Category: Technology

Holed up at home during the pandemic lockdown three years ago, 13-year-old Shreya Nallamothu was scrolling through social media when she noticed a pattern: Children even younger than her were the stars — dancing, cracking one-liners and being generally adorable.  “It seemed innocuous to me at first,” Nallamothu said.  But as she watched more and more posts of kids pushing products or their mishaps going viral, she started to wonder: Who is looking out for them?  “I realized that there’s a lot of exploitation that can happen within the world of ‘kidfluencing,’” said Nallamothu, referring to the monetization of social media content featuring children. “And I realized that there was absolutely zero legislation in place to protect them.”  Illinois lawmakers aim to change that by making their state what they say will be the first in the country to create protections for child social media influencers. Nallamothu, now 15, raised her concerns to Illinois state Sen. David Koehler of Peoria, who then set the legislation in motion.  The Illinois bill would entitle child influencers under the age of 16 to a percentage of earnings based on how often they appear on video blogs or online content that generates at least 10 cents per view. To qualify, the content must be created in Illinois, and kids would have to be featured in at least 30% of the content in a 30-day-period.  Video bloggers — or vloggers — would be responsible for maintaining records of kids’ appearances and must set aside gross …

Banned from using popular Western apps, Iranians have been left with little choice but to take up state-backed alternatives, as the authorities tighten internet restrictions for security reasons following months of protests. Iranians are accustomed to using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to evade restrictions and access prohibited websites or apps, including the U.S.-based Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The authorities went as far as imposing total internet blackouts during the protests that erupted after the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, following her arrest for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s dress code for women. Connections are back up and running again, and even those who are tech-savvy are being corralled into using the apps approved by the authorities such as Neshan for navigation and Snapp! to hail a car ride. As many as 89 million people have signed up to Iranian messaging apps including Bale, Ita, Rubika and Soroush, the government says, but not everyone is keen on making the switch. “The topics that I follow and the friends who I communicate with are not on Iranian platforms,” said Mansour Roghani, a resident in the capital Tehran. “I use Telegram and WhatsApp and, if my VPN still allows me, I’ll check Instagram,” the former municipality employee said, adding that he has not installed domestic apps as replacements. Integration At the height of the deadly Amini protests in October, the Iranian government cited security concerns as it moved to restrict internet access and added Instagram and WhatsApp to its …

As Tamar Ana Jawa wove a red sarong in the fading sunlight, her neighbor switched on a light bulb dangling from the sloping tin roof. It was just one bulb powered by a small solar panel, but in this remote village that means a lot. In some of the world’s most remote places, off-grid solar systems are bringing villagers like Jawa more hours in the day, more money and more social gatherings. Before electricity came to the village, a little less than two years ago, the day ended when the sun went down. Villagers in Laindeha, on the island of Sumba in eastern Indonesia, would set aside the mats they were weaving or coffee they were sorting to sell at the market as the light faded. A few families who could afford them would start noisy generators that rumbled into the night, emitting plumes of smoke. Some people wired lightbulbs to old car batteries, which would quickly die or burn out appliances, as they had no regulator. Children sometimes studied by makeshift oil lamps, but these occasionally burned down homes when knocked over by the wind. That’s changed since grassroots social enterprise projects have brought small, individual solar panel systems to Laindeha and villages like it across the island. For Jawa, it means much-needed extra income. When her husband died of a stroke in December 2022, Jawa wasn’t sure how she would pay for her children’s schooling. But when a neighbor got electric lighting shortly after, she realized she could …

As people brace for the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence on jobs and everyday living, those in the world of audio books say their field is already being transformed. AI has the ability to create human-sounding recordings — at assembly-line speed — while bypassing at least part of the services of the human professionals who for years have made a living with their voices. Many of them are already seeing a sharp drop off in business. Tanya Eby has been a full-time voice actor and professional narrator for 20 years. She has a recording studio in her home. But in the past six months she has seen her work load fall by half. Her bookings now run only through June, while in a normal year they would extend through August. Many of her colleagues report similar declines. While other factors could be at play, she told AFP, “It seems to make sense that AI is affecting all of us.” There is no label identifying AI-assisted recordings as such, but professionals say thousands of audio books currently in circulation use “voices” generated from a databank. Among the most cutting-edge, DeepZen offers rates that can slash the cost of producing an audio book to one-fourth, or less, that of a traditional project. The small London-based company draws from a database it created by recording the voices of several actors who were asked to speak in a variety of emotional registers. “Every voice that we are using, we sign a license agreement, and …

