European Union orders X to hand over algorithm documents:
Brussels has ordered Elon Musk to fully disclose recent changes made to recommendations on X, stepping up an investigation into the role of the social media platform in European politics.
The expanded probe by the European Commission, announced on Friday, requires X to hand over internal documents regarding its recommendation algorithm. The Commission also issued a "retention order" for all relevant documents relating to how the algorithm could be amended in future.
In addition, the EU regulator requested access to information on how the social media network moderates and amplifies content.
The move follows complaints from politicians in Germany that X's algorithm is promoting content by the far right ahead of the country's February 23 elections. Musk has come out in favour of Alternative for Germany (AfD), arguing that it will save Europe's largest nation from "economic and cultural collapse." The German domestic intelligence service has designated parts of the AfD as right-wing extremist.
Speaking on Friday, German chancellor Olaf Scholz toughened his language towards the world's richest man, describing Musk's support for the AfD as "completely unacceptable." The party is currently second place in the polls with around 20 percent support, ahead of Scholz's Social Democrats and behind the opposition Christian Democratic Union.
Earlier in the week, Germany's defence ministry and foreign ministry said they were suspending their activity on X, with the defence ministry saying it had become increasingly "unhappy" with the platform.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, @07:32PM (7 children)
There might be a run on popcorn to watch this little feud.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, @08:58PM (6 children)
yup. [independent.co.uk] the elon defense force is going to be busy today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, @10:17PM (5 children)
Another good smokescreen, Trump is a pro at things like this--anything to divert attention away from whatever he's really doing.
Now Germany and the EU will waste time over Elon...while not paying attention to, for example, the needs of Ukraine.
(Score: 4, Touché) by cmdrklarg on Monday January 20, @10:36PM
Pretty sure that the EU has enough people to be able to divide their attention.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2, Troll) by RedGreen on Tuesday January 21, @07:33AM (3 children)
"while not paying attention to, for example, the needs of Ukraine."
Yeah right the chicken shit bastards in the EU could care less about the Ukraine, if they had the damn war would have been over by now. all they had to do was give the brave Ukrainians the tools needed to defeat the Russian instead of doing it piece meal costing thousands of extra lives. Now the asshole Putin has his partner in crime in the Whitehouse ready to pull the rug from under them. What a bunch of spineless bastards they all are.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 21, @11:59AM
A Machiavellian in the West might burn Russia's economy fighting Ukraine while turning over all of their old military kit.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday January 22, @03:21PM (1 child)
No. The EU, much like the US when Trump wasn't running it, has carefully managed this as a forever-war in a perpetual near-stalemate to continually enrich the military-industrial complex, while bankrupting the Western nations that fund it and needlessly sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23, @05:35AM
And how many lives will be lost when Trump starts forever special military operations in Panama, Greenland, and Iran? Trump is more than happy to go to special military operation with other countries when it suits his purposes.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Monday January 20, @07:49PM (7 children)
I wish MY politicians gave a rat's ass about the 99%. Of course, Europe is democratic, America has been a plutocracy since the Supreme Court killed democracy with Citizens United.
Who cares that Fox is owned by a FOREIGNER? The irony is hilarious.
A Russian operative has infiltrated the highest level of our government. Where's Joe McCarthy when we need him?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, @11:00AM (6 children)
I don't recall seeing Ursula von der Leyen on the ballot. Yet she is now the boss. I did not vote for her. Nobody wanted her as their first choice. They had to argue and agree on the less shit option before they picked her again.
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday January 21, @11:40AM (3 children)
Within the EU she was elected from amongst her peers. This is no different from the public not voting for individual ministers but only for the overall government.
For example, a US President is elected but he chooses those who surround him in numerous posts. It is still viewed as a democratic system.
From:
https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/leadership/elections-and-appointments_en [europa.eu]
So you have had a chance to elect those who represent you in the EU.
In the UK, you do not get a vote regarding civil service posts, or who assumes which ministerial role, or many other public roles. It is still considered democratic.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2, Informative) by shrewdsheep on Wednesday January 22, @09:21AM (2 children)
To be fair, there is a democratic deficit with respect to EU institutions. The commission is proposed by the European Council, which is populated by representatives from EU member states, i.e. the powers that be. Arguably, such extensive levels of indirection leave a lot of leeway for influences (aka corruption) not in the interest of EU citizens. BTW, the EU commission is the most powerful body of the EU.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday January 22, @10:55AM (1 child)
i agree that the EU structure leaves much to be desired. There are several reasons for this, primarily because various groups have to be represented.
