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Popular microblogging site ‘X’, formerly known as Twitter, had its services disrupted in Pakistan on Monday for the third consecutive day. Users nationwide have grappled with prolonged inaccessibility to the platform , marking yet another glitch in internet instability in the weeks leading up to, during, and after the hotly-contested February 8 national elections. According to Downdetector, X services were disrupted at around 1pm. The social media platform also experienced outages earlier in the day, it was reportedly not accessible around 10:30am and services were restored around noon.  This is the third consecutive day of disruptions, which started soon after the now-former commissioner Rawalpindi alleged rigging and irregularities during the February 8 polls and said he played a part in the process. Rawalpindi Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chatha took responsibility for what he termed a "heinous crime," and implicated not only himself but als...

ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar on Friday highlighted concerns about social media , indicating plans for regulations to curb its alleged misuse. In an interview with a private TV channel, the premier said that the previous governments worked to control negative aspects of social media and in future , a “national firewall” through the use of Technology would be created to subdue the negative tendencies of social media . Reflecting on the May 9 events, Kakar criticised the elements involved, clarifying that his government did not target any specific political party. He stressed the importance of maintaining social order as a foundation for political stability. “May 9 [incident] was an attack on the concept of the state of Pakistan and from the very start I was very critical of the elements involved in the incidents,” he said. However, he added that the entire Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) could not be kept away from Pakistani Pol...

Internet monitoring service Netblocks has reported a widespread disruption in social media platforms across Pakistan, including X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. The disruption, affecting the nation at large, occurred just before a virtual rally organised by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), as reported by Netblocks. The scheduled commencement of the rally was at 9pm. Read more: Twitter fixes links outage that hit thousands of users Users in major cities such as Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad began experiencing difficulties accessing social media platforms shortly after 8 pm. Additionally, complaints regarding sluggish internet services surfaced among the affected users. Downdetector reports that the apps, particularly their web versions, have experienced disruptions since approximately 7pm. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is yet to provide an official statement on the cause of the disruption. Source: https://thefoxposts.com/social-media-reportedly-down-...

Meta Platforms' Threads is starting a test where posts from accounts on the microblogging platform will be available on Mastodon and other services that use the ActivityPub protocol, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday. Meta had announced plans to make Threads compatible with open, interoperable social networks when the app was launched in July. "Making Threads interoperable will give people more choice over how they interact and it will help content reach more people," Zuckerberg said. Mastodon, which prides itself on its decentralised, user-driven structure, is like Threads, an alternative to Elon Musk's social media platform "X", formerly Twitter. Mastodon runs on a framework called ActivityPub that allows users to build independent social media experiences. "Our plan is to work with ActivityPub to provide you the option to stop using Threads and transfer your content to another service," the compan...

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI will be integrated into his social media platform X and also be available as a standalone app, he said on Sunday in a post. The billionaire also said xAI released its first AI model, a bot named Grok, after making it available to all X Premium+ subscribers on Friday. The startup aims to create AI tools that 'assist humanity in its quest for understanding and knowledge' and that Grok has been designed to answer questions with a bit of wit. Musk who has criticized Big Tech's AI efforts as ridden with censorship, in July launched xAI, calling it a "maximum truth-seeking AI" that tries to understand the nature of the universe to rival Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing AI. "Grok has real-time access to info via the X platform , which is a massive advantage over other models," Musk added. X, the social media firm formerly known as Twitter which Musk owns, is separ...

US prosecutors on Wednesday said they have charged eight individuals in a securities fraud scheme, alleging they reaped about $114 million from by using Twitter and Discord to manipulate stocks. The eight men allegedly purported to be successful traders on the social media platforms and then engaged in a so-called "pump and dump" scheme by hyping particular stocks to their followers with the intent to dump them once prices had risen, according to prosecutors in the Southern District of Texas. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it has filed related civil charges against the defendants in the scheme , claiming that seven of the defendants used Twitter and Discord to boost stocks. It said the eighth was charged with aiding and abetting the scheme with his podcast. "Securities fraud victimizes innocent investors and undermines the integrity of our public markets,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite of the Justic...

The US Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide the legality of Republican-backed state laws in Texas and Florida that constrain the ability of social media companies to curb content on their platforms that these businesses deem objectionable. The justices took up two cases involving challenges by technology industry groups who argued that these 2021 laws restricting the content-moderation practices of large social media platforms violate the US Constitution's First Amendment protections for freedom of speech. Lower courts split on the issue, striking down key provisions of Florida's law while upholding the Texas measure. The industry challengers to the laws are NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), industry groups whose members include Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc, Alphabet Inc's Google, which owns YouTube, as well as TikTok and X, formerly called Twitter. CCIA President Matt Schruers called the court's decision...

Seattle's public school district filed a lawsuit against Big Tech claiming that the companies were responsible for a worsening mental health crisis among students and directly affected the schools' ability to carry out their educational mission. The complaint, filed on Friday against Alphabet Inc, Meta Platforms Inc, Snap Inc and TikTok-owner ByteDance with the U.S. District Court, claimed they purposefully designed their products to hook young people to their platforms and were creating a mental health crisis. Advertisement · Scroll to continue In emailed statements to Reuters, Google said it has invested heavily in creating safe experiences for children across its platforms and has introduced "strong protections and dedicated features to prioritize their well being," while Snap said it works closely with many mental health organizations to provide in-app tools and resources for users and that the well-being of its community is its top priority. Meta...

Social media can profoundly harm the mental health of youth, particularly adolescent girls, the US Surgeon General warned in an advisory on Tuesday, and he called for safeguards from tech companies for children who are at critical stages of brain development. US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said that while social media offers some benefits, there are "ample indicators that social media could also harm children's well-being." "We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis - one that we must urgently address," Murthy said. Social media use may cause and perpetuate body image issues, affect eating behaviors and sleep quality, and lead to social comparison and low self-esteem, especially among adolescent girls, the advisory said, citing responses from a survey conducted among adolescents. Adolescents who spend more than three hours per day on social me...

A Kuwaiti media outlet has revealed a virtual news presenter generated using AI, to read online bulletins. Picture of Fedha, the virtual presenter , was released on Twitter as a woman with hair uncovered. In the tweet posted by the news outlet, Fedha introduces herself in a video, speaking in Arabic. “I’m Fedha, the first presenter in Kuwait who works with artificial intelligence at Kuwait News. What kind of news do you prefer? Let’s hear your opinions,” she says. أول مذيعة في #الكويت تعمل بالذكاء الاصطناعي • #فضة.. مذيعة #كويت_نيوز الافتراضية • ما هي نوعية الأخبار التي تفضلونها بتقديم #فضة زميلتنا الجديدة؟ .. شاركونا آراءكم pic.twitter.com/VlVjasSdpb — كويت نيوز (@KuwaitNews) April 8, 2023 Affiliated with The Kuwait Times, Kuwait News was founded in 1961 as the country's first English-language daily. Abdullah Boftain, deputy editor-in-chief for both outlets says that over time, Fedha could adopt the Kuwaiti accent and present ...