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SAN FRANCISCO — A lawyer for Twitter owner Elon Musk accused Microsoft of misusing the service’s data and demanded an audit from the software giant.The letter primarily addresses a seemingly narrow set of alleged infractions by Microsoft in drawing information from Twitter’s database of tweets. But the move could foreshadow more serious developments. Musk has previously accused Microsoft and its partner OpenAI in a tweet of “illegally” using Twitter data to develop sophisticated AI systems such as ChatGPT.“ Lawsuit time,” Musk wrote in that April tweet.But the letter, signed by Musk lawyer Alex Spiro, tiptoed around that concern. It noted that Microsoft’s agreement with Twitter barred it from overuse of the service’s data such as exceeding “reasonable request volume” or “excessive or abusive usage.” Spiro then noted that “despite these limitations,” Microsoft had retrieved more than 26 billion tweets in 2022 alone.He provided no context for those numbers. The process of training AI systems requires enormous amounts of data such as written text, which AI algorithms scour for patterns that the AI can use to make sense of language and large bodies of knowledge.In other respects, the letter primarily laid out a series of vaguely worded allegations. For instance, it noted

Illustration: Annelise Capossela/AxiosSeveral of the largest tech firms have remained among Twitter's top advertisers this year — including Apple, Amazon and IBM — despite the rise in hate speech on the service as well as a wide range of incendiary tweets from owner Elon Musk.Why it matters: Musk's project to remake Twitter into what he calls a free-speech zone, and what critics see as an increasingly toxic environment, will prosper or fail depending on the choices both advertisers and users make to stay or go.Driving the news: As early as December researchers documented a significant rise in hate speech on the site after Musk assumed ownership at the end of October.Twitter has also changed some of its policies since then, including eliminating the part of its hate speech rules that prohibited the targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender people.Musk himself has spread conspiracy theories and posted anti-transgender content while also engaging with accounts tied to hate speech. This week alone, Musk tweeted comments about George Soros that many saw as antisemitic. He also repeatedly questioned reports that the suspect in the Allen, Texas mall shooting earlier this month was a white supremacist — discounting as "psy-ops" credible reports (New York

May 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday refused to clear a path for victims of attacks by militant organizations to hold social media companies liable under an anti-terrorism law for failing to stop the groups from using their platforms, handing a victory to Twitter Inc.The court in a separate case involving Google LLC sidestepped a bid to weaken legal protections for internet firms.The justices in a 9-0 decision reversed a lower court's ruling that had revived a lawsuit against Twitter by the American relatives of Nawras Alassaf, a Jordanian man killed in a 2017 attack during New Year's celebration in a Istanbul nightclub claimed by the Islamic State militant group.The case was one of two that the Supreme Court weighed in its current term aimed at holding internet companies accountable for contentious content posted by users - an issue of growing concern for the public and U.S. lawmakers.The justices on Thursday, in a similar case against Google LLC-owned YouTube, part of Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), sidestepped making a ruling on a bid to narrow a federal law protecting internet companies from lawsuits for content posted by their users - called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.The justices

CNN  —  The Supreme Court handed Silicon Valley a massive victory on Thursday as it protected online platforms from two lawsuits that legal experts had warned could have upended the internet. The twin decisions preserve social media companies’ ability to avoid lawsuits stemming from terrorist-related content – and are a defeat for tech industry critics who say platforms are unaccountable. In so doing, the court sided with tech industry and digital rights groups who had claimed exposing tech platforms to more liability could break the basic functions of many websites. In one of the two cases, Twitter v. Taamneh, the Supreme Court ruled Twitter will not have to face accusations it aided and abetted terrorism when it hosted tweets created by the terror group ISIS. The court also dismissed Gonzalez v. Google, another closely watched case about social media content moderation – sidestepping an invitation to narrow a key federal liability shield for websites, known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Thursday’s decision leaves a lower court ruling in place that protected social media platforms from a broad range of content moderation lawsuits. The Twitter decision was unanimous and written by Justice Clarence Thomas, who said that social

Spectators and analysts believed Elon Musk may live to regret the brutal job cuts he carried out at Twitter when he brought the social media site—and it turns out they might be right. The Twitter owner and now Chief Technology Officer has spoken candidly about the swathes of redundancies he made at the platform, admitting that in some cases good people were let go. The Tesla CEO, who was similarly running SpaceX at the time, has so far let an estimated 6,300 people go across teams like HR, policy, press communications, marketing, engineering and more. Adding to the chaos was the fact some members of staff didn’t know if they had really lost their jobs or not, with Musk even getting into a spat with a disabled employee who publicly asked the then-CEO for some clarity. With a new boss at Twitter in place—Linda Yaccarino, the former chair of global advertising and partnerships at Comcast’s NBC Universal —Musk now seems ready to reflect on the $44 billion deal and his subsequent management. Speaking to CNBC’s David Faber, Musk said that “not all” the people who lost their jobs were “superfluous.” “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said. “There’s no question that

