Tag: controversial
Erkin Tuniyaz: Chinese official cancels controversial UK visit
Rihanna’s controversial Super Bowl ‘sellout’ comment and why she’s made drastic U-turn
The FBI’s Most Controversial Surveillance Tool Is Under Threat
Suella Braverman set to order ‘back to basics’ reboot of controversial anti-terror scheme Prevent
THE flagship anti-terror Prevent programme is too focused on a tiny number right-wing nutjobs rather than tackling jihadis, a damning review will say today.
Suella Braverman is set to order a “back to basics” reboot of the controversial scheme, after it is found to be referring far too many lower-risk far-right loners rather than focusing on dangerous Islamists.
She will today publish the findings of a major report into the troubled programme, conducted by William Shawcross.
It is expected to call for an urgent overhaul after finding it was treating too many potential terrorists as victims with mental health problems instead.
Seven out of the 13 terror attacks in the past six years – including the murder of MP David Amess, the Reading attacks, and the bombing of Liverpool Women’s Hospital, have been carried out by sickos who had been known to Prevent.
But the review – commissioned more than three years ago by former Home Secretary, Priti Patel – will say it has been overwhelmed with cases and is facing too many referrals for “far right” ideologies which has led to a string of missed opportunities.
It is also set to say that authorities did not refer people over fears of being racist or culturally insensitive.
And it is also set to reveal that taxpayer cash from the £40million budget has been handed by Prevent to groups who promote Islamic extremism.
Potential extremists can be referred to the programme by police or local authorities.
Last year there were more than 6,400 cases for chiefs to sort through in a bid to find people who could put the public at risk.
The Home Secretary is understood to be prepared to accept the majority of the recommendations and push to hugely reform the programme to focus back on foiling major plots.
One source said: “They are seeing too many people being referred to on far right issues, rather than people being radicalised and moving towards terrorism. We need to go back to basics on this.”
Meta takes Ukraine’s controversial Azov Regiment off its dangerous organizations list
Facebook parent company Meta has removed the Azov Regiment, a controversial unit within the Ukrainian National Guard with alleged far-right political leanings, from its list of dangerous individuals and organizations. The move, first reported by The Kyiv Independent, means members of the unit can now create Facebook and Instagram accounts and post without Meta automatically flagging and removing their content. Additionally, unaffiliated users can praise the Azov Regiment, provided they abide by the company’s Community Standards.
“The war in Ukraine has meant changing circumstances in many areas and it has become clear that the Azov Regiment does not meet our strict criteria for designation as a dangerous organization,” a company spokesperson told The Kyiv Independent. Meta did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request.
Sharing more information on the policy change, Meta told The Washington Post it recently began to view the Azov Regiment as a separate entity from other groups associated with the far-right nationalist Azov Movement. Specifically, the company pointed to Ukraine’s National Corp political party and founder Andriy Biletsky, noting they’re still on its list of dangerous individuals and organizations. “Hate speech, hate symbols, calls for violence and any other content which violates our Community Standards are still banned, and we will remove this content if we find it,” Meta said.
Important news from @Meta — changes in platform’s policies. Azov regiment no longer meets designation as dangerous organization. Means a lot for every Ukrainian. New approach enters the force gradually. Big contribution @nickclegg & his team in sharing truthful content about war.
— Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) January 19, 2023
The Azov Regiment was founded in 2014 by Biletsky following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the start of the Donbas War that same year. Before the unit was integrated into Ukraine’s National Guard in November 2014, it was controversial for its adherence to neo-Nazi ideology. In 2015, a spokesperson for the Azov Regiment said 10 to 20 percent of the unit’s recruits were self-professed Nazis. At the start of the 2022 conflict, Ukrainian officials said the Azov Regiment still had some extremists among its ranks but claimed the unit had largely become depoliticized. During the months-long siege of Mariupol, the Azov Regiment played a prominent role in the city’s defense. Russia captured many of the battalion’s fighters at the end of the battle.
The change underscores just how much Meta’s content moderation policies have changed since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Partway through last year, the company began temporarily allowing people in Ukraine and a handful of other countries to call for violence against Russian soldiers. After the decision created controversy, Meta said it would turn to the Oversight Board for policy guidance, a request the company later withdrew, citing “ongoing safety and security concerns” related to the war.
CNET pauses its controversial AI-generated stories ‘for now’
CNET has hit the pause button on its controversial article-writing bot.
In a staff call on Friday, CNET leadership announced that it would stop using artificial intelligence to write articles “for now,” per The Verge. Last week, online marketing expert Gael Breton tweeted that a CNET article about financial planning came with a disclaimer that it was “generated using automation technology.” Futurism picked up the story, reporting that CNET had been “quietly publishing” over 70 SEO-friendly explainer articles about finance since November 2022. What followed was backlash about using artificial intelligence to generate stories — without some kind of explicit announcement, for achieving high SEO ranking, as well as scrutiny over the accuracy of the articles.
The AI-generated articles are listed as being written by “CNET Money Staff” with a disclaimer originally saying “This article was generated using automation technology and thoroughly edited and fact-checked by an editor on our editorial staff.” Criticism that the disclaimer was insufficient and too subtle, let alone unethical to use AI in the first place, swiftly followed. Now, the author is listed as “CNET Money” and the disclaimer has been changed to “This article was assisted by an AI engine and reviewed, fact-checked and edited by our editorial staff.”
Original publications of the stories contained errors such as confusing the terms APR and APY, and incorrectly calculating that a savings account with $10,000 and a three percent interest rate would accrue $10,300 when it would actually accrue $300.
