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European Privacy Group Files Complaints Against X for Unauthorized Use of User Data

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Vienna-based privacy advocacy group Noyb has lodged complaints against Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) in eight European countries, alleging the company unlawfully utilized users’ personal data to train its artificial intelligence technology without their consent. The complaints come in the wake of similar legal actions by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which had previously initiated court proceedings over X’s data collection practices.

Noyb claims that X began “irreversibly feeding” the personal data of over 60 million European users into its Grok AI system without notifying them or seeking their approval. The group criticized X for failing to inform users proactively, with many learning about the new data processing practice only through a viral social media post.

In response, the DPC has reportedly secured an agreement from X to halt its controversial data processing. However, Noyb founder Max Schrems argues that the DPC’s actions address only the superficial aspects of the issue, calling for a comprehensive investigation into the legality of X’s data processing. Noyb has now requested an urgent review from data protection authorities in Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain to ensure full compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

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Protesters attempt to storm Germany’s Tesla factory

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In Germany, tensions escalated as hundreds of climate protesters clashed with law enforcement while attempting to breach the Tesla factory near Berlin. The demonstrators were rallying against the proposed expansion of Tesla’s only European plant, situated in Grünheide, Brandenburg. Their concerns revolved around potential environmental damage resulting from the factory’s enlargement.

Despite the activists’ efforts, police successfully thwarted their attempts to enter the facility. However, the confrontation led to injuries, including three police officers, and resulted in several arrests. Videos circulating on social media depicted the chaotic scene, with protesters donning blue caps and flags, attempting to overrun the police cordon.

The protest tactics employed by the demonstrators included blocking nearby motorways, disrupting railway services, and staging sit-ins on country roads surrounding the factory. While some managed to breach the police lines, Tesla CEO Elon Musk reassured the public that the facility remained secure. Musk also criticized the leniency shown by law enforcement toward the left-wing protesters.

The group orchestrating the protest, Disrupt Tesla, aimed to draw attention to what they termed “environmental destruction” in Grünheide. Their activism included occupying parts of the forest slated for clearance for the factory expansion, with protesters building tree houses and erecting signs in opposition. Despite the disruptions, Tesla announced that the site would be closed for the day due to the demonstration, with employees allowed to work remotely.

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Europe to develop commercial space capsule

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The European Space Agency (ESA) is introducing a new competition to develop a robotic capsule for transporting cargo to and from the International Space Station, with the maiden voyage planned for 2028. This marks a significant departure from ESA’s conventional project management approach. The winning company will receive some financial support and technical assistance from ESA but must operate the capsule commercially. It will be responsible for partially funding the development and providing the re-supply service to ESA, which will act as the primary customer.

If successful, the company may be tasked with upgrading the capsule to transport ESA astronauts, and potentially, it could be adapted for missions to other destinations such as the Moon. A dedicated team within ESA has been allocated an initial budget of €75m to initiate the competition.

The concept was well received by ESA member states at a summit in Seville, Spain. This procurement model emulates the successful strategy employed by NASA, which transitioned to outsourcing space vehicle services to private companies, leading to the emergence of SpaceX. ESA hopes to replicate NASA’s access to faster, more innovative, and cost-effective space technologies.

Anna Christmann, a leading aerospace policy figure in the German government, emphasized the shift in ESA’s approach, stating that while public funding initiates such competitions, it attracts private investment. ESA member states have also committed to adopting this approach for long-term rocket procurement, as current European launchers are facing significant challenges.

The Seville summit also highlighted the role of satellites in aiding European nations’ net-zero goals, including using space data to optimize air travel routes and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, ESA introduced the Zero Debris Charter to promote responsible practices in space operations. The UK is championing a new regulatory framework to incentivize responsible behavior and create a market for orbital debris removal services.

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“Putin Called Me A War Criminal So He’s Not My Best Friend”: Elon Musk

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Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, clarified that Vladimir Putin labelled him a “war criminal” and added that he is “not exactly my greatest friend” with Putin. The second-richest person in the world tweeted this in response to a user who questioned why Russian authorities were permitted to use the social media site. The user, Anonymous Operations, provided a screenshot of Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president, who claimed that Ukraine will “vanish” because “no one needs it” in a tweet. The user tagged Elon Musk and questioned why he had permitted Russian officials to re-enter the site.

“I’m told Putin called me a war criminal for helping Ukraine, so he’s not exactly my best friend. All news is to some degree propaganda. Let people decide for themselves,” Mr Musk said in his reply.

The tweet divided users, with some arguing “it’s important to allow everyone to speak freely” and others saying “truth in its pure form is only found in mathematics and empirical engineering”.

