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Twitter — or more precisely, its parent company X Corp. — has sued four John Does who have allegedly "engaged in widespread unlawful scraping of data" from the website. They were described as "unknown persons or entities" in the lawsuit, which only mentioned their IP addresses. The lawsuit accused them of flooding Twitter with automated requests far exceeding "what any single individual could send to a server in a given period" aimed at scraping data. In a response to a tweet about the lawsuit, Elon Musk said these entities tried to scrape the entirety of Twitter in a short period of time and blamed them for the rate limits the website implemented earlier this month.

Musk announced in early July that the website was putting a strict cap on how many tweets users can read each day "to address extreme levels of data scraping [and] system manipulation." Unverified accounts were limited to 600 posts a day, while verified (and, hence, paid) accounts were allowed to see 6,000 tweets. The defendants for this lawsuit were apparently to blame for those limits. "These requests have severely taxed X Corp.’s servers and impaired the user experience for millions of X Corp.’s customers," the company wrote in its complaint. 

X Corp. also described the defendants' activities in the lawsuit as "unlawfully scraping data associated with Texas residents." But as CNBC notes, the US Ninth Circuit of Appeals ruled in 2022 that the scraping of data that's publicly available online doesn't violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). It was a landmark ruling that brought a long-running lawsuit by LinkedIn to a close. The business-focused social media platform filed a complaint in an attempt to block its rival companies from scraping information visible on users' public profiles.

"Data scraping companies profit off the innovation of companies like X Corp. while harming X Corp. and compromising user data," the company also said in its lawsuit. Twitter is now seeking $1 million in damages to make up for the defendants' actions. 

On Thursday, leaders at the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists announced that the group was going on strike after negotiations with Hollywood studios fell apart. According to the Alliance of Motion Picture of Television Producers, the rejected deal included a "groundbreaking AI proposal" that would "protect performers' digital likenesses." The AMPTP said the AI deal would require a performers consent for the "creation and use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance." SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland suggested during a press conference that the proposal was just the opposite.

Crabtree-Ireland described the would-be AI proposal as a backdoor means for studios to gain perpetual rights to an actor's likeness. "In that 'groundbreaking AI proposal,' they propose that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day's pay, and the company should own that scan, their image, their likeness, and be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want with no consent and no compensation," the National Executive Director claimed in response to a question about the negotiations. "So, if you think that's a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again."

Although the studios AI proposal isn't the sole reason that the union voted to strike, its a good example of the kind of industry changes SAG-AFTRA hope to address with the strike. In recent years, studios have used technology to de-age, resurrect and at times fully replace actors. How the industry handles the rights to a performer's likeness could very well develop into a key issue in the near future.

"Actors deserve a contract that reflects the changes that have taken place in the industry," Crabtree-Ireland said at the press conference announcing the strike. "The current model devalues our members and affects their ability to make ends meet."

Either way, the strike itself is making history. SAG-AFTRA members will be joining the Writers Guild of America in striking. The two groups have not held a strike at the same time since the 1960s.

Twitter’s ad-revenue sharing program for creators has officially launched — and it’s reportedly already begun paying eligible Blue subscribers. Elon Musk announced the initiative in February, but with scant details about how it would work, nobody knew quite what to expect. However, some high-profile users report today they’ve received notifications about incoming deposits — including one user claiming he’s set to receive over $24,000. The rewards are based on ads in replies to eligible users’ content.

The program incentivizes creators who contribute popular content that drives ads — rewarding accounts that help Twitter make money (while driving new Blue subscriptions). “This means that creators can get a share in ad revenue starting in the replies to their posts,” a Twitter help article published today reads. “This is part of our effort to help people earn a living directly on Twitter.” Musk tweeted today that payouts “will be cumulative from when I first promised to do so in February.”

However, the bar is high to receive a transfer from the Musk-owned social media company. The support post says the revenue-sharing system applies to Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations subscribers with at least five million post impressions in each of the past three months. They’ll also need to pass a human review and adhere to the company’s Creator Subscriptions policies; Twitter will then pay eligible users using a Stripe account. The company says it will soon launch an application process, found under Monetization in account settings.

The move aims to make Twitter a more attractive platform for content creators. It may not be a coincidence that the program arrived about a week after Meta launched its Twitter rival Threads, which didn’t take long to gain traction — gaining over 100 million users in its first five days. That’s higher than previous record-holders ChatGPT and TikTok.

