Tag: News

• The EU is investigating Meta over concerns its platforms are fueling addiction among minors.
• Regulators said they would also look into the company's age-verification tools. 
• It comes as Meta faces growing legal pressure in the US over the impact of its platforms on kids.

Meta is facing more questions over whether it's doing enough to protect kids on Facebook and Instagram.

The EU said on Thursday it had opened an investigation into the social media giant over concerns that Meta's platforms are creating "rabbit-hole" effects and fueling harmful addiction among children.

The European Commission, the bloc's regulatory body, said it would also investigate whether Meta's age-verification tools are stopping minors from accessing inappropriate content.

"We have concerns that Facebook and Instagram may stimulate behavioural addiction and that the methods of age verification that Meta has put in place on their services is not adequate," said competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

Meta could be fined up to 6% of its global annual turnover if found to have violated the EU's Digital Services Act, which regulates the protection of minors online.

The investigation comes as the company is confronted with growing legal pressure in the US over the potential impact of its platforms on young people.

A lawsuit filed by 33 states in California last October claimed that the company deliberately designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to teenagers.

Unredacted documents from that lawsuit later claimed Meta knew it had millions of underage users on its platforms, and that the company "routinely continued to collect" children's personal information.

The lawsuit also accused Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of ignoring calls from Meta executives to tackle child safety concerns on Instagram.

At the time, Meta said it was committed to providing "safe, positive experiences" for young people online, and had introduced over 30 tools to support teenagers and their families.

The company later told Business Insider that the complaint "mischaracterizes our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents."

Meta also faces a second European investigation into its handling of Russian disinformation.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment, made outside normal working hours.

• Russia's President Vladimir Putin is meeting China's Xi Jinping in Beijing. 
• The countries formed a "no limits" partnership in the wake of Russia's Ukraine invasion. 
• But there are risks as well as rewards for China. 

China's leader, Xi Jinping, rolled out the red carpet for his "old friend" Vladimir Putin on Thursday.

As he arrived at Beijing's People's Hall, the Russian president was greeted by children waving Russian flags, hundreds of soldiers, and an orchestra playing Soviet themes.

For his part, Putin lavished praise on China, whose support has been vital during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

But underneath the pageantry and rhetoric, Xi is under mounting pressure over his alliance with Putin — and he has good reason to be wary of their "no limits" partnership.

The US in early May imposed new sanctions on Chinese banks and companies, accusing them of trading vital duel-use components with Russia for making weapons for its military in Ukraine.

And while on a visit to Europe last week, where Xi sought to strengthen vital trade links, leaders called on the Chinese leader to place Putin under more pressure to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.

It appears China's media has toned down its rhetoric on Russia. According to the BBC, the term "no limits" partnership is now barely used.

Graeme Thompson, an analyst with the Eurasia Group, told Business Insider that from China's perspective, the "no limits" partnership, in fact, had a clear limit — the risk of major damage to China's wealth.

"The key limit to the 'no limits' partnership between Russia and China is that Beijing is unwilling to go so far in its support for Moscow that it would expose major Chinese firms to potential US sanctions," said Thompson, pointing out that China had not so far crossed US red lines and directly supplied Russia with weapons.

Russia, he said, needs China more than China needs Russia, relying on Beijing for crucial economic and diplomatic support as it faces increasing isolation on the global stage.

But China, Thompson said "is finding that its partnership with Russia can be a liability — especially in Europe, where Xi would love to wedge the Europeans away from the United States."

Despite the pressure, Xi also wants to show that he's not backing down, hence the lavish welcome for Putin in Beijing. The Chinese leader has long bonded with Putin over their shared ambition to end US global dominance and sees a Russian victory in Ukraine as a way of dealing a huge blow to America's power.

Joseph Torigian, an assistant professor at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, DC., told BI that Xi has pushed back against US claims it is helping to fuel the Ukraine war — arguing its trade with Russia is entirely legitimate and that it's America that's exacerbating the conflict.

"Meeting with Putin now is Xi's way of showing that China will not bend to Western pressure," said Torigian.

Ultimately, the Chinese leader is performing a balancing act, seeking to provide Russia with incremental but vital support in Ukraine, while not severing China's ties with wealthy Western economies that its major businesses depend on.

