacture this year, Bloomberg&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-11/apple-expects-to-sustain-iphone-sales-in-2022-as-market-slows#xj4y7vzkg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">previously reported</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



In an analyst note, investment firm Wedbush Securities said: “We estimate that Apple now has significant iPhone shortages that could take off roughly at least 5% of units in the quarter and potentially up to 10% depending on the next few weeks in China around Foxconn production and protests” The note added, “The zero China Covid policy has been an absolute gut punch to Apple&#8217;s supply chain with the Foxconn protests in Zhengzhou a black eye for both Apple and Foxconn.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">NEWS PEG</h2>



Anticipating a disruption due to China’s anti-Covid measures, Apple issued a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/11/update-on-supply-of-iphone-14-pro-and-iphone-14-pro-max/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statement</a>&nbsp;earlier this month warning of a delay in shipments for the Pro model iPhones. The statement blamed “Covid-19 restrictions” for impacting production at the Foxconn plant and said customers trying to purchase the top-end models will face longer wait times. At present on Apple’s website, the wait time for an iPhone 14 Pro or Pro Max shows up as exactly one month. The cheaper iPhone 14 and 14 Plus are available for same-day pickup at most Apple stores.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



Last week, violent clashes broke out between security personnel and workers at the Foxconn plant over delayed payments and poor living conditions. Several workers&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-24/foxconn-offers-staff-1-400-to-leave-after-iphone-city-violence?" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said they feared</a>&nbsp;they would not receive their promised bonus payouts for joining the factory unless they stayed until March. The new recruits had been lured by promises of higher wages and a bonus payment after hundreds of workers fled the factory campus in October, fearing the impact of stringent Covid measures. Foxconn eventually apologized and blamed the problems on a “technical error” in its hiring process. In an effort to assuage angry recruits, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/24/foxconn-apologizes-after-workers-revolt-at-worlds-largest-iphone-factory/?sh=61d8a80a245f">offered</a>&nbsp;a ¥10,000 ($1,400) compensation to those who wanted to leave the plant.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/more-than-20000-new-hires-have-left-apple-supplier-foxconns-zhengzhou-plant-2022-11-25/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">According to</a>&nbsp;Reuters, nearly 20,000 recruits took up Foxconn’s offer, nearly 10% of iPhone City’s 200,000-strong workforce.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-28/apple-to-lose-6-million-iphone-pros-from-tumult-at-china-plant?sref=PFCuwcPr&amp;leadSource=uverify%20wall" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Apple to Lose 6 Million iPhone Pros From Tumult at China Plant</a>(Bloomberg)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/23/apple-shares-dip-in-premarket-amid-covid-protest-at-chinas-biggest-iphone-factory/?sh=6fa253a54d68">Apple Shares Dip In Premarket Amid Covid Protest At China’s Biggest iPhone Factory</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/11/24/foxconn-apologizes-after-workers-revolt-at-worlds-largest-iphone-factory/?sh=61d8a80a245f">Foxconn Apologizes After Workers Revolt At World’s Largest iPhone Factory</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



By Siladitya Ray, Forbes Staff

Apple’s iPhone 14 Series On Sale In China

Apple Reportedly Faces Shortfall Of 6 Million iPhones Amid China Factory Protests￼

Wall Street billionaires Carl Icahn, Ken Griffin, Israel Englander and Daniel Loeb can thank Elon Musk for what might be 2022’s easiest money trade.



For many hedge funds,&nbsp;Elon Musk’s $44 billion “forced” purchase of Twitter represented an easy money trade.



“You didn’t have to be a genius to realize that he was going to finish that deal,” said Carl Icahn at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2022/11/03/carl-icahn-would-have-waged-a-proxy-fight-for-twitter-if-musk-deal-fell-through/?sh=684d42f74623">Forbes Iconoclast Summit</a>&nbsp;on November 3, adding that he would have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2022/11/03/carl-icahn-would-have-waged-a-proxy-fight-for-twitter-if-musk-deal-fell-through/?sh=5928e07d4623">considered waging a proxy fight</a>&nbsp;if the deal fell through.



Icahn told the audience at New York’s Historical Society that he made a profit of around $250 million by investing in Twitter this summer. But he was far from the only one to benefit. Regulatory filings show that billionaire-led hedge funds including Citadel Advisors, Millennium Management, D.E. Shaw and Third Point built large positions in Twitter in the second and third quarters, as well as other firms like Pentwater Capital and Farallon Capital.