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk on Friday named NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino as the chief executive officer of social media giant Twitter. From his own Twitter account Friday, Musk wrote, “I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter! (She) will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design and new technology.”  He said Yaccarino would transform Twitter, which is now called X Corp., into “an everything app” called X.  On Thursday, Musk teased Yaccarino’s hiring, saying only “she” will start in six to eight weeks.   Yaccarino worked in advertising and media sales for NBCUniversal since 2011 and as chairperson of global advertising since October 2020. The company announced her departure earlier in the day Friday. Analysts say Yaccarino’s background could be key to Twitter’s future. Since Musk acquired Twitter last October, he has taken some controversial steps, such as loosening controls on the spread of false information and laying off nearly 80% of its staff, which prompted advertisers to flee. No comment from Yaccarino on her hiring was immediately available. Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.  …

Apple will launch its first online store in Vietnam next week, the company said Friday, hoping to cash in on the country’s young and tech-savvy population. The iPhone maker is among a host of global tech giants including Intel, Samsung and LG, that have chosen Vietnam for assembly of their products. But up to now, the Silicon Valley giant has sold its products in Vietnam’s market of 100 million people via authorized resellers. “We’re honored to be expanding in Vietnam,” said Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s senior vice president of retail in an online statement in Vietnamese. The country’s communist government says it wants 85 percent of its adult population to have access to a smartphone by 2025, up from the current 73 percent. Less than a third of the country’s mobile users have an iPhone, according to market research platform Statista. Through online stores, “clients in Vietnam can discover products and connect with our experienced experts,” O’Brien said in the statement. The production of accessories and assembly of mobile phones account for up to 70 percent of electronics manufacturing in Vietnam. Products are mainly for export. Official figures said Vietnam’s mobile phone production industry reported an import-export turnover of U.S. $114 billion last year, a third of the country’s total import-export revenue. …

The growing abilities of artificial intelligence have left many observers wondering how AI will impact people’s jobs and livelihoods. One expert in the field predicts it won’t have much effect, at least in the short term.   The topic was a point of discussion at the annual TED conference held recently in Vancouver.    In a world where students’ term papers can now be written by artificial intelligence, paintings can be drawn by merely uttering words and an AI-generated version of your favorite celebrity can appear on screen, the impact of this new technology is starting to be felt in societies and sparking both wonderment and concern.   While artificial intelligence has yet to become pervasive in everyday life, the rumblings of what could be a looming economic earthquake are growing stronger.     Gary Marcus is a professor emeritus of psychology and neural science at New York University who helped ride sharing company Uber adopt the rapidly developing technology.    An author and host of the podcast “Humans versus Machines,” Marcus says AI’s economic impact is limited for now, although some jobs have already been threatened by the technology, such as commercial animators for electronic gaming.  Speaking with VOA after a recent conference for TED, the non-profit devoting to spreading ideas, Marcus said jobs that require manual labor will be safe, for now.    “We’re not going to see blue collar jobs replaced I think as quickly as some people had talked about.,” Marcus predicted. “So we still don’t have driverless cars, …

Tesla Inc on Monday broke ground on a Texas lithium refinery that CEO Elon Musk said should produce enough of the battery metal to build about 1 million electric vehicles (EVs) by 2025, making it the largest North American processor of the material.  The facility will push Tesla outside its core focus of building automobiles and into the complex area of lithium refining and processing, a step Musk said was necessary if the auto giant was to meet its ambitious EV sales targets.  “As we look ahead a few years, a fundamental choke point in the advancement of electric vehicles is the availability of battery grade lithium,” Musk said at the ground-breaking ceremony on Monday, with dozers and other earth-moving equipment operating in the background.  Musk said Tesla aimed to finish construction of the factory next year and then reach full production about a year later.  The move will make Tesla the only major automaker in North America that will refine its own lithium. Currently, China dominates the processing of many critical minerals, including lithium.  “Texas wants to be able to be self-reliant, not dependent upon any foreign hostile nation for what we need. We need lithium,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said at the ceremony.  Musk did not specify the volume of lithium the facility would process each year, although he said the automaker would continue to buy the metal from its vendors, which include Albemarle Corp and Livent Corp.  “We intend to continue to use suppliers of lithium, so it’s not that Tesla …

Tracking down accurate information about Philadelphia’s elections on Twitter used to be easy. The account for the city commissioners who run elections, @phillyvotes, was the only one carrying a blue check mark, a sign of authenticity. But ever since the social media platform overhauled its verification service last month, the check mark has disappeared. That’s made it harder to distinguish @phillyvotes from a list of random accounts not run by the elections office but with very similar names. The election commission applied weeks ago for a gray check mark — Twitter’s new symbol to help users identify official government accounts – but has yet to hear back from the Twitter, commission spokesman Nick Custodio said. It’s unclear whether @phillyvotes is an eligible government account under Twitter’s new rules. That’s troubling, Custodio said, because Pennsylvania has a primary election May 16 and the commission uses its account to share important information with voters in real time. If the account remains unverified, it will be easier to impersonate – and harder for voters to trust – heading into Election Day. Impostor accounts on social media are among many concerns election security experts have heading into next year’s presidential election. Experts have warned that foreign adversaries or others may try to influence the election, either through online disinformation campaigns or by hacking into election infrastructure. Election administrators across the country have struggled to figure out the best way to respond after Twitter owner Elon Musk threw the platform’s verification service into disarray, given …

Billionaire Warren Buffett said artificial intelligence may change the world in all sorts of ways, but new technology won’t take away opportunities for investors, and he’s confident America will continue to prosper over time. Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger are spending all day Saturday answering questions at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting inside a packed Omaha arena. “New things coming along doesn’t take away the opportunities. What gives you the opportunities is other people doing dumb things,” said Buffett, who had a chance to try out ChatGPT when his friend Bill Gates showed it to him a few months back. Buffett reiterated his long-term optimism about the prospects for America even with the bitter political divisions today. “The problem now is that partisanship has moved more towards tribalism, and in tribalism you don’t even hear the other side,” he said. Both Buffett and Munger said the United States will benefit from having an open trading relationship with China, so both countries should be careful not to exacerbate the tensions between them because the stakes are too high for the world. “Everything that increases the tension between these two countries is stupid, stupid, stupid,” Munger said. And whenever either country does something stupid, he said the other country should respond with incredible kindness. The chance to listen to the two men answer all sorts of questions about business and life attracts people from all over the world to Omaha, Nebraska. Some of the shareholders feel a particular urgency to attend now …

Google is planning to make its search engine more “visual, snackable, personal and human,” with a focus on serving young people globally, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing documents. The move comes as artificial intelligence (AI) applications such as ChatGPT are rapidly gaining in popularity, highlighting a technology that could upend the way businesses and society operate. The tech giant will nudge its service further away from “10 blue links,” which is a traditional format of presenting search results and plans to incorporate more human voices as part of the shift, the report said. At its annual I/O developer conference in the coming week, Google is expected to debut new features that allow users to carry out conversations with an AI program, a project code-named “Magi,” The Wall Street Journal added, citing people familiar with the matter. Generative AI has become a buzzword this year, with applications capturing the public’s fancy and sparking a rush among companies to launch similar products they believe will change the nature of work. Google, part of Alphabet Inc., did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment. …

When Greg Brockman, the president and co-founder of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, was recently extolling the capabilities of artificial intelligence, he turned to “Game of Thrones.” Imagine, he said, if you could use AI to rewrite the ending of that not-so-popular finale. Maybe even put yourself into the show. “That is what entertainment will look like,” said Brockman. Not six months since the release of ChatGPT, generative artificial intelligence is already prompting widespread unease throughout Hollywood. Concern over chatbots writing or rewriting scripts is one of the leading reasons TV and film screenwriters took to picket lines earlier this week. Though the Writers Guild of America is striking for better pay in an industry where streaming has upended many of the old rules, AI looms as rising anxiety. “AI is terrifying,” said Danny Strong, the “Dopesick” and “Empire” creator. “Now, I’ve seen some of ChatGPT’s writing and as of now I’m not terrified because Chat is a terrible writer. But who knows? That could change.” AI chatbots, screenwriters say, could potentially be used to spit out a rough first draft with a few simple prompts (“a heist movie set in Beijing”). Writers would then be hired, at a lower pay rate, to punch it up. Screenplays could also be slyly generated in the style of known writers. What about a comedy in the voice of Nora Ephron? Or a gangster film that sounds like Mario Puzo? You won’t get anything close to “Casablanca” but the barest bones of a bad Liam …

