Bluesky now allows heads of states to sign up for the social networkSocial networking platform Bluesky lifted its ban on sign-ups for heads of state over the weekend.
This applies to recent/prominent heads of state as well,” the company had said at that time.
Bluesky faced moderation challenges early in its lifespan and battled issues like allowing racial slurs in handles.
With the social network now allowing political heads to join the platform, there could be new types of moderation issues that it hasn’t faced yet.
However, Bluesky users don’t have to rely on a central algorithm to look at different kinds of political content, as they can subscribe to different feeds.
If you haven’t been seeing much political content on Instagram lately, there’s a reason for that.
Since March, Instagram and Threads have instituted a new default setting that limits political content you see from people you’re not following.
Hundreds of creators, convened by GLAAD and Accountable Tech, have signed an open letter demanding that Instagram make the political content limit an opt-in feature, rather than on by default.
Instagram’s definition of political content leaves a lot of room for interpretation, which stokes further concern among these creators.
“Removing political recommendations as a default setting, and consequently stopping people from seeing suggested political content poses a serious threat to political engagement, education, and activism,” the letter says.
For instance, those who want to track analytics around Threads’ posts can use an Insights API to retrieve things like views, likes, replies, reposts, and quotes.
There are also details on how to publish posts and media via the API, retrieve replies, and a series of troubleshooting tips.
So far, Threads API beta testers have included social tool makers like Sprinklr, Sprout Social, Social News Desk, Hootsuite, and tech news board Techmeme.
Instead, users still have to visit their settings in the Threads app itself to publish to the fediverse.
Meta says the new documentation will be updated over time as it gathers feedback from developers.
A group of 200 musicians signed an open letter calling on tech companies and developers to not undermine human creativity with AI music generation tools.
“When used irresponsibly, AI poses enormous threats to our ability to protect our privacy, our identities, our music and our livelihoods,” the letter reads.
Some companies like Adobe and Stability AI are working on AI music generators that use licensed or royalty-free music.
But these tech companies aren’t listening.
“This assault on human creativity must be stopped,” the musicians’ letter says.
For instance, OpenSea has partnered with the music and arts festival conglomerate Coachella to release three NFT collections that offer both virtual and tangible real-life VIP experiences and merchandise.
The partnership will eventually produce three collections offering different perks and varying tiers of exclusivity (as well as cost).
There have been a lot of NFT collections announced since the term even gained adoption.
OpenSea alone has over 2 million collections and 80 million NFTs on its marketplace, according to its website.
But even with that much total volume, OpenSea isn’t the biggest NFT marketplace today.
Hundreds in the artificial intelligence community have signed an open letter calling for strict regulation of AI-generated impersonations, or deepfakes.
While this is unlikely to spur real legislation (despite the House’s new task force), it does act as a bellwether for how experts lean on this controversial issue.
Criminal penalties are called for in any case where someone creates or spreads harmful deepfakes.
As you can see, there is no shortage of reasons for those in the AI community to be out here waving their arms around and saying “maybe we should, you know, do something?
!”Whether anyone will take notice of this letter is anyone’s guess — no one really paid attention to the infamous one calling for everyone to “pause” AI development, but of course this letter is a bit more practical.
Deal Dive: Tier and Dott’s merger is not a sign of what’s to come in M&A this year Consolidation can be complicatedEarlier this week, European micromobility companies Tier and Dott said they had agreed to merge.
The companies hope they can become profitable if they work together, my colleague Romain reported.
This seems like a solid outcome for the two startups, since they likely weren’t going to reach IPO scale on their own.
After all, if the companies weren’t going to survive as solo entities, it makes sense to at least try another direction.
Last year I came up with a hypothesis about M&A in 2024; I was inspired by Getir acquiring FreshDirect to fill a gap it needed to potentially reach profitability.
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I would be lying if I said that mixed reality and generative AI were two of my favorite things.
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— AnnaVersailles 400I am not an early adopter of the metaverse.
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