Musk signed a merger agreement to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share in April, but the stock was trading as low as $32.65 by July when he tried to terminate the deal. That created an arbitrage opportunity for as much as a 66% return for investors who doubted Musk had much of a chance in the Delaware Court of Chancery to back out.



Icahn’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/921669/000153949722001801/xslForm13F_X01/infotable.xml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">third-quarter 13-F filing</a>&nbsp;with the SEC shows that he owned 12.5 million Twitter shares as of September 30. He said at the&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;summit he bought in the mid-$30s–if he bought at an average price of $35 per share and made a $19.20 profit on each one when the deal closed at the original price of $54.20 per share on October 28, he would have netted a $240 million profit.



The only fund that made a bigger bet than Icahn was Naples, Florida-based Pentwater Capital Management, founded by Matthew Halbower in 2007. It bought 18.1 million shares during the second quarter and added another 5.3 million shares as of the end of the third quarter. If it bought those 24 million shares at Twitter stock’s median closing price of $40.16 in the first quarter and $41.05 in the second quarter and held them through the completion of the acquisition in October, it would have made $324 million in profit, though its 13-F filing shows it hedged some of those gains by buying put options as well. Pentwater didn’t respond to a request for comment.



In all,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;found 13 hedge funds that spent upwards of $100 million adding to their Twitter stakes between the end of the first quarter and the end of the third quarter this year. We reached out to each fund to ask for average purchase prices, and estimated that they bought at Twitter’s median closing price in each quarter if more precise information wasn’t available. These funds cumulatively purchased more than 10% of the company in the six months leading up to September 30 and likely made well over $1 billion in profits on the deal.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-twitter-winners">TWITTER WINNERS</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-these-hedge-funds-added-the-most-to-their-twitter-positions-this-spring-and-summer-and-likely-minted-profits-if-they-held-on-through-elon-musk-s-purchase">These hedge funds added the most to their Twitter positions this spring and summer and likely minted profits if they held on through Elon Musk&#8217;s purchase.</h4>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="800" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-21-at-15.52.49-1024x800.png" alt="" class="wp-image-56886" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-21-at-15.52.49-1024x800.png 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-21-at-15.52.49-300x234.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-21-at-15.52.49-768x600.png 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-21-at-15.52.49.png 1480w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption>Source: SEC 13-F Filings</figcaption></figure>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



These numbers don’t include any additional shares the firms may have purchased in October, when the margins were slimmer while Musk finalized the acquisition, and don’t include possible trading that took place within each quarter. 13-F filings show a simple snapshot of each firm’s long stock holdings on the last day of each quarter and don’t provide enough information to pin down exact gains and losses, but often represent the most thorough picture of what funds are buying and selling.



The biggest winners included Hong Kong-based Segantii Capital Management, founded by British investor Simon Sadler, and Farallon Capital, the San Francisco-based firm founded by Thomas Steyer in 1986 and now run by Andrew Spokes.



David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital initiated a position of 4.3 million shares in the third quarter, his 13-F filing shows, and he wrote in a letter to investors viewed by&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;that the average purchase price was $37.24 per share. He expected that the Delaware Court of Chancery would be wary of inviting future buyer’s remorse suits if it let Musk walk away.



“The case law on this is quite clear. If it were anyone other than Musk, we would handicap the odds of the buyer wiggling out of the deal to be much less than 5%,” Einhorn wrote in the letter prior to the completion of the deal. “At this price there is $17 per share of upside if TWTR prevails in court and we believe about $17 per share of downside, if the deal breaks. So, we are getting 50-50 odds on something that should happen 95%+ of the time.”



Musk saw the writing on the wall and reversed course in October, agreeing to pay the full price as these investors expected. His first weeks as Twitter’s owner have been marked by confusion and complaints after he opened verification to anyone willing to pay $8 per month, causing a wave of “verified” parody accounts, and laid off 3,700 employees, almost half of its staff. He has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/11/10/musk-tells-staff-twitter-could-go-bankrupt-without-financial-turnaround-reports-say/?sh=5cc89ccc7257">warned Twitter’s staff</a>&nbsp;that “bankruptcy is not out of the question,” but if his $44 billion equity investment goes up in smoke, the hedge funds he paid that cash to will be laughing all the way to the bank.



By Hank Tucker, Forbes Staff

Category: Technology

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