The AI technology was created by private equity firm Red Ventures which owns CNET, in addition to Bankrate, The Points Guy, and CreditCards.com. Publishing content about finance and banking is lucrative for media sites because it draws lots of inquiry through search engines, which is then converted into profit through affiliate links. Optimizing content for search is standard practice in digital media, but using a bot to identify and churn out stories for the explicit purpose of monetization blurs the lines of ethical editorial practice. When a media site prioritizes moneymaking content over relevant and timely news, it calls the site’s integrity and credibility into question.
In response, CNET published a post explaining how its use of AI was intended “to see if the tech can help our busy staff of reporters and editors with their job to cover topics from a 360-degree perspective.” The justification is that the technology might free up time and energy to focus on deeper reporting and analysis.
The Associated Press has also been using AI to gather and analyze news, transcribe video, and write copy. That’s to say, while CNET has paused its controversial tool for now, it’s not the only one experimenting with this technology, and it certainly won’t be the last we hear of it.
D&D Publisher Addresses Backlash Over Controversial License
“We wanted to ensure that the OGL is for the content creator, the homebrewer, the aspiring designer, our players, and the community — not major corporations to use for their own commercial and promotional purpose,” the company wrote in a statement. But fans have critiqued this language, since WoTC — a subsidiary of Hasbro — is a “major corporation” in itself. Hasbro earned $1.68 billion in revenue during the third quarter of 2022. TechCrunch spoke to content creators who had received the unpublished OGL update from WoTC. The terms of this updated OGL would force any creator making more than $50,000 to report earnings to WoTC. Creators earning over $750,000 in gross revenue would have to pay a 25% royalty. The latter creators are the closest thing that third-party Dungeons & Dragons content has to “major corporations” — but gross revenue is not a reflection of profit, so to refer to these companies in that way is a misnomer. […] The fan community also worried about whether WoTC would be allowed to publish and profit off of third-party work without credit to the original creator. Noah Downs, a partner at Premack Rogers and a Dungeons & Dragons livestreamer, told TechCrunch that there was a clause in the document that granted WoTC a perpetual, royalty-free sublicense to all third-party content created under the OGL.
Now, WoTC appears to be walking back both the royalty clause and the perpetual license. “What [the next OGL] will not contain is any royalty structure. It also will not include the license back provision that some people were afraid was a means for us to steal work. That thought never crossed our minds,” WoTC wrote in a statement. “Under any new OGL, you will own the content you create. We won’t.” WoTC claims that it included this language in the leaked version of the OGL to prevent creators from being able to “incorrectly allege” that WoTC stole their work. Throughout the document, WoTC refers to the document that certain creators received as a draft — however, creators who received the document told TechCrunch that it was sent to them with the intention of getting them to sign off on it. The backlash against these terms was so severe that other tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) publishers took action. Paizo is the publisher of Pathfinder, a popular game covered under WoTC’s original OGL. Paizo’s owner and presidents were leaders at Wizards of the Coast at the time that the OGL was originally published in 2000, and wrote in a statement yesterday that the company was prepared to go to court over the idea that WoTC could suddenly revoke the OGL license from existing projects. Along with other publishers like Kobold Press, Chaosium and Legendary Games, Paizo announced it would release its own Open RPG Creative License (ORC). “Ultimately, the collective action of the signatures on the open letter and unsubscribing from D&D Beyond made a difference. We have seen that all they care about is profit, and we are hitting their bottom line,” said Eric Silver, game master of Dungeons & Dragons podcast Join the Party. He told TechCrunch that WoTC’s response on Friday is “just a PR statement.”
“Until we see what they release in clear language, we can’t let our foot off the gas pedal,” Silver said. “The corporate playbook is wait it out until the people get bored; we can’t and we won’t.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
YouTube may fix controversial policy to demonetize videos with swearing
YouTube is rethinking its approach to colorful language after an uproar. In a statement to The Verge, the Google brand says it’s “making some adjustments” to a profanity policy it unveiled in November after receiving blowback from creators. The rule limits or removes ads on videos where someone swears within the first 15 seconds or has “focal usage” of rude words throughout, and is guaranteed to completely demonetize a clip if swearing either occurs in the first seven seconds or dominates the content.
While that policy wouldn’t necessarily be an issue by itself, YouTube has been applying the criteria to videos uploaded before the new rule took effect. As Kotakuexplains, YouTube has demonetized old videos for channels like RTGame. Producers haven’t had success appealing these decisions, and the company won’t let users edit these videos to pass muster.
Communication has also been a problem. YouTube doesn’t usually tell violators exactly what they did wrong, and creators tend to only learn about the updated policy after the service demonetizes their work. There are also concerns about inconsistency. Some videos are flagged while others aren’t, and a remonetized video might lose that income a day later. Even ProZD’s initial video criticizing the policy, which was designed to honor the rules, lost ad revenue after two days.
YouTube hasn’t said just what it plans to change, so it’s not clear if the revised policy will satisfy those affected. For now, creators won’t have much recourse beyond watching their use of cuss words. The uncertainty isn’t necessarily prompting an exodus, but it is leading some video makers to reduce their dependence on YouTube as a source of income.
‘We rolled a 1’: D&D publisher addresses backlash over controversial license
After a week of silence amid intense backlash, Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) has finally addressed its community’s concerns about changes to the open gaming license. The open gaming license (OGL) has existed since 2000 and has made it possible for a diverse ecosystem of third-party creators to publish virtual tabletop […]
‘We rolled a 1’: D&D publisher addresses backlash over controversial license by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch