Gadgets
Instagram, Twitter Blame Glitches for Deleting Palestinian Posts
Palestinians living in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood claimed by Jewish settlers have taken to social media to protest as they face eviction, but some found their posts, photos or videos removed or their accounts blocked starting last week.
It came as a long-running legal case over evictions from homes in Sheikh Jarrah has fuelled tensions in Jerusalem where hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Israeli police on Monday.
By Monday, 7amleh, a nonprofit focused on social media, had received more than 200 complaints about deleted posts and suspended accounts related to Sheikh Jarrah.
“On Instagram, it was mostly content takedown, even archives from older stories were deleted. On Twitter, most cases were an account suspension,” said Mona Shtaya, an advocacy advisor at 7amleh.
Instagram and Twitter said the accounts were “suspended in error by our automated systems” and the issue had been resolved and content reinstated.
Instagram said in a statement that an automated update last week caused content re-shared by multiple users to appear as missing, affecting posts on Sheikh Jarrah, Colombia, and US and Canadian indigenous communities.
“We are so sorry this happened. Especially to those in Colombia, East Jerusalem, and Indigenous communities who felt this was an intentional suppression of their voices and their stories – that was not our intent whatsoever,” Instagram said.
Calls for clarity
But in a joint statement, 7amleh, Access Now, and other digital rights groups called on Twitter and Instagram to use “transparent and coherent moderation policies” and be more open when take-downs happen.
Marwa Fatafta, Middle East, and North Africa policy advisor for Access Now, said Twitter and Instagram users saw continued restrictions on content over the weekend.
“The issue was not resolved. We’re demanding clarity on this censorship, and system glitches are no longer accepted as an excuse,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Monday.
One of those affected was Hind Khoudary, a 25-year-old Palestinian journalist based in Turkey, who noticed last Thursday that some posts about Sheikh Jarrah from her Instagram archives were not loading.
“I restarted my phone and my wifi, but it was all still missing and Instagram was very slow,” Khoudary said.
Some of her posts had been restored by Friday afternoon but some, dating as far back as April and even as recently as Saturday, were still missing according to screenshots from her phone that she shared with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Some affected users received messages about “violating community standards” from Instagram.
Shtaya said 7amleh was still fielding complaints about disappeared content.
“It’s supposed to be done but we are still receiving reports,” she said.
Data rights groups said the technical glitch had revealed the risks of using an automated algorithm to try to weed out violent or otherwise inappropriate posts.
“Moderation is on the rise, and it’s really a blunt object,” said Jillian York, director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“The companies don’t pay enough attention to cultural contexts like Palestine where there’s basically less profit, so they put a lot more effort into making content moderation and automation effective in larger markets,” she said.
She said as a result, content that doesn’t violate Instagram, Facebook or Twitter standards can get swept away by automated tools.
Fatafta said the deletion of posts about Sheikh Jarrah showed why using algorithms to moderate content was “a terrible idea”.
“It stresses the need for tech companies to be transparent about the systems they use, and ensure they do not infringe on people’s rights in such a discriminatory and arbitrary manner,” she said.
© Thomson Reuters 2021
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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