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Reading "War and Peace," Leo Tolstoy's monumental novel that runs half a million words long and often over 1,000 pages, might be a minute-long affair for a new artificial intelligence model from Google. The Alphabet-owned company on Thursday showcased Gemini 1.5, an upgrade to its suite of AI models it announced two months ago. In a single prompt, a user can ask Google's AI to analyze vastly more content than before -- 30,000 lines of code, 11 hours of audio, a whole hour of video, Google said. That's for Pro, the family's mid-sized model. In concrete terms, Pro can process 1 million pieces of data known as tokens -- five times the amount that Anthropic, perhaps the closet competitor in this regard, handles in a query of its Claude 2.1 technology. Reuters was unable to independently test the claims. Google's increasingly voracious AI, on the heels of releases by ChatGPT's creator OpenAI and others, reflects the rapid arms race underway in Silicon ...

Elon Musk's X on Thursday failed to block a California state law that requires social media companies to publicly disclose how they moderate certain content on their platforms. X, formerly known as Twitter, in September sued California to undo the content moderation law, saying the law violated its free speech rights under the US Constitution's First Amendment and California's state constitution. The law requires social media companies with a sizable gross annual revenue to issue semiannual reports that describe their content moderation practices, and provide data on the number of objectionable posts and how they were addressed. US District Judge William Shubb in an eight-page decision dismissed the social media company's request. "While the reporting requirement does appear to place a substantial compliance burden on social medial companies, it does not appear that the requirement is unjustified or unduly burdensome within the context o...

Elon Musk's X social media platform has just 2,294 content moderators to ensure users comply with EU online content rules, significantly fewer than Google and TikTok, a senior European Commission official said on Friday. Adopted recently, the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) requires 19 very large online platforms and 2 very large online search engines, among them Google, X, TikTok, Apple, Meta Platforms and Microsoft, to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content on their platforms. X has triggered concerns after Musk laid off many employees responsible for monitoring and regulating content amid the spread of disinformation on the platform. According to reports the companies submitted to the EU in September, X's 2,294 EU content moderators compared with 16,974 at Google's YouTube, 7,319 at Google Play and 6,125 at TikTok, the senior Commission official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Regulators are hoping that X will feel the pres...

Popular platform Linktree, which links out additional social channels and websites, is creating a way for its creators to monetize content shared on the page. The Payment Lock feature will let creators put paywalls in front of selected content , charging visitors up to $150 for each piece. The feature will only be available to premium users, who can put up paywalls on their content but can't strictly charge visitors for adult content. The company spokesperson explained that paywalls would only be available on items like PDFs, files, and videos. Read:  Zuckerberg says WhatsApp Business chat will drive sales sooner than metaverse Linktree has been an essential tool for creators to redirect their audience to different pages like their Instagram or TikTok handles. The link-in-bio tools will direct fans to the specific content they wish to view, or even add external links to resources or contact details. In recent years, the company has introduced an app for its creators ...

Social media platform TikTok said on Friday accusation s by the Malaysian government that it was blocking pro-Palestinian content were "unfounded". Muslim-majority Malaysia on Thursday warned of action against social media firms TikTok and Meta, saying their platforms had been accused of restricting content supporting Palestinians. Meta responded on Thursday, saying there was "no truth" to the accusation and it was not deliberately suppressing voices on its Facebook platform. A TikTok spokesperson, in an email to Reuters on Friday, also rejected Malaysia's accusation that it was blocking pro-Palestinian content. "The claim is unfounded. Our community guidelines apply equally to all content on TikTok, and we're committed to consistently enforcing our policies to protect our community," the spokesperson said. Both Meta and TikTok designate Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that governs Gaza, a "dangerous organisation...

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said Monday tech giants were competing for vast troves of content needed to train artificial intelligence, and complained Google was locking up content with expensive and exclusive deals with publishers. Testifying in a landmark US trial against its rival Google, the first major antitrust case brought by the US since it sued Microsoft in 1998, Nadella testified the tech giant s' efforts to build content libraries to train their large language models "reminds me of the early phases of distribution deals." Distribution agreements are at the core of the US Justice Department's antitrust fight against Google. The government says that Google, with some 90% of the search market, illegally pays $10 billion annually to smartphone makers like Apple and wireless carriers like AT&T and others to be the default search engine on their devices. The clout in search makes Google a heavy hitter in the lucrative ...

Twitter Inc made further staff cuts in the trust and safety team handling global content moderation and in the unit related to hate speech and harassment, Bloomberg news reported on Saturday. At least a dozen more cuts on Friday night affected workers in the company's Dublin and Singapore offices, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. Those laid off at the social media platform owned by Elon Musk include Nur Azhar Bin Ayob, a relatively recent hire as head of site integrity for the Asia-Pacific region, and Analuisa Dominguez, Twitter's senior director of revenue policy, Bloomberg reported. Workers on teams handling policy on misinformation, global appeals and state media on the platform were also eliminated, the report added. Twitter's vice president of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, confirmed to Reuters that Twitter made some cuts in the trust and safety team on Friday night but did not give details. "We have thousands of people wi...