The citizens are represented by the MEPs, whom they elect directly. The MEPs are there to represent the millions of individual citizens in the various nations.
Then there is a need to represent the various governments who have policies which do not necessarily need the approval of every citizen. If such a thing were necessary we would be in a permanent state of local elections which would patently be unworkable. The government representatives are chosen by each government. How this is achieved is a national responsibility, but continuity is desirable even with changes of government although is is not always realised.
Then there is also a requirement for a group to represent the EU in formal negotiations with other countries and to have the responsibility of speaking on behalf of the EU in its entirety in international agreements etc. They are supposed to be guided by the wishes of the various governments but there is, of course, never a complete agreement between various nations. Therefore there is always a degree of compromise before an 'EU position' is agreed.
Finally, there is then a huge group of civil servants, translators, subject specialists, legal experts etc who provide support to the EU. They shouldn't have any influence on what has been agreed elsewhere but the way a document is written and understood in numerous languages often affects how different nations view what is actually agreed.
While I think the structure is burdensome I cannot suggest a simpler structure that will meet the approval of the various nations so that they all have an equal say in how the EU functions and how it expresses its views to the rest of the world.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22, @04:13PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College#Original_plan [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause_2:_Method_of_choosing_electors [wikipedia.org]
OMG that's so much more democratic than the European method where the voters vote for the MEPs and the MEPs vote for the President right?
Oh but the candidates are selected by the Council... In contrast in the more Democratic US the candidates are selected by the Two Parties, where the Democrats can somehow select a candidate who is even more mentally incompetent than Trump. Did they have another agenda which was more important than winning the election? 🤣
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 21, @05:47PM
In general, I would expect that a consensus second-choice pick that everyone tolerates even if nobody is super-excited by them would be at worst no worse at representing the interests of the whole group than the first-choice pick of any single faction of the whole.
One of my favorite examples of this in US history is James K Polk: A guy who nobody in his party had as their first choice really, but he was someone everyone could tolerate, so they went with him, and he won, spent 4 years winning the Mexican-American War and doing more-or-less everything else he had promised to do, and called it quits after 1 term as president.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22, @03:56PM
Speaking of shit options, in the US, the Democrats insisted on fielding a candidate who was arguably even more mentally incompetent than Trump. Makes some wonder what their higher priority agenda was that "trumped" winning the election.
Nice democracy you have there.
Oh yeah go look at how the US president is elected some time too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College [wikipedia.org]
It's by voters voting for a bunch of people who vote for the president.
OMG that's so much more democratic than voters voting for a bunch of people (MEPs) who voted for the EC president.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday January 20, @07:52PM (10 children)
They should open their own hyper-censored propaganda platform if they want it so bad.
If their numbers are real, they'll make more money than X.
My suspicion is they won't, because their numbers are fake.
You know its going to be a blow out election when they're blamestorming and finger pointing a month before the election LOL. They should at least wait until they lose before firing up the fake news.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, @10:31PM (9 children)
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna185569 [nbcnews.com]
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/15/elon-musk-hypocrite-free-speech [theguardian.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 21, @04:32AM (8 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, @04:42AM (7 children)
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Tuesday January 21, @05:44AM (6 children)
Can anyone do that? Not be a hypocrite?
Because otherwise the question is: should Musk be less of a hypocrite? And well, that requires more than merely noting that Musk exhibits typical human hypocritical behavior.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, @05:59AM (5 children)
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Tuesday January 21, @11:40PM (4 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22, @02:07AM (3 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 22, @02:17AM (2 children)
I am. Are you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22, @02:45AM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 22, @03:04AM
(Score: 1, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Monday January 20, @08:33PM (65 children)
Who the hell do they think they are? This is the kind of slippery slope you slide down when there is no equivalent of a first amendment.