It's a balancing act that is proving more difficult to sustain, but in the long run, Xi may believe that his bet on Putin will pay off. The war in Ukraine may be turning in Russia's favor, and there are signs in the West of fatigue setting in over helping Ukraine's war effort.

"Beijing's partnership with Moscow might not seem as strategically counterproductive in retrospect as it has appeared since February 2022," according to Ali Wyne, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, citing the date of Russia's invasion.

• A former Facebook and Nike diversity manager was sentenced to five years in prison for wire fraud.
• Barbara Furlow-Smiles admitted to stealing over $5 million from the companies.
• Attorneys said she used fraudulent vendors, fake invoices, and cash kickbacks.

A former diversity program manager at Facebook and Nike was sentenced to five years and three months in prison after pleading guilty to stealing more than $5 million to fund her luxury lifestyle.

The sentence against Barbara Furlow-Smiles was announced on Monday by the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia.

"Furlow-Smiles shamelessly violated her position of trust as a DEI executive at Facebook to steal millions from the company utilizing a scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fake invoices, and cash kickbacks," US Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said.

Buchanan added: "After being terminated from Facebook, she brazenly continued the fraud as a DEI leader at Nike, where she stole another six-figure sum from their diversity program."

According to the attorney's office, Furlow-Smiles began her elaborate fraud while working as a diversity, equity, and inclusion executive at Facebook from 2017 to 2021.

In that role, she had access to the company's credit cards and the authority to make purchases and approve invoices for Facebook's vendors.

She used her position to pay friends, family, and other associates for items and services that were never given to Facebook, according to the statement, hiding the phony expenses by filing counterfeit expenditure reports.

Once these people received the money, they returned most of it to Furlow-Smiles in cash, either in person or sometimes by Federal Express or mail, the attorney's office said.

It added that the so-called vendors included Furlow-Smiles' friends, relatives, interns from a former job, nannies and babysitters, a hair stylist, and even her university tutor.

Furlow-Smiles also used the fraud to pay more than $18,000 in preschool tuition and close to $10,000 to an artist for specialty photos, it said.

After getting fired from Facebook, she continued the fraud in her next role as DEI leader at Nike, "thinking she was untouchable," Buchanan said in a press release.

Over six years, Furlow-Smiles used bogus charges and phony invoices to steal $4.9 million from Facebook and over $120,000 from Nike to fund a luxury lifestyle in California, Georgia, and Oregon, according to the attorney's office.

"As a result, she not only threw away a lucrative career, but will serve time behind bars for her excessive greed," Buchanan said.

Furlow-Smiles was also ordered to pay Facebook close to $5 million and Nike about $120,000 in restitution.

Facebook and Nike are not the only companies to have faced issues of wire fraud.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, and former Autonomy chief executive Mike Lynch have been sentenced or are facing charges of wire fraud.

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center said it received a record 880,000 complaints of online fraud in 2023, with possible losses of over $12.5 billion.

• An airport worker fell out of an Airbus A320 in Indonesia.
• A video of the incident shows staff breaking safety rules by removing the airstairs with the door open.
• The airline, TransNusa, has reportedly opened an investigation into the incident. 

A video shows the frightening moment an airport worker fell out of an Airbus A320.

The man is seen looking back at the plane, apparently talking to the crew on board, as other staff move the airstairs away from the plane, which sports the livery of Indonesian airline Transnusa.

He appeared to presume the stairs were still there. He stepped backward out of the open door and fell to the tarmac.

The video shows a clear lapse in following safety rules. Ground workers are not supposed to move the airstairs while a plane's door is still open.

Details of the incident are sparse.

Citing an unnamed source, Airlive.net reported that the worker wasn't seriously injured and received immediate treatment.

Newsflare reported that the incident occurred on Tuesday in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, and that the worker had just finished pre-flight checks. The flight departed 50 minutes late, it added.

TransNusa has started an investigation into the incident, per Newsflare.

The airstairs bear the logo of JAS Airport Services, a company that provides ground-handling services to airports and airlines in Indonesia.

TransNusa is a small regional airline first founded in 2005. It stopped operations in 2020 due to the pandemic but was relaunched in 2022.

TransNusa and JAS Airport Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Call center workers might not have to deal with angry customers for too much longer.
• SoftBank plans on using AI to make angry calls sound less aggressive.
• The Japanese firm is seeking to turn a customer's voice "into a calm conversational tone" with AI.