Copyright &copy HT Digital Streams Limited All Rights Reserved. Home/ News / World/  Elon Musk takes U-turn on sacked Twitter employees, says 'should rehire those…’ Twitter owner, and outgoing CEO Elon Musk has hinted that the microblogging platform that fired nearly half its employee force when Elon Musk took over in October 2022, should ‘rehire some of the people that were let go’. In a recent interview with CNBC, the Tesla CEO was heard saying that Twitter had fired so mnay employees as a 'desperate measure. He said, “desperate times call for desperate measures… Unfortunately, if you do it fast, there are some babies who will be thrown out." Elon Musk took over one of the most influential micro-blogging platform Twitter in October 2022, after his $44 billion deal was completed. During the interview Musk claimed Twitter was facing a challenging situation, and it had negative $3 billion cash flow and just $1 billion in cash on hand. Elon Musk had fired more than 6,000 people at Twitter, reducing the headcount from 7,800 to about 1,500. See Elon Musk's interview here "Desperate times call for desperate measures," Elon Musk said Tuesday on the layoffs that shed more than 6,000 jobs

Elon Musk has always been an inspiration for the Twitter community with his witty comments and posts. Recently, he reacted to a picture of Indian food shared on the platform. A Twitter user shared a picture of butter chicken and naan, captioning it "I love basic b***h Indian food, it's so insanely good". To this, the billionaire CEO of SpaceX and current Twitter CEO took out time to respond with a simple "True".— elonmusk (@elonmusk) The post, featuring a mouth-watering spread of butter chicken, naan, rice, champagne, beer, and water glasses, has garnered over 3.5 million views with thousands of likes and retweets. Meanwhile, Musk's response has been viewed by over 3 million people and has been retweeted and replied to by thousands of users.In response to Musk's comment, another user suggested Jammu's Rajma Chawal, while yet another expressed their disappointment with the absence of alcohol in the picture, stating that Indians typically consume water, buttermilk, or lassi with their food.Some users speculated that Musk's recent transfer of CEO responsibilities to media personality Linda Yaccarino may have afforded him more free time to engage with other users' posts. Despite the speculation, Elon Musk's simple but effective comment has once again

SAN FRANCISCO — The sister of an imprisoned Saudi dissident filed suit against Twitter Tuesday, arguing that it broke the law by letting employees reveal his identity to Saudi agents who then arrested him.The novel case, filed under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, cites repeated security failures that allowed the spies working for Twitter to send information about thousands of anonymous users to the Saudi regime while royal funds were invested in the company, becoming one of its largest shareholders.The case was filed in the Northern District of California by American citizen Areej Al-Sadhan on her own behalf and that of her brother, Abdulrahman Al-Sadhan, who is jailed in Saudi Arabia under a 20-year prison sentence for supporting terrorism and prejudicing public order. An advance copy of the suit was provided to The Washington Post on condition it be kept confidential until it was filed.Various Saudi officials and the kingdom itself are also named as defendants in the scheme. They would typically qualify for sovereign immunity under U.S. law. But there is an exception for commercial ventures, which is typically invoked in contract disputes rather than investments.“Each member of the Saudi Criminal Enterprise participated in a conspiracy

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SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles, California, June 13, 2019.Mike Blake | ReutersTesla CEO Elon Musk lost an appeal to unwind parts of a consent decree that he and the automaker struck with the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle civil securities fraud charges in 2018.The ruling, issued Monday by a federal appeals court, affirms a prior decision from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, which issued the initial denial.Musk has litigated with the SEC for years over the consent decree, which was revised in 2019 after the SEC charged Musk with making "false and misleading" statements in his Aug. 2018 "funding secured" tweets. The Tesla CEO said he had found a buyer to take the automaker private at $420 a share, a claim which a federal judge later found to be false.The agreement required "pre-approval" for tweets by Musk that contained information material to Tesla, and which extended to "certain senior executives," according to the judgment.A February letter from Musk attorney Alex Spiro said the terms of the consent decree, which was revised in 2019, amounted to "unconstitutional" infringement of his free speech rights.But the