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Tag: x corp

  • Airlines adopt software fix for Airbus A320 after plane has sudden altitude drop

    Airlines around the world canceled and delayed flights heading into the weekend to fix software on a widely used commercial aircraft after an analysis found the computer code may have contributed to a sudden drop in the altitude of a JetBlue plane last month.

    Airbus said Friday that an examination of the JetBlue incident revealed that intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls on the A320 family of aircraft.

    The FAA joined the European Union Aviation Safety Agency in requiring airlines to address the issue with a new software update. More than 500 U.S.-registered aircraft will be impacted.

    The EU safety agency said it may cause “short-term disruption” to flight schedules. The problem was introduced by a software update to the plane’s onboard computers, according to the agency.

    In Japan, All Nippon Airways, which operates more than 30 planes, canceled 65 domestic flights for Saturday. Additional cancellations on Sunday were possible, it said.

    The software change comes as U.S. passengers were beginning to head home from the Thanksgiving holiday, which is the busiest travel time in the country.

    A COMAC C919 aircraft flies during the first day of the Singapore Airshow in Singapore, Feb. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian, File)

    American Airlines has about 480 planes from the A320 family, of which 209 are affected. The fix should take about two hours for many aircraft and updates should be completed for the overwhelming majority on Friday, the airline said. A handful will be finished Saturday.

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    American expected some delays but it said it was focused on limiting cancellations. It said safety would be its overriding priority.

    Air India said via the social platform X that its engineers were working on the fix and completed the reset on more 40% of aircraft that need it. There were no cancellations, it said.

    Delta said it expected the issue to affect less than 50 of its A321neo aircraft. United said six planes in its fleet are affected and it expects minor disruptions to a few flights. Hawaiian Airlines said it was unaffected.

    Mike Stengel, a partner with the aerospace industry management consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory, said the fix could be addressed between flights or on overnight plane checks.

    “Definitely not ideal for this to be happening on a very ubiquitous aircraft on a busy holiday weekend,” Stengel said from Ann Arbor, Michigan. “Although again the silver lining being that it only should take a few hours to update the software.”

    At least 15 JetBlue passengers were injured and taken to the hospital after the Oct. 30 incident on board the flight from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, New Jersey. The plane was diverted to Tampa, Florida.

    Airbus, which is registered in the Netherlands but has its main headquarters in France, is one of the world’s biggest airplane manufacturers, alongside Boeing.

    The A320 is the primary competitor to Boeing’s 737, Stengel said. Airbus updated its engine in the mid-2010s, and planes in this category are called A320neo, he said.

    The A320 is the world’s bestselling single-aisle aircraft family, according to Airbus’ website.

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    Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Jennifer Kelleher in Honolulu contributed.

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  • X’s new feature raises questions about the foreign origins of some popular US political accounts

    They go by names like @TRUMP_ARMY— or @MAGANationX, and their verified accounts proudly display portraits of President Donald Trump, voter rallies and American flags. And they’re constantly posting about U.S. politics to their followers, sounding like diehard fans of the president.

    But after a weekend update to the social media platform X, it’s now clear that the owners of these accounts, and many others, are located in regions such as South Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

    Elon Musk’s X unveiled a feature Saturday that lets users see where an account is based. Online sleuths and experts quickly found that many popular accounts posting in support of the MAGA movement to thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers, are based outside the United States — raising concerns about foreign influence on U.S. politics.

    Researchers at NewsGuard, a firm that tracks online misinformation, identified several popular accounts — purportedly run by Americans interested in politics – that instead were based in Eastern Europe, Asia or Africa.

    The accounts were leading disseminators of some misleading and polarizing claims about U.S. politics, including ones that said Democrats bribed the moderators of a 2024 presidential debate.

    What is the location feature?

    Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, announced Saturday that the social media platform is rolling out an “About This Account” tool, which lets users see the country or region where an account is based. To find an account’s location, tap or click the signup date displayed on the profile.

    “This is an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square. We plan to provide many more ways for users to verify the authenticity of the content they see on X,” Bier wrote.

    In countries with punitive speech restrictions, a privacy tool on X lets account holders only show their region rather than a specific country. So instead of India, for instance, an account can say it is based in South Asia.

    Bier said Sunday that after an update to the tool, it would 99.99% accurate, though this could not be independently verified. Accounts, for instance, can use a virtual private network, or VPN, to mask their true location. On some accounts, there’s a notice saying the location data may not be accurate, either because the account uses a VPN or because some internet providers use proxies automatically, without action by the user.

    “Location data will always be something to use with caution,” said Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the Security, Trust, and Safety Initiative at Cornell Tech and a former director of the International Fact-Checking Network. “Its usefulness probably peaks now that it was just exposed, and bad actors will adapt. Meta has had similar information for a while and no one would suggest that misinformation has been eliminated from Facebook because of it.”

    Which accounts are causing controversy?

    Some of the accounts supported slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk as well as President Donald Trump’s children. Many of the accounts were adorned with U.S. flags or made comments suggesting they were American. An account called “@BarronTNews_,” for instance, is shown as being located in “Eastern Europe (Non-EU),” even though the display location on its profile says “Mar A Lago.” The account, which has more than 580,000 followers, posted on Tuesday that “This is a FAN account, 100 % independent, run by one guy who loves this country and supports President Trump with everything I’ve got.”