If you've used Microsoft productivity suites this millennium, you're in for a big change... visually, at least. After 15 years, Microsoft is replacing the default font in 365 and Office apps, Calibri, with something new: Aptos. It may look like a simple sans-serif font (and it is in default form), but Microsoft is betting that you'll like it thanks to its sheer flexibility.

Aptos works with many languages. There are four different font weights, and serif variants if you need something less hypermodern. Creator Steve Matteson (who made Windows' first TrueType fonts) waxes poetic about Aptos including a "little bit of humanity" and evoking the personalities of Carl Kasell and even Stephen Colbert, but the end result is a font that will theoretically be easy to read and eye-catching whether you're writing a school essay or prepping a company presentation.

Microsoft

The font has already been available as Bierstadt as part of a feedback gathering effort, but is rolling out as the default font in Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word for hundreds of millions of people starting today. Everyone will see it within the next few months. It'll still be available under its old name, as will the four fonts that didn't make the cut (Grandview, Seaford, Skeena and Tenorite). Like Calibri, Aptos will be pinned to the top of the font picker but won't be mandatory.

Yes, it's just a font — like those redesigned Office icons from 2018, Aptos will have zero impact on your ability to get things done. As one of the most noticeable elements of any app, though, the new default font will change the look and feel of tools you might use every day. And like Apple's San Francisco font, it reflects an evolving technological landscape where a typeface has to be le on a wide range of devices and screen sizes.

Around 80 Google Help subcontractors who recently voted to unionize with the Alphabet Workers Union-Communications Workers of America (AWU-CWA) found out last week that they will be laid off. The group began a hearing this week with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regarding the complex issue of joint employment for contractors. “It really stinks of retaliation,” Casey Padron, a general writer on the team scheduled to lose her job in August, told Engadget today.

The group announced the unionization effort on Thursday, June 8th; around two-thirds of the workers were notified weeks later about the layoffs. The team includes writers and graphic designers who create internal and external content for the search giant, including Google Help support pages. They list Google and Accenture as joint employers “due to the direct role both companies play in shaping working conditions.” Because they were joint contractors employed by tech consultancy Accenture, they don’t appear to enjoy protections with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, legislation passed in 1988 that provides certain rights for laid-off workers. (California is currently considering expanding protections for contract workers.)

“Last week we received news that 80 of our nearly 120 recently unionized Google Help coworkers would be laid off,” said Julia Nagatsu Granstrom, Senior Writer and member of the Alphabet Workers Union- CWA. “We had exercised our right to organize as members of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA in order to bring both Google and Accenture, a Google subcontractor, to the bargaining table to negotiate on several key demands, including layoff protections.” Nagatsu Granstrom describes the layoffs as “absolutely unacceptable,” given the timing of an active union campaign “with overwhelming support from workers.”

The Google Help cuts follow a group of company contractors rating search results who were fired last month after announcing intentions to unionize with the same organization, the AWU-CWA. However, they were reinstated and promised backpay after filing Unfair Labor Practice charges with the NLRB.


Henry Nicholls / reuters

Padron says the Google Help layoffs caught her off guard. “I was extremely surprised to hear about our team’s layoffs,” she told Engadget. “We are constantly told by Google and Accenture management how impressed they are with the quality of our work, so the timing of these layoffs looks suspiciously like retaliation for our union formation.” She says the employer’s proclaimed motive of budget tightening doesn’t add up. “They claimed that the cuts were a result of changes in budget allocation, but Accenture has also posted job listings that have our exact job description and project code.”

“These giant, wealthy corporations need to start living up to their own ‘core values’ and treating their workers with the dignity, respect, and humanity we deserve,” Padron added. “If these multi-billion dollar corporations can’t afford to provide humane working conditions to their employees, the business model needs radical change. Some of our operations managers and the Googlers we collaborate with have already expressed that Google’s help centers will suffer without our team. They will feel this loss, and they deserve to.”

Nagatsu Granstrom says the unionized workers will take “every recourse possible to support our impacted members and continue to organize workers at Google Help and beyond.” Padron echoes the upbeat, fighting tone. “If it’s Accenture and Google’s goal to demoralize us, they have failed,” she told Engadget. “We are more united than ever and will continue to fight for this job that so many of us love and rely on.”

The Associated Press (AP) and ChatGPT parent company OpenAI have reached a news-sharing agreement, but not for the reasons you may think. It doesn’t involve AI chatbots quickly churning out content, but rather a way for OpenAI to train its algorithmic models, as reported by Axios. The two-year deal gives OpenAI access to select news content and technology from the AP archives, dating back to 1985. All of this sweet, sweet data will be used to improve the efficacy of future iterations of ChatGPT and related tools.