White House Mulls AI Oversight, Protections with Industry Leaders …

Good news for all the password-haters out there: Google has taken a big step toward making them an afterthought by adding “passkeys” as a more straightforward and secure way to log into its services.  Here’s what you need to know:  What are passkeys?   Passkeys offer a safer alternative to passwords and texted confirmation codes. Users won’t ever see them directly; instead, an online service like Gmail will use them to communicate directly with a trusted device such as your phone or computer to log you in.  All you’ll have to do is verify your identity on the device using a PIN unlock code, biometrics such as your fingerprint or a face scan or a more sophisticated physical security dongle.  Google designed its passkeys to work with a variety of devices, so you can use them on iPhones, Macs and Windows computers, as well as Google’s own Android phones.  Why are passkeys necessary?   Thanks to clever hackers and human fallibility, passwords are just too easy to steal or defeat. And making them more complex just opens the door to users defeating themselves.  For starters, many people choose passwords they can remember — and easy-to-recall passwords are also easy to hack. For years, analysis of hacked password caches found that the most common password in use was “password123.” A more recent study by the password manager NordPass found that it’s now just “password.” This isn’t fooling anyone.  Passwords are also frequently compromised in security breaches. Stronger passwords are more secure, …

A computer scientist often dubbed “the godfather of artificial intelligence” has quit his job at Google to speak out about the dangers of the technology, U.S. media reported Monday. Geoffrey Hinton, who created a foundation technology for AI systems, told The New York Times that advancements made in the field posed “profound risks to society and humanity”. “Look at how it was five years ago and how it is now,” he was quoted as saying in the piece, which was published on Monday. “Take the difference and propagate it forwards. That’s scary.” Hinton said that competition between tech giants was pushing companies to release new AI technologies at dangerous speeds, risking jobs and spreading misinformation. “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things,” he told The Times. Jobs could be at risk In 2022, Google and OpenAI — the startup behind the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT — started building systems using much larger amounts of data than before. Hinton told The Times he believed these systems were eclipsing human intelligence in some ways because of the amount of data they were analyzing. “Maybe what is going on in these systems is actually a lot better than what is going on in the brain,” he told the paper. While AI has been used to support human workers, the rapid expansion of chatbots like ChatGPT could put jobs at risk. AI “takes away the drudge work” but “might take away more than …

British antitrust regulators on Wednesday blocked Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of video game maker Activision Blizzard, thwarting the biggest tech deal in history over worries that it would stifle competition for popular titles like Call of Duty in the fast-growing cloud gaming market. The Competition and Markets Authority said in its final report that “the only effective remedy” to the substantial loss of competition “is to prohibit the Merger.” The companies have vowed to appeal. The all-cash deal faced stiff opposition from rival Sony, which makes the PlayStation gaming system, and also was being scrutinized by regulators in the U.S. and Europe over fears that it would give Microsoft and its Xbox console control of hit franchises like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. The U.K. watchdog’s concerns centered on how the deal would affect cloud gaming, which streams to tablets, phones and other devices and frees players from buying expensive consoles and gaming computers. Gamers can keep playing major Activision titles, including mobile games like Candy Crush, on the platforms they typically use. Cloud gaming has the potential to change the industry by giving people more choice over how and where they play, said Martin Colman, chair of the Competition and Markets Authority’s independent expert panel investigating the deal. “This means that it is vital that we protect competition in this emerging and exciting market,” he said. The decision underscores Europe’s reputation as the global leader in efforts to rein in the power of Big Tech companies. A …

Twitter accounts operated by authoritarian governments in Russia, China and Iran are benefiting from recent changes at the social media company, researchers said Monday, making it easier for them to attract new followers and broadcast propaganda and disinformation to a larger audience.  The platform is no longer labeling state-controlled media and propaganda agencies, and will no longer prohibit their content from being automatically promoted or recommended to users. Together, the two changes, both made in recent weeks, have supercharged the Kremlin’s ability to use the U.S.-based platform to spread lies and misleading claims about its invasion of Ukraine, U.S. politics and other topics.  Russian state media accounts are now earning 33% more views than they were just weeks ago, before the change was made, according to findings released Monday by Reset, a London-based non-profit that tracks authoritarian governments’ use of social media to spread propaganda. Reset’s findings were first reported by The Associated Press.  The increase works out to more than 125,000 additional views per post. Those posts included ones suggesting the CIA had something to do with the September 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., that Ukraine’s leaders are embezzling foreign aid to their country, and that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was justified because the U.S. was running clandestine biowarfare labs in the country.  State media agencies operated by Iran and China have seen similar increases in engagement since Twitter quietly made the changes.  The about-face from the platform is the latest development since billionaire Elon Musk purchased Twitter …

