Ukraine can use Telegram for influence operations but the messaging application still represents a threat, the head of the Ukrainian military intelligence service (GUR), Kirill Budanov, said on Wednesday.
In comments sent to the media by Kiev’s Center for Strategic Communications, Budanov admitted the wide reach of the encrypted instant-messaging platform, calling it both an opportunity and a problem. “From the viewpoint of national security, Telegram is definitely a problem,” Budanov said. “Anyone can create a channel, start writing whatever he wants, and – when someone tries to do something about it – hides behind freedom of the press.” “I am absolutely against the suppression of freedom of speech. But this is too much,” Budanov added. “This is not freedom of the media, it is something else.” Telegram was created as an instant-messaging platform by Russian entrepreneurs Pavel and Nikolay Durov in 2013. What sets it apart from similar applications, such as WhatsApp and Viber, is the ability to create public broadcast channels and discussion groups. It is currently the number one messaging app in Ukraine. “The most interesting thing is that everyone reads Telegram,” Budanov said. While this may have a “destructive effect” inside Ukraine, it also allows Kiev to spread its message in the Russian-controlled territories, he added. His comments come two days after several Ukrainian lawmakers proposed a bill to “regulate” Telegram. The proposal defines messaging platforms as a separate legal category and creates reporting requirements for “providers of information” using them. If passed, it would require any messaging platforms operating in Ukraine to have a registered office in the country – unless they are headquartered in the EU – and disclose their ownership structure and funding to the government. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has consolidated all media outlets under the state’s umbrella, citing martial law imposed due to the conflict with Russia. Officials in Kiev have repeatedly lamented the fact that Telegram has enabled citizens to bypass government censorship. Last month, a parliamentary committee agreed that the platform should be banned in Ukraine. This prompted criticism from a National Security and Defense Council official in charge of “countering disinformation,” who argued that Ukraine was using the platform to “strangle the pro-Russian segments of the media field” and that banning it would be “impossible.” Ukraine is not the first country in Europe to ban the Telegram App. Also the Spain National Court ordered to suspend the use of the App last week.
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The US needs a red wave and will be finished if the Republican Party does not prevail in the 2024 presidential election, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday.
The billionaire, who had previously revealed he voted for Joe Biden in 2020, has since criticized the incumbent US president and clashed with his administration. Musk has repeatedly criticized Biden’s handling of the Southern US border crisis and has accused Democrats of being “controlled by the unions.” “I voted 100% Dem until a few years ago. Now, I think we need a red wave or America is toast,” Musk wrote on X. According to media reports, the entrepreneur became increasingly critical of Biden after Tesla, the top-selling electric-car company in the US, was excluded from a White House summit on EVs in 2021. Last year Musk revealed that he had doubts he’d be voting for Biden in the 2024 presidential election. As of yet, however, he hasn’t endorsed Biden’s rival Donald Trump. “I think I would not vote for Biden,” Musk told a DealBook summit in November, adding “I’m not saying I’d vote for Trump.” Earlier this month the New York Times reported that Trump had met with Musk in Florida, as the former US president seeks a major cash infusion for his re-election campaign. Musk confirmed the meeting but maintained that he is not donating to the Republican’s campaign. “I was at a breakfast at a friend’s place and Donald Trump came by, that’s it,” he told former CNN host Don Lemon last week, adding that Trump had not requested any financial assistance. “I’m not paying his legal bills in any way, shape or form. And he did not ask me for money,” Musk said. Spain’s National Court has ordered internet providers to suspend the use of the Telegram instant messaging service, pending an investigation into claims of copyright infringement.