This is one of the first high-profile partnerships between a major news organization and an artificial intelligence company. The two firms are still working out the details, but it looks like AP will receive access to OpenAI’s proprietary technology as part of the exchange. AP has long relied on automation technology when filing news reports, so it’ll likely use OpenAI’s tech to streamline and improve this process.

AP doesn’t use generative AI to write articles but does use similar technologies to automate corporate earnings reports and coverage of local sporting events, among other article types. Additionally, the organization uses these tools to translate weather alerts into Spanish. AP launched an AI tool earlier this year to enable clients, which are mostly other newsrooms, to search for relevant photos, videos and stories. This software allows clients to make queries using descriptive language instead of dry metadata. In other words, having access to OpenAI’s treasure trove of data should dramatically improve this experience.

As for OpenAI, they are obviously looking to expand into news in the future, and this partnership gives them plenty of legally-obtained data to work with. Artificial intelligence threatens to upend traditional news business models, but AP says it “supports a framework that will ensure intellectual property is protected and content creators are fairly compensated for their work.” The organization also says that newsrooms “must have a seat at the table” to ensure they aren’t taken advantage of.

It's the dawn of a new era for EA's flagship soccer series and the company has revealed when the first installment of the rebranded franchise will arrive. EA Sports FC 24 will hit PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC on September 29th. EA's long-standing partnership with FIFA ended after FIFA 23, prompting the name change. 

Rumors suggested the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions would cost $80, but those were not true. The game still costs $70 on those platforms. However, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players will need to pay that much as well. EA is selling it as a "dual entitlement" cross-generation title. EA Sports FC 24 also costs $70 on PC, while it's $60 on Switch.

The $100 Ultimate Edition includes Ultimate Team perks, 4,600 FC points and up to seven days of early access. Notably, those who opt for the standard version won't have access to an Ultimate Team Campaign mode, though they'll still be able to play the regular version of Ultimate Team — EA won't want to lock any players out of one of its biggest cash cows. Meanwhile, EA is adding women to Ultimate Team for the first time, meaning men and women will be playing with and against each other on the same virtual pitch.

The release date and pricing details emerged as EA showed off the game proper for the first time and announced some of the new features. The series formerly known as FIFA is gaining two new women's leagues: Spain's Liga F and Frauen-Bundesliga, the highest level of competition in Spain and Germany, respectively.

EA has been securing agreements with various leagues and organizations in the aim of keeping the series as true to life as possible. More than 19,000 authentic players, 30-plus leagues and more than 100 stadiums will be represented in EA Sports FC 24. The company has also secured exclusive deals with the English Premier League and UEFA to use their branding and to retain access to competitions like the Champions League.

The Frostbite engine is still in play this time around, though EA says it's using an enhanced version. This is also the first installment of the series to use Frostbite on Switch, according to its eShop listing.

EA has upgraded its HyperMotion tech as well. HyperMotionV (which will be available on the PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC versions) taps into volumetric data from more than 180 high-level men's and women's professional games. "This unlocks authentic full-team movement as well as 1,200 signature run styles so fans can experience the unique ways that top players move," EA says. It added that this tech can help it create new animations for EA Sports FC within just a few days.

Another new feature called PlayStyles taps into real-world data from Opta and other sources to make players more unique. EA says this will impact gameplay and give players distinct capabilities. In Ultimate Team, "PlayStyles+ enhance those signature abilities to world-class standard — think [Erling] Haaland’s Power Shot — reflecting elite players’ abilities to play at a level that few others can reach," the company added.

Crossplay will be available between PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, as well as between PS4 and Xbox One. The Clubs, Co-Op Season, Volta Football and Ultimate Team Co-Op modes will support crossplay for the first time. However, the Switch version of FC24 won't include crossplay.

Twitter has gotten worse in a number of ways since Elon Musk introduced paid verification. But one of the most consistently annoying has been the sharp uptick in DM spam. Now, Twitter says it’s making a change to cut down on the amount of spammy messages in users’ inboxes.

The company is adding a new setting that will route messages from verified accounts you’re not following to the “message requests” inbox, rather than the primary inbox. The new setting will be automatically enabled for anyone who previously had their DMs open to everyone, though they’ll be able to “switch back at any time,” according to Twitter.