    NewsGuard also found evidence that some X users are spreading misinformation about the location feature itself, incorrectly accusing some accounts of being operated from abroad when they’re actually used by Americans. Investigators found several instances where one user created fake screenshots that appear to suggest an account was created overseas.

    It’s not always clear what the motives of the accounts. While some may be state actors, it’s likely that many are financially motivated, posting commentary, memes and videos to draw engagement.

    “For the most visible accounts unmasked this week, money is probably the main motivator,” Mantzarlis said. “That doesn’t mean that X — as documented extensively by prior work done by academic and nonprofit organizations that are being attacked and defunded — isn’t also a target for state actors.

    Users were divided over the new ability to see an account’s location information, with some questioning whether it went too far.

    “Isn’t this kind of an invasion of privacy?” One X user wrote. “No one needs to see this info.”

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    Associated Press Writer David Klepper contributed to this story.

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  • France will investigate Musk’s Grok chatbot after Holocaust denial claims

    PARIS (AP) — France’s government is taking action against billionaire Elon Musk ‘s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok after it generated French-language posts that questioned the use of gas chambers at Auschwitz, officials said.

    Grok, built by Musk’s company xAI and integrated into his social media platform X, wrote in a widely shared post in French that gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp were designed for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus” rather than for mass murder — language long associated with Holocaust denial.

    The Auschwitz Memorial highlighted the exchange on X, saying that the response distorted historical fact and violated the platform’s rules.

    In later posts on its X account, the chatbot acknowledged that its earlier reply to an X user was wrong, said it had been deleted and pointed to historical evidence that Auschwitz’s gas chambers using Zyklon B were used to murder more than 1 million people. The follow-ups were not accompanied by any clarification from X.

    In tests run by The Associated Press on Friday, its responses to questions about Auschwitz appeared to give historically accurate information.

    Grok has a history of making antisemitic comments. Earlier this year, Musk’s company took down posts from the chatbot that appeared to praise Adolf Hitler after complaints about antisemitic content.

    The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed to The Associated Press on Friday that the Holocaust-denial comments have been added to an existing cybercrime investigation into X. The case was opened earlier this year after French officials raised concerns that the platform’s algorithm could be used for foreign interference.

    Prosecutors said that Grok’s remarks are now part of the investigation, and that “the functioning of the AI will be examined.”

    France has one of Europe’s toughest Holocaust denial laws. Contesting the reality or genocidal nature of Nazi crimes can be prosecuted as a crime, alongside other forms of incitement to racial hatred.

    Several French ministers, including Industry Minister Roland Lescure, have also reported Grok’s posts to the Paris prosecutor under a provision that requires public officials to flag possible crimes. In a government statement, they described the AI-generated content as “manifestly illicit,” saying it could amount to racially motivated defamation and the denial of crimes against humanity.

    French authorities referred the posts to a national police platform for illegal online content and alerted France’s digital regulator over suspected breaches of the European Union’s Digital Services Act.

    The case adds to pressure from Brussels. This week, the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, said that the bloc is in contact with X about Grok and called some of the chatbot’s output “appalling,” saying it runs against Europe’s fundamental rights and values.

    Two French rights groups, the Ligue des droits de l’Homme and SOS Racisme, have filed a criminal complaint accusing Grok and X of contesting crimes against humanity.

    X and its AI unit, xAI, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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  • Anthropic, Microsoft announce new AI data center projects as industry’s construction push continues

    Artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced a $50 billion investment in computing infrastructure on Wednesday that will include new data centers in Texas and New York.

    Microsoft also on Wednesday announced a new data center under construction in Atlanta, Georgia, describing it as connected to another in Wisconsin to form a “massive supercomputer” running on hundreds of thousands of Nvidia chips to power AI technology.

    The latest deals show that the tech industry is moving forward on huge spending to build energy-hungry AI infrastructure, despite lingering financial concerns about a bubble, environmental considerations and the political effects of fast-rising electricity bills in the communities where the massive buildings are constructed.

    Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude, said it is working with London-based Fluidstack to build the new computing facilities to power its AI systems. It didn’t disclose their exact locations or what source of electricity they will need.

    Another company, cryptocurrency mining data center developer TeraWulf, has previously revealed it was working with Fluidstack on Google-backed data center projects in Texas and New York, on the shore of Lake Ontario. TeraWulf declined comment Wednesday.

    A report last month from TD Cowen said that the leading cloud computing providers leased a “staggering” amount of U.S. data center capacity in the third fiscal quarter of this year, amounting to more than 7.4 gigawatts of energy, more than all of last year combined.

    Oracle was securing the most capacity during that time, much of it supporting AI workloads for Anthropic’s chief rival OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT. Google was second and Fluidstack came in third, ahead of Meta, Amazon, CoreWeave and Microsoft.

    Anthropic said its projects will create about 800 permanent jobs and 2,400 construction jobs. It said in a statement that the “scale of this investment is necessary to meet the growing demand for Claude from hundreds of thousands of businesses while keeping our research at the frontier.”

    Microsoft has branded its two-story Atlanta data center as Fairwater 2 and said it will be connected across a “high-speed network” with the original Fairwater complex being built south of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The company said the facility’s densely packed Nvidia chips will help power Microsoft’s own AI technology, along with OpenAI’s and other AI developers.