Friday’s ruling came after Spain’s four leading media organizations – Mediaset, Atresmedia, Movistar, and Egeda – filed a complaint arguing that the platform allows users to distribute their content without permission. According to local media, Judge Santiago Pedraz requested certain information from Telegram’s owners as part of the probe. After the request was not fulfilled, he ordered for access to the app to be blocked, effective on Monday. The judge described the measure as “precautionary” and cited Telegram’s lack of cooperation. The suspension is expected to last throughout the investigation. The newspaper El Pais said that Telegram largely remains accessible in Spain, although some users started to report problems with the service on Friday night. The ruling was met with widespread criticism. Consumer rights watchdog FACUA called it “absolutely disproportionate” and said that the blocking of the popular service will cause “enormous damage.” “It would be like shutting down the internet because there are websites that illegally host copyrighted content, or cutting the entire television signal because there are channels that engage in piracy,” FACUA Secretary General Ruben Sanchez said in a statement. Fernando Suarez, the president of the General Council of Professional Associations of Computer Engineering in Spain, made a similar point, comparing the suspension of Telegram to “completely closing off one province in our country because there was a case of drug trafficking or theft on that territory.” According to a survey conducted by independent competition regulator CNMC, nearly 19% of Spaniards use Telegram. Telegram is a cloud-based service that allows users to exchange text messages, share media files, and make voice calls and public live streams. The platform was launched in 2013 by Russian-born entrepreneur Pavel Durov. It reached 800 million active users in 2023, according to industry news website Business of Apps. US billionaire Elon Musk has taken OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research company he once helped to found, to court over an alleged breach of its original mission to develop AI technology not for profit but for the benefit of humanity.
OpenAI, founded in 2015 as a non-profit research lab to develop an open-source Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), has now become a “closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world,” Musk’s legal team wrote in the suit filed on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court. The lawsuit claimed that Musk “has long recognized that AGI poses a grave threat to humanity – perhaps the greatest existential threat we face today.” “But where some like Mr. Musk see an existential threat in AGI, others see AGI as a source of profit and power,” it added. “Under its new board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity.” Musk left the OpenAI board of directors in 2018 and has since grown critical of the firm, especially after Microsoft invested at least $13 billion to obtain a 49% stake in a for-profit branch of OpenAI. “Contrary to the founding agreement, defendants have chosen to use GPT-4 not for the benefit of humanity, but as proprietary technology to maximize profits for literally the largest company in the world,” the suit read. The lawsuit listed OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman and president Gregory Brockman as co-defendants in the case, and called for an injunction to block Microsoft from commercializing the tech. AI technology has improved at a rapid pace over the last two years, with OpenAI’s GPT language model going from powering a chatbot program in late 2022 to performing in the 90th percentile on SAT exams just four months later. More than 1,100 researchers, tech luminaries and futurists argued last year that the AI race poses “profound risks to society and humanity.” Even Altman himself has previously acknowledged that he is “a little bit scared” of the technology’s potential, and barred customers from using OpenAI to “develop or use weapons.” However, the company ignored its own ban on the use of its technology for “military and warfare” purposes and partnered up with the Pentagon, announcing in January that it was working on several artificial intelligence projects with the US military. A video that captured the confrontation between a group of Chinese tourists and a piano-playing YouTuber at a train station in London did go viral. A confrontation erupts when British pianist Brendan Kavanag, also known as Dr.K, found himself at the center of a spat with a group of tourists waving Chinese flags at a public piano in the St Pancras International station. In the video, livestreamed on Kavanagh's DrKBoogieWoogie YouTube channel on Jan. 19, he was initially seen engaging with the tourists, referring to them as “Japanese.” At one point, he asks one of the women in the group if she'd like to dance. When she declined, he returned to the piano and commented, “Whatever, I think British girls are more fun.” Tensions escalate later in the video, when members from the Chinese group express that they want to use the piano. After vacating the piano, Kavanagh continued filming, which sparked an objection from a woman in the group. She insisted that he stop as they were filming for "Chinese TV" and their footage was "not disclosable." Kavanagh challenged her, asking which Chinese law prohibited him from filming in a public space. A man from the group reiterated their refusal to be filmed, citing their need to protect their rights and avoid having their images shared online.
As of this writing, the video of the incident got viral as it has so far garnered 4.8 million views and ignited online debates about cultural sensitivity, freedom of expression and the implications of public filming. Kavanagh claimed in a subsequent video that there were attempts to take down the livestream.
The New York Times filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Microsoft and OpenAI for copyright infringement, claiming their artificial intelligence (AI) platforms represent unfair competition and a menace to the free press and society.
This is the first copyright challenge from a major American media organization, according to the Times. The newspaper has asked the federal court in Manhattan to hold the defendants responsible for “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” for their “unlawful copying and use of The Times’s uniquely valuable works.” It has also demanded that the companies destroy any chatbot models and training data that have used the outlet’s copyrighted material. “Defendants seek to free-ride on The Times’s massive investment in its journalism,” said the complaint, accusing Microsoft and OpenAI of “using The Times’s content without payment to create products that substitute for The Times and steal audiences away from it.” Microsoft has reportedly committed to investing $13 billion into OpenAI and has already used some of its technology in its search engine, Bing. In one example cited in the lawsuit, the ChatGPT-powered Browse With Bing featured results “reproduced almost verbatim” from the Times’ product review site Wirecutter, but did not attribute the content and removed the referral links used by the newspaper to generate commissions from sales, resulting in a loss of revenue. Microsoft and OpenAI “placed particular emphasis” on using the Times’ journalism because of the “perceived reliability and accuracy of the material,” the newspaper has claimed. “If The Times and other news organizations cannot produce and protect their independent journalism, there will be a vacuum that no computer or artificial intelligence can fill,” the complaint claimed, adding, “Less journalism will be produced, and the cost to society will be enormous.” The US newspaper of record noted that it had approached OpenAI and Microsoft in April to explore “an amicable resolution” of the copyright issue, but without success. Several other media outlets have reached agreements with OpenAI for the use of their content, including the Associated Press and Axel Springer, the German owners of Politico and Business Insider. The newspaper is represented by Susman Godfrey, the same law firm that filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI earlier this month, and represented Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation case against Fox News related to the 2020 US presidential election. US retail giant Walmart has announced it is suspending advertising on X (formerly Twitter), becoming the latest major brand to abandon the platform.
Corporations including Apple, Coca-Cola and Disney have halted their paid ads on X in recent weeks. “We've found some other platforms better for reaching our customers,” a Walmart spokesperson said, explaining the decision. Walmart is the largest retailer in the US, with $500 billion in domestic sales in 2022. The mass exodus from X was sparked in November, when the advocacy group Media Matters for America claimed the platform had posted “pro-Nazi” and “anti-Semitic” content next to the posts of major advertisers. X has denied the findings, publishing an analysis suggesting Media Matters had manipulated the algorithms with fake accounts. Owner Elon Musk personally came under fire in November after he publicly endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory in a post on X. The tech tycoon agreed with a user who said Jews hold a “dialectical hatred” of white people, sparking responding with: “You have said the actual truth.” Later Musk later backtracked, calling his reply “one of the most foolish” posts he’d ever made on X. Since buying Twitter in October 2022, Musk has been continually accused by the mainstream media and the political left of failing to adequately moderate content. Starting in December last year, Musk countered many of those allegations by releasing the Twitter Files – a select series of internal documents given to journalists – detailing the company’s activities under previous management. In one of the most damning examples, it emerged that Twitter had helped block the dissemination of a bombshell report alleging influence-peddling by Joe Biden’s family, just three weeks before he was elected president. When Musk purchased Twitter for an estimated $44 billion, he fired many of Twitter’s former staffers, and unbanned many accounts in the name of promoting free speech. Speaking earlier this week at a conference in New York, Elon Musk struck a defiant tone on the exit of major advertisers, telling them to “go f*ck yourself.” The ousted leader of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is returning to the company that fired him late last week, culminating a days-long power struggle that shocked the tech industry and brought attention to the conflicts around how to safely build artificial intelligence.
San Francisco-based OpenAI said in a statement late Tuesday, “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board." The board, which replaces the one that fired Altman on Friday, will be led by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, who also chaired Twitter's board before its takeover by Elon Musk last year. The other members will be former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo. OpenAI’s previous board of directors, which included D'Angelo, had refused to give specific reasons for why it fired Altman, leading to a weekend of internal conflict at the company and growing outside pressure from the startup's investors. The chaos also accentuated the differences between Altman — who's become the face of generative AI's rapid commercialization since ChatGPT's arrival a year ago — and members of the company's board who have expressed deep reservations about the safety risks posed by AI as it becomes more advanced. Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and has rights to its current technology, quickly moved to hire Altman on Monday, as well as another co-founder and former president, Greg Brockman, who had quit in protest after Altman's removal. That emboldened a threatened exodus of nearly all of the startup's 770 employees who signed a letter calling for the board's resignation and Altman's return. One of the four board members who participated in Altman's ouster, OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, later expressed regret and joined the call for the board's resignation. Microsoft in recent days had pledged to welcome all employees who wanted to follow Altman and Brockman to a new AI research unit at the software giant. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also made clear in a series of interviews Monday that he was still open to the possibility of Altman returning to OpenAI, so long as the startup's governance problems are solved. “We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” Nadella posted on X late Tuesday. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.” In his own post, Altman said that “with the new board and (with) Satya's support, I'm looking forward to returning to OpenAI, and building on our strong partnership with (Microsoft)." Co-founded by Altman as a nonprofit with a mission to safely build so-called artificial general intelligence that outperforms humans and benefits humanity, OpenAI later became a for-profit business but one still run by its nonprofit board of directors. It's not clear yet if the board's structure will change with its newly appointed members. “We are collaborating to figure out the details,” OpenAI posted on X. “Thank you so much for your patience through this.” Nadella said Brockman, who was OpenAI's board chairman until Altman's firing, will also have a key role to play in ensuring the group “continues to thrive and build on its mission.” Hours earlier, Brockman returned to social media as if it were business as usual, touting a feature called ChatGPT Voice that was rolling out to users. “Give it a try — totally changes the ChatGPT experience,” Brockman wrote, flagging a post from OpenAI's main X account that featured a demonstration of the technology and playfully winking at recent turmoil. “It’s been a long night for the team and we’re hungry. How many 16-inch pizzas should I order for 778 people?” the person asks, using the number of people who work at OpenAI. ChatGPT's synthetic voice responded by recommending around 195 pizzas, ensuring everyone gets three slices. As for OpenAI's short-lived interim CEO Emmett Shear, the second interim CEO in the days since Altman's ouster, he posted on X that he was “deeply pleased by this result, after ~72 very intense hours of work.” “Coming into OpenAI, I wasn't sure what the right path would be,” wrote Shear, the former head of Twitch. “This was the pathway that maximized safety alongside doing right by all stakeholders involved. I'm glad to have been a part of the solution.” OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT a year ago, said Friday it had dismissed CEO Sam Altman as it no longer had confidence in his ability to lead the Microsoft-backed firm.
Altman, 38, became a tech world sensation with the release of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot with unprecedented capabilities, churning out human-level content like poems or artwork in just seconds. OpenAI's board said in a statement that Altman's departure "follows a deliberative review process," which concluded "he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities." "The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI," it added. Altman's decision last year to release the app paid off in ways he never imagined, catapulting the Missouri-born Stanford dropout to household name stardom. The launch of ChatGPT ignited an AI race, with contenders including tech giants Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta. Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and has woven the company's technology into its offerings, including search engine Bing. Altman has testified before US Congress about AI and spoken with heads of state about the technology, as pressure ramps up to regulate against risks such as AI's potential use in bioweapons, misinformation and other threats. The statement said the board was "grateful for Sam's many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI. At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward." Altman would be replaced on an interim basis by Mira Murati, the company's chief technology officer, the statement said. OpenAI's board of directors consists of OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo, technology entrepreneur Tasha McCauley, and Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology's Helen Toner. Altman earlier this month led a major developer's conference for OpenAI, announcing a new set of products that were largely met positively in Silicon Valley. The young CEO on Thursday told AFP he understood some of the worries when it came to how people feel about AI and its disruptive powers. "(I have) lots of empathy for why anyone would feel, however they feel, about this," he told AFP of the platform that is credited with launching the revolution in generative artificial intelligence (AI). Altman was speaking on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco where he was swarmed by fans after his appearance, many of whom wanted to take selfies with him. Elon Musk's X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, is selling user accounts that are no longer in use for the price of $50,000 and higher. According to Forbes, a team within the company, known as the @Handle Team, has started to work on a handle marketplace to sell the account names left unused by people who originally registered them. Notably, this comes months after Mr Musk unveiled a plan to implement such a program in the near future.
Now, Forbes has uncovered emails indicating that the @Handle Team is actively working to sell disused user handles. The outlet reported that X has already sent solicitations to potential buyers, requesting a fixed fee of $50,000 to initiate the account purchase. These emails were sent by active X employees, who mentioned that the company had made recent updates to its @Handle guidelines, procedures and fees. Notably, after his purchase of the micro-blogging site, Mr Musk had hinted towards his plans to sell the old usernames. "Vast number" of handles had been taken by "bots and trolls", he tweeted days after his Twitter acquisition. In January this year, several reports then suggested that the billionaire was planning to free up as many as 1.5 billion usernames. In May, X had already begun the process of removing inactive accounts from its platform. Forbes reported that on Friday evening, X's username registration policy still stated that "unfortunately, we cannot release inactive usernames at this time". Its "inactive account policy," on the other hand, warned users to log in every 30 days to avoid being considered inactive. But it also said X was not currently releasing inactive usernames. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has indicated his desire to transform X into an "everything app". In a post, the billionaire said that the rebranded platform would be expanded to offer "comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world". In a recent internal meeting, Mr Musk also dropped a hint at an unlikely new feature for the micro-blogging site - dating. Musk said a person's X posts can be "the biggest indicator" of whether they are someone you'd want to hire. "I think the same is true also on the romantic front. Finding someone on the platform. Obviously, I found someone and friends of mine have found people on the platform. And you can tell if you're a good match based on what they write," he added. Prominent US Democratic Party donor George Soros is effectively trying to dismantle society, SpaceX owner Elon Musk claimed during a podcast with Joe Rogan on Tuesday. Musk slammed the liberal Hungarian billionaire for effectively “changing laws” by making sure they are not enforced.
“He’s doing things that erode the fabric of civilization,” Musk said, explaining that the current lawlessness plaguing American cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles is the result of Soros backing progressive District Attorneys who “refuse to prosecute crime.” Musk noted that the billionaire was also “pushing these things in other countries too.” The cities mentioned by Musk have, in recent years, seen a significant spike in crime rates, which many have attributed to the election of progressive DAs like San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin. Last year, Boudin was voted out of office in a recall election after facing accusations of being too soft on criminals. "Soros realized that you don’t actually need to change the laws; you just need to change how they’re enforced. If nobody chooses to enforce the law or the laws are differentially enforced, it’s like changing the laws,” Musk surmised. The X (formerly Twitter) owner went on to claim that despite the 93-year-old Soros being “pretty old” and “basically a bit senile” at this point, he was nevertheless “very smart” and very good at arbitrage, figuring out that the highest “value for money” was in supporting local races rather than national election campaigns like those for the senate or the presidency. Back in May, Musk also compared Soros to the comic-book supervillain Magneto from the X-Men series and claimed that it was wrong to assume that the Hungarian businessman had good intentions. Earlier this month, the office of Russia’s prosecutor-general designated the Soros-funded Central European University as “undesirable” for attempting to “discredit” Russia’s political leadership and distort history. The “so-called educational international non-governmental organization” conducts several programs that “deliberately devalue and distort the history of the Russian state, downplay the merits of prominent Russian scientists, writers, and cultural figures, and promote pseudo-scientific claims that Russia is to blame for all the world cataclysms, which is clearly not true,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement. Other Soros-affiliated NGOs have also been banned as “undesirable” organizations in Russia, which has repeatedly accused the financier of trying to meddle in its domestic affairs. Tech giant Google has laid off several employees this week in its news division, CNBC reported on Wednesday. According to an Alphabet Workers Union spokesperson, an estimated 40 to 45 workers in Google News lost their jobs. However, the spokesperson said that they are unaware of the exact numbers, adding that there are still hundreds of people working on the news product.