The AI bot ChatGPT has passed exams, written poetry, and deployed in newsrooms, and now politicians are seeking it out — but experts are warning against rapid uptake of a tool also famous for fabricating “facts.” The chatbot, released last November by U.S. firm OpenAI, has quickly moved center stage in politics — particularly as a way of scoring points. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida recently took a direct hit from the bot when he answered some innocuous questions about health care reform from an opposition MP. Unbeknownst to the PM, his adversary had generated the questions with ChatGPT. He also generated answers that he claimed were “more sincere” than Kishida’s. The PM hit back that his own answers had been “more specific.” French trade union boss Sophie Binet was on-trend when she drily assessed a recent speech by President Emmanuel Macron as one that “could have been done by ChatGPT.” But the bot has also been used to write speeches and even help draft laws.  “It’s useful to think of ChatGPT and generative AI in general as a cliche generator,” David Karpf of George Washington University in the U.S. said during a recent online panel.  “Most of what we do in politics is also cliche generation.” ‘Limited added value’ Nowhere has the enthusiasm for grandstanding with ChatGPT been keener than in the United States. Last month, Congresswoman Nancy Mace gave a five-minute speech at a Senate committee enumerating potential uses and harms of AI — before delivering the punchline …

The Biden administration announced more than $80 million in funding Thursday in a push to produce more solar panels in the U.S., make solar energy available to more people, and pursue superior alternatives to the ubiquitous sparkly panels made with silicon. The initiative, spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and known as Community solar, encompasses a variety of arrangements where renters and people who don’t control their rooftops can still get their electricity from solar power. Two weeks ago, Vice President Kamala Harris announced what the administration said was the largest community solar effort ever in the United States. Now it is set to spend $52 million on 19 solar projects across a dozen states, including $10 million from the infrastructure law, as well as $30 million on technologies that will help integrate solar electricity into the grid. The DOE also selected 25 teams to participate in a $10 million competition designed to fast-track the efforts of solar developers working on community solar projects. The Inflation Reduction Act already offers incentives to build large solar generation projects, such as renewable energy tax credits. But Ali Zaidi, White House national climate adviser, said the new money focuses on meeting the nation’s climate goals in a way that benefits more communities. “It’s lifting up our workers and our communities. And that’s, I think, what really excites us about this work,” Zaidi said. “It’s a chance not just to tackle the climate crisis, but to bring economic opportunity to every zip …

A viral AI-generated song imitating Drake and The Weeknd was pulled from streaming services this week, but did it breach copyright as claimed by record label Universal? Created by someone called @ghostwriter, Heart On My Sleeve racked up millions of listens before Universal Music Group asked for its removal from Spotify, Apple Music and other platforms. However, Andres Guadamuz, who teaches intellectual property law at Britain’s University of Sussex, is not convinced that the song breached copyright. As similar cases look set to multiply — with an uncanny AI replication of Liam Gallagher from Oasis causing buzz — he spoke to AFP about some of the issues being raised. Did the song breach copyright? The underlying music on Heart On My Sleeve was new, only the sound of the voice was familiar, “and you can’t copyright the sound of someone’s voice,” Guadamuz said. Perhaps the furor around AI impersonators may lead to copyright being expanded to include voice, rather than just melody, lyrics and other created elements, “but that would be problematic,” Guadamuz added. “What you’re protecting with copyright is the expression of an idea, and voice isn’t really that,” he said.  He said Universal probably claimed copyright infringement because it is the simplest route to removing content, with established procedures in place with streaming platforms. Were other rights breached? An AI-generated impersonator may be breaching other laws. If an artist has a distinctive voice or image, this is potentially protected under “publicity rights” in the United States or similar …

