Posts Tagged: article

X CEO calls article that led to latest brand exodus ‘misleading and manipulated’

On November 21, 2023 by Michelle Turner With 0 Comments - Tech

X CEO Linda Yaccarino called a report from a watchdog group that led to a large-scale advertiser pullout “misleading and manipulated” in a note she sent to X employees on Sunday night.

“While some advertisers may have temporarily paused investments because of a misleading article, the data will tell the real story,” Yaccarino wrote in the note, which was first published by The Hollywood Reporter, and which Engadget has seen a copy of. “Because for all of us who work at X, we’ve been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination, as there’s no place for it anywhere in the world.” Yaccarino’s note was titled “Our Work is Meaningful”.

She also framed the situation as a free speech issue, writing that “no critic will ever deter us from our mission to protect free speech.” In doing so, she aligned herself with X owner Elon Musk’s repeated claims that free speech on the platform is paramount. Musk has repeatedly dismissed concerns of hate speech increasing on X ever since he bought the service last year.

Major advertisers including IBM, Apple, Disney, Lionsgate, Warner Brothers Discovery, Paramount Global, and NBCUniversal, whose advertising division Yaccarino previously headed, pulled their ads from X last week after a report from watchdog group Media Matters for America found that ads from some of these brands ran next to pro-Nazi content on the website. The move also came days after Musk publicly endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory as a response to a far-right X user. Musk’s comment drew widespread criticism, including a statement from the White House, which called his post an “abhorrent promotion of Antisemitic and racist hate” that “runs against our core values as Americans.”

On Friday, Musk said that the company would file “a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company[.]" The company filed the lawsuit on Monday. 

Yaccarino was already under pressure to resign as X CEO from advertisers who are questioning her decision to risk her reputation to protect Musk, Forbes reported. In a post on X on Monday morning, Yaccarino doubled down on her criticism of Media Matters. “When you’re this consequential, there will be detractors and fabricated distractions, but we’re unwavering in our mission,” she wrote. “Thank you for standing with us!”

An X spokesperson sent a link to Yaccarino’s X post in response to Engadget’s request for comment.

Update, November 20, 2023, 7:41PM ET: This story was updated to state that X filed a lawsuit against Media Matters on Monday. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/x-ceo-calls-article-that-led-to-latest-brand-exodus-misleading-and-manipulated-204025411.html?src=rss

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

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Microsoft retracts AI-written article advising tourists to visit a food bank on an empty stomach

On August 21, 2023 by Michelle Turner With 0 Comments - Tech

Microsoft reportedly published — and retracted — an AI-generated article that recommended people visit a Canadian food bank as a tourist attraction. The article “Headed to Ottawa? Here’s what you shouldn’t miss!” included recommendations for catching a baseball game, honoring fallen soldiers at a war museum and… swinging by the Ottawa Food Bank. Paris Marx first called out the story on X (formerly Twitter). “People who come to us have jobs and families to support, as well as expenses to pay,” the AI-written section about the food bank section read. “Life is already difficult enough. Consider going into it on an empty stomach.”

Before its retraction, the article appeared on Microsoft Start, the company’s AI-aggregated news service that replaced Microsoft News in 2021. After The Vergereported on the article and its highly inappropriate recommendation about “going into it on an empty stomach,” Microsoft senior director Jeff Jones told the publication, “This article has been removed and we are investigating how it made it through our review process.”

The original URL now displays the message, “This page no longer exists. A new search page will load automatically.” The Verge uploaded screenshots of the initial story to Imgur.

The article’s author was listed merely as “Microsoft Travel,” suggesting real people may not have had any involvement in its creation. Microsoft Start’s “About Us” webpage claims it uses “human oversight” for the algorithms that “comb through hundreds of thousands of pieces of content sent by our partners” to help the company “understand dimensions like freshness, category, topic type, opinion content and potential popularity and publish according to user preferences.” The Windows maker reportedly laid off around 50 reporters from the division in 2020 while shifting to AI-generated news.

Microsoft is hardly the first company to get overzealous in its use of AI-created content. Early this year, CNET published numerous error-ridden financial explainer articles composed by artificial intelligence. More recently, Gizmodo’s parent company G/O Media posted an AI-composed (also mistake-filled) Star Wars article on the site, which deputy editor James Whitbrook called “embarrassing, unpublishable, disrespectful.” As the Associated Pressproceeds with measured caution on AI-assisted news coverage, other media outlets — including Microsoft’s news publishing wing — appear considerably more comfortable cashing in on fully AI-written articles, clearing the inevitable wreckage after the fact.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-retracts-ai-written-article-advising-tourists-to-visit-a-food-bank-on-an-empty-stomach-182701884.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

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