Connect with us

NEWS

On illegal hate speech, EU lawmakers eye binding transparency for platforms

Published

on

on illegal hate speech eu lawmakers eye binding transparency for platforms
fb hate speech censor1

It’s more than four years since major tech platforms signed up to a voluntary pan-EU Code of Conduct on illegal hate speech removals. Yesterday the European Commission’s latest assessment of the non-legally binding agreement lauds “overall positive” results — with 90% of flagged content assessed within 24 hours and 71% of the content deemed to be illegal hate speech removed. The latter is up from just 28% in 2016.

However the report cards finds platforms are still lacking in transparency. Nor are they providing users with adequate feedback on the issue of hate speech removals, in the Commission’s view.

Platforms responded and gave feedback to 67.1% of the notifications received, per the report card — up from 65.4% in the previous monitoring exercise. Only Facebook informs users systematically — with the Commission noting: “All the other platforms have to make improvements.”

In another criticism, its assessment of platforms’ performance in dealing with hate speech reports found inconsistencies in their evaluation processes — with “separate and comparable” assessments of flagged content that were carried out over different time periods showing “divergences” in how they were handled.

Signatories to the EU online hate speech code are: Dailymotion, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Jeuxvideo.com, Microsoft, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube.

This is now the fifth biannual evaluation of the code. It may not yet be the final assessment but EU lawmakers’ eyes are firmly tilted toward a wider legislative process — with commissioners now busy consulting on and drafting a package of measures to update the laws wrapping digital services.

A draft of this Digital Services Act is slated to land by the end of the year, with commissioners signalling they will update the rules around online liability and seek to define platform responsibilities vis-a-vis content.

Advertisement

Unsurprisingly, then, the hate speech code is now being talked about as feeding that wider legislative process — while the self-regulatory effort looks to be reaching the end of the road. 

The code’s signatories are also clearly no longer a comprehensive representation of the swathe of platforms in play these days. There’s no WhatsApp, for example, nor TikTok (which did just sign up to a separate EU Code of Practice targeted at disinformation). But that hardly matters if legal limits on illegal content online are being drafted — and likely to apply across the board. 

Commenting in a statement, Věra Jourová, Commission VP for values and transparency, said: “The Code of conduct remains a success story when it comes to countering illegal hate speech online. It offered urgent improvements while fully respecting fundamental rights. It created valuable partnerships between civil society organisations, national authorities and the IT platforms. Now the time is ripe to ensure that all platforms have the same obligations across the entire Single Market and clarify in legislation the platforms’ responsibilities to make users safer online. What is illegal offline remains illegal online.”

In another supporting statement, Didier Reynders, commissioner for Justice, added: The forthcoming Digital Services Act will make a difference. It will create a European framework for digital services, and complement existing EU actions to curb illegal hate speech online. The Commission will also look into taking binding transparency measures for platforms to clarify how they deal with illegal hate speech on their platforms.”

Earlier this month, at a briefing discussing Commission efforts to tackle online disinformation, Jourová suggested lawmakers are ready to set down some hard legal limits online where illegal content is concerned, telling journalists: “In the Digital Services Act you will see the regulatory action very probably against illegal content — because what’s illegal offline must be clearly illegal online and the platforms have to proactively work in this direction.” Disinformation would not likely get the same treatment, she suggested.

The Commission has now further signalled it will consider ways to prompt all platforms that deal with illegal hate speech to set up “effective notice-and-action systems”.

Advertisement

In addition, it says it will continue — this year and next — to work on facilitating the dialogue between platforms and civil society organisations that are focused on tackling illegal hate speech, saying that it especially wants to foster “engagement with content moderation teams, and mutual understanding on local legal specificities of hate speech”

In its own report last year assessing the code of conduct, the Commission concluded that it had contributed to achieving “quick progress”, particularly on the “swift review and removal of hate speech content”.

It also suggested the effort had “increased trust and cooperation between IT Companies, civil society organisations and Member States authorities in the form of a structured process of mutual learning and exchange of knowledge” — noting that platforms reported “a considerable extension of their network of ‘trusted flaggers’ in Europe since 2016.”

“Transparency and feedback are also important to ensure that users can appeal a decision taken regarding content they posted as well as being a safeguard to protect their right to free speech,” the Commission report also notes, specifying that Facebook reported having received 1.1 million appeals related to content actioned for hate speech between January 2019 and March 2019, and that 130,000 pieces of content were restored “after a reassessment”.

On volumes of hate speech, the Commission suggested the amount of notices on hate speech content are roughly in the range of 17-30% of total content, noting for example that Facebook reported having removed 3.3M pieces of content for violating hate speech policies in the last quarter of 2018 and 4M in the first quarter of 2019.

“The ecosystems of hate speech online and magnitude of the phenomenon in Europe remains an area where more research and data are needed,” the report added.