Twitter is no longer limiting the reach of Russian official media organisations, according to a story published by The Telegraph on Friday.

Additionally, it noted that Twitter’s timeline, search results, and recommendation tools “are showing Mr. Putin’s presidential account, the Russian Foreign Ministry, and its UK Embassy – all of which had restrictions placed on them when hostilities broke out.”

Mr. Musk has repeatedly shared his thoughts on the war in Russia and Ukraine throughout the crisis. He received credit from Mr. Putin’s advisors for putting out a peace proposal that the West rejected but was seen as favourable by the Russians.
Yet, Mr. Musk received criticism from Russian media in January after his business, SpaceX, gave the Ukrainian military more than 20,000 Starlink satellites.

Vladimir Solovyov, a host on Russian official television, referred to Elon Musk as a “war criminal” during the same conversation. The Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs’ advisor Anton Gerashchenko shared a translated version of the video on Twitter.

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Parts Of Twitter Source Code Leaked Online: Report

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A legal document revealed that some of Twitter Inc.’s source code has been leaked, and the social media site, which is owned by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for information on the perpetrator.
The filing claims that a user going by the name of “FreeSpeechEnthusiast” shared “multiple snippets” of the source code used to power Twitter’s online operations on Github, a platform controlled by Microsoft.
According to Github, the code was removed on Friday at Twitter’s request.

According to the March 24 complaint, Twitter has requested the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to require Github to turn over “Any identifiable information” connected to the user name “FreeSpeechEnthusiast.”

Github did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on whether it has supplied such information. It also did not comment on how long Twitter’s source code had been publicly available.A request for comment from Twitter also received no quick response. The New York Times was the first to break the news.

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Bird Statue Gets $100,000 As Elon Musk Auctions Twitter Headquarter Items

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On Wednesday, Elon Musk auctioned off furniture, decorations, kitchenware, and other items from the tech company’s downtown San Francisco headquarters. A figurine of a Twitter bird brought in $100,000.

A 10-foot neon light in the form of Twitter’s bird logo was included in an online auction of “surplus corporate office assets of Twitter” that lasted just over 24 hours and received a winning price of $40,000, the Heritage Global Partners auction service reported.

Espresso machines, ergonomically sound desks, televisions, bicycle-powered charging stations, pizza ovens, and a colourful planter in the form of a “@” sign were some of the 631 lots.

As he set out to find a new CEO for his struggling social media network, Mr. Musk claimed in December that drastic cost cutbacks at Twitter had fixed the company’s poor financial situation.

At the time, the erratic billionaire claimed in a live chat room that Twitter would have lost $3 billion annually without the reforms, which included sacking more than half of its staff.

Mr. Musk claimed that at the platform he paid $44 billion for, he had been “reducing expenses like crazy.”

Elon Musk sacked over half of Twitter’s 7,500-person workforce just a few weeks after acquiring the firm, alarming governments and advertisers and raising questions about whether the company had enough employees to handle content moderation.

He claimed that his strategy was to drastically cut expenses while increasing revenue, and that a new subscription service called Twitter Blue, which charges users for the coveted blue tick, would aid in achieving that objective.

Following Elon Musk’s takeover, there was an increase in tweets that were racist or bigoted, which attracted regulatory attention and drove away Twitter’s major advertiser base.

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Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey’s Apology Amid Elon Musk’s Change Overdrive

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A day after cutting close to 50% of its workforce, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey expressed his regret to the company’s staff today.


“Folks at Twitter past and present are strong and resilient. They will always find a way no matter how difficult the moment. I realize many are angry with me. I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that,” Mr Dorsey tweeted.

Elon Musk, who last week purchased Twitter, has fired the majority of the company’s top executives, the board, and about half of its 7,500 employees. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and the company’s new owner, tweeted on Friday that the site was seeing a “huge loss in revenue” as a result of the advertiser retreat, capping a week of tumult and ambiguity over the company’s future.

Jack Dorsey officially ended his association with the social network he co-founded in 2006 by resigning from the Twitter board in May of this year. Since 2007, he has served as a director. Most recently, from mid-2015 until last year, he served as CEO of Twitter.

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Elon Musk denies he spoke to Putin about Ukraine war

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Elon Musk has refuted claims that he communicated with Vladimir Putin before putting his recommendations for stopping Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a Twitter poll.

Head of the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group Ian Bremmer claimed that Mr. Musk had personally briefed him about the chat with Mr. Putin.  However, Mr. Musk has since denied this.

“Putin and I have only communicated once, perhaps 18 months ago. The topic concerned space, “Musk posted a tweet.