Complaints to call center workers are about to sound a lot less angry, and they have artificial intelligence to thank.

SoftBank Corp, the telecoms arm of the Japanese conglomerate led by billionaire Masayoshi Son, is apparently preparing to test AI software that softens the tone of furious callers in a bid to reduce the stress faced by customer service workers.

The company, one of Japan's largest telecoms operators, said it's seeking to test the technology both internally and externally with a view to commercialization in 2026, per comments first reported by Reuters.

"We are working on the development of a solution that can convert the customer's voice into a calm conversational tone and deliver it to our workers using AI-enabled emotion recognition and voice processing technology," SoftBank said.

"With this solution, we aim to maintain good relationships with customers through sound communication while ensuring the psychological welfare of our workers."

The developments are likely to be welcomed news for call center workers. Since the release of ChatGPT, there has been rising fears a that AI could displace customer service jobs.

Those fears have escalated following the unveiling this week of OpenAI's new model, GPT-4o. Thanks to its voice feature and ability to "reason across audio, vision, and text in real time," GPT-4o offers more humanlike interactions with users.

But the prospect that AI could turn a shouty rant into a more serene interaction will reinforce the belief of those who believe AI is more likely to improve the lot of workers, rather than steal their jobs.

SoftBank, which is making a fresh effort to invest in AI initiatives, says on its website that it sees AI as a path to a "happier future for all."

Call center workers will feel happier if they're no longer on the wrong end of a rant.

• Microsoft is offering relocation to hundreds of China-based employees.
• The offer has been made to machine learning and cloud workers, The Wall Street Journal reported.
• The report comes amid escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing over a range of issues.

Microsoft is reportedly asking up to 800 China-based employees if they'd consider leaving the country as tensions between the US and China grow.

The company is offering workers involved in machine learning or cloud work transfers to countries like the US, Ireland, and Australia, sources told The Wall Street Journal.

Representatives for Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

A spokesperson told the Journal that internal opportunities were a normal part of business, and Microsoft remained committed to its operations in China.

The report comes amid escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing over issues including AI chips. The Biden administration is considering new rules that would require US tech companies to have licenses before handing over access to AI chips to Chinese customers, per the Journal.

There have been concerns harsher rules could escalate a fight with Beijing over the vital chips.

Chinese officials have also been asking domestic tech giants to buy locally-made AI chips instead of Nvidia's, The Information reported this week.

Major tech companies like Alibaba, Baidu, TikTok parent company ByteDance, and Tencent were told to cut spending on foreign-made chips like Nvidia's, the outlet reported, citing unnamed sources.

The move is a blow for Nvidia, which sees China as a critical market and key revenue generator.

Other tech companies have also been caught up in geopolitical tensions.

Apple has been having a rough ride in the key Chinese market, with iPhone sales taking a beating from local suppliers. The iPhone maker also appears to be working to diversify its supply chains away from China.

Beijing has been cracking down on officials' use of iPhones. Chinese officials across at least eight provinces had been told to stop using Apple devices, Bloomberg previously reported. 

• Neuralink's brain-chip implant malfunctioned in its first human patient weeks after it was inserted.
• Wires retracted from the patient's brain, which impacted its effectiveness, but it was later fixed. 
• Reuters reported the company knew of the risks that wires could retract from the brain years before.

Neuralink was aware of the risks of its brain-chip implant malfunctioning in its first human patient years before it was inserted, Reuters reported.

Noland Arbaugh received the implant in January, but things didn't go to plan. Weeks after the procedure, some of the device's wires pulled away from his brain, the company said last week.

A Reuters report, which cites five unnamed sources, said Neuralink knew the wires could retract from its device after it carried out tests on animals. Neuralink decided the device didn't need to be reconfigured as it believed the risk of the wires retracting was low, the report said.

Elon Musk's company carried out experiments on animals, including monkeys, before it got approval last May from the US Food and Drug Administration to conduct human trials. It's starting by testing the implant, called "The Link," on people with paralysis to enable them to control devices using their thoughts.

The Link has more than 1,000 electrodes and at least 64 wires or "threads," each thinner than a strand of human hair, some of which pulled out of position.

That caused the impact to be less effective, which resulted in a weaker control of Arbaugh's ability to move a cursor around a computer screen, Neuralink said last week.

