Tech
ChatGPT's chief to testify before US Congress as concerns grow about artificial intelligence's risks
The head of the artificial intelligence company that makes ChatGPT is set to testify before US Congress as lawmakers call for new rules to guide the rapid development of AI technology.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is scheduled to speak at a Senate hearing Tuesday.
His San Francisco-based startup rocketed to public attention after its release late last year of ChatGPT, a free chatbot tool that answers questions with convincingly human-like responses.
Also Read: How Europe is building artificial intelligence guardrails
What started out as a panic among educators about ChatGPT's use to cheat on homework assignments has expanded to broader concerns about the ability of the latest crop of “generative AI” tools to mislead people, spread falsehoods, violate copyright protections and upend some jobs.
And while there's no immediate sign that Congress will craft sweeping new AI rules, as European lawmakers are doing, the societal concerns brought Altman and other tech CEOs to the White House earlier this month and have led U.S. agencies to promise to crack down on harmful AI products that break existing civil rights and consumer protection laws.
“Artificial intelligence urgently needs rules and safeguards to address its immense promise and pitfalls,” said a prepared statement from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on privacy, technology and the law.
Founded in 2015, OpenAI is also known for other AI products including the image-maker DALL-E. Microsoft has invested billions of dollars into the startup and has integrated its technology into its own products, including its search engine Bing.
Also Read: Future of AI and humanity: 4 dangers that most worry the 'Godfather of AI'
Also testifying will be IBM's chief privacy and trust officer, Christina Montgomery, and Gary Marcus, a professor emeritus at New York University who was among a group of AI experts who called on OpenAI and other tech firms to pause their development of more powerful AI models for six months to give society more time to consider the risks. The letter was a response to the March release of OpenAI's latest model, GPT-4, described as more powerful than ChatGPT.
“Artificial intelligence will be transformative in ways we can’t even imagine, with implications for Americans’ elections, jobs, and security,” said the panel's ranking Republican, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. “This hearing marks a critical first step towards understanding what Congress should do.”
Altman and other tech industry leaders have said they welcome some form of AI oversight but have cautioned against what they see as overly heavy-handed rules. In a copy of her prepared remarks, IBM's Montgomery asks Congress to take a “precision regulation" approach.
"This means establishing rules to govern the deployment of AI in specific use-cases, not regulating the technology itself,” Montgomery said.
OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G Review: What’s special about it?
OnePlus Technology, the subsidiary of OPPO, has steadily expanded to include midrange and budget devices in its product line. The Nord CE series were the perfect mid-range with the Lite being their budget offering. This year, the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite 5G was released on April 11 2023 in China with a subsequent global release. The CE 3 Lite successes the CE 2 Lite with some interesting developments. Let’s have a look.
Key Features of OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite
Design and Build Quality
The OnePlus Nord CE 3 is a through-and-through budget device. The build material may reflect on that but rest assured, the CE 3 Lite is a well-built hefty device at 195 gm. The phone has a glass front, plastic frame, and back with a glossy finish to emulate the glass-back design. The front glass is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass.
The Nord CE 3 Lite moves away from the design elements of its predecessor, the CE 2 Lite. Instead of dual tone back with a separate camera housing, users will be getting a flush glossy back with two protruding camera sensors, much like the iPhone 12.
Read more: Redmi Note 12 Turbo Harry Potter Edition: Enter the Magical Wizarding World
However, the quirk is somewhere else. Users would be surprised to see that even though there are two camera cutouts on the back, the official spec sheet mentions triple camera setup. That is because one of the camera cutouts, specifically the bottom one, houses two camera sensors. It’s a unique design choice that helps to keep things minimal at the back.
Coming to ports and buttons, the volume rocker and the sim tray are situated on the left of the device with the power button being on the right. The power button also doubles as the fingerprint scanner on the Nord CE 3 Lite.
Being a budget device, the headphone jack is also present on the CE 3 Lite, right beside the Type C charging port. A single-firing speaker also finds its place at the bottom. The top of the device is flush with just the secondary noise cancellation mic for better call clarity.
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Overall, the design is a slight move towards minimalism from the CE 2 Lite. Whether that is a good thing or bad remains subjective.