That’s a notable reversal from a change Musk recently endorsed that allowed paid Twitter Blue subscribers to direct message any user regardless of following status. But while Musk suggested the change would cut down on “AI bots,” it resulted in more DM spam.

In a post announcing the latest change, Twitter’s support account seemed to acknowledge the prevalence of spammy DMs from verified accounts. “We’re adding a new messages setting that should help reduce the number of spam messages in DMs,” it wrote.

The updated setting is expected to start rolling out July 14th.

A group of college professors sued Texas today for banning TikTok on state devices and networks, as reported byThe Washington Post. The plaintiffs say the prohibition compromises their research and teaching while “preventing or seriously impeding faculty from pursuing research that relates to TikTok,” including studying the very disinformation and data-collection practices the restriction claims to address. The plaintiffs say the ban makes it “almost impossible for faculty to use TikTok in their classrooms — whether to teach about TikTok or to use content from TikTok to teach about other subjects.”

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed the lawsuit in the name of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, an academic research advocacy group the Texas professors are members of. The lawsuit names Governor Greg Abbott and 14 other state and public education officials as defendants. “The government’s authority to control their research and teaching… cannot survive First Amendment scrutiny,” the complaint says.

One example cited by the plaintiffs is Jacqueline Vickery, Associate Professor in the Department of Media Arts at the University of North Texas, who studies and teaches how young people use social media for expression and political organizing. “The ban has forced her to suspend research projects and change her research agenda, alter her teaching methodology, and eliminate course materials,” the complaint reads. “It has also undermined her ability to respond to student questions and to review the work of other researchers, including as part of the peer-review process.”

The lawsuit says that, although faculty at public universities are public employees, the First Amendment shields them from government control over their research and teaching. “Imposing a broad restraint on the research and teaching of public university faculty is not a constitutionally permissible means of protecting Texans’ ‘way of life’ or countering the threat of disinformation,” the suit says, citing Abbott’s comments that he feared the Chinese government “wields TikTok to attack our way of life.” The suit also condemns the double standard of claiming to care about Texans’ privacy while still allowing Meta, Google and Twitter (all American companies) to harvest much of the same data as TikTok.

“The ban is suppressing research about the very concerns that Governor Abbott has raised, about disinformation, about data collection,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, told The Washington Post. “There are other ways to address those concerns that don’t impose the same severe burden on faculty and researchers’ First Amendment rights,” he added, as well as their “ability to continue studying what has, like it or not, become a hugely popular and influential communications platform.”

This is the third lawsuit this year challenging state TikTok bans. Two Montana lawsuits funded by the Chinese social media company claim the prohibition violates free speech rights. According toThe New York Times, TikTok is not involved with the Texas suit.

The problems keep mounting for Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky, as he’s been arrested and charged by federal authorities with fraud. Mashinsky faces seven criminal counts, including securities, commodities and wire fraud, as originally reported by CBS News. He and his company are being independent sued by three government agencies — the FTC, CFTC and SEC. The U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges that Mashinsky misled customers regarding the nature of his company, making it seem like a bank when it was actually a high-risk investment fund.

Celsius’s former chief revenue officer, Roni Cohen-Pavon, was also arrested, with both Pavon and Mashinsky being charged with manipulating the price of the company’s proprietary crypto token so they could sell their own stock at inflated prices. 

“Mashinsky misrepresented, among other things, the safety of Celsius’s yield-generating activities, Celsius’s profitability, the long-term sustainability of Celsius’ high rewards rates and the risks associated with depositing crypto assets with Celsius,'' federal prosecutors wrote in a charging document obtained by CNBC.

Additionally, the FTC reached a $4.7 billion settlement today with Celsius, which nearly matches the record fines levied against Meta in 2019 for violating the privacy of consumers. The company has agreed to these financial terms, but will only make payments once it returns what remains in customer assets as part of ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

This all follows a New York-based lawsuit issued in January that also alleged massive fraud. That suit seeks appropriate damages after Celsius allegedly defrauded investors out of "billions of dollars" in cryptocurrency.

While details are scant on today’s arrest, the New York suit alleges that Mashinsky misled customers about the company’s worsening financial health and failed to register as a commodities and securities dealer, among many other allegations. New York State Attorney General Letitia James alleged that Mashinsky deceived hundreds of thousands of investors, with over 26,000 of them located in New York.

If convicted on all counts, Mashinsky and Pavon face decades in prison. Mashinsky resigned as CEO of Celsius last year and is no longer involved with the company.