Musk spreads fake video of Harris
Manipulated media are banned on platform X. Its owner Elon Musk doesn't let that stop him from spreading a doctored video. With the caption "That's fantastic," Musk shared a manipulated video from the Harris campaign on his platform X, which violates his company's rules.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk shared a doctored video of Kamala Harris on his platform X and broke the platform's rules. The video, which bore the caption "That's fantastic," was a clearly edited one from the Harris campaign, but with new audio.
A synthetic voice, which resembles Harris's, speaks in the video about being appointed because she is a woman and a Person of Color. "I have no idea how to run a country," the voice continues.
"Sharing synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media," is against the rules on X, according to the platform's guidelines. Exceptions apply only if it's satire. Musk didn't make this clear in his post. The Tesla founder has previously expressed support for Donald Trump as the new President in the US Presidential race. However, he dismissed a report that he was supporting Trump with $45 million per month as "ridiculous."
Musk grants Chatbot access to user contributions
Musk's actions regarding AI on X have also raised concerns among European data protection regulators. X allows its Chatbot Grok to train with contributions from users who haven't explicitly given permission. The new change in data protection settings was noticed by users on a Friday.
The checkbox for Grok's permission to use public X contributions, besides direct interactions with the Chatbot, was already set for all users by default. This setting can only be changed in the web version of X (formerly Twitter), not in the smartphone app, which is currently not displaying this setting. X announced that this would change soon.
The Irish data protection authority responsible for X in Europe has now raised questions about the service. They had been in talks with the platform for months about the use of user data in AI systems. "We were surprised by this," the regulator told the "Financial Times." The approach of X raises the question of whether the service is adhering to the European Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which requires user consent for the use of personalized data. Users should also be informed about the reasons for its use.
Despite the platform X's ban on manipulated media, Elon Musk shared a doctored video of Kamala Harris, violating the company's rules. This incident highlights the potential challenges in data protection, as X allows its Chatbot to train with user contributions without explicit permission. The European data protection regulators have raised concerns about this practice, citing the need for user consent and transparency in the use of personalized data, as required by GDPR.