    Microsoft was, until earlier this year, OpenAI’s exclusive cloud computing provider before the two companies amended their partnership. OpenAI has since announced more than $1 trillion in infrastructure obligations, much of it tied to its Stargate project with partners Oracle and SoftBank. Microsoft, in turn, spent nearly $35 billion in the July-September quarter on capital expenditures to support its AI and cloud demand, nearly half of that on computer chips.

    Anthropic has made its own computing partnerships with Amazon and, more recently, Google.

    The tech industry’s big spending on computing infrastructure for AI startups that aren’t yet profitable has fueled concerns about an AI investment bubble.

    Investors have closely watched a series of circular deals over recent months between AI developers and the companies building the costly chips and data centers needed to power their AI products. Anthropic said it will continue to “prioritize cost-effective, capital-efficient approaches” to scaling up its business.

    OpenAI had to backtrack last week after its chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, made comments at a tech conference suggesting the U.S. government could help in financing chips needed for data centers. The White House’s top AI official, David Sacks, responded on social media platform X that there “will be no federal bailout for AI” and if one of the leading companies fails, “others will take its place,” though he also added he didn’t think “anyone was actually asking for a bailout.”

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman later confirmed in a lengthy statement that “we do not have or want government guarantees” for the company’s data centers and also sought to address concerns about whether it will be able to pay for all the infrastructure it has signed up for.

    “We are looking at commitments of about $1.4 trillion over the next 8 years,” Altman wrote. “Obviously this requires continued revenue growth, and each doubling is a lot of work! But we are feeling good about our prospects there.”

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  • X updates its privacy policy to allow third parties to train AI models with its data

    X updates its privacy policy to allow third parties to train AI models with its data

    X is updating its privacy policy with new language that allows it to provide users’ data to third-party “collaborators” in order to train AI models. The , which takes effect November 15, 2024, would seem to open the door to Reddit-like arrangements in which outside companies can pay to license data from X.

    The updated policy shared by X includes a new section titled “third-party collaborators.”

    Depending on your settings, or if you decide to share your data, we may share or disclose your information with third parties. If you do not opt out, in some instances the recipients of the information may use it for their own independent purposes in addition to those stated in X’s Privacy Policy, including, for example, to train their artificial intelligence models, whether generative or otherwise.

    While the policy mentions the ability to opt out, it’s not clear how users would actually do so. As TechCrunch , the policy points to users’ settings menu, but there’ doesn’t appear to be an control for opting out of data sharing. The policy doesn’t go into effect until next month, though, so there’s still a chance that could change. X didn’t respond to a request for comment.

    If X were to begin licensing its data to other companies, it could open up a significant new revenue stream for the social media company, which has seen from major advertisers.

    In addition to the privacy policy, X is also updating its with stricter penalties for entities that are caught “scraping” large numbers of tweets. In a section titled “liquidated damages” the company states anyone viewing or accessing more than a million posts a day will be subject to a penalty of $15,000.

    Protecting our users’ data and our system resources is important to us. You further agree that, to the extent permitted by applicable law, if you violate the Terms, or you induce or facilitate others to do so, in addition to all other legal remedies available to us, you will be jointly and severally liable to us for liquidated damages as follows for requesting, viewing, or accessing more than 1,000,000 posts (including reply posts, video posts, image posts, and any other posts) in any 24-hour period – $15,000 USD per 1,000,000 posts.

    X owner Elon Musk has previously railed against “scraping.” Last year, the company temporarily blocked people from viewing tweets while logged out, in a move Musk to fending off scrapers. He also moved X’s API behind , which has drastically hindered researchers’ ability to study what’s happening on the platform. He’s also used allegations of “scraping” to justify against organizations that have attempted to study hate speech and other issues on the platform.

    Karissa Bell

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  • AP PHOTOS: How Churchill embraces its title as polar bear capital of the world

    AP PHOTOS: How Churchill embraces its title as polar bear capital of the world

    CHURCHILL, Manitoba (AP) — When polar bears started coming to Churchill, tourists did too.

    And then suddenly, polar bears began to appear everywhere — from artwork to cushion covers and even on beer cans — as residents of this remote Canadian town on Hudson Bay embraced their title as polar bear capital of the world.

    Tourists are greeted with bear imagery wherever they go. At one hotel restaurant, a painting of three bears resting on the sea ice hangs high above dining tables. In a hotel room, a cushion features the animals spelling out “polar bear” as they strike various yoga-like poses. At a tour company gift shop, a giant blue sculpture of a bear welcomes customers outside the entrance.

    Patrons eat lunch below a mural depicting polar bears and other wildlife, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, at the Seaport Hotel in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

    But the bears are not just for tourists: one residential apartment building features a giant mural of a polar bear standing on its hind legs, peering into the town. Another mural, this one on the side of a business, features alternating images of polar bears painted in bright colors and beluga whales swimming in pairs. And readers at the town’s public library share their space with a giant sculpture of a grinning bear, displayed prominently between the shelves.

    In the town’s grocery stores, too, shoppers can enjoy a “bluebeary” ale, with an illustration of a polar bear on the can.