The Tesla CEO invited his 107.7 million followers to vote on how to end the conflict in Ukraine last week.

One of the ideas was to organise elections in regions of Ukraine that Russia claims it has seized and has occupied. His remarks were well received in Moscow.

If the people’s will is to have Russia go, the multibillionaire said. Four Ukrainian regions have already been annexed by Russia, according to President Putin, after phoney referendums that Kyiv and its Western partners deemed fake. All four of these regions are not entirely under Russian authority.

The illegally annexed Crimea by Moscow in 2014, according to Mr. Musk, should be “officially” recognised as a part of Russia. According to Mr. Bremmer’s account in a newsletter, Mr. Musk told him that the Russian president was “prepared to negotiate,” but only if Ukraine agreed to some form of permanent neutrality, Crimea remained under Russian control, and Kyiv acknowledged Russia’s annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.

Mr. Bremmer claimed that the CEO of SpaceX had informed him that Mr. Putin had stated that these objectives would be achieved “no matter what” and that a nuclear attack may be launched if Ukraine attacked Crimea.

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Elon Musk advertises a Tesla job on Twitter, and the response is hilarious

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Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, recently posted a job advertisement on Twitter, and internet users couldn’t help but troll him.
Elon Musk announced on Twitter a day after sexual harassment allegations against him surfaced, which he denounced as “completely false,” that his company would be forming a “hardcore litigation department” to “directly initiate and execute lawsuits,” with the team reporting to him.

“My commitment: we will never seek victory in a just case against us, even if we will probably win [and] we will never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we will probably lose,” Mr Musk said in a Twitter threat. “I’m looking for hardcore streetfighters, not white-shoe lawyers,” he continued, adding that “there will be blood.”

Mr Musk requested that applicants submit three to five bullet points demonstrating “evidence of exceptional ability.” As a result, Twitter users decided to have some fun, with some mocking Mr Musk for using social media to find the best legal minds in the world, while others pitched hilarious points, just as the Tesla CEO had requested.”Because if I wanted to assemble a team of the world’s best legal minds, the first place I would go would absolutely be Twitter,” one user wrote. Another shared three bullet points: “1. I drank 69 beers in one day in July 2017 2. I know everything there is to know about Arizona dive bars 3. A Tier 1 law school awarded me Magna Cum Laude. These are ranked from most important to least important.” Another user claimed to have “a lot of experience stealing coffee from Harvard Law.”

Meanwhile, according to Business Insider, SpaceX paid $250,000 in 2018 to settle a sexual harassment claim filed by an unnamed private jet flight attendant who claimed Mr Musk exposed himself to her. According to the article, an anonymous source claimed to be a friend of the flight attendant.
Elon Musk, on the other hand, denounced the “completely false” claims the next day. “It never happened,” he said, and he challenged the anonymous person to describe something that isn’t widely known.

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It’s official: Elon Musk has paid $44 billion for Twitter

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Elon Musk, a billionaire, has taken control of Twitter in one of the biggest tech deals in history. Musk will pay approximately $44 billion for the social network, with shares valued at $54.20. On April 14, Musk announced his takeover bid, calling it his ‘best and final offer.’

“Free speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where important issues affecting humanity’s future are discussed.” I also want to make Twitter better than it has ever been by adding new features, opening up the algorithms to increase trust, defeating spam bots, and authenticating all humans.However, Twitter initially put in place a “poison pill defence” against the hostile takeover. However, after Musk announced that he had secured funding, the Tesla board entered into negotiations with the co-founder of the company. Musk met “privately with several shareholders of the company to extol the virtues of his proposal” on Friday, according to the Wall Street Journal, and also made video calls to them to press his case.

“I hope that even my harshest critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,” Musk said earlier today on Twitter. It’s also worth noting that Musk sent out a rather obnoxious tweet about Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Saturday, ostensibly in response to Gates shorting Tesla. More than a million people have liked the tweet. He then joked that his tweet was being reviewed by the’shadow ban council.’

On the platform, he has been a staunch supporter of ‘free speech.’ “I invested in Twitter because I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk wrote in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. “Twitter has extraordinary potential,” he wrote in the filing. “I’ll get it unlocked.”

Musk has already floated the idea of privatising Twitter. “If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!” he tweeted recently. Then came another post in which he stated that all humans on the platform should be authenticated.

The Tesla co-founder has previously spoken about the need for a ‘Edit Button’ on the platform, and even held a poll in which he purposefully misspelt yes and no, presumably to emphasise the need for an edit button given the frequent typos that people make while tweeting. It’s worth noting that Twitter has already confirmed that an Edit button will be introduced.

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