Musk should, and likely will tell the EU to fuck off. They have no right to the proprietary algorithms of a privately held American company.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20, @08:49PM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Laci on Monday January 20, @09:01PM (53 children)
Errrr... if X wants to be accessible in the EU then it has to comply with EU laws. And if there is a reasonable suspicion that they broke EU laws, then the EU has every right to ask for the algorithms. You wouldn't want a foreign entity operate in the US and disregard the US laws, would you?
Of course, Musk could just "tell the EU to fuck off" and leave the EU market. It'd be interesting to see how much X would be missed there -- if at all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, @12:15AM (26 children)
LOL, remember when he told advertisers that [theverge.com], and they did, then he complained and whined about how he was being "blackmailed" and tried to take legal action? And how angry his sycophants were too? And when Biden's Superbowl tweet got more engagement than Musk's, remember how he had the algorithm changed so that his opinion would always be on top [arstechnica.com]? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
You can't make this stuff up.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, @12:32AM (8 children)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, @03:00PM
(Score: 1, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday January 21, @03:03PM (5 children)
It's rather amusing to see this is all you got. Do you remember the last time lefties tried to pull a lame stunt like this? I do. 👌 It didn't end well.
https://dailycaller.com/2018/01/03/stunning-photos-reveal-progressive-leaders-flashing-white-power-sign/ [dailycaller.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, @03:10PM (4 children)
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday January 21, @03:38PM (3 children)
You guys are going to have an uphill battle with this. Here's some more inconvenient truth for you.
https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403 [x.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, @04:20PM
(Score: 3, Touché) by janrinok on Tuesday January 21, @04:36PM (1 child)
What makes this statement the 'truth'? He made it twice. To different groups of people. It wasn't an accident.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday January 21, @05:08PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Thursday January 23, @04:28PM
Oh my GAAUUUUD! Nazis are EVERYWHERE!!!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GhyreMMWwAAL0K0?format=jpg&name=900x900 [twimg.com]
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday January 21, @02:34PM (16 children)
Ooopsie. You left out the inconvenient truth about those advertisers returning to X. Heh heh
https://techstartups.com/2024/11/15/major-advertisers-including-ibm-disney-and-comcast-return-to-x-amid-fcc-scrutiny-of-newsguard/ [techstartups.com]
https://www.adweek.com/media/advertisers-returning-to-x/ [adweek.com]
https://www.ft.com/content/34b6fc20-23f7-4e08-9ac4-ef05d5d66c13 [ft.com]
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/advertisers-set-to-return-to-x-as-they-seek-favour-with-musk-and-trump-20241117-p5krao [afr.com]
https://libertycaller.com/advertisers-flock-back-to-x-following-trump-s-victory [libertycaller.com]
https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/11/25/advertisers-are-reportedly-returning-to-elon-musks/ [fool.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, @03:04PM (3 children)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday January 22, @06:51PM (2 children)
That would be the grandparent's point. Advertisers slunk back.
As to the "beer or shoe company", Anheuser-Busch is still down about 25% in stock price from April, 2023 when the "you lot" started boycotting Bud Light - that's still above five year lows so it could be worse. Bud light has dropped [forbes.com] to third place (from first) over that time with A-B's replacement brand Michelob Ultra taking over.
There doesn't seem to be a "you lot" boycott of shoe companies, which might explain the lack of bankruptcies. /sarc I grant that someone out there has been upset [forbes.com] at Adidas and Nike, but it doesn't seem to have escalated to the point of boycott.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22, @11:50PM (1 child)
he didn't know that.
to no one's surprise, which is why no one cares.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday January 23, @07:09AM
So he just guessed right? That's your narrative?
Sounds like GP would be least surprised of all!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23, @05:31AM (11 children)
First amendment, my ass.
Elon Musk has targeted critics of Twitter/X with malicious lawsuits for the purpose of censoring the criticism [npr.org] that led to those advertisers leaving in the first place.
Now public funds are being abused as state attorneys general are weaponizing their offices [theguardian.com] and acting as the personal attorneys for Musk and Twitter/X.
Then there's the malicious lawsuits filed by Donald Trump against media outlets:
So much for letting people think for themselves and decide what's actually true. But this is just par for the course with today's right, weaponizing state governments and abusing litigation to silence criticism. You're free to think for yourself as long as you think what the right wing wants you to think.
Don't worry, I won't mod down the propaganda you posted. I want that rubbish to be highly visible so that people can the intellectual dishonesty for themselves, so I might even hand out a couple of underrated mods.