The neurotech firm even considered removing the implant from Arbaugh altogether, The Wall Street Journal reported, but Neuralink later made adjustments that improved its functionality, the blog said.

Arbaugh was paralyzed below the shoulders after a diving accident in 2016, and since receiving the implant he's been able to control his laptop while lying in bed, browse the web, and play computer games.

In the blog post last week, he said, "[The Link] has helped me reconnect with the world, my friends, and my family. It's given me the ability to do things on my own again without needing my family at all hours of the day and night."

The company also plans to implant 10 of its devices in other human patients by the end of this year, the Journal reported.

Neuralink didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment, made outside typical working hours.

Do you work at Neuralink? Got a tip? Contact the reporter at jmann@businessinsider.com or reach out on Signal @jyotimann.11

• Australia's richest woman has demanded an unflattering painting of her be taken down.
• The portrait, by Vincent Namatjira, shows mining magnate Gina Rinehart with a double chin.
• The National Gallery of Australia and Namatjira have both rejected Rinehart's request.

Australia's richest woman wants a portrait of her taken down from the country's national gallery, outlets including the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Both mining magnate Gina Rinehart and associates at her company, Hancock Prospecting, have made multiple approaches to the gallery with the demand, the newspaper reported.

The painting is by Vincent Namatjira, a First Nations artist who, according to the National Gallery of Australia has "established himself in the past decade as a celebrated portraitist and a satirical chronicler of Australian identity."

The portrait of Rinehart is part of a career-survey exhibition titled "Vincent Namatjira: Australia in colour."

It is one of 20 other paintings depicting Rinehart alongside Australian and international figures including Queen Elizabeth II, Jimi Hendrix, and the artist himself. All are painted in Namatjira's distinctive distorted style.

Rinehart, who is worth more than $22 billion and is in 84th place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is depicted in shades of mottled pink with a double chin.

She reportedly approached the gallery director personally to ask for the portrait to be removed. According to the Herald, Hancock Prospecting has said the gallery is "doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party" by showing her in an unflattering light.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The gallery "welcomes the public having a dialog" about its displays, it said in a statement shared with Business Insider.

The gallery also shared a statement from the artist, who said that he emphasizes painting wealthy and powerful people who have influenced Australia "whether for bad or for good."

"People don't have to like my paintings, but I hope they take the time to look and think, 'why has this Aboriginal bloke painted these powerful people?'" Namatjira wrote. "'What is he trying to say?'"

"Some people might not like it, other people might find it funny, but I hope people look beneath the surface and see the serious side too."

The episode illustrates a rare exception to billionaires' power and influence — this time in the name of artistic freedom. In the meantime, the flurry of attention has arguably brought more viewers to Rinehart's portrait than ever anticipated — a classic example of the "Streisand effect."

Rinehart made her fortune turning around her father's ailing mining company. She is politically outspoken, advocating for lower taxes and looser regulation and last year showed up at former President Donald Trump's presidential campaign launch.

Rinehart is listed on the National Gallery of Australia's "friends" list as having contributed between $4,999 and $9,999 Australian dollars, or a minimum of about $3,300.

Multiple elite swimmers, who are sponsored by Rinehart, have also called for the painting to be taken down, per the Herald.

The exhibition closes on July 21 in Canberra.

• Biden raised tariffs on China's green tech, but spared graphite for two years.
• China dominates global graphite supply, which is vital for EV batteries.
• Sila CEO said the delay harms investment in the US battery supply chain.

President Joe Biden this week hiked tariffs on China's massive green-tech sector, which includes electric vehicles, batteries, solar cells, and certain critical minerals, touting them as a way to protect American workers.

But Gene Berdichevsky saw a gaping hole. The White House decided to delay by two years tariffs on graphite, a key metal in EV lithium-ion batteries that helps them store energy. China mines and processes the vast majority of the world's supply, according to federal US data.

"If our policy is that China is not playing on a level playing field, so we're going to use tools to level them, then we should do it in a way that actually has the outcome we want — which is to develop domestic battery supply chains," Berdichevsky said Tuesday during dinner with reporters in Washington, DC.

Berdichevsky is the CEO of Sila, a next-generation battery materials startup that uses silicon instead of graphite. The company's technology makes lithium-ion batteries lighter than what's on the market today, and the firm says it helps store 20% more energy, or up to 100 extra miles for some EVs. Berdichevsky, an early employee at Tesla, said he saw a future where EVs could recharge in 10 minutes, which would rival a stop at the gas station.