Display
The display on the Nord CE 3 Lite is an IPS LCD one. The choice of LCD panel is understandable given the budget it comes at. However, the lack of an AMOLED panel is somewhat made up by the 120 Hz refresh rate and FHD+ resolution. The panel boasts around 550 nits of typical brightness with 680 nits of HBM. Though these aren’t industry-leading stats in any way, it's still decent for its price.
Speaking of quality, the panel is exactly as you’d expect LCDs to be. The blacks aren’t deep black and there are some color shifts in extreme angles. Other than that, the smooth scrolling and accurate color recreation make for a compelling and interactive experience.
Read More: May 2023 New Releases: Top 7 Upcoming Smartphones
Camera
The Nord CE 3 Lite features three cameras on the back. The main camera is a whooping 108 MP one with the complementing two sensors being a 2 MP macro and depth sensor. It’s clear that the 108 MP sensor is the key player here as it will be doing all the heavy lifting.
Musk, new Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino spar over content moderation during on-stage interview
On Friday, Elon Musk announced that NBC Universal's Linda Yaccarino will serve as the new CEO of Twitter. Yaccarino is a longtime advertising executive credited with integrating and digitizing ad sales at NBCU. Her challenge now will be to woo back advertisers that have fled Twitter since Musk acquired it last year for $44 billion.
Since taking ownership, Musk has fired thousands of Twitter employees, largely scrapped the trust-and-safety team responsible for keeping the site free of hate speech, harassment and misinformation, and blamed others — particularly mainstream media organizations, which he views as untrustworthy “competitors” to Twitter for ad dollars — for exaggerating Twitter's problems.
In April, the two met for an on-stage conversation at a marketing convention in Miami Beach, Florida. Here are some highlights of their conversation:
MUSK AND YACCARINO SPAR OVER CONTENT MODERATION
The Miami discussion was cordial, although both participants drew some distinct lines in the sand. On a few occasions, Yaccarino steered the conversation toward issues of content moderation and the apparent proliferation of hate speech and extremism since Musk took over the platform. She couched her questions in the context of whether Musk could help advertisers feel more welcome on the platform.
At one point, she asked if Musk was willing to let advertisers “influence” his vision for Twitter, explaining that it would help them get more excited about investing more money — "product development, ad safety, content moderation — that's what the influence is."
Musk shut her down. “It’s totally cool to say that you want to have your advertising appear in certain places in Twitter and not in other places, but it is not cool to to try to say what Twitter will do," he said. “And if that means losing advertising dollars, we lose it. But freedom of speech is paramount.”
MUSK REPEATS: NO SPECIAL INFLUENCE FOR ADVERTISERS
Yaccarino returned to the issue a few moments later when she asked Musk if he planned to reinstate the company's “influence council,” a once-regular meeting with marketing executives from several of Twitter's major advertisers. Musk again demurred.
“I would be worried about creating a backlash among the public,” he said. “Because if the public thinks that their views are being determined by, you know, a small number of (marketing executives) in America, they will be, I think, upset about that."
Musk went on to acknowledge that feedback is important, and suggested Twitter should aim for a “sensible middle ground” that ensures the public “has a voice” while advertisers focus on the ordinary work of improving sales and the perception of their brands.
PRESSING ELON ON HIS OWN TWEETS
Musk didn't pass up the opportunity to sell the assembled marketers a new plan to solve Twitter's problems with objectionable tweets, which the company had announced the day before. Musk called the policy “freedom of speech but not freedom of reach," describing it as a way to limit the visibility of hate speech and similar problems without actually removing rule-breaking tweets.
Yaccarino took a swing. “Does it apply to your tweets?” Musk has a history of posting misinformation and occasionally offensive tweets, often in the early morning hours.
Musk acknowledged that it does, adding that his tweets can also be tagged with “community notes” that provide additional context to tweets. He added that his tweets receive no special boosts from Twitter.
“Will you agree to be more specific and not tweet after 3 a.m.?" Yaccarino asked.
“I will aspire to tweet less after 3 a.m.,” Musk replied.
Elon Musk says he's found a woman to lead Twitter as new CEO
Elon Musk said Thursday he has found a new CEO for Twitter, or X Corp. as it's now called — and it's a woman. He did not name her but said she will be starting in about six weeks.
Musk, who bought Twitter last fall and has been running it since, has long insisted he is not the company's permanent CEO. The Tesla billionaire said in a tweet Thursday that his role will transition to being Twitter's executive chairman and chief technology officer.
