Elmo returns to X after hacked antisemitic outburst
The incident is the latest example of hate speech spreading on X, which was acquired in 2022 by billionaire Elon Musk, an intermittent ally of President Donald Trump. Musk's overhaul of the platform's rules, along with his outspoken support for right-wing political movements in the United States and Europe, has drawn sharp criticism for enabling the spread of disinformation and abuse.
Elmo's outburst comes less than a week after Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok posted a series of antisemitic messages on X, including some glorifying Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Musk's company xAI quickly removed the 'inappropriate posts' and stated last week it had taken action to 'ban hate speech before Grok posts on X,' without providing further details.
X was already under investigation by EU regulators for violating the bloc's social media rules due to a potential lack of safeguards against illegal content. French prosecutors also opened a criminal investigation into X last week over allegations that the platform manipulated its algorithms for the purposes of 'foreign interference.'
'Thank you for being kind to Elmo and all the people in your neighborhood,' Elmo wrote Tuesday.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Meta Rejects EU AI Code Over Legal Uncertainty
Meta (NASDAQ:META) Platforms announced it will not sign the European Commission's new voluntary Code of Practice for general purpose AI. Joel Kaplan, Meta's head of global affairs, said the proposals introduce more legal uncertainty than clear guidance. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 5 Warning Sign with META. The Code asks developers to publish transparency reports, keep detailed documentation on model features and honor broad copyright guarantees. Kaplan warned these requirements go well beyond the AI Act's original scope and may scare off investment in leading research. Earlier this month about forty five industry groups asked Ursula von der Leyen to delay the AI Act's rollout for two years. They fear strict rules will push talent and capital out of Europe and into more lenient markets. Unveiled last week by independent experts, the Code serves as a voluntary primer for companies preparing for mandatory EU rules coming next month. Under the Act's risk assessment framework, systems deemed high risk face the tightest controls. Meta's refusal highlights a growing rift between regulators focused on public safety and companies worried about stifling innovation. With enforcement looming, the debate over AI governance in Europe is only just beginning. This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Meta Rejects EU AI Code Over Legal Uncertainty
Meta (NASDAQ:META) Platforms announced it will not sign the European Commission's new voluntary Code of Practice for general purpose AI. Joel Kaplan, Meta's head of global affairs, said the proposals introduce more legal uncertainty than clear guidance. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 5 Warning Sign with META. The Code asks developers to publish transparency reports, keep detailed documentation on model features and honor broad copyright guarantees. Kaplan warned these requirements go well beyond the AI Act's original scope and may scare off investment in leading research. Earlier this month about forty five industry groups asked Ursula von der Leyen to delay the AI Act's rollout for two years. They fear strict rules will push talent and capital out of Europe and into more lenient markets. Unveiled last week by independent experts, the Code serves as a voluntary primer for companies preparing for mandatory EU rules coming next month. Under the Act's risk assessment framework, systems deemed high risk face the tightest controls. Meta's refusal highlights a growing rift between regulators focused on public safety and companies worried about stifling innovation. With enforcement looming, the debate over AI governance in Europe is only just beginning. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
The rest of the world struggles to restrain Israel
His entreaties, for now, amount to more hope and prayers. The conflict and misery in Gaza shows little sign of abating, while Israel keeps pounding targets across a wide swath of the region. That includes a bombing campaign this week in Syria, which Israel says is aimed at defending minority Druze from sectarian attacks but analysts also believe is part of a deeper strategy to maintain influence over the country's fragile post-dictatorship transition. Away from the war zones of the Middle East, Israel finds itself fighting other battles. Judges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague rejected Israel's request to withdraw arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, who are both wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out under their watch in the aftermath of Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, strike on southern Israel. In a bid to pressure the international court, the United States has placed sanctions on some ICC judges and prosecutors. Advertisement Earlier this week, Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar went to Brussels for meetings with European counterparts. He emerged, in his words, victorious, having achieved 'an important diplomatic feat' of persuading the European Union to avoid adopting punitive measures against Israel. Kaja Kallas, the EU's top diplomat, said the bloc was keeping 'options on the table' but would not pursue mooted sanctions that it was considering after an earlier EU assessment found Israel possibly in breach of human rights commitments. Advertisement But rights advocates were frustrated, given the scale of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza and Israel's documented stifling of aid into the flattened territory. The EU's acquiescence, suggested Amnesty International's Agnès Callamard, would be 'remembered as one of the most disgraceful moments in the EU's history' and was 'a cruel and unlawful betrayal of the European project and vision.' The governments of Ireland, Spain, and Slovenia are the three European nations that have been outspoken in their criticism of Israel and spearheaded the attempted reckoning in Brussels. They are pressing ahead with their own measures to show their disapproval of Israel's conduct of the war, which has severely depleted Hamas but also destroyed Gaza and killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including many children. Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez accused Israel of carrying out a 'genocide' earlier this month. Irish lawmakers are advancing legislation banning trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, much to the anger of some US officials. And Slovenia declared two far-right Israeli cabinet ministers as personae non gratae, banning them from the country. 'This kind of measure is the first of its kind in the European Union,' Slovenian foreign minister Tanja Fajon said. 'We are breaking new ground.' There's reason to be cynical about the efficacy of such attempts by small countries. In Europe, the governments of Britain, France, and Germany remain far more reluctant to confront Israel in similar fashion, while French President Emmanuel Macron's efforts to revive international momentum toward the creation of a Palestinian state seem to be fizzling out. Advertisement Israel's boosters in the United States can shrug and smirk. 'An unstated reason for Europe's particular animus toward Israel over the decades is that the continent's leaders secretly resent Israel's willingness and ability to regularly defend itself through tough military action,' mused veteran Washington wonk Robert D. Kaplan, 'something Europe's elites never had even to countenance, and arguably couldn't manage.' Kaplan and his ilk were unlikely to be impressed by a summit that took place earlier this week in Bogotá, where delegations from 30 countries convened to pressure Israel to end its war in Gaza, as well as its occupation of the West Bank. The session of The Hague Group was cohosted by South Africa, which is leading a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and the left-wing government of Colombia. It concluded Wednesday with 12 countries agreeing to implement a set of measures to 'restrain' Israel. These include a denial of arms to Israel, banning of ships transporting such arms, and reviews of public contracts with companies linked to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories. A scan of the list of the countries that immediately signed on may suggest Israel's leadership isn't quite shaking in its boots: Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Nicaragua, Oman, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and South Africa. But the conference's backers argued that it's a first step in a global shift. Advertisement 'For too long, governments have been too afraid of the consequences of angering the United States to risk taking action to uphold international law,' Annelle Sheline, a former State Department official who attended the proceedings in the Colombian capital, told me. 'This is about more than Israel and Palestine, this is about a new multilateralism taking shape to replace the old system.'