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    A pillow sits on a bed, Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, at the Polar Inn and Suites in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

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    A can of beer with a polar bear on its label sits on a shelf, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, at a market in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

    Climate change, caused mostly by people burning coal, oil and gas, means that one day the local population of polar bears could almost disappear.

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    But as long as there are bears in Churchill, residents and tourists alike will continue to appreciate and memorialize them.

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    A toy polar bear sits on the dashboard of a truck near an abandoned radar station, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

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    A polar bear sculpture greets patrons, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, at the Churchill Public Library in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

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    Street signs featuring a polar bear and Indigenous tipis stand on a street corner, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024, in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

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    Water reflects a mural featuring polar bears and beluga whales, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

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    Tourists sit near a polar bear statue, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024, in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

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    A sign alerts people to the potential presence of polar bears near a beach along the Hudson Bay, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

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    A dumpster sits outside of the Tundra Pub, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024, in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

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    A garage displays a mural of a sleeping polar bear, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

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    People start a bonfire at sunset next to a sign warning them of polar bears, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, in Churchill, Manitoba. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

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    Follow Joshua A. Bickel on X and Instagram.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Elon Musk’s X is back in Brazil after its suspension, having complied with all judicial demands

    Elon Musk’s X is back in Brazil after its suspension, having complied with all judicial demands

    RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The social media platform X began returning to Brazil on Wednesday, after remaining inaccessible for more than a month due to a clash between its owner, Elon Musk, and a justice on the country’s highest court.

    Internet service providers began restoring access to the platform after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes authorized lifting X’s suspension on Tuesday.

    “TWITTER IS ALIVE,” Lucas dos Santos Consoli, known as luscas on X, wrote on the platform to his more than 7 million followers.

    “I’m happy that the platform decided to follow the laws of Brazil and finally adapted, after all I’ve been using the app for almost 15 years so I can’t deny that I was missing it,” the 31-year-old told The Associated Press.

    De Moraes ordered the shutdown of X on Aug. 30 after a monthslong dispute with Musk over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. Musk had disparaged de Moraes, calling him an authoritarian and a censor, although his rulings, including X’s nationwide suspension, were repeatedly upheld by his peers.

    Musk’s company ultimately complied with all of de Moraes’ demands. They included blocking certain accounts from the platform, paying outstanding fines and naming a legal representative. Failure to do the latter had triggered the suspension.

    “This sends a message to the world that the richest person on the planet is subject to local laws and constitutions,” said David Nemer, who specializes in the anthropology of technology at the University of Virginia. It could set a precedent as to how other countries that are clashing with Musk — such as Australia — could move forward, as it shows Musk is not unbeatable, he added.

    Brazil — a highly online country of 213 million people — is one of X’s biggest markets, with estimates of its user base ranging from 20 million to 40 million.

    “X is proud to return to Brazil,” the company said in a statement posted on its Global Government Affairs account. “Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process. We will continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law, everywhere we operate.”

    Julia Bahri, an 18-year-old law student, said she was delighted with X’s return. She said that losing access to the platform had led to “one of the most desperate feelings I’ve experienced for a while,” adding that she had felt lost with regards to news.

    Bahri said she uses X to express herself, whereas Instagram and Snapchat are mostly for posting photos.

    The Aug. 30 ban came two days after the company said it was removing all its remaining staff in Brazil. X said de Moraes had threatened to arrest its legal representative in the country, Rachel de Oliveira Villa Nova Conceição, if the company did not comply with orders to block accounts.

    Brazilian law requires foreign companies to have a local legal representative to receive notifications of court decisions and swiftly take any requisite action — particularly, in X’s case, the takedown of accounts.

    Sleeping Giants Brazil, a platform for activism that seeks to combat fake news and hate speech, said the resumption of X’s activities in Brazil marked “a significant victory for Brazilian democracy.”

    “It is crucial to remain steadfast against efforts to weaken democratic state authority, institutions and values,” it said in a statement.

    Some of Brazilian X’s users have migrated to other platforms, such as Meta’s Threads and, primarily, Bluesky. It’s unclear how many of them will return to X.

    In a statement to the AP, Bluesky reported that it now has 10.6 million users and continues to see strong growth in Brazil. Bluesky has appointed a legal representative in the South American country.

    “Never get back with your eX,” Paul Frazee, a developer at Bluesky, wrote on the platform on Tuesday.

    X is returning to Brazil weaker than it was before the ban, said Nemer, noting that X is now worth less than a fifth than when Musk bought Twitter. The platform has lost a lot of users, especially in Brazil, he said.

    Brazil was not the first country to ban X — but such a drastic step has generally been limited to authoritarian regimes. The platform and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, usually to quell dissent and unrest.

    X’s dustup with Brazil has some parallels to the company’s dealings with the Indian government three years ago, back when it was still called Twitter and before Musk purchased it for $44 billion. In 2021, India threatened to arrest employees of Twitter (as well as Meta’s Facebook and WhatsApp), for not complying with the government’s requests to take down posts related to farmers’ protests that rocked the country.

    Musk’s decision to reverse course in Brazil after publicly criticizing de Moraes isn’t surprising, said Matteo Ceurvels, research firm Emarketer’s analyst for Latin America and Spain.

    “The move was pragmatic, likely driven by the economic consequences of losing access to millions of users in its third-largest market worldwide, along with the millions of dollars in associated advertising revenue,” Ceurvels said.