In mid-November, just a few weeks after buying the social media platform for $44 billion, he told a Delaware court that he does not want to be the CEO of any company.
While testifying, Musk said "I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time."
More than a month later, he tweeted in December: "I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job." The pledge came after millions of Twitter users asked him to step down in a Twitter poll the billionaire himself created and promised to abide by.
In February, he told a conference he anticipated finding a CEO for San Francisco-based Twitter "probably toward the end of this year."
Analysts who follow Twitter's business welcomed the news even without knowing who the replacement will be. Twitter's advertising business has taken a hit under Musk's mercurial rule, though the billionaire told BBC last month that the company is now "roughly" breaking even.
"A new CEO is the only way forward for Twitter," said Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg. "The single biggest problem with Twitter's ad business was Elon Musk. As he steps back, Twitter can begin to unravel Musk's personal brand from the company's corporate image and attempt to regain trust among advertisers. The success of those efforts will depend on who takes over, but it's difficult to imagine that the new CEO could be more controversial or damaging to Twitter's ad business than Musk has been."
Shares of Tesla rose about 2% Thursday after Musk made the announcement. Shareholders of the electric car company have been concerned about how much of his attention is being spent on Twitter.
Last November, he was questioned in court about how he splits his time among Tesla and his other companies, including SpaceX and Twitter. Musk had to testify in the trial in Delaware's Court of Chancery over a shareholder's challenge to his potentially $55 billion compensation plan as CEO of the electric car company.
Musk said he never intended to be CEO of Tesla, and that he didn't want to be chief executive of any other companies either, preferring to see himself as an engineer. Musk also said at the time that he expected an organizational restructuring of Twitter to be completed in the next week or so. It's been nearly six months since he said that.
Musk's tenure at Twitter's helm has been chaotic, and he's made various promises and proclamations he's backtracked or never followed up on. He began his first day firing the company's top executives, followed by roughly 80% of its staff. He's upended the platform's verification system and has scaled back content moderation and safeguards against the spread of misinformation.
Bantering with Twitter followers late last year, Musk expressed pessimism about the prospects for a new CEO, saying that person "must like pain a lot" to run a company that "has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy."
"No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor," Musk tweeted at the time.
How Europe is building artificial intelligence guardrails
Authorities around the world are racing to draw up rules for artificial intelligence, including in the European Union, where draft legislation faces a pivotal moment on Thursday.
A European Parliament committee is set to vote on the proposed rules, part of a yearslong effort to draw up guardrails for artificial intelligence. Those efforts have taken on more urgency as the rapid advance of ChatGPT highlights benefits the emerging technology can bring — and the new perils it poses.
Here's a look at the EU's Artificial Intelligence Act:
HOW DO THE RULES WORK?
The AI Act, first proposed in 2021, will govern any product or service that uses an artificial intelligence system. The act will classify AI systems according to four levels of risk, from minimal to unacceptable. Riskier applications will face tougher requirements, including being more transparent and using accurate data. Think about it as a "risk management system for AI,” said Johann Laux, an expert at the Oxford Internet Institute.
WHAT ARE THE RISKS?
One of the EU's main goals is to guard against any AI threats to health and safety and protect fundamental rights and values.
That means some AI uses are an absolute no-no, such as “social scoring” systems that judge people based on their behavior or interactive talking toys that encourage dangerous behavior.
Predictive policing tools, which crunch data to forecast where crimes will happen and who will commit them, are expected to be banned. So is remote facial recognition, except for some narrow exceptions like preventing a specific terrorist threat. The technology scans passers-by and uses AI to match their faces to a database. Thursday's vote is set to decide how extensive the prohibition will be.
The aim is “to avoid a controlled society based on AI,” Brando Benifei, the Italian lawmaker helping lead the European Parliament's AI efforts, told reporters Wednesday. “We think that these technologies could be used instead of the good also for the bad, and we consider the risks to be too high.”
AI systems used in high risk categories like employment and education, which would affect the course of a person's life, face tough requirements such as being transparent with users and putting in place risk assessment and mitigation measures.
The EU's executive arm says most AI systems, such as video games or spam filters, fall into the low- or no-risk category.
WHAT ABOUT CHATGPT?
The original 108-page proposal barely mentioned chatbots, merely requiring them to be labeled so users know they’re interacting with a machine. Negotiators later added provisions to cover general purpose AI like ChatGPT, subjecting them to some of the same requirements as high-risk systems.
