News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

Tesla Model Y Burst into Flames While Parked on London Street

A Tesla Model Y, valued at almost $60,000, spontaneously burst into flames on a residential street in Ilford, North London, sparking concerns about the safety of Elon Musk’s electric vehicles.

The Daily Mail reports that on Sunday morning, a Tesla Model Y was seen engulfed in flames and emitting black smoke. The electric vehicle, parked on the side of the street in Perth Road, Ilford, North London, appeared to have burst into flames without any apparent cause.

Electric car batteries use lithium-ion technology, which is potentially dangerous and fires in electric vehicles are already more frequent than for petrol and diesel vehicles
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Eugenio Mereu, a local resident and owner of a similar Tesla model, witnessed the incident. Mereu said that the fire was so strong his family could hear it crackling from their house.
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The local police and three fire engines attended the scene.

The London resident described the car as a Tesla Model Y, which reportedly has a starting price of around $60,000 in the UK.

This is not an isolated incident. Earlier in May this year, another Tesla dramatically erupted in flames on a California highway. The driver reported that the vehicle began to “shake” before smoke started billowing out from under the car.

China’s ‘Private’ Companies Expand Use of Communist Party Censorship A.I.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Monday that a growing number of “private” Chinese companies are interested in buying censorship artificial intelligence (AI) from the state-run People’s Daily.

One of the main reasons for this interest is that even the smallest deviation from the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian speech codes can mean huge fines for a corporation. A fully-trained A.I. commissar that can scan thousands of images, social media posts, and web pages for forbidden content — even something as minor as “the unintended inclusion of a disgraced official in a picture” — that might get a company fined or shut down could save the companies major fines or worse.

“To make matters worse, perceived offenders can be boycotted by angry internet users. The online community is also policed by nationalistic voices and even business competitors looking for the chance to torpedo a rival,” the SCMP noted.

The People’s Daily is leasing a “content moderation” system called Renmin Shenjiao that was launched last July. The name of the system translates to “People’s Proofreading.” It ostensibly uses a combination of A.I. algorithms and human censors to spot politically troublesome content in “written materials, photos, videos, and posts on social media platforms, including WeChat and Weibo.”

Since the People’s Daily is the chief media organ of the Chinese Communist Party, customers can rest assured Renmin Shenjiao has been updated with the latest speech codes, propaganda requirements, and lists of disfavored officials who are not supposed to be mentioned anymore. Renmin Shenjiao staff “may have knowledge of new taboos that were otherwise not known to the public,” according to one insider.

The service costs between $6,400 and $13,700 per year, depending on the volume of material produced by the customer. Clients proceed to upload all of their photos and writing to a website where the AI and human censors can screen it for “material related to ideology, religion, purged government officials, Chinese dissidents, and maps related to disputed border areas.”

Jim Jordan Extends Social Media Investigation to Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads

Rep. Jim Jordan, (R-OH) has reportedly asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to hand over documents about content moderation on his new platform Threads as part of the House Judiciary’s ongoing investigation of tech platforms’ policies and contact with the Biden administration.
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While Facebook (now known as Meta) executives claim Threads isn’t supposed to be about politics, the platform nonetheless looks very similar to Twitter, a place where users are known to go to take part in political conversations.

“Indeed, Threads raises serious, specific concerns because it has been marketed as rival of Elon Musk’s Twitter, which has faced political persecution from the Biden Administration following Musk’s commitment to free speech,” Jordan wrote in his letter.

The congressman also pointed out a Wall Street Journal piece reporting that the Federal Trade Commission had asked Twitter to hand over internal communications about Musk and identify journalists who were allowed to access the company’s records.

This inquiry was part of a probe to into whether Twitter was competent enough to still protect user information.

“In contrast, there are reports that Threads will enforce ‘Instagram’s community guidelines,’ which resulted in lawful speech being moderated following pressure by the government,” Rep. Jordan added, pointing to a recent lawsuit against the Biden administration filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana.

‘Extraordinarily Sensitive’ Personal Data
Handed Over to Meta by Tax-Preparation Firms

Three tax-preparation companies have shared sensitive personal information of millions of taxpayers with Meta and other Big Tech companies like Google, according to a new report by congressional Democrats.

The tax-prep companies—TaxAct, H&R Block, and TaxSlayer—are said to have “shared millions of taxpayers’ data with Meta, Google, and other Big Tech firms” using computer code known as pixels, according to the July 12 report (pdf). Pixels, used across the internet, is a piece of code on websites that is used to gather information about visitors that helps in understanding their interests and behaviors.

“Tax-prep companies shared extraordinarily sensitive personal and financial information with Meta,” the report said. Collected data include names, tax information, and details of dependents among others.

Though the tax firms and Big Tech claimed that the shared data were anonymous, the report pointed out that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and experts have suggested the data could be used to identify individuals.

During the investigation, Meta admitted that it used the collected data to target ads to taxpayers as well as train the company’s AI algorithms.
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“The Internal Revenue Service, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice should fully investigate this matter and prosecute any company or individuals who violated the law,” the report said. The lawmakers sent a letter to these agencies demanding an investigation.

The data of users were collected via Meta Pixel and Google Analytics. TaxAct’s Meta Pixel deployment collected information including taxpayer’s full names, email, country, state, city, zip codes, phone numbers, gender, date of birth, filing status, approximate adjusted gross income, approximate refund amount, names of dependents, buttons clicked online, and web browser used.