    “Although X may not be a top priority for most advertisers in Brazil, the platform needs them more than they need it,” he said.

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    Ortutay reported from San Francisco

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  • Amazon says new technology in delivery vans will help sort packages on the fly and save time

    Amazon says new technology in delivery vans will help sort packages on the fly and save time

    Amazon has revealed new technology that it says will help delivery drivers avoid organizing packages at stops or manually check to see if they have the right parcel for each delivery.

    The technology – called Vision-Assisted Package Retrieval, or VAPR – is intended to cut down on the time and effort it takes drivers to retrieve packages, Amazon’s retail chief Doug Herrington said at a company event in Nashville on Wednesday.

    Amazon expects to put 1,000 delivery vans that contain the technology on the road by early next year.

    The company says VAPR essentially works like this: Once an Amazon delivery van arrives at a customer’s location, it will project a green “0” on packages that need to be dropped off, and a red “X” on those that should remain in the van.

    The technology will also use audio and visual cues to let drivers know they have found the right package, Amazon said.

    The Seattle company has been testing the new feature with its Delivery Service Partners, the businesses that deliver packages across the country for Amazon.

    It said early tests have showed the technology helped reduce “perceived physical and mental effort” for drivers and saved them more than 30 minutes per route.

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  • Workers call off protest that grounded flights at Kenya’s main airport

    Workers call off protest that grounded flights at Kenya’s main airport

    NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya’s airport workers’ union has called off a strike that grounded flights in the country’s main airport on Wednesday over awarding the contract for its modernization and operations to an Indian firm.

    The decision came after a day-long talks between the union leaders and the government.

    The workers were protesting a build-and-operate agreement between the Kenyan government and India’s Adani Group that would see the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport modernized, and an additional runway and terminal constructed, in exchange for the group running the airport for 30 years.

    The union wrote on X that a return to work agreement had been signed and the union’s secretary general Moss Ndiema told journalists and workers that the union would be involved in every discussion moving forward.

    “We have not accepted Adani,” he said.

    Transport Minister Davis Chirchir told journalists that the government would protect the interests of Kenyan citizens during the quest to upgrade and modernize the main airport.

    Hundreds of workers at Kenya’s main international airport demonstrated on Wednesday as planes remained grounded, with hundreds of passengers stranded at the airport.

    Kenya Airport Workers Union, in announcing the strike, had said that the deal would lead to job losses and “inferior terms and conditions of service” for those who will remain.

    Kenya Airways on Wednesday announced there would be flight delays and possible cancellations because of the ongoing strike at the airport, which serves Nairobi.

    The strike affected local flights coming from the port city of Mombasa and the lake city of Kisumu, where delays have been reported by local media.

    At the main airport, police officers had taken up security check-in roles with long lines seen outside the departure terminals and worried passengers unable to confirm if their flights would depart as scheduled.

    The Kenya Airports Authority said in a statement that it was “engaging relevant parties to normalize operations” and urged passengers to contact their respective airlines to confirm flight status.

    The Central Organization of Trade Unions’ secretary-general, Francis Atwoli, told journalists at the airport that the strike would have been averted had the government listened to the workers.

    “This was a very simple matter where the assurance to workers in writing that our members will not lose jobs and their jobs will remain protected by the government and as is required by law and that assurance alone, we wouldn’t have been here,” he said.

    Last week, airport workers had threatened to go on strike, but the plans were called off pending discussions with the government.

    The spotting of unknown people moving around with airport officials taking notes and photographs raised concerns that the Indian firm officials were readying for the deal, local media outlets reported last week.

    The High Court on Monday temporarily halted the implementation of the deal until a case filed by the Law Society and the Kenya Human Rights Commission is heard.

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  • United Airlines will offer free internet on flights using service from Elon Musk’s SpaceX

    United Airlines will offer free internet on flights using service from Elon Musk’s SpaceX

    DALLAS (AP) — United Airlines has struck a deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to offer satellite-based Starlink WiFi service on flights within the next several years.

    The airline said Friday the service will be free to passengers and allow them to connect multiple devices.

    United said it will begin testing the service early next year and begin offering it on some flights by later in 2025.

    Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

    The announcement comes as airlines rush to offer more amenities as a way to stand out when passengers pick a carrier for a trip. United’s goal is to make sitting on a plane pretty much like being on the ground when it comes to browsing the internet, streaming entertainment and playing games.

    Delta Air Lines began offering free in-flight Wi-Fi last year using Viasat, a rival to Starlink. Hawaiian Airlines uses Starlink for free internet service on Airbus A321neo flights between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland. United plans a more aggressive rollout across its fleet of more than 1,000 United and United Express planes.

    Linda Jojo, United’s chief customer officer, said U.S. passengers now expect free WiFi, making it one of the most sought-after on-board amenities among all types of travelers.

    “It doesn’t matter where you’re sitting on the plane, it doesn’t matter how much you paid for your ticket, you’re going to benefit” from the service, Jojo said.

    Starlink will let passengers get internet access even over oceans and polar regions where traditional cell or Wi-Fi signals may be weak or missing, she said.

    SpaceX’s owner has emerged as a prominent supporter of Donald Trump, hosting the former president in a friendly chat on X and making many pro-Republican posts. United considered potential reaction to dealing with a partisan figure in a politically divided country.