One key addition is a requirement to thoroughly document any copyright material used to teach AI systems how to generate text, images, video or music that resembles human work. That would let content creators know if their blog posts, digital books, scientific articles or pop songs have been used to train algorithms that power systems like ChatGPT. Then they could decide whether their work has been copied and seek redress.
WHY ARE THE EU RULES SO IMPORTANT?
The European Union isn't a big player in cutting-edge AI development. That role is taken by the U.S. and China. But Brussels often plays a trendsetting role with regulations that tend to become de facto global standards.
"Europeans are, globally speaking, fairly wealthy and there’s a lot of them," so companies and organizations often decide that the sheer size of the bloc’s single market with 450 million consumers makes it easier to comply than develop different products for different regions, Laux said.
But it's not just a matter of cracking down. By laying down common rules for AI, Brussels is also trying to develop the market by instilling confidence among users, Laux said.
“The thinking behind it is if you can induce people to to place trust in AI and in applications, they will also use it more,” Laux said. “And when they use it more, they will unlock the economic and social potential of AI.”
WHAT IF YOU BREAK THE RULES?
Violations will draw fines of up to 30 million euros ($33 million) or 6% of a company's annual global revenue, which in the case of tech companies like Google and Microsoft could amount to billions.
WHAT’S NEXT?
It could be years before the rules fully take effect. The flagship legislative proposal faces a joint European Parliament committee vote on Thursday. The draft legislation then moves into three-way negotiations involving the bloc’s 27 member states, the Parliament and the executive Commission, where faces further wrangling over the details. Final approval is expected by the end of the year, or early 2024 at the latest, followed by a grace period for companies and organizations to adapt, often around two years.
Google is giving its dominant search engine an artificial-intelligence makeover
Google on Wednesday disclosed plans to infuse its dominant search engine with more advanced artificial-intelligence technology, a drive that's in response to one of the biggest threats to its long-established position as the internet's main gateway.
The gradual shift in how Google's search engine runs is rolling out three months after Microsoft's Bing search engine started to tap into technology similar to that which powers the artificially intelligent chatbot ChatGPT, which has created one of Silicon Valley's biggest buzzes since Apple released the first iPhone 16 years ago.
Google, which is owned by Alphabet Inc., already has been testing its own conversational chatbot called Bard. That product, powered by technology called generative AI that also fuels ChatGPT, has only been available to people accepted from a waitlist. But Google announced Wednesday that Bard will be available to all comers in more than 180 countries and more languages beyond English.
Bard's multilingual expansion will begin with Japanese and Korean before adding about 40 more languages.
Now Google is ready to test the AI waters with its search engine, which has been synonymous with finding things on the internet for the past 20 years and serves as the pillar of a digital advertising empire that generated more than $220 billion in revenue last year.
"We are at an exciting inflection point," Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told a packed developers conference in a speech peppered with one AI reference after another. "We are reimagining all our products, including search."
More AI technology will be coming to Google's Gmail with a "Help Me Write" option that will produce lengthy replies to emails in seconds, and a tool for photos called "Magic Editor" that will automatically doctor pictures.
The AI transition will begin cautiously with the search engine that serves as Google's crown jewel.
The deliberate approach reflects the balancing act that Google must negotiate as it tries to remain on the cutting edge while also preserving its reputation for delivering reliable search results — a mantle that could be undercut by artificial intelligence's penchant for fabricating information that sounds authoritative.
The tendency to produce deceptively convincing answers to questions — a phenomenon euphemistically described as "hallucinations" — has already been cropping up during the early testing of Bard, which like ChatGPT, relies on still-evolving generative AI technology.
Google will take its next AI steps through a newly formed search lab where people in the U.S. can join a waitlist to test how generative AI will be incorporated in search results. The tests also include the more traditional links to external websites where users can read more extensive information about queried topics. It may take several weeks before Google starts sending invitations to those accepted from the waitlist to test the AI-injected search engine.
The AI results will be clearly tagged as an experimental form of technology and Google is pledging the AI-generated summaries will sound more factual than conversational — a distinct contrast from Bard and ChatGPT, which are programmed to convey more human-like personas. Google is building in guardrails that will prevent the AI baked into the search engine from responding to sensitive questions about health — such as, "Should I give Tylenol to a 3-year-old?" — and finance matters. In those instances, Google will continue to steer people to authoritative websites.
