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  • Thermal imaging shows xAI lied about supercomputer pollution, group says

    Elon Musk raced to build Colossus, the world’s largest supercomputer, in Memphis, Tennessee. He bragged that construction only took 122 days and expected that his biggest AI rivals would struggle to catch up.

    To leap ahead, his firm xAI “removed whatever was unnecessary” to complete the build, questioning “everything” that might delay operations and taking the timeline “into our own hands,” xAI’s website said.

    Now, xAI is facing calls to shut down gas turbines that power the supercomputer, as Memphis residents in historically Black communities—which have long suffered from industrial pollution causing poor air quality and decreasing life expectancy—allege that xAI has been secretly running more turbines than the local government knows, without permits.

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  • Disgruntled users roast X for killing Support account

    After X (formerly Twitter) announced it would be killing its “Support” account, disgruntled users quickly roasted the social media platform for providing “essentially non-existent” support.

    “We’ll soon be closing this account to streamline how users can contact us for help,” X’s Support account posted, explaining that now, paid “subscribers can get support via @Premium, and everyone can get help through our Help Center.”

    On X, the Support account was one of the few paths that users had to publicly seek support for help requests the platform seemed to be ignoring. For suspended users, it was viewed as a lifeline. Replies to the account were commonly flooded with users trying to get X to fix reported issues, and several seemingly paying users cracked jokes in response to the news that the account would soon be removed.

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  • X will purge DMs to give birth to its own messaging platform

    X, formerly Twitter, is seeking to replace the DMs section with a new messaging platform called XChat.

    Zack Warunek, software engineer at X, hinted that the company will be deleting the DMs section on Wednesday in a response to a user who had difficulties seeing user data on the messages they sent and received for the last few days, and assumed it was a bug. When they asked Warunek if he could fix the issue, he wrote, “This page will be deleted soon so no.” When asked if there wouldn’t be any more message requests, Warunek responded, “No, not like request messages but like the whole entire DM’s will be gone soon.”

    That exchange teased that X will be launching XChat soon. The new messaging platform is an expansion of the X’s current DMs page that is reminiscent of Facebook Messenger, but with extra features that help keep chats more private. According to an analyst at MacRumors, XChat will allow users to send PDFs and other files; delete messages for everyone in the chat, not just themselves; and enable Vanishing mode, which Instagram implemented on its own DMs page. Additionally, messages sent through XChat will be fully encrypted.

    Independent web developer Nima Owji shared a preview screenshot last week of how XChat will give users the option between deleting messages for other people and deleting messages for themselves. The screenshot also showed the ability to enter a PIN code every time you open XChat for extra security.

    Elon Musk teased XChat last year when he tweeted that he would be deleting his phone number and only using X to text and call other people. Back in January, X Daily News shared that the platform is developing the new messaging platform, speculating that Musk wanted to compete with WhatsApp by expanding upon X’s DMs section.

    Another employee at X clarified that XChat is basically a rewriting of the platform’s DMs section, not that they’re getting rid of DMs entirely. It’s unknown when XChat will be available on X, but leaks suggest that it will go live in the coming days.

  • Trans woman falsely linked to DC plane crash sues influencer for defamation

    Jo Ellis was thrust into the spotlight after Matthew Wallace amplified baseless claims of her involvement

    A transgender woman who was erroneously identified as a helicopter pilot involved in the Washington DC crash that killed 67 people has filed a lawsuit against one of the conservative influencers who spread the false claims about her.

    Jo Ellis, whom the Guardian wrote about after she was thrust into the spotlight, is suing Matthew Wallace, the person behind the X account, for defamation, claiming Wallace “concocted a destructive and irresponsible defamation campaign” that monetized a “false narrative” about her.

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  • Twitch makes deal to escape Elon Musk suit alleging X ad boycott conspiracy

    Twitch has struck a deal with Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) to eject itself from a lawsuit over an ad boycott shortly following Musk’s takeover of Twitter in October 2022.

    In a court filing Monday, X lawyers provided no details on the deal but explained that “X and Twitch have entered into a memorandum of understanding resolving the action as to Twitch,” so long as “certain conditions” are met by December 31.

    Musk has called for “criminal prosecution” of anyone involved in the ad boycott. But while Twitch was one of about a dozen companies that X directly accused of conspiring to withhold billions in ad revenue from then-Twitter, it was not part of X’s initial complaint. The livestreaming service was only added to the lawsuit after X amended its complaint in November to pull in more advertisers, and since then, Twitch has never responded to any of X’s accusations. Instead, in its filing, X speaks for Twitch.

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  • Carmack defends AI tools after Quake fan calls Microsoft AI demo “disgusting”

    On Monday, John Carmack, co-creator of id Software’s Quake franchise, defended Microsoft’s recent AI-generated Quake II demo against criticism from a fan about the technology’s impact on industry jobs, calling it “impressive research work.”