    “Obviously we are aware that SpaceX and Starlink are controlled by Elon Musk, and we’re certainly aware of the things that he says in the public,” Jojo said. “We definitely talked about that, but it always comes back to our customer, and this is a significant customer benefit.”

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  • Brazil judge withdraws $3.3 million from Musk’s Starlink and X to pay for social media fines

    Brazil judge withdraws $3.3 million from Musk’s Starlink and X to pay for social media fines

    SAO PAULO (AP) — A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Friday seized about $3 million from bank accounts belonging to social media platform X and satellite-based internet service provider Starlink, both companies controlled by tech billionaire Elon Musk.

    The move by Justice Alexandre de Moraes was aimed at collecting funds that are equivalent to the amount that X owes to the country in fines. The bank accounts of the two companies have since been unfrozen.

    Legal analysts have questioned de Moraes’ prior decision to freeze Starlink’s bank account to pay for cases related to X. While Musk owns both X and SpaceX, which operates Starlink, the two companies are separate entities.

    Brazil’s Supreme Court said Friday in a statement that de Moraes ruled to transfer more than 7.2 million Brazilian reais ($1.3 million) from an X bank account and almost 11 million Brazilian reais ($2 million) from a Starlink account.

    De Moraes made the decision on Wednesday, Brazil’s Supreme Court said. His ruling on the case is yet to be made public.

    Brazil’s Supreme Court also said that the banks that hold accounts of the two companies were informed on Thursday they had complied with the decision.

    “After the payment of the full amount that was owed, the justice (de Moraes) considered there was no need to keep the bank accounts frozen and ordered the immediate unfreezing of bank accounts/financial assets,” the Brazilian Supreme Court said.

    X did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

    The social media platform has been under fire in Brazil since it refused to remove content flagged as illegal by the Supreme Court justice.

    De Moraes is the same justice who suspended X in Brazil due to Musk’s decision to not have a legal representative for the company in the South American nation, which is against the law.

    The company has claimed that de Moraes wants an in-country representative so that local authorities can exert leverage by having someone to arrest.

    Many legal analysts, including some who have supported de Moraes’ rulings related to X, disagree with charging Starlink for X’s fines.

    “Starlink is a different company. Belonging to the same economic group doesn’t mean it is also responsible for a debt it did not take part of. It didn’t even have a chance to defend itself,” Lênio Streck, a renowned Brazilian jurist, said in his social media channels. “What could Starlink have done to avoid what other company did?”

    Luís Henrique Machado, a law professor at the IDP university in the capital, Brasilia, said de Moraes’ decision is consistent.

    “The social media company was sanctioned for not removing content after an order of the Supreme Court amid ongoing investigations. It is totally understandable that the judge requests that the fines be paid,” Machado said. “The ruling is legitimate in imposing the transfer of the amounts in compulsorily fashion.”

    Since last year, X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to block some users, mostly far-right activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy. Musk has called the Brazilian justice a dictator and an autocrat due to his rulings affecting his companies in Brazil.

    On. Aug. 31, Musk’s social media platform was banned nationwide and de Moraes set a $9,000 daily fine for anyone using a virtual private network (VPN) to skirt the suspension. Brazil’s X users mostly started washing up on Threads and Bluesky.

    On Saturday, tens of thousands of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro flooded Sao Paulo’s main boulevard for an Independence Day rally, buoyed by de Moraes’ decisions on X, a ban they say is proof of their political persecution.

    X had 22 million users in Brazil, according to estimates in the Digital 2024: Brazil report, just one-sixth the number on Instagram, and about one-fifth of Facebook or TikTok.

    Since January 2022, when Starlink began operations in Brazil, it has captured a 0.5 percent share of the internet market, according to Brazil’s telecommunications agency Anatel.

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  • Report: A quarter of X advertisers plan to cut spending next year

    Report: A quarter of X advertisers plan to cut spending next year

    X’s advertising woes are about to get a whole lot worse, according to a new report from Kantar, details of which were Advanced Television. The market research firm found that 26 percent of marketers plan to cut their spending on X in the coming year, and that advertisers’ trust in X is “historically low.”

    Kantar’s report, which is based on interviews with 18,000 consumers and 1,000 marketers from around the world, underscores just how far X’s advertising business has declined since Elon Musk took over the company. Over the last year and a half, the platform has seen numerous halt or slow down their spending amid concerns about hate speech and other toxic content.

    Musk has also antagonized major advertisers, saying that brands worried about hate speech should “.” he’s also accused advertisers of “blackmail,” and recently sued an and several global companies for conducting an “illegal boycott” of the platform. Of note, Kantar found that only 4 percent of marketers believe X is safe for brands.

    X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company told the that “advertisers know that X now offers stronger brand safety, performance and analytics capabilities than ever before, while seeing all-time-high levels of usage.”

    Karissa Bell

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  • X is closing its operations in Brazil immediately, but its service will remain live for users

    X is closing its operations in Brazil immediately, but its service will remain live for users

    X says it’s ending business operations in Brazil effective immediately, but the service will remain available to users in the country. The company says Alexandre de Moraes, the president of the Superior Electoral Court and a justice of the Supreme Federal Court, threatened one of X’s legal representatives with arrest if it did not “comply with his censorship orders.”