Google isn't predicting how long it will be before its search engine will include generative AI results for all comers. The Mountain View, California, company has been under intensifying pressure to demonstrate how its search engine will maintain its leadership since Microsoft began to load AI into Bing, which remains a distant second to Google.
The potential threat caused the stock price of Google's parent, Alphabet Inc., to initially plunge, although it has recently bounced back to where it stood when Bing announced its AI plans to great fanfare. More recently, The New York Times reported Samsung is considering dropping Google as the default search engine on its widely used smartphones, raising the specter that Apple might adopt a similar tactic with the iPhone unless Google can show its search engine can evolve with what appears to be a forthcoming AI-driven revolution.
As it begins to ingrain AI in its search engine, Google is aiming to make Bard smarter by connecting with the next generation of a massive data set known as a "large language model," or LLM, that fuels it. The LLM that Bard relies on is dubbed Pathways Language Model, or PaLM. The AI in Google's search engine will draw upon the next-generation PaLM2 and another technology known as a Multitask Unified Model, or MUM.
Although people will have to wait to see how Google's search engine will deploy generative AI to find answers, a new tool will be immediately available. Google is adding a new filter called "Perspectives" that will focus on what people are saying online about whatever topic is entered into the search engine. The new feature will be placed along existing search filters for news, images and video.
Redmi Note 12 Turbo Harry Potter Edition: Enter the Magical Wizarding World
Xiaomi's Redmi Note 12 Turbo edition was released on March 28, 2023 in Mainland China. On the same day, Redmi also released a Harry Potter Special limited-edition version. Let’s check out what the Harry Potter fans will get in the Redmi Note 12 Turbo Harry Potter Edition.
Key Features of Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Turbo Harry Potter Edition
Design
Much of the specialty of this edition has to do with the unboxing experience itself. Users would get a chunky box with the special edition, much like those large magic spell books seen in the movie.
Opening the fold, users will be greeted with the iconic Hogwarts acceptance letter received by Harry. It’s the same as the original complete with wax sealing. The included SIM ejector tool has been branded with the nine-three quarter sign and the user manual is designed just like the Marauder’s map. It's these little things that make the unboxing experience such a magical one.
Moving onto other stuff, users will be getting a charging brick, cable, and a designer case with faux leather finishing. There are also some classic Harry Potter stickers for the geeks.
Read More: Best MacBooks in Bangladesh: Which Apple Laptop Should You Buy?
Now let’s talk about the device itself. Dimension wise the device is exactly the same as Redmi Note 12 Turbo. But the magic is happening at the back. There’s a lot to take in from the centaur, sorting hat, Quidditch game, quill to the broom, and of course, the ever-magical Hogwarts logo. The motto of the school, “Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus” is printed brightly on the emblem. And if it ever crossed as to what it means, it stands for “Do not tickle the sleeping dragon”.
There is also the Redmi special edition branding on the bottom and the Harry Potter typography at the top. The camera sensors have been cheekily designed to represent Harry’s spectacles complete with his lightning scar.
Overall, the design and the unboxing experience of the Harry Potter special edition will be absolutely magical, to say the least. For any Potterhead or a general enthusiast, this device would definitely be a collectible piece worth admiring.
The Display
The display on the Redmi Note 12 Turbo is a 1080P OLED panel with a 120 Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision, and HDR10+ support. As mentioned earlier, there is no dimension or spec difference between the special edition and the regular version of the Note 12 Turbo. So enthusiasts will also be getting the same specs.
Read More: May 2023 New Releases: Top 7 Upcoming Smartphones
The panel itself is decent. It has that typical Xiaomi warm tone to it which can easily be calibrated from the display settings. The viewing angles are pretty good and the high refresh rate makes it a delight to interact with. Overall, the display is easily one of the strong features of the Note 12 Turbo.
The Camera
The goggle-designed camera on the Note 12 Turbo special edition actually has three lenses. The main camera is a 64 MP wide-angle shooter with an 8 MP ultrawide and a 2 MP macro shooter. It's clear from the spec that the main camera will be doing all the heavy lifting.
Best MacBooks in Bangladesh: Which Apple Laptop Should You Buy?
Compared to PCs, the world of laptops seems to be far more diverse and full of options. When it comes to high-performance, durability, and portability, MacBooks are a step ahead of all other competitors. Based on Apple’s proprietary macOS, MacBooks bring a lot to the table, including some caveats. Let’s explore the world of MacBooks and see which one might just be the right one for you.