(Score: 1, Touché) by khallow on Thursday January 23, @07:43AM (7 children)
Read the title of that story:
They could have a real case for defamation, if Media Matters manufactured the controversy in question (for example, going through considerable effort to stage the incidents that they reported on - which would paint a false light on the likelihood that some ad will end up next to mean speech). But sounds pretty thin on evidence from X's side.
Trump != Musk. The second link was settled in Trump's favor. The last link while probably unviable not on any serious legal grounds indicates something went wrong because the poll was off by a shift of 8% percent of the vote (predicting Trump would lose by 3% when he ended up winning by 13%). Hard to blame that large a miss on normal sampling error. What makes it more interesting is that the Illinois governor (D of course) leaked the outcome of the poll before its official release which then ended up on Twitter 45 minutes before official release. So why did a partisan agent know of the poll's results so early? No surprise after that mess that the pollster decided to move on to other endeavors.
You don't have to be a rightwing tool, if you don't want to be. I'm not stopping you.
In other words, you'll continue to bring down the intelligence of the conversation. These abuses of the US legal system predate rightwing cooties. I simply can't be bothered to care when such abuse is only of concern when the wrong people do it.
I'm quite interested in eliminating such abuses. I'm not interested in the ongoing two minute hate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23, @04:42PM (1 child)
why don't you go ahead and tell everybody what the controversy in question actually was. what raw materials were used in the manufacturing of that controversy?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 24, @02:25AM
I did already in my earlier post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23, @05:20PM (4 children)
Don't worry, I support freedom of speech, even for rubbish like what you posted here.
You don't like plea bargains, but you're happy to use this to suggest that Trump's lawsuit had merit. Trump didn't make his case before a jury and get them to rule in his favor. This was settled out of court because ABC didn't want to risk going to trial. This is the same malicious tactic used by organizations like the RIAA and MPA, which involves filing lots of lawsuits and pushing people to settle them out of court.
Do you even understand basic statistics? It's unlikely for a poll to be as far off as the Des Moines Register poll, but the probability of that is not zero. Polls also have to account for the fact that their sample may not be representative of the demographics of likely voters, and this is adjusted for in the final result. There certainly could be issues with the poll's methodology, but that is not evidence of malice. There's also an argument that this poll motivated Trump supporters to vote and actually helped him.
Instead of discussing the poll's methodology, you jumped straight to an unfounded conspiracy theory, for which you've provided zero evidence. Yes, the poll result was leaked, quite possibly by someone at Gannett or the Des Moines Register. That is most certainly not evidence of wrongdoing by the pollster, who may well have had nothing to do with the leak. The leak is completely irrelevant to the accuracy of the poll, but you brought that up to imply wrongdoing despite lack of evidence.
Nobody said it's okay for others to bring malicious lawsuits like what I linked to. Nice straw man you built there, pal.
DadaDoofy was defending Twitter/X's algorithm as free speech. Fine. Then criticizing Twitter/X should also be free speech, and the resources of state attorneys general shouldn't be weaponized to silence criticism.
There are also clear links between Trump and Musk, not the least of which is Trump abusing the powers of the presidency with a blatantly illegal executive order refusing to enforce the TikTok ban. Then Trump expresses support for selling TikTok to Musk [reuters.com]. So not only do we have state AGs weaponizing their offices against Twitter/X's critics, but we have Trump illegally defying Congress while publicly supporting the sale of another large social media platform to Musk. Since Trump has inserted himself into this, and the connection isn't just about political ideology, it's absolutely relevant to discuss his efforts to censor free speech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23, @06:00PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 23, @07:58PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23, @08:35PM (1 child)
objection- speculation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 24, @02:27AM
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Thursday January 23, @05:13PM (2 children)
"weaponizing state governments and abusing litigation to silence criticism. You're free to think for yourself as long as you think what the right wing wants you to think."
That's a pretty healthy helping of projection you've got going on there. Wake me up when you find evidence of Trump's minions bullying social media kingpins into censoring truths and satirical memes that are inconvenient to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23, @05:29PM
That evidence was already provided to you in this article [theguardian.com]. You just ignored it because it was inconvenient to you. We have two state attorneys general, Ken Paxton and Andrew Bailey, abusing the resources of their offices to target Media Matters because of their reports on Twitter/X. In fact, a federal judge halted the lawsuits on the grounds that they were an attempt at censorship [arstechnica.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23, @09:47PM
wake up. back in 2020 trump tried to ban tik-tok with an executive order because users of the site pranked one of his rallies.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday January 21, @01:50AM (24 children)
So two things: should those laws be respected or broken? And was there reasonable suspicion? Not seeing a good reason to care about X's alleged breaking of the law.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday January 21, @12:02PM (23 children)
> should those laws be respected or broken
It depends if X wants to do business in the EU or not. EU represents a significant part of the world economy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 22, @06:52PM (22 children)
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday January 22, @07:13PM (21 children)
Yes, within the EU then EU laws should be enforced. If you don't like it, don't bring your business here.
The EU does not have to inform everybody regarding its processes, as long as it has informed the company involved. Why don't you write to X and as them what justification has been given?
However, X doesn't have to produce any algorithms or information if it does not wish to do so. The EU also has the right in that case to prevent X from operating within the EU. X is not an European company. To put it is simple terms that even you will understand I will use a bastardised form of a quote I have heard in the last few days: "EU First".
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday January 22, @07:14PM
* and ask them
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 23, @08:05AM (19 children)
Or lobby the governments, push the issue in the press, delay/deny in court, etc. There are multiple ways to address this. Merely rolling over typically isn't a good way.
Then there is no case for reasonable suspicion.
If it is operating in the EU as claimed, it is. My take on this is that this is about economic protectionism - an area that the EU has long abused, not respect for law.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday January 23, @08:46AM (18 children)
The EU does not have to work to your rules. If they have a case that they believe should be investigated then they may do so. They do not need your approval. You are irrelevant to the workings of the EU. Your opinion is also irrelevant.
This is a matter of political interference. Musk cannot continue to interfere while the matter is being investigated. It might be acceptable in the USA, but in Germany it most certainly is not. They have already learned the lessons that you are about to learn the hard way.
Nobody is stopping him from bringing legal objections or from publicizing the issue. But if a law is being broken then the law should be enforced immediately, not after several years of "delay/denial". If you want to work to US laws then I suggest you stay in the US. The rest of the world is not constrained by US law.
If your claim is correct then the EU is perfectly entitled to investigate the company and demand to see the documents that they wish to see, and the company must follow national and local laws. You cannot argue this both ways. Your objections are another example of you trying to impose US law and practices on other countries.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 23, @03:39PM (17 children)
Then why bring up reasonable suspicion? It's not reasonable suspicion if the reasons aren't public. Look I grant that there are times when a reason can be kept secret for a time - when the enforcement agency is covertly gathering data on known illegal activity, setting up stings, or the like.
At this point, they made public accusations. The need for secrecy is gone. Either there's reasonable suspicion or it's defamation plus a witch hunt - both illegal, right?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday January 23, @03:48PM (16 children)
There are several reasons why they may not wish to publicise the evidence. One might be that it would compromise the source. Another might be that it would compromise proprietary information. However, they cannot begin an investigation without announcing that they are doing so. This is exactly what they have done.
They are under no obligation to present all their cards publicly. They might not even wish X to know just how much evidence they hold. They wouldn't want X to being destroying anything that might incriminate them prior to legal proceedings beginning.
If you want answers why don't you ask X if they are prepared to tell you? Haven't they announced it somewhere? Or do you want someone else to do your research for you?
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday January 23, @03:52PM
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday January 23, @04:44PM (14 children)
Stop right there. A big reason to hide the process is that there's no evidence in the first place. And given that the demands mentioned in the story would compromise X's proprietary information, I don't buy that excuse either. And they can indeed begin investigations without announcing them.
Another seedy possibility is that they've acquired evidence via illegal espionage and need to parallel construct a case.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday January 23, @07:34PM
Don't be a dick - perhaps X have ASKED then not to reveal any proprietary commercial information. You are making mountains out of imagined molehills. You have nothing at all so you make up stories of 'illegal espionage'. Go back to your TV.
Perhaps you should try reading more. Try this for starters - it is about Meta and not X but there are plenty more if you care to search on the internet rather than make up fictional stories: Report: Meta's fact checking program failed to spot most disinformation [mashable.com]. It is hardly a secret. People have been discussing it for a long time now - but you failed to notice. No spies were harmed in the reporting of that link.