Competition between the U.S. and China in artificial intelligence has expanded into a race to design and implement comprehensive AI regulations. The efforts to come up with rules to ensure AI’s trustworthiness, safety and transparency come at a time when governments around the world are exploring the impact of the technology on national security and education. ChatGPT, a chatbot that mimics human conversation, has received massive attention since its debut in November. Its ability to give sophisticated answers to complex questions with a language fluency comparable to that of humans has caught the world by surprise. Yet its many flaws, including its ostensibly coherent responses laden with misleading information and apparent bias, have prompted tech leaders in the U.S. to sound the alarm. “What happens when something vastly smarter than the smartest person comes along in silicon form? It’s very difficult to predict what will happen in that circumstance,” said Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk in an interview with Fox News. He warned that artificial intelligence could lead to “civilization destruction” without regulations in place. Google CEO Sundar Pichai echoed that sentiment. “Over time there has to be regulation. There have to be consequences for creating deep fake videos which cause harm to society,” Pichai said in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” program. Jessica Brandt, policy director for the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative at the Brookings Institution, told VOA Mandarin, “Business leaders understand that regulators will be watching this space closely, and they have an interest …

U.S. homeland security officials are launching what they describe as two urgent initiatives to combat growing threats from China and expanding dangers from ever more capable, and potentially malicious, artificial intelligence. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced Friday that his department was starting a “90-day sprint” to confront more frequent and intense efforts by China to hurt the United States, while separately establishing an artificial intelligence task force. “Beijing has the capability and the intent to undermine our interests at home and abroad and is leveraging every instrument of its national power to do so,” Mayorkas warned, addressing the threat from China during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. The 90-day sprint will “assess how the threats posed by the PRC [People’s Republic of China] will evolve and how we can be best positioned to guard against future manifestations of this threat,” he said. “One critical area we will assess, for example, involves the defense of our critical infrastructure against PRC or PRC-sponsored attacks designed to disrupt or degrade provision of national critical functions, sow discord and panic, and prevent mobilization of U.S. military capabilities,” Mayorkas added. Other areas of focus for the sprint will include addressing ways to stop Chinese government exploitation of U.S. immigration and travel systems to spy on the U.S. government and private entities and to silence critics, and looking at ways to disrupt the global fentanyl supply chain.   AI dangers Mayorkas also said the magnitude of the threat from artificial …

Twitter has removed labels describing global media organizations as government-funded or state-affiliated, a move that comes after the Elon Musk-owned platform started stripping blue verification checkmarks from accounts that don’t pay a monthly fee. Among those no longer labeled was National Public Radio in the U.S., which announced last week that it would stop using Twitter after its main account was designated state-affiliated media, a term also used to identify media outlets controlled or heavily influenced by authoritarian governments, such as Russia and China. Twitter later changed the label to “government-funded media,” but NPR — which relies on the government for a tiny fraction of its funding — said it was still misleading. Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and Swedish public radio made similar decisions to quit tweeting. CBC’s government-funded label vanished Friday, along with the state-affiliated tags on media accounts including Sputnik and RT in Russia and Xinhua in China. Many of Twitter’s high-profile users on Thursday lost the blue checks that helped verify their identity and distinguish them from impostors. Twitter had about 300,000 verified users under the original blue-check system — many of them journalists, athletes and public figures. The checks used to mean the account was verified by Twitter to be who it says it is. High-profile users who lost their blue checks Thursday included Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey and former President Donald Trump. The costs of keeping the marks range from $8 a month for individual web users to a starting price of $1,000 monthly to …

The CEO of TikTok tried to calm critics’ fears about the security of his company’s app during an appearance Thursday. Shou Chew was asked at a TED2023 Possibility conference if he could guarantee Beijing would not use the TikTok app, owned by the Chinese tech company ByteDance, to interfere in future U.S. elections. “I can say that we are building all the tools to prevent any of these actions from happening,” Chew said. “And I’m very confident that with an unprecedented amount of transparency that we’re giving on the platform, we can, how we can reduce this risk to as low as zero as possible.” Chew made the comments in Vancouver at the TED organization’s annual convention, where artificial intelligence and safeguards were discussed. U.S. lawmakers and officials are ratcheting up threats to ban TikTok, saying the Chinese-owned video-sharing app used by millions of Americans poses a threat to privacy and U.S. national security. U.S. lawmakers have grilled Chew over concerns the Chinese government could exploit the platform’s user data for espionage and influence operations in the United States. U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted in March, “It’s very concerning that the CEO of TikTok can’t be honest and admit what we already know to be true — China has access to TikTok user data.” U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, was even more blunt in February, telling the committee, “Make no mistake, TikTok is a national security threat. … It’s a spy …