Choosing the Right MacBook: What to Consider?
MacBook models are limited to either Air or Pro. But it’s easy to guess the internal spec dimensions considering the price difference between an entry-level MacBook Air and a maxed-out MacBook Pro. While an entry-level M1 MacBook Air Costs 999 USD, a maxed-out MacBook Pro will set back the user an eye-watering 6,499 USD. So before jumping for a model, it's important to understand what should be the buying criteria for MacBooks.
Performance
In general, MacBooks are always known for their efficient and reliable performance thanks to the highly optimized hardware and macOS. With the addition of the Apple silicone M1, the efficiency and performance took a staggering jump, leaving competitions miles back.
So for most people, the entry-level MacBook Air would be more than enough. But for professionals, there are specialized features in different MacBook models. It’ll be discussed in detail in the latter part.
Read More: Laptop Buyer’s Guide: How to choose the right one
Price
The price of a MacBook varies substantially. Each new feature from the preceding model or the base model will have a slight price increment. It might get a bit confusing. But the best approach would be to fix a certain budget and performance parameter first and then look for the models that best match the plan.
Battery Life
Ever since Apple made the switch to M1, the battery life has significantly increased, not that the MacBook had a bad battery before. An entry-level MacBook Air will easily last 8 to 12 hours of continued use. Larger and Pro models will have an even better battery life.
Screen Size
Speaking of large, MacBook usually comes in either 13-inch, 14-inch, or 16-inch displays. Each incremental screen size brings better display tech with the highest ones reserved for the 16-inch Pro models. For compact users, the 13-inch models can be an easy choice. But for professionals, the 14 or 16-inch might be the one to go for.
Upgradability
Lastly, consider whether there is any need for regular upgrades. MacBooks are highly reliable machines with top-notch performance, even if they become a few years old. The new gen M2 processors are so far ahead that even 2 or 3 years down the line, the performance difference with the competition will be hard to notice. So rather than thinking of MacBooks as just another laptop, think of them as an investment.
Read More: Used Laptop, PC Buyer Guide: What to look for before buying
New Twitter rules expose election offices to spoof accounts
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 that Twitter has been among their most effective tools for communicating with the public.
Some are taking other steps allowed by Twitter, such as buying check marks for their profiles or applying for a special label reserved for government entities, but success has been mixed. Election and security experts say the inconsistency of Twitter’s new verification system is a misinformation disaster waiting to happen.
“The lack of clear, at-a-glance verification on Twitter is a ticking time bomb for disinformation,” said Rachel Tobac, CEO of the cybersecurity company SocialProof Security. “That will confuse users – especially on important days like election days.”
The blue check marks that Twitter once doled out to notable celebrities, public figures, government entities and journalists began disappearing from the platform in April. To replace them, Musk told users that anyone could pay $8 a month for an individual blue check mark or $1,000 a month for a gold check mark as a “verified organization.”
The policy change quickly opened the door for pranksters to pose convincingly as celebrities, politicians and government entities, which could no longer be identified as authentic. While some impostor accounts were clear jokes, others created confusion.
Fake accounts posing as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the city’s Department of Transportation and the Illinois Department of Transportation falsely claimed the city was closing one of its main thoroughfares to private traffic. The fake accounts used the same photos, biographical text and home page links as the real ones. Their posts amassed hundreds of thousands of views before being taken down.
Twitter’s new policy invites government agencies and certain affiliated organizations to apply to be labeled as official with a gray check. But at the state and local level, qualifying agencies are limited to “main executive office accounts and main agency accounts overseeing crisis response, public safety, law enforcement, and regulatory issues," the policy says.
The rules do not mention agencies that run elections. So while the main Philadelphia city government account quickly received its gray check mark last month, the local election commission has not heard back.
Election offices in four of the country's five most populous counties — Cook County in Illinois, Harris County in Texas, Maricopa County in Arizona and San Diego County — remain unverified, a Twitter search shows. Maricopa, which includes Phoenix, has been targeted repeatedly by election conspiracy theorists as the most populous and consequential county in one of the most closely divided political battleground states.
Some counties contacted by The Associated Press said they have minimal concerns about impersonation or plan to apply for a gray check later, but others said they already have applied and have not heard back from Twitter.