Advertisement

TechCrunch

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address

FACEBOOK

Facebook Faces Yet Another Outage: Platform Encounters Technical Issues Again

Published

on

By

Facebook Problem Again

Uppdated: It seems that today’s issues with Facebook haven’t affected as many users as the last time. A smaller group of people appears to be impacted this time around, which is a relief compared to the larger incident before. Nevertheless, it’s still frustrating for those affected, and hopefully, the issues will be resolved soon by the Facebook team.

Facebook had another problem today (March 20, 2024). According to Downdetector, a website that shows when other websites are not working, many people had trouble using Facebook.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has had issues. Just a little while ago, there was another problem that stopped people from using the site. Today, when people tried to use Facebook, it didn’t work like it should. People couldn’t see their friends’ posts, and sometimes the website wouldn’t even load.

Downdetector, which watches out for problems on websites, showed that lots of people were having trouble with Facebook. People from all over the world said they couldn’t use the site, and they were not happy about it.

When websites like Facebook have problems, it affects a lot of people. It’s not just about not being able to see posts or chat with friends. It can also impact businesses that use Facebook to reach customers.

Since Facebook owns Messenger and Instagram, the problems with Facebook also meant that people had trouble using these apps. It made the situation even more frustrating for many users, who rely on these apps to stay connected with others.

Advertisement

During this recent problem, one thing is obvious: the internet is always changing, and even big websites like Facebook can have problems. While people wait for Facebook to fix the issue, it shows us how easily things online can go wrong. It’s a good reminder that we should have backup plans for staying connected online, just in case something like this happens again.

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

NEWS

We asked ChatGPT what will be Google (GOOG) stock price for 2030

Published

on

We asked ChatGPT what will be Google (GOOG) stock price for 2030

Investors who have invested in Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) stock have reaped significant benefits from the company’s robust financial performance over the last five years. Google’s dominance in the online advertising market has been a key driver of the company’s consistent revenue growth and impressive profit margins.

In addition, Google has expanded its operations into related fields such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence. These areas show great promise as future growth drivers, making them increasingly attractive to investors. Notably, Alphabet’s stock price has been rising due to investor interest in the company’s recent initiatives in the fast-developing field of artificial intelligence (AI), adding generative AI features to Gmail and Google Docs.

However, when it comes to predicting the future pricing of a corporation like Google, there are many factors to consider. With this in mind, Finbold turned to the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT to suggest a likely pricing range for GOOG stock by 2030. Although the tool was unable to give a definitive price range, it did note the following:

“Over the long term, Google has a track record of strong financial performance and has shown an ability to adapt to changing market conditions. As such, it’s reasonable to expect that Google’s stock price may continue to appreciate over time.”

GOOG stock price prediction

While attempting to estimate the price range of future transactions, it is essential to consider a variety of measures in addition to the AI chat tool, which includes deep learning algorithms and stock market experts.

Finbold collected forecasts provided by CoinPriceForecast, a finance prediction tool that utilizes machine self-learning technology, to anticipate Google stock price by the end of 2030 to compare with ChatGPT’s projection.

According to the most recent long-term estimate, which Finbold obtained on March 20, the price of Google will rise beyond $200 in 2030 and touch $247 by the end of the year, which would indicate a 141% gain from today to the end of the year.

2030 GOOG price prediction: Source: CoinPriceForecast

Google has been assigned a recommendation of ‘strong buy’ by the majority of analysts working on Wall Street for a more near-term time frame. Significantly, 36 analysts of the 48 have recommended a “strong buy,” while seven people have advocated a “buy.” The remaining five analysts had given a ‘hold’ rating.

Advertisement



1679313229 737 We asked ChatGPT what will be Google GOOG stock price
Wall Street GOOG 12-month price prediction: Source: TradingView

The average price projection for Alphabet stock over the last three months has been $125.32; this objective represents a 22.31% upside from its current price. It’s interesting to note that the maximum price forecast for the next year is $160, representing a gain of 56.16% from the stock’s current price of $102.46.

While the outlook for Google stock may be positive, it’s important to keep in mind that some potential challenges and risks could impact its performance, including competition from ChatGPT itself, which could affect Google’s price.


Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.

Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

NEWS

This Apple Watch app brings ChatGPT to your wrist — here’s why you want it

Published

on

Apple Watch Series 8

ChatGPT feels like it is everywhere at the moment; the AI-powered tool is rapidly starting to feel like internet connected home devices where you are left wondering if your flower pot really needed Bluetooth. However, after hearing about a new Apple Watch app that brings ChatGPT to your favorite wrist computer, I’m actually convinced this one is worth checking out.

The new app is called watchGPT and as I tipped off already, it gives you access to ChatGPT from your Apple Watch. Now the $10,000 question (or more accurately the $3.99 question, as that is the one-time cost of the app) is why having ChatGPT on your wrist is remotely necessary, so let’s dive into what exactly the app can do.

What can watchGPT do?

Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

Trending

Follow by Email
RSS