Kalakshar US

X is discouraging users from viewing a link to an NPR story about Donald Trump’s recent visit to Arlington National Cemetery, raising questions about whether the Elon Musk-owned platform is putting its thumb on the scale for the former president.

On Thursday, NPR reporter Stephen Fowler posted a link to a story in which he quoted an Army official who said that an employee at Arlington National Cemetery was “abruptly pushed aside” during an event attended by Trump and members of his campaign earlier this week. The outlet had previously reported that there was a “physical altercation” at the event with campaign staff over federal laws barring campaign activities at the cemetery.

Some users on X who attempt to click a link to the story are greeted with a warning message saying that X has deemed that “this link may be unsafe.” It states that it could be malicious, violent, spammy or otherwise violate the platform’s rules, but doesn’t explain why the link was flagged. Fowler posted a thread on X, each tweet of which contained a link to his story — the warning appears to affect the first two instances of the link but not others, for reasons unknown. It’s highly unusual for such a warning to appear before a link to a mainstream website. Other links to NPR, as well as other coverage of Trump’s visit to Arlington, don’t appear to have such a label.

Notably, Musk has been a vocal supporter of Trump this election, and recently held a lengthy live streamed conversation with him on X. Musk has also publicly feuded with NPR in the past, adding a “state affiliated media” label to its account for several months last year. NPR hasn’t posted from its main account on X since the label was added last April.

X didn’t immediately respond to questions about its use of the label.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-is-labeling-an-unflattering-npr-story-about-donald-trump-as-unsafe-163732236.html?src=rss 

The Labor Day discounts are coming in hot. Here’s one for Apple’s fantastic MagSafe charging pad. It’s usually $39, but this Amazon sale brings it down to $29. That’s a savings of 26 percent and close to a record low price.

If you haven’t tried a charging pad before, you are in for a treat. There’s a reason this thing made our list of the best iPhone accessories. All you do is plug it in and then plop the device right on top of it. It’ll juice up, thanks to the magic of inductive charging.

Apple’s MagSafe charging pad will work with just about any Apple handset past the iPhone 8, though the internal magnetic locking mechanism only works with the iPhone 12 and later. All this means is it’ll be a bit more finicky to place older handsets. Also, the charging pad isn’t tethered to phones. It powers up the charging cases that ship with most AirPods earbuds.

We loved the powerful internal magnets, which makes phone placement a breeze. The only real downside is that the cable that runs from the pad to a power outlet is on the shorter side, so it may require some furniture rearrangement or the use of an extension cord.

The original $39 asking price was also a sticking point, given that off-brand products are much cheaper. That’s changed with this sale. Why get a third-party charging pad for $25 when you can get the real deal for $29?

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/this-labor-day-sale-discounts-apples-magsafe-charging-pad-to-just-29-150200016.html?src=rss 

Meta’s Oversight Board is looking at two anti-transgender posts shared in 2024 that were reported multiple times for hate speech, bullying and harassment. The first is a video shared on Facebook that shows a trans woman being confronted in the bathroom by another woman. The post misgenders the person as a man and questions why they should be allowed to use a women’s bathroom. The other case looks at a video posted on Instagram in which a transgender girl wins a women’s sporting competition, with some spectators audibly expressing their disapproval. The post also misgenders the athlete as a boy. 

The company’s hate speech policy prohibits any direct attack on an individual due to their gender identity. Yet, in both instances, Meta left the post live after users reported them. Then, following individual appeals to the Board, Meta took another look under its Hate Speech and Bullying and Harassment policies and came to the same conclusion. It also told the Board that it would have left the Facebook post up regardless, as it’s newsworthy given that “transgender people’s access to bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity is the subject of considerable political debate in the United States.” 

The user who appealed the Facebook post argued to the Board that Meta is allowing a transphobic post to remain on one of its platforms. The assertion for the Instagram post was that the attacks lobbied at the athlete violate Meta’s Community Standards. 

The Board is now seeking public comments through September 12 on aspects such as Meta’s policies, the challenges of enforcing them and how the content of each post and accompanying video could be seen from a sociopolitical context. It’s combining these two cases “to assess whether Meta’s approach to moderating discussions around gender identity respects users’ freedom of expression and the rights of transgender and non-binary people.” Meta has 60 days to respond once the Board makes a recommendation.

This latest instance is part of a consistent pattern from Meta of violating trans rights and well-being. Last year, the Board ruled that Meta wrongly took down two Instagram posts of a transgender and non-binary couple with bare chests but covered nipples. Both posts discussed transgender healthcare and how they were raising money so one of them could afford gender-affirming surgery. Meta argued the posts violated its sexual solicitation policies after getting user reports and automatic system alerts. The couple then appealed to Meta and the Board, with Meta reversing their decision. The Board still looked into it and agreed that the posts should never have been removed. 

Outside entities have also criticized Meta’s lack of protections. Early this year, LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD published a report outlining how Meta fails to enforce its own policies around anti-trans hate speech. The report showed dozens of clear examples demonstrating hate speech across Facebook, Instagram and Threads between June 2023 and March 2024, including anti-trans slurs, dehumanizing language and promotions of conversion therapy. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/metas-oversight-board-looks-into-anti-trans-posts-that-the-company-wont-remove-135331089.html?src=rss 

Meta has published an update on how its Llama large language models are performing, and they’re apparently doing so well that they’re now “approaching 350 million downloads to date.” That’s 10 times more than the downloads it accumulated compared to the same time last year. Approximately 20 million of those downloads took place in the last month alone, after the company released Llama 3.1, its latest LLM that it says can now rival OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s. 

The monthly usage of Llama grew ten times from January to July this year for some of Meta’s largest cloud service providers, the company said. From May to July, in particular, hosted Llama usage on its cloud partners more than doubled by token volume. In addition to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, the company teamed up with Databricks, Dell, Google Cloud, Groq, NVIDIA, IBM watsonx, Scale AI and Snowflake, among others, to make its LLMs more readily available to developers.

Meta attributed Llama’s growing usage to “the power of open source.” It said that making the LLMs available to all allowed it to see “a vibrant and diverse AI ecosystem come to life where developers have more choice and capability.” When Meta released Llama 3.1, Mark Zuckerberg extolled the virtues of open source AI, calling it the “path forward.” He also talked about the steps Meta is taking to make open source AI the industry standard. 

In its latest report, it gave examples of how companies are using Llama for their needs. AT&T apparently uses Llama to fine-tune customer searches, while DoorDash relies on the LLM to make tasks easier for its software engineers. Llama also generates the real-time reactions of the creatures called “Dots” in Niantic’s Tamagotchi-like game Peridot. Meanwhile, Zoom uses Llama (along with other LLMs) to power its AI Companion that can summarize meetings and make smart recordings. “The innovation has been broad and rapid, from start-ups pushing new boundaries to enterprises of all sizes using Llama to build on-premises or through a cloud service provider,” Meta wrote. “Industry is building and innovating with Llama, and we’re even more excited for what’s to come.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/meta-says-llamas-usage-grew-tremendously-due-to-the-power-of-open-source-140020454.html?src=rss