Even some state election offices are waiting for government labels. Among them is the office of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows.
In an April 24 email to Bellows’ communications director reviewed by The Associated Press, a Twitter representative wrote that there was “nothing to do as we continue to manually process applications from around the world.” The representative added in a later email that Twitter stands “ready to swiftly enforce any impersonation, so please don’t hesitate to flag any problematic accounts.”
An email sent to Twitter's press office and a company safety officer requesting comment was answered only with an auto-reply of a poop emoji.
“Our job is to reinforce public confidence,” Bellows told the AP. “Even a minor setback, like no longer being able to ensure that our information on Twitter is verified, contributes to an environment that is less predictable and less safe.”
Some government accounts, including the one representing Pennsylvania’s second-largest county, have purchased blue checks because they were told it was required to continue advertising on the platform.
Allegheny County posts ads for elections and jobs on Twitter, so the blue check mark “was necessary,” said Amie Downs, the county's communications director.
When anyone can buy verification and when government accounts are not consistently labeled, the check mark loses its meaning, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said.
Griswold’s office received a gray check mark to maintain trust with voters, but she told the AP she would not buy verification for her personal Twitter account because “it doesn’t carry the same weight” it once did.
Custodio, at the Philadelphia elections commission, said his office would not buy verification either, even if it gets denied a gray check.
“The blue or gold check mark just verifies you as a paid subscriber and does not verify identity,” he said.
Experts and advocates tracking election discourse on social media say Twitter's changes do not just incentivize bad actors to run disinformation campaigns — they also make it harder for well-meaning users to know what’s safe to share.
May 2023 New Releases: Top 7 Upcoming Smartphones
In April, some significant mid-range phones were launched from several brands like Vivo, Oppo, and Infinix. In May, several mid-range smartphones are coming with a few interesting announcements. May’s new phone releases will also have something for the budget to flagship enthusiasts. With that said, here are the top pick of smartphones coming in May.
7 Best Smartphones Releasing in May 2023
Vivo X90 Pro
After several months of its initial release in China, Vivo X90 Pro is slated to go on sale in the South Asian markets in May.
The Vivo X90 Pro device comes equipped with MediaTek Dimensity 9200 based on the 4 Nm architecture. The GPU on the X90 Pro moves away from the conventional Adreno or Mali to Immortalis-G715.
But the most striking feature of the X90 Pro has to be the 1-inch Zeiss main sensor churning out 50.3 MP with additional 50 MP telephoto and a 12 MP ultrawide shooter. The large sensor accounts for some incredible performance thanks to the Zeiss Optics and T* lens coating. Additionally, there is a 32 MP front shooter on the device.
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Users will be able to get up to 12 GB RAM and 512 GB ROM on the X90 Pro, one of the highest available in the market.
Motorola Edge 40
Motorola is all set to announce their upper mid-range Edge 40 sometime in mid-May. The device is expected to hit the market at a later date this month.
The Edge 40 brings a host of changes from the previous gen including the updated Dimensity 8020 processor with a single 8 GB RAM option. Users will see a boost in performance thanks to the optimization and the smooth 144 Hz P-OLED display.
On the camera front, users will be getting a triple camera setup with a 50 MP main shooter, 13 MP ultrawide, and a 2 MP depth sensor. There will also be a 32 MP selfie camera on the front.
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The expected price of the Motorola Edge 40 is around 600 Euro or 69,905 BDT which puts it on the higher tier among upper mid-ranges released this year 1 Euro = 116 BDT).
realme GT3
The GT3 from realme is another case of delayed global release. The device was officially announced in late April for Mainland China. Now the GT3 will debut globally sometime in late May.
The GT3 is a proper flagship device from realme. The sleek dual-tone back design is complemented by a near bezel-less front. The GT3 comes with a 144 Hz AMOLED panel with 1240P resolution and up to 1100 nits of brightness.
The sleek display is coupled with the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset based on the 4 Nm architecture. This year Realme has pushed the storage and RAM capacity up to 1 TB and 16 GB respectively.
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The device boasts a triple camera setup with a 50 MP main sensor, 8 MP ultrawide, and a 2 MP microsensor. The front has a 16MP selfie camera.
The 4600 mAh included battery might feel less compared to standard flagships. But the insane 240W wired charging is a complete game-changer here. realme claims that the GT3 can go from 0 to 50% in just 4 minutes and a full charge in 10 minutes.