    Last Friday, Microsoft released a new playable tech demo of a generative AI game engine called WHAMM (World and Human Action MaskGIT Model) that generates each simulated frame of Quake II in real time using an AI world model instead of traditional game engine techniques. However, Microsoft is up front about the limitations: “We do not intend for this to fully replicate the actual experience of playing the original Quake II game,” the researchers wrote on the project’s announcement page.

    Carmack’s comments came after an X user with the handle “Quake Dad” called the new demo “disgusting” and claimed it “spits on the work of every developer everywhere.” The critic expressed concern that such technology would eliminate jobs in an industry already facing layoffs, writing: “A fully generative game cuts out the number of jobs necessary for such a project which in turn makes it harder for devs to get jobs.”

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  • DOGE staffer’s YouTube nickname accidentally revealed his teen hacking activity

    A SpaceX and X engineer, Christopher Stanley—currently serving as a senior advisor in the Deputy Attorney General’s office at the Department of Justice (DOJ)—was reportedly caught bragging about hacking and distributing pirated e-books, bootleg software, and game cheats.

    The boasts appeared on archived versions of websites, of which several, once flagged, were quickly deleted, Reuters reported.

    Stanley was assigned to the DOJ by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). While Musk claims that DOGE operates transparently, not much is known about who the staffers are or what their government roles entail. It remains unclear what Stanley does at DOJ, but Reuters noted that the Deputy Attorney General’s office is in charge of investigations into various crimes, “including hacking and other malicious cyber activity.” Declining to comment further, the DOJ did confirm that as a “special government employee,” like Musk, Stanley does not draw a government salary.

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  • Live X outage: Twitter was down due to ‘massive cyberattack’

    It’s not just you. X is down (or, Twitter is down, if you prefer). X experienced multiple outages on March 10, with thousands of users all over the globe reporting problems. Elon Musk has said the social platform suffered “a massive cyberattack”.

    And as the sun rises on March 11, we’re seeing a small increase in reports suggesting X may continue to be having issues, but nothing on the scale we witnessed on Monday.

    The first huge spike of users reporting ‘X is down’ was on March 10 at 2.30am PDT / 5.30am EDT, and while the service appeared to be back online, reports skyrocketed once again at 6.30am PDT / 9.30am EDT. Just when we thought everything was settling back down, further issues caused the longest period of disruption between 8.15am PDT / 11.15am EDT and 10.15am PDT / 1.15pm EDT.

    Users are experiencing issues with both the X website and the X app. Some users are reporting the service is downright inaccessible; others complain about slow loading times.

    X outage: what’s happened so far?

    March 10

    • 2.30am PDT / 5.30am EDT: First reports of X being down surface
    • 3.30am PDT / 6.30am EDT: X back for most users
    • 6.30am PDT / 9.30am EDT: A second wave of reports and X is down again
    • 8.15am PDT / 11.15am EDT: A third wave of reports say X is down once again
    • 10.15am PDT / 1.15pm EDT: X recovers for many users
    • 11.30am PDT / 2.15pm EDT: X is working for some, but many people are still reporting problems
    • 12.25pm PDT / 3.25pm EDT: X (Twitter) recovers for most people

    March 11

    • 2am PDT / 5am EDT: A small spike of X outage reports appear

    X outage live blog: latest Twitter is down updates

  • Even Trump may not be able to save Elon Musk from his old tweets

    Back in December, Elon Musk accused the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of launching a purely politically motivated probe into his Twitter purchase. In a letter from his lawyer, Alex Spiro, Musk alleged that the SEC gave him 48 hours to accept a settlement or face fraud charges. Musk refused to pay the fine, demanding to know “who directed these actions,” suspecting either former SEC Chair Gary Gensler or Joe Biden’s White House.

    Once the SEC lawsuit was filed in January, Musk’s condemnation of the settlement was echoed in his claims that the SEC was “totally broken.” These comments seemed to further his feud with the agency following a contentious 2018 Tesla settlement over Musk’s tweets that resulted in the Supreme Court declining to hear Musk’s arguments against his tweets being monitored by the SEC.

    But after Donald Trump issued a February executive order declaring sweeping powers over independent agencies—including the SEC, which was accused of launching politically motivated investigations—it appeared that Musk might instead have been setting up the narrative to possibly get the probe squashed.

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  • Big brands are spending small sums on X to stay out of Musk’s crosshairs

    Big brands are allocating small amounts of their advertising budget to Elon Musk’s X, seeking to avoid being seen as boycotting the social media platform and triggering a public fallout with its billionaire owner.

    Multiple marketing executives told the Financial Times that companies have felt pressure to spend a nominal sum on X following Musk’s high-profile role in US President Donald Trump’s administration.

    They said Musk’s pursuit of legal action against groups that have stopped advertising since his $44 billion acquisition in late 2022 had also sparked alarm. X last month added about half a dozen more companies to its case including Shell, Nestlé, Pinterest, and Lego.

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