Sila opened a factory last year in Moses Lake, Washington, with help from a $100 million grant from the US Department of Energy. The company aims to make enough battery materials to power 200,000 EVs by 2026, and Mercedes-Benz is already a customer.

Manufacturing a new technology in the US is challenging for a number of reasons. In Sila's case, it needs to scale big enough to meet the demand of large automakers, Berdichevsky said. That requires billions of dollars, but it's hard to raise funds between the venture-capital and private-equity stages — a gap he described as the "missing middle." In addition, the US is slow to transform its infrastructure, including power grids and EV charging, which would drive demand for homegrown green tech. Meanwhile, there's the risk that another company copies the technology and tries to compete.

Now, the White House is sending a disappointing signal to Sila's investors by exempting Chinese graphite from tariffs and other policies designed to shift automakers away from sourcing batteries and critical minerals from China, Berdichevsky said.

He added that if the White House slapped tariffs on graphite, "the market would react and go, 'Oh, there's this new technology that can replace graphite that's made in the US — let me go and invest in that.'"

New trade barriers would make EVs sold in the US more expensive, Berdichevsky added. But it would send a strong signal "to get the hell out of Chinese graphite right now, not two years from now or longer."

The White House didn't return a request for comment. But a senior Biden administration official said during a call with reporters that some tariffs would kick in in 2026 to allow battery supply chains to transition. Domestic production is beginning to come online but not quickly enough to minimize market disruption.

An analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund found that enough US battery production had been announced to supply all the EVs expected to be sold in 2030. However, those batteries can still source graphite from China until at least 2027 under the Biden administration's policy.

Beyond graphite, other tariffs that Biden slapped on China's green tech are mostly symbolic. Existing tariffs already keep Chinese EVs out of the US market, while cheap solar panels are mainly arriving from Southeast Asia to circumvent trade barriers. But steeper taxes on batteries this year could affect US automakers such as Ford and Tesla, which import from China.

• Disneyland performers in California say they have to deal with painful costumes and low pay.
• The claims surfaced in a video by More Perfect Union as part of a unionization push.
• California performers are voting to join the Actors' Equity Association.

Performers at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, say they are made to wear painful costumes, receive inadequate pay, and face challenges with inflexible management.

Three workers made these claims in a video published on the labor movement platform More Perfect Union as part of a campaign by park employees to unionize.

In February, cast members announced their intent to unionize with the Actors' Equity Association, also known as Equity, to form a group called Magic United.

While Walt Disney World performers in Florida have long enjoyed union representation, their counterparts in California, particularly those within the Characters and Parades departments, are now voting on whether to follow suit.

In the video shared on Wednesday, three performers detailed their grievances about working for Disneyland.

Mai Vao, a character performer and a California Adventure host, described how she has to go through "three hours of hair and makeup, wearing prosthetics," four days a week, for her job.

She said she regularly had to wear 18mm sclera and black contact lenses, which she claimed "created a gray stain around my iris."

Courtney Griffith, a parade performer, said in the video that she sustained an injury from wearing her costume — a dress with a giant cape that pulled backward on her shoulders.

Her injury, she said, was "the type of pain where you instantly start crying."

Griffith said that most of her colleagues have a permanent injury: "The magic starts to fade away, and you're just left with not being able to pay my rent, permanent injuries, and management who doesn't value or respect you."

Adam Hefner, a superhero performer and safety leader for seven years, said in the video that there "isn't any incentive, financially, to put your body at risk.'"

He said that often performers work hard "while living in your car because you can't pay rent."

For others, Hefner said they face drives home of up to two hours to "be able to live with three roommates, and then turn around eight hours after and head back because you've been scheduled for a shift."

Griffith also complained about shifts and management's inflexible attendance policy. She said she has to work six days a week for six weeks straight to earn one day off.

Griffith claimed that performers with school or other jobs in the morning are sometimes told to leave their other commitments early to attend rehearsals that start prior to their scheduled shift times.

Vao said in the video that it's hard to do a good job when they feel underappreciated: "It's really, really hard to make magic for guests when you're deeply unhappy inside."

Disneyland Resorts did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Results on unionization are expected to be announced on Saturday.