Latest news with #X
Al Arabiya
an hour ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Zelenskyy says Russia launched over 300 drones, eight missiles on Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that Russia launched over 300 drones and eight missiles to attack Ukraine overnight. 'Today, the world once again saw Russia's response to our desire for peace, shared with America and Europe,' Zelenskyy wrote on X.
Irish Times
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
Social media and responsibility
Sir – The random stabbing of a young member of An Garda Síochána on Capel Street in Dublin has been properly condemned. What also needs to be condemned is the fact that hours after the Garda clarified that the suspected attacker was an Irish man, social media such as X was still carrying comments claiming that the attacker was a 'foreigner'. Surely social media companies have a responsibility to take down comments which are clearly inaccurate and harmful? We should all be mindful of the vulnerability of immigrants to violent behaviour by people likely to have been motivated by false and malicious social media comments. – Yours, etc, PETER FEENEY, READ MORE (Former press ombudsman), Donnybrook, Dublin 4.
The Sun
12 hours ago
- Politics
- The Sun
Online Safety Act designed to protect kids has ended up becoming a blunt tool to censor free speech
Self-harm Act SOCIAL media is infested with dangerous content such as self-harm videos. So it's understandable that ministers should wish to protect children from such vile material on the internet. But the Online Safety Act designed to protect kids has ended up becoming a blunt tool to censor free speech. New laws introduced last week put a ban on 'legal but harmful' material. But it is so wide a term that it risks morphing into sinister state control. The new Act has already led to users on X being barred from viewing images from anti-immigration protests by anonymous moderators. It's only a matter of time before any kind of political content ends up being deleted for unexplained, anti-democratic reasons. The Act was sold as being necessary to prevent vulnerable children seeing content related to the likes of suicide, eating disorders and pornography. But an 1,800 per cent increase in downloads of VPN blockers — used to disguise the country of origin of internet users — shows that any tech-savvy teen can get round basic age verification checks. In the cause of banning hurty words, ministers have instead ended up curbing freedom of expression while doing nothing to improve safety. The real abusers — who mainly operate from abroad anyway — will carry on with their evil activity. Big changes come to PornHub and a dozen other XXX sites 1 Boom 'n' bust IT is simply unsustainable for Britain to be able to absorb a population explosion as massive as the one we have been subjected to in the last two years. Numbers in England and Wales grew by 706,881 in 2024 and 821,210 in 2023. That has taken the total to nearly 62million. What preparations did the Tories — who shamefully lost control of immigration in these years — make for such a fundamental change? Absolutely none. With a housing shortage, an NHS in crisis and a daily battle to keep the lights on and the water pumping, Labour must get numbers down. Migration on this scale — especially when so many are low-skilled workers — is ruinously bad for the economy. It ends up costing more to house and look after them than they contribute. No one voted for any of this. Pride in Ozzy BIRMINGHAM did its favourite son Ozzy Osbourne proud yesterday. The old showman would have loved the huge turnout for him in his native city. No doubt looking down from his black throne in rock heaven, Ozzy will have had a message for his many fans: No more tears.
Irish Times
12 hours ago
- Business
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on X's court defeat: the conflict will continue
The High Court's rejection of X's challenge to Ireland's new online safety code may come to be seen as a milestone in the enforcement of Europe's digital rulebook. It is also a reminder that the battle over online content regulation is not simply a matter of legal interpretation or child protection policy. It sits squarely in the middle of a transatlantic struggle over who sets the rules for the digital economy. Ireland's Online Safety Code, enforced by Coimisiún na Meán, requires platforms to shield children from harmful video content, introduce age checks and parental controls, and prevent the sharing of material that promotes self-harm, eating disorders or bullying. The court ruled these measures fall within the EU's Audiovisual Media Services Directive and complement the Digital Services Act, dismissing X's claims of overreach. That finding may seem straightforward from a European perspective. The EU has long sought to assert that technology companies must respect European standards if they wish to operate here. But the US views such measures through a different lens, shaped by its dominance in the tech sector and a political culture that prizes free expression in almost absolute terms. The commercial stakes are immense. The global tech services market is overwhelmingly dominated by American firms: Meta, Google, Apple and Amazon. EU regulation is therefore not just a neutral exercise in public protection but, inevitably, a rebalancing of power between the jurisdictions where these companies are based and the markets in which they operate. That tension is heightened by the fact that Ireland is home to the European headquarters of many of these firms, making it the front line in this conflict. READ MORE In Washington, the issues are often couched in the language of principle. Conservative figures such as JD Vance have been vocal in their defence of unfettered online speech, casting regulation as censorship. Such arguments, while grounded in America's First Amendment tradition, also align neatly with the commercial interests of the companies whose revenues depend on maximising user engagement. The defence of principle and the defence of profit are intertwined. The ruling against X will not end these disputes. The tech industry's legal resources are vast, and its political allies influential. But it confirms that Ireland, acting within the EU framework, has the authority to challenge the ethos of the platforms it hosts. That will not be welcomed in boardrooms in California or on Capitol Hill. As the digital economy becomes a key arena of US-EU competition, Ireland's decisions will be read not only as regulatory acts but as statements about where power lies in the online world. Tuesday's judgment suggests that, at least for now, that power may be shifting.