Twitter said on Thursday that select content creators on the social media platform will be eligible to get a part of the advertising revenue the company earns. The content creators will get a share of revenue from ads displayed in their replies, Twitter said, adding that to be eligible the creators should be verified users with at least 5 million impressions on their posts in each of the last 3 months and have a Stripe payment account. Surprise! Today we launched our Creator Ads Revenue Sharing program. We’re expanding our creator monetization offer ing to include ads revenue sharing for creator s. This means that creator s can get a share in ad revenue , starting in the replies to their posts. This is part of our… — Twitter (@Twitter) July 13, 2023 Twitter is trying to draw more content creators to the platform. Earlier this year, the company allowed users to offer paid subscription to their content on the platform. Elon Musk, the billionaire who bough...

Meta and the European Union (EU) have agreed on a stress test in July on the EU's online content rules , following EU industry chief Thierry Breton's demand that the social media platform act immediately over Meta's content targeting children. "Productive discussion with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Menlo Park on EU digital rules: DSA, DMA & AI Act," Breton said in a tweet, adding that 1,000 Meta employees are working on the Digital Services Act (DSA). Productive discussion with @Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Menlo Park 🇺🇸 on EU digital rules : DSA, DMA & AI Act. Preparedness on its way with 1000 Meta employees working on #DSA We agreed to do a ‘ stress test’ in July. EU’s motto: “Move fast to fix things” 🇪🇺 pic.twitter.com/8LoJpD7c7O — Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) June 23, 2023 Breton had earlier in June said that Meta would have to demonstrate the measures it plans to take to comply with Eur...

Facebook parent Meta Platforms said on Wednesday it would remove news content in its home state of California if the state government passed legislation forcing tech companies to pay publishers. The proposed California Journalism Preservation Act would require "online platforms" to pay a "journalism usage fee" to news providers whose work appears on their services, aimed at reversing a decline in the local news sector. In a tweeted statement, Meta spokesman Andy Stone called the payment structure a "slush fund" and said the bill would primarily benefit "big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers." The statement was Meta's first on the California bill specifically, although the company has been waging similar battles over compensation for news publishers at the federal level and in countries outside the United States. In December, Stone said Meta would remove news from its platform altogeth...

Meta Platforms Inc said on Thursday it is now rolling out a long-promised system for advertisers to determine where their ads are shown, responding to their demands to distance their marketing from controversial posts on Facebook and Instagram. The system offers advertisers three risk levels they can select for their ad placements, with the most conservative option excluding placements above or below posts with sensitive content like weapons depictions, sexual innuendo and political debates. Meta also will provide a report via advertising measurement firm Zefr showing Facebook advertisers the precise content that appeared near their ads and how it was categorized. Marketers have long advocated for greater control over where their ads appear online, complaining that big social media companies do too little to prevent ads from showing alongside hate speech, fake news and other offensive content . The issue came to a head in July 2020, when thousands of brands joined a boycott ...

SAO PAULO: The Brazilian government is studying whether to regulate Internet platforms with content that earns revenue such as advertising, its secretary for digital policies, Joao Brant, said on Friday. The idea would be for a regulator to hold such platforms, not consumers, accountable for monetized content , Brant told Reuters. Another goal is "to prevent the networks from being used for the dissemination and promotion of crimes and illegal content" especially after the riots by supporters of former far-right President JairBolsonaro in Brasilia in January, fueled by misinformation about the election he lost in October. Brant said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government also intends to make companies responsible for stopping misinformation, hate speech and other crimes on their social media platforms. Platforms would not be held responsible for content individually, but for how diligent they are in protecting the "digital environment," he...

STOCKHOLM/LONDON: Facebook parent Meta and Google's video platform YouTube said on Monday they were removing content supporting or praising the weekend ransacking of Brazilian government buildings by anti-democratic demonstrators. Tens of thousands of supporters of Brazil's far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro smashed presidential palace windows, flooded parts of Congress with a sprinkler system and ransacked rooms in the Supreme Court in a more than three hour attack. "In advance of the election, we designated Brazil as a temporary high-risk location and have been removing content calling for people to take up arms or forcibly invade Congress, the Presidential palace and other federal buildings," a Meta spokesman said. "We are also designating this as a violating event, which means we will remove content that supports or praises these actions," he said. "We are actively following the situation and will continue removing content ...

Amazon.com Inc is working on a standalone app for watching sports content, the Information reported on Wednesday, citing a source with direct knowledge of the plan. Sports remains one of the biggest attractions for live viewing as US audiences increasingly switch from pay TV subscriptions to streaming apps. The move will likely complement Amazon's effort to double down on Sports programming through its Prime Video service, a key channel to attract consumers to its shopping platform. Amazon already owns the rights to stream Game s including National Football League's Thursday Night Football franchise and Premier League soccer matches in the UK, setting it up to better com Pet e with Sports streaming leader Walt Disney Co. Last week, Alphabet Inc unit YouTube also signed a multi-year deal to exclusively stream NFL's Sunday Ticket package of games in the United States. It was not clear when Amazon would roll out the sports app and w...