    According to Reuters, de Moreas demanded that X remove certain content from its platform. Rather than comply, X has opted to end its local operations “to protect the safety of our staff.”

    According to X, de Moraes made the threat in a “secret order,” which it shared publicly. X owner Elon Musk claimed that the demand “would require us to break (in secret) Brazilian, Argentinian, American and international law.” He added that, “The decision to close the 𝕏 office in Brazil was difficult, but, if we had agreed to @alexandre’s (illegal) secret censorship and private information handover demands, there was no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed.”

    “Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court not being heard, the Brazilian public not being informed about these orders and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over whether content is blocked on our platform, Moraes has chosen to threaten our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process,” X said in a statement on its Global Government Affairs account. “[de Moraes’] actions are incompatible with democratic government. The people of Brazil have a choice to make — democracy, or Alexandre de Moraes.”

    Musk has been railing against de Moraes for months. In April, he said he would defy orders from the legislator to block certain accounts in Brazil, claiming that they were unconstitutional. In response, de Moraes opened an obstruction of justice inquiry against Musk. X said later in April it would comply with every order issued by Brazil’s top courts.

    That same month, the House Judiciary Committee released an interim staff report claiming that the Brazilian government was trying to force X (and other social media platforms) to censor more than 300 accounts. It said that the accounts included those belonging to former Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro, a member of the country’s federal senate and a journalist.

    X does not have a public relations team that can be reached for comment.

    Kris Holt

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  • X is officially making likes (mostly) private for everyone

    X is officially making likes (mostly) private for everyone

    Thanks to X showing what its users “like” on its platform, politicians and public personalities have been caught looking at salacious and unsavory tweets in the past. Now, the platform formerly known as Twitter is making likes mostly private, and according to company chief Elon Musk, it’s an important change so that people can “like posts without getting attacked for doing so.” The company originally launched the ability to hide the likes tab as a perk for X Premium subscribers last year. “[K]eep spicy likes private,” X said when it announced the new feature.

    In a new tweet, X’s Engineering account has revealed that the social network is making likes private for everyone this week. Users will no longer be able to see who liked someone else’s post, which means likes on the platform will no longer cause PR crises for public figures who like sexual, hateful and other unpalatable posts in general. They can still see who liked their tweets, however, along with their like count and other metrics for their own posts.

    This rollout kills one reason for getting a premium subscription, though. The company’s advertising revenue took a nosedive last year, and it launched two new tiers for its subscription service to help solve some of its financial woes. The Premium+ tier costs users $16 per month and removes ads from their timelines, while the cheapest tier costs users $3 a month and doesn’t come with the website’s blue checkmark.

    Mariella Moon

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  • X is using Grok to publish AI-generated news summaries

    X is using Grok to publish AI-generated news summaries

    X is using Grok to publish AI-generated summaries of news and other topics that trend on the platform. The feature, which is currently only available to premium subscribers, is called “Stories on X,” according to from the company’s engineering account.

    According to X, Grok relies on users’ posts to generate the text snippets. Some seem to be more news-focused, while others are summaries of conversations happening on the platform itself. One user a screenshot that showed stories about Apple’s earnings report and aid to Ukraine, as well as one for “Musk, Experts Debate National Debt,” which was a summary of a “candid online discussion” between Musk and other “prominent figures” on X.

    If any of this sounds familiar, it’s also remarkably similar to Moments, the longtime Twitter feature that curated authoritative tweets about important news and cultural moments on the platform. The feature, which was overseen by a team of human staffers, was killed

    Like other generative AI tools, Grok’s summaries come with a disclaimer. “This story is a summary of posts on X and may evolve over time,” it says. “Grok can make mistakes, verify its outputs.” Grok, of course, doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to accurately interpreting current events. It previously generated a suggesting that NBA player Klay Thompson went on a “vandalism spree” because it couldn’t understand what “throwing bricks” meant in the context of a basketball game.

    Karissa Bell

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  • X won’t let users hide their blue checks anymore

    X won’t let users hide their blue checks anymore

    X will no longer allow users to hide their blue checks, regardless of whether they paid for premium or not. On Thursday, the app began notifying users that “the hide your checkmark feature of X Premium is going away soon.”

    The change comes shortly after X unexpectedly began adding blue checks to the accounts of “influential” users with at least 2,500 followers who pay for a premium subscription. While Elon Musk suggested that change was meant to be a perk, some of his critics — including formerly verified users — were less than pleased with the blue badge appearing on their accounts, lest others suspect them of actually paying for a subscription.

    Karissa Bell

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  • X makes passkey logins available to iOS users worldwide

    X makes passkey logins available to iOS users worldwide

    X has expanded its support for passkey logins and has made the option available to users around the world, as long as they’re accessing the app on an iPhone. The social media company formerly known as Twitter originally launched passkey support for iOS users in the US back in January. Now, the X Safety account has confirmed its global rollout, giving more people the choice to use the login alternative.

    Passkeys are considered more secure than passwords, because they’re not vulnerable to phishing or social engineering schemes and are resistant to login theft. When users activate and set up a passkey login, they’re creating a key pair that will serve as their digital authentication credential. The service offering the login option only has access to one of those keys, which it then has to pair to the other key stored locally on the user’s device to verify their identity. The user only has to confirm that they’re the one accessing their account through their biometric credentials or device passcode.