Gizmodo
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Gizmodo
Elon Musk Pushes View That Women Are ‘Anti-White' Because They're ‘Weak'
Elon Musk has long shared extremist views on X, the social media platform he purchased in late 2022. But every once in a while, his activity on the platform is so extreme that it can still manage to shock even the most jaded Musk observer. That's what happened Wednesday when the billionaire Tesla CEO retweeted an account that insisted women are 'built to be traded' and are 'anti-white' because they're physically weak. The social media exchange started on Tuesday when Musk replied to a tweet from an account called Morgonn, who asked, 'Why do liberal white women hate white people so much?' Musk replied, 'They've been programmed to do so by their teachers and the media.' An account named Dr. Insensitive Jerk quote-tweeted Musk with a long screed that pushes the idea women are intended to be 'traded' between tribes and that white women in particular conform to 'dominant culture,' to stay safe because they're 'physically weak.' The tweet insists women in the West are 'raised in an anti-white culture,' and that's why white women supposedly hate white people. 'In the long term, they will be forced to remember they are white. Better they are reminded of that by white men, because the alternative is not so gentle,' the tweet ends, suggesting that anyone who isn't white is physically abusive to women. Musk retweeted the rant from Dr. Insensitive Jerk. Extremists will often try to argue their worldview as being grounded in some field like evolutionary psychology, implying that it's all part of the natural order. But in case that tweet's use of 'IMO' or 'in my opinion' isn't clear enough, there's no evidence for anything this account claims beyond his own opinion. It feels right to the misogynists, so it must be accurate. The account Dr. Insensitive Jerk appears to frequently share racist ideas, including a tweet from Sept. 2024 that reads, 'Blacks stick with the Democrat party for the same reason your cat sticks with you. Free food.' Another tweet suggested that Black people should be segregated from white people in the U.S. Musk frequently shares far-right ideas on X, the platform he purchased in October 2022 and reshaped into the hub of extremism we know today. The billionaire allowed extreme voices to be amplified on the site in such a way that literal Nazis often go viral on the site in a way that wasn't permitted before Musk took over. Musk, who gave two Nazi-style salutes on the day of President Donald Trump's second inauguration, even invited Nick Fuentes back to the platform after he was banned for hate speech in July 2021. Fuentes is a Holocaust denier who openly admits his hatred for Jewish people. Other extremist voices welcomed back to X have included conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, misogynist podcaster Andrew Tate, former Trump advisor Roger Stone, and anti-Muslim bigot Laura Loomer, just to name a few. There is no question for anyone who spends even 10 minutes on X that it's become a safe haven for extremism—the kind of site that used to be confined to the darker corners of the internet. But Musk has helped his far-right ideas go mainstream. And even if he no longer officially works for the federal government as the head of DOGE, he can still influence how the world operates by controlling a major source of news for large chunks of the world's population. None of Musk's rhetoric is new. In November 2023, the billionaire replied to an antisemitic tweet with, 'You have said the actual truth,' finally kicking off a debate in mainstream circles about whether Musk really was an extremist. The tweet, unlike many others Musk has appeared to regret, was never deleted. But Musk visited Auschwitz with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a couple of months later, which the media sometimes portrayed as a kind of apology. Musk denies being antisemitic. As it happens, November 2023 is also when the first Cybertruck deliveries started. Musk also defended Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams after he promoted the idea of racial segregation. Adams called Black Americans a 'hate group,' and said that white people should 'get the hell away' from them on his YouTube channel, leading to the cartoonist being dropped by his distributor. But Musk insisted it was members of the media who were racist against white people. With the emergence of generative artificial intelligence tools like Grok, Musk also has the opportunity to shape the way that things are fact-checked on his platform. And it seems like every time he tries to tinker with his robot, he makes it even more extreme. There was the incident back in May when Grok started randomly talking about supposed 'white genocide' of farmers in South Africa, something that seemed to follow a fact-check that Musk didn't like about the topic. And then there was the day, earlier this month, when Grok went full Nazi, praising Hitler and advocating for a second Holocaust against Jews. Gizmodo attempted to reach Elon Musk through the X press office. We'll update this article if we hear back.
