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.
The United States Department of Commerce Monday proposed investing as much as $6.6 billion to fund a third Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) fab in Arizona.
The move represents a broader push to bring more manufacturing to the U.S., but unspoken in the fanfare around today’s announcement is the potential escalation of tensions with China.
TSMC Arizona — the subsidiary behind the proposed construction — has stated that it will build the facility before the end of the decade.
The United States and allies would be at a massive disadvantage should China seize control of Taiwan and its manufacturing capabilities.
For all the money the United States government continues to invest, Intel is simply playing catch-up to TSMC’s multiyear technological head start.
The main development out of the sixth TTC meeting appears to be a commitment from EU and US AI oversight bodies, the European AI Office and the US AI Safety Institute, to set up what’s couched as “a Dialogue”.
The aim is fostering a deeper collaboration between the AI institutions, with a particular focus on encouraging the sharing of scientific information among respective AI research ecosystems.
“Working groups jointly staffed by United States science agencies and European Commission departments and agencies have achieved substantial progress by defining critical milestones for deliverables in the areas of extreme weather, energy, emergency response, and reconstruction.
We are also making constructive progress in health and agriculture.”In addition, an overview document on the collaboration around AI for the public good was published Friday.
The joint statement refers to 2024 as “a Pivotal Year for Democratic Resilience”, on account of the number of elections being held around the world.
TikTok users, however, are not taking the changing political winds — and their consequences — sitting down.
TechCrunch spoke with several TikTok users that are incensed about, and fighting back against the potential ban of TikTok.
But while the talk of a possible ban is getting all the press, what about the potential of TikTok simply being divested from its parent company, Bytedance?
That would resolve the United States’ government’s issues, right?
So, the bill may have two tracks in it for TikTok, but it could really just be a single-issue law in practice.
Texas residents can no longer access Pornhub — without a VPN.
As of Thursday, when people in Texas try to access any of the porn sites owned by Aylo, formerly MindGeek, they’ll instead see a long message in opposition to age verification laws.
Laws requiring age verification on adult entertainment sites have already gone into effect in states including Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, Utah, Montana and North Carolina.
“Since age verification software requires users to hand over extremely sensitive information, it opens the door for the risk of data breaches,” Pornhub wrote on its blog.
At first, Pornhub complied with age verification via the state-run LA Wallet app, which connects to a Louisiana resident’s ID.
When some American users opened TikTok on Thursday morning, they were met with a full-screen message encouraging them to call Congress and say no to a TikTok ban.
“Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and tell them to vote NO.”Below the message, users can click a red “call now” button.
Last year, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress for five hours, addressing lawmakers’ concerns about Chinese authorities accessing American data (TikTok, an American company, is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company).
Chew has repeatedly stated that TikTok and ByteDance are not conduits for the Chinese government.
The bill’s sponsors are urging TikTok to sever its ties with ByteDance to avoid this fate, or else it could lose its 170 million American users.
Google is sunsetting the Google Pay app in the US later this yearGoogle has announced that Google Pay is shutting down in the United States in June, as the standalone app has largely been replaced by Google Wallet.
Users can continue to access the app’s most popular features right from Google Wallet, which Google says is used five times more than the Google Pay app in the United States.
After June 4, users will no longer be able to send, request or receive money through the U.S. version of the Google Pay app.
Users who used the Google Pay app to find offers and deals can still so do using the new deals destination on Google Search, the company says.
Google says millions of people in over 180 countries use Google Pay to check out when shopping on desktop, mobile and in store.
Just how backed up are the venture capital markets today?
That’s what a recent data analysis indicates is happening today in one critical venture capital market.
The value of the most mature startups in the United States that need to find an exit neared the $1 trillion mark through Q3 2023, according to a recent PitchBook analysis.
The figure underscores how weak the exit climate has been over the last two years and highlights the sheer mass of illiquid equity investments made into startups that call the United States home.
Still, the United States’ venture capital market is worth about half of the global whole, so when we discuss Yankee territory, we’re nevertheless talking about a huge portion of the startup market.
Oklahoma took a stand against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) last month.
The state’s governor, Kevin Stitt, signed an executive order defunding DEI efforts in public colleges and universities and banning it in other state agencies.
He said the move would take “politics out of education” and encourage “equal opportunity rather than promising equal outcomes.” Affirmative action itself has been banned in the state since 2012.
But public colleges aren’t the only ones being affected; this is part of a broader backlash to DEI that has become prevalent in many industries, from technology to academia to fashion.
Supporters of DEI say these initiatives help everyone get ahead, especially marginalized communities that have been historically disenfranchised.
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