    To enable passkeys on X, users will need to fire up their iOS app, and then go to “Settings and privacy” under “Your account.” In “Security and account access,” they can find Passkey under “Additional password protection.” Unfortunately, X didn’t say if and when the option will be available for Android users.

    Mariella Moon

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  • X names its third head of safety in less than two years

    X names its third head of safety in less than two years

    X has named a new head of safety nearly a year after the last executive in the position resigned. The company said Tuesday that it had Kylie McRoberts to Head of Safety and hired Yale Cohen as Head of Brand Safety and Advertiser Solutions.

    The two will have the unenviable task of leading X’s safety efforts, including its attempts to reassure advertisers that the platform doesn’t monetize or . The company said earlier this year it planned 100 new safety employees after much of its safety staff.

    Head of safety has been a particularly fraught position since Elon Musk took over the company previously known as Twitter. Musk has previously clashed with his safety leads and McRoberts is the third person to hold the title in less than two years. Previously, Yoel Roth shortly after the disastrous rollout of Twitter Blue in 2022. Roth was replaced by Ella Irwin, who last year after Musk publicly criticized employees for enforcing policies around misgendering.

    Not much is known about McRoberts, but she is apparently an existing member of X’s safety team (her X account is currently private and a appears to have been recently deleted). “During her time at X, she has led initiatives to increase transparency in our moderation practices through labels, improve security with passkeys, as well as building out our new Safety Center of Excellence in Austin,” X said in a statement.

    Karissa Bell

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  • X is funding a lawsuit against Jack Dorsey’s Block to support the ‘right to freedom of speech’

    X is funding a lawsuit against Jack Dorsey’s Block to support the ‘right to freedom of speech’

    X is funding a lawsuit filed by Chloe Happe against her former employer Block, which was founded by Jack Dorsey, the same person who founded the website formerly known as Twitter. In her lawsuit, Happe said Block had wrongfully fired her in retaliation for two posts she made on what she called her “pseudonymous, satirical account” on X while on her personal time. One of the posts made after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel referenced refugees fleeing Gaza and and coming to the region of Kurdistan. In another, she used ableist language and a slur against transgender people while referencing the use of a “gender neutral restroom in the office.”

    Happe repeatedly stressed that she “expressed her political views, opinions, or beliefs in the form of satire.” She said she did not mention Block in any post on her anonymous account and that she did not make those posts during her work hours. Happe also said that she “voluntarily deleted” the post on refugees within days of posting. She deleted the post with the slurs on the same day she made it upon seeing that X had limited its visibility.

    But Block still obtained copies of the posts and wouldn’t tell her if another employee had complained about it, she argued in her lawsuit, admitting that she initially denied making them out of fear that she could get in trouble. She accused Block of terminating her, without severance, solely because she expressed views the company disagreed with. Happe argued that Block’s policies expressly allowed its employees to engage in speech like her post, so it was the company that violated its own rules. Jack Dorsey, the founder of both Block (a financial services company) and Twitter, had publicly endorsed Elon Musk before the latter took over ownership of the social media platform. Last year, though, he changed his tune and criticized Musk, saying “it all went south” after he took over and that he “should have walked away” from the acquisition.

    On his account, Elon Musk retweeted X’s announcement that it’s supporting Happe’s lawsuit with the caption: “Supporting your right to freedom of speech.” The company had previously funded other lawsuits in the name of “free speech.” One of those cases is Gina Carano’s lawsuit against Lucasfilm and Disney, which she accused of removing her from The Mandalorian for expressing views that were “not in line with the acceptable narrative of the time.” Carano notably questioned the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and added “boop/bop/beep” as her pronouns. She also shared a post on Instagram that compared the treatment of conservatives in America to the treatment of Jews in Nazi-era Germany.

    Happe is asking the court to order her reinstatement as a Block employee. She is also asking for compensatory and punitive damages, including for loss of pay from the time she was terminated.

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    Mariella Moon

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  • You can write long-form articles on X if you pay for Premium+

    You can write long-form articles on X if you pay for Premium+

    Journalists, creators and long-winded VCs on X now have a new way to be exhausting on main. X now allows verified organizations and Premium+ subscribers to “Articles.”

    The feature adds a basic text-editing interface that includes embedded media and some text formatting options, like the ability to make bulleted lists. It also appears that articles can be longer than the 25,000-character limit currently in place for premium subscribers’ “longer posts” feature. According to my initial tests, I hit the character limit for articles at just over 100,000 characters or about 15,000 words.

    Here’s what the editing interface looks like:

    The text editor.

    Screenshot via X

    Notably, Twitter began working on longer form posts long before Elon Musk’s takeover of the company. The company showed off an early version, originally called “Notes”, as it looked to lure newsletter writers and other creators to the service. Musk confirmed that the publishing tools were still in the works.

    The rollout of publishing tools is notable as Musk has often been hostile to journalists on his platform. Last year, Musk directed a change to X’s recommendation algorithm so that links to newsletter platform Substack would in users’ “For You” feeds, which has throttled many independent writers’ reach on the service. X also from news stories shared on the platform last fall (headlines eventually returned, in a much smaller font).

    Karissa Bell

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