"We're deeply committed to a vibrant information ecosystem, and news is a part of that long-term investment," the Alphabet Workers Union spokesperson said, as per CNBC. "We've made some internal changes to streamline our organization. A small number of employees were impacted. We're supporting everyone with a transition period, outplacement services and severance as they look for new opportunities at Google and beyond," they added. A Google employee also took to LinkedIn to address the recent layoffs. Rob R, a Staff Software Engineer at the tech giant, described those fired as "some of the best and brightest people". "These are some of the best and brightest people I've ever worked with, and frankly, I don't expect the calculus behind this decision will ever make sense to me. We're definitely worse off without them," he wrote. Notably, the fresh round of layoffs comes amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, which has pressured online platforms to provide the public with accurate information on the conflict. Several prominent people have also urged online platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) to take strict steps to contain the spread of false and misleading content about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. However, Google has maintained that the latest round of layoffs won't impact the quality of work in its News division. "These internal changes have no impact on our misinformation and information quality work in News," Google's spokesperson said. The recent layoffs also come at a time when the tech giant has been downsizing in recent months to reckon with slowing growth and uncertain economic conditions. Back in January this year, Google announced it was cutting 12,000 jobs. Last month, the company also eliminated hundreds of positions from its recruiting organisation In the past week, stories in the media have been warning about the latest Covid-19 variant, the latest in a long list. It doesn’t seem like people are listening anymore.
In the minds of much of the public, the pandemic is long over and is firmly a thing of the past. The last thing most people want is another trip down the rabbit hole of restrictions, lockdowns, masks and vaccinations, with the past few years having seriously undermined the credibility of governments and public trust in them to do the right thing. And Western governments no longer have the political will or interest to dare make unpopular decisions, even if some are sounding the alarm. The pandemic in many respects was a turning point in government-public relations in Western countries, precisely because it was the first outbreak of such scale to occur in the age of mass social-media culture, where people, more connected than ever before, have the unrestricted capability to voice their own opinions, to hear the opinions of others, and with these to enact dissent against governments and their policies. The social-media era has already provided many significant challenges to state structures as it is, with Western governments scrambling to reassert a “narrative control” over their populations that they've since lost. Social-media freedom has played a critical role in – if not outright caused – outcomes which have shocked elites, be it the election of Donald Trump in the US, or Brexit in Britain. Subsequently, Western ruling classes have increased censorship and narrative policing on social media platforms through denouncing viewpoints they don’t like as “misinformation” or even as malicious propaganda by foreign actors like China or Russia. The Covid-19 pandemic thus saw one of the most comprehensive censorship campaigns Western governments had ever undertaken (at least before that of the Ukraine conflict), especially when it came to those who sought to question or challenge the need for vaccines. Governments have tried to aggressively reassert narrative control, stomping out dissent against their views, broadcast by establishment media. It would be foolish to deny that vaccines were important in combating the Covid-19 pandemic, even critical to saving lives, especially among the elderly and the vulnerable, but the manner in which this issue was conducted by governments has produced wholesale distrust in authority at large. That is not because vaccines are 'bad' but because people saw the profits being raked in by their Big Pharma producers, saw how aggressively governments were pushing for their implementation, and were skeptical as to whether the whole thing really served the “public interest.” In other words, the method (propaganda and censorship) defeated the objective (introducing vaccines to save lives). Big Pharma, of course, refers to a group of multinational drug- and medicine-producing companies which wield enough political influence and connections to be able to steer the public narrative towards endorsing their own products and which therefore exerts a monopoly over the perceived solutions to a health crisis or problem. These companies profited wholesale over the pandemic and to some extent influenced government policies over the issue. But more specifically, the narrative was steered to argue that the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna were the only ones you should use, with Chinese and Russian competitors often receiving targeted negative coverage. Therefore, as it goes, public criticism of pandemic-related policies has grown because it is now more widely believed that these companies, armed with the media, exert “scaremongering” to fulfil their commercial goals. Combined with the influence of social media, this has created large-scale distrust, despite all evidence of how harmful and deadly the early forms of Covid were, especially for the sick and the elderly, and of the significant numbers of Covid-related deaths being reported to this day. As a result, continuing to sound alarm bells about new variants and the spread of the disease does more harm than good, because it reinforces perceptions that the media are attempting to scare populations with something that is not a real threat. The pandemic has had a politically exhausting effect that also came with a choppy transition back to 'real' life. The public is not interested in making sacrifices again in the name of a disease that is already perceived to have 'gone away,' especially when it is believed there is an agenda behind doing so – not just Big Pharma’s but also one of power centralization, censorship and narrative-control by governments. The pandemic and the Ukraine conflict together have marked part of a shift whereby Western states have sought to reassert power lost during the social-media era, but have only achieved the opposite effect.
