Technology

So-called ‘Pay or Okay’ systems are on the rise in Europe. First introduced by newspapers in Austria and Germany, Meta adopted the approach for Instagram and Facebook in 2023. By now, many websites across Europe are using similar systems. Instead of giving users a genuine choice whether to accept or reject ad tracking, ‘Pay or Okay’ systems ask for a payment if you want to refuse “consent”. This leads to “North Korean consent rates” of 99.9%. Many news companies claim that the approach is necessary to finance quality media. In reality, digital advertising makes up at best 10% of the revenue of European press. Given the upcoming guidelines by the EDPB on this topic, this report analyses the industry’s arguments and the actual economic impact of ‘Pay or Okay’.

• Researchers identified hundreds of posts violating EU sanctions on the social media platform X.
• X is categorised as a “Very Large Online Platform” (VLOP) under the Digital Services Act (DSA), and as such is legally obligated to mitigate systemic risks on their platform and investigate illegal content reports from users.
• A sample dataset of 125 clear sanction-violating posts were reported to X using the “Report EU Illegal Content” form on the platform. These included, for instance, programmes from the Russian state broadcaster RT. Only 57% of the reports of illegal content received acknowledgement receipts, breaching DSA obligations.
• Only one of the reported posts was removed, and for the remaining cases, X responded via email, stating that no violation of EU law was found, despite clear evidence to the contrary.
• There were 7 responses made by the platform within 2 minutes or less, potentially indicating automated reviews.
• In the case of content from the sanctioned Russian influence operation Doppelgänger, posts were deleted despite the platform’s initial response claiming no action would be taken.
• The results of this reporting experiment suggest that X’s current moderation mechanisms are insufficiently equipped, or that the platform is potentially unwilling to enforce sanction-related policies at scale.

Tesla on Wednesday reported a drop in its profit during the second quarter, as the electric vehicle maker continues to struggle despite CEO Elon Musk's pivot back to focusing on his companies after his controversial role leading the Trump administration's government cost cutting efforts.

The company's electric vehicle sales have been flagging, and earlier this month it reported a drop of 13.5% in the quarter, compared with the same period a year ago. On Wednesday, Tesla said its net income also suffered, slumping 16% year-on-year.

Blog is by Xvideos.

Riders

• Request on-demand: When requesting a trip on demand, women riders will see an option called Women Drivers. If the wait time is longer than anticipated, they can always opt for another ride with a faster pickup.
• Reserve in advance: For more planning and certainty, women riders can use Reserve to pre-book a trip with women drivers.
• Set a preference: Riders can set a preference for a woman driver in their app settings. While it’s not guaranteed, turning on the Women preference increases your chances of being matched with a woman driver.

For Drivers

Women drivers can simply toggle on the “Women Rider Preference” in their app settings. If they want to receive trip requests from all riders, they can turn the preference off at any time.

• Proposed decision: SMS investigation into Google's mobile platform.
• Proposed decision: SMS investigation into Apple's mobile platform.

• As nickel prices plunge, Indonesia’s nickel processors are considering layoffs.
• Tens of thousands work in the world’s largest nickel processing zone.
• The risky jobs entail trade-offs between income and safety.

• Government must regulate age assurance providers to protect users’ privacy and security as digital platforms start to implement Online Safety Act.
• Users are given no choice over how they verify age, with platforms such as Reddit, Bluesky and Grindr choosing providers with problematic privacy policies.
• Data protection law is not enough to protect users.
• There are growing threats to free expression, as platforms increasingly place features and content, such as direct messaging behind age gates, going beyond the Act’s intended focus on restricting access to adult content.

Open Rights Group has warned of serious privacy and security risks for people in the UK as online platforms start to ask users to verify their age, as required by the Online Safety Act. There are also freedom of expression harms as platforms require age verification to access features and content.

Source.

• Lobsters.
• Hackernews.

As they become increasingly isolated, people are treating AI chatbots as friends and even lovers. We have to fix the broken society that made this possible.