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UK Government Wants ‘Trusted’ News Sources Promoted Above the Social Media Noise.
The British government wants “trusted” news sources to be made more prominent on social media in plans that seem set to cause controversy with free speech advocates. This is part of broader reforms to the UK’s public service media system, intended both to ensure it continues to serve the British public and to support an eventual managed transition to internet-based TV.
DCMS observes in the report “Watch this Space: A new strategic direction for UK media” that there has been a shift in how people consume news. For 75 percent of young people aged 16-24, social media is their main source, while more than half of UK adults now include social media as one of the ways they get updates.
As Reg readers are well aware, while social networks provide access to a greater range of news sources, they are also a superb conduit for misinformation and disinformation, with “the potential for less accurate material to replace trustworthy sources as content is increasingly shaped by algorithms and AI.” Because of this, the government is inviting feedback on its proposals.
These would require social media companies and video-sharing platforms to make sure that news content from public service media (PSM), which includes the BBC, ITV, STV, Channel 4, S4C, and Channel 5, plus other trustworthy providers, is “prominent and easy to find on their platforms.”
Australia Plans to Strengthen Laws Banning Children From Social Media
The Australian government plans to strengthen laws that ban children younger than 16 from social media platforms, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. Observers said on Friday the government was responding to evidence that the ban on young children holding accounts on platforms including Facebook, Instagram and YouTube had failed since it came into force on Dec. 10 last year.
Australia was the first country in the world to pass legislation keeping youth off social media, but others have since followed. Albanese told Parliament on Thursday this government was considering options to strengthen the ban. “We’re working on that as a priority because this is something that other generations didn’t have to deal with, which is why it’s complex,” Albanese told Parliament.
He told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Friday the government was asking “are the laws as strong as possible?” and did eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s online safety watchdog, “have every power at her disposal?”
White House Asks OpenAI to Limit Its Next Model Release
The White House has requested OpenAI limit the release of its upcoming GPT 5.6 model to a small number of government-approved partners because of its advanced capabilities, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.
The request comes after the administration placed an export control order on Anthropic, leading to the AI company pulling its latest most advanced models Mythos and Fable. Those models raised fears in Washington and on Wall Street over their advanced cybersecurity capabilities, which some worry could lead to unprecedented safety risks. OpenAI and the administration view OpenAI’s latest model as “on par” with Mythos, according to the source.
OpenAI agreed to limit the model’s release as a path toward launching it publicly during a “strange moment” with no true federal regulatory framework in place for new AI models. The Information, which first reported the Trump administration’s request, cited a memo OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent to the company on Thursday, in which he said the government is approving access “customer by customer.”
Meta Halts Employee Data Tracking After Sensitive Info Reportedly Exposed
Meta’s controversial surveillance tool, which tracked staff’s keystrokes, mouse clicks and content to train the company’s AI models, didn’t quite work out as planned. The Model Capability Initiative, which was implemented in April and strongly opposed by staff, has been paused following an incident in which employee data became accessible to the entire company.
Over the last several weeks, more than 1,600 Meta employees, including software engineers, research scientists and designers, signed a petition calling on the company to stop collecting and repurposing employee computer data. “We collectively believe that empowering individuals and communities through building responsible AI includes respecting their boundaries and privacy,” the petition states. “Any approach to AI that relies on intrusive, coercive, non-consensual data collection contradicts that principle.”
Business Insider reported that the software tracked apps and programs such as Gmail, Google Chat and Metamate, an employee AI assistant, as part of its data collection. The data tracking software also captured screenshots. It’s unclear if it will be reinstated. Citing an internal security notice and information from three Meta employees, Wired reported that private conversations, prompts, transcriptions and performance reviews were exposed to “anyone inside the company.”
In a statement obtained by Wired, a Meta spokesperson said the company was investigating the incident and would stop data tracking indefinitely.
A Brazilian Startup Is Betting on AI to Fight Crime. Critics See a Surveillance State
Erick Coser found himself at gunpoint. It was March 2024, and he was standing at the door of his girlfriend’s São Paulo apartment building when an unmasked man arrived by food delivery bike. He pulled out a pistol and demanded Coser’s phone and the six-digit code protecting it. Share the wrong combination, the attacker warned, and he’d pull the trigger.
Using Find My iPhone, Coser watched the device weave through the suburbs and into a drug cartel-controlled favela on the city’s outskirts. Thousands of Brazilian reals, the national currency, were soon siphoned from his bank account. Unbeknownst to the gunman, his getaway was also captured by a street-facing camera fixed to the apartment building. It was one of 20,000 deployed by a start-up Coser co-founded in 2020, called Gabriel. Each has a green LED ring; their distinct glow can be seen across much of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte.
Gabriel uses artificial intelligence to scan license plates — not faces — and shares the information with police to help piece together crime scenes across multiple angles. The system processes about four million license plates a day. That night, Gabriel’s AI failed to identify the motorbike’s license plate. But by Coser’s account, the man went on to rob several more people in the same camera-dense area, and one of those crimes gave Gabriel the plate that led to his arrest.
China Keeps an Eye on AI Smart Glasses as Privacy Concerns Come Into Focus
South China Morning Post reported:
China has issued the first industry code of conduct for smart glasses powered by artificial intelligence, following public outrage over videos taken by users covertly filming strangers with the increasingly popular devices. The voluntary code calls on smart eyewear manufacturers to adopt a “minimum data collection” approach, provide clear indicators when cameras or microphones are active, and obtain explicit user consent before recording.
The guidelines were released on Thursday by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), a research institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The move follows mounting public concern over recent incidents involving smart glasses made by Hangzhou-based tech company Rokid.
Videos posted on Rokid’s online user forum showed unsuspecting members of the public being secretly filmed on subway trains, in parks, on beaches and in shopping malls. One widely shared clip showed a flight attendant greeting passengers and serving meals, apparently unaware that she was being recorded.