One of the defining features of Musk, aside from his penchant for X is his self-branding as a genius trying to push humanity forward. In reality, many of his projects, like the Vegas Loop, which is a passenger car tunnel in Las Vegas meant to reduce congestion instead of utilizing public transportation, are abjectly stupid. There are also many misconceptions that he circulates to reinforce the common narrative of his sycophants, like that he founded Tesla, the electric carmaker. But he didn’t create the company, he bought it and later called himself the “founder,” which led to a legal battle that allowed him to keep the title despite not actually being what the English language would define as a founder. A local news report from the San Francisco Bay area on this issue also describes how he pulled the same thing with PayPal, which was the main product of Confinity, a startup that had emerged with Musk’s X.com in the 1990s. If simply being an early investor in a company would define one as a founder, then every person who pays US taxes could be considered a Tesla founder because of the large amounts of federal contracts that prop the EV maker up.
Musk shouldered his way into the prestige of being a founder of some of these companies in order to boost his own image. It gives a serious amount of clout in the tech bro environment to call oneself a founder. Therefore, if history is any guide, the plan appears to be this: Elon Musk’s Twitter rebranding and the introduction of new features is designed so that he can label himself the company’s founder. It’s not about any grand corporate strategy or serious attempt at becoming the app of power; he just wants to take credit for Jack Dorsey’s product while blatantly ripping IP from China. Human trafficking is a sinister and pervasive crime that plagues societies worldwide, involving the illegal trade and exploitation of vulnerable individuals, particularly children. Despite efforts to combat this heinous act, human trafficking continues to thrive due to its lucrative nature and the vulnerabilities of its victims. This essay delves into the origins of human trafficking and examines the heart-wrenching involvement of children in this global epidemic.
Origin of Human Trafficking: The roots of human trafficking can be traced back through history. Slavery, an archaic practice, was the precursor to contemporary trafficking, with people being forcefully transported across borders and sold as commodities. In recent times, globalization and technological advancements have intensified trafficking, making it easier for criminals to coordinate and exploit their victims. The most common forms of human trafficking include sex trafficking and forced labor. Factors such as poverty, political instability, armed conflicts, lack of education, and gender inequality contribute to the vulnerability of potential victims. Traffickers prey on individuals in dire straits, offering false promises of better lives and opportunities, only to enslave them in unimaginable conditions. Children in the Grasp of Traffickers: Children are among the most vulnerable and defenseless victims of human trafficking. They make up a significant portion of the global trafficking statistics, falling prey to manipulative tactics employed by traffickers.
Consequences for Trafficked Children: The consequences of child trafficking are devastating and often long-lasting. Physically, children suffer from abuse, malnutrition, and exposure to dangerous environments. Emotionally, they endure trauma, loss of self-esteem, and a profound sense of helplessness. Moreover, trafficked children are deprived of education and proper development, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and vulnerability. The Role of Law Enforcement and Society: Combating human trafficking requires a coordinated effort between law enforcement agencies, governments, NGOs, and society at large. Raising awareness about this issue is crucial to prevent trafficking and to support the victims who have already fallen prey to its horrors. Law enforcement agencies must strengthen their efforts to dismantle trafficking networks, prosecute traffickers, and provide protection and rehabilitation for survivors. Governments should enact and enforce stricter laws against human trafficking, ensuring the penalties are severe enough to act as a deterrent. Human trafficking is a grave human rights violation that inflicts unimaginable suffering upon millions, especially children, worldwide. The origin of this heinous practice lies in complex socio-economic factors, and the involvement of children highlights the darkest side of human trafficking. Eradicating this evil requires a global commitment to protect vulnerable children, dismantle trafficking networks, and prosecute offenders. Only through collective action can we hope to bring an end to the heart-wrenching tragedy of child trafficking and create a safer and more compassionate world for all. |
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