How about you find something factual and actually submit it? It is coming up to 3 years since your last submission.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday January 23, @08:42PM (12 children)
A bigger reason to not reveal the evidence is to not alert the accused as to who turned on them.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 25, @02:06AM (11 children)
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday January 25, @02:20AM (10 children)
Except the witness does not testify. 🙄
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 25, @02:21AM (9 children)
They already have the evidence. They don't need the witness.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday January 25, @02:26AM (8 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 25, @02:38AM (7 children)
In other words, we still have no evidence that this government action has reasonable suspicion backing it. Contrived reasons not even backed by government statements don't cut it.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday January 25, @03:01AM (6 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 25, @03:06AM (5 children)
You have the witness already. Remember the premise was that there was a witness being protected. If there isn't, then you're in my no-evidence scenario.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday January 25, @03:24AM (4 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 25, @11:03PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday January 25, @11:38PM (2 children)
But, okay, I can adapt. Since this is about Twitter promoting far-right material and because Twitter is a social media site it's probably a situation where everybody saw it. Let's see what ten seconds of Google Searching says:
Heyyyy! I was right!
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 25, @11:57PM (1 child)
Not having a reason in the first place was a good one. Having a hypothetical source that they couldn't even claim existed is not.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday January 26, @12:09AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by FunkyLich on Tuesday January 21, @08:47PM
> It'd be interesting to see how much X would be missed there [in EU] -- if at all.
To quote "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy": None at all!
(Score: 2) by Deep Blue on Tuesday January 21, @05:32PM (8 children)
Who the hell do you think you are? Also, how is this anything to do with 1st amedment anyway?
(Score: 2, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday January 21, @06:33PM (7 children)
"The move follows complaints from politicians in Germany that X's algorithm is promoting content by the far right ahead of the country's February 23 elections."
Here in the United States, we give our citizens the respect they deserve to determine for themselves what is truth and what is disinformation. Our first amendment ensures we have access to information is not censored or suppressed by an un-elected, unaccountable, authoritarian bureaucracy desperately clinging to power, as is the case in the EU.
If it weren't for our first amendment, Elon Musk wouldn't have been able to release the Twitter files. Yes, the very Twitter files that, not without irony, exposed the Biden administration/deep state's blatant suppression of free speech, as recently confirmed by Mark Zuckerberg and others.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/zuckerberg-says-the-white-house-pressured-facebook-to-censor-some-covid-19-content-during-the-pandemic [pbs.org]
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/mark-zuckerberg-joe-rogan-biden-officials-scream-curse-facebook-rcna187199 [nbcnews.com]
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxlpjlgdzjo [bbc.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21, @07:01PM (5 children)
no, they didn't. that's why you had to be strategic in your choice of links.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday January 22, @02:31AM (3 children)
[...]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 22, @02:12PM (2 children)
...
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday January 22, @05:28PM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday January 22, @06:06PM
(Score: 0, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday January 22, @11:09AM
Yes, I strategically picked links from news organizations that are part of Hillary's "vast right wing conspiracy". Oh wait...
(Score: 2) by Deep Blue on Wednesday January 22, @07:36PM
Quite a leap you did there. And i wouldn't speak about truth, disinformation and authorianism, if i were you.
Pretty much everything in far-edge of anything idealogies is nuts.
Also FYI, couldn't care less about x-twitter. Burn it for all i care. Same goes for Facebook etc. Leave Europe and the rest of the world, all the better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 23, @05:41AM
Oh, really? How about applying that same logic to TikTok when Trump tried to ban it? Does the US have the rights to a Chinese-owned company's proprietary algorithms?
Of course, now Trump doesn't really want to ban TikTok because his crony Musk might want to buy it [reuters.com]. Talk about a massive conflict of interest. Musk helps to bankroll Trump's campaign and takes an unofficial role in Trump's cabinet. Trump then issues an illegal executive order to not enforce the TikTok ban and openly says he supports a sale to his crony. Rampant corruption.
Perhaps you ought to apply the same standards to the US and TikTok, pal. Why does the US have a right to the proprietary algorithms of a company with Chinese ownership? Do tell.