Daily Archives: October 24, 2021

Published Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021 | 11:26 p.m.

Updated Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021 | 11:28 p.m.

LONDON (AP) The term metaverse" seems to be everywhere. Facebook is hiring thousands of engineers in Europe to work on it, while video game companies are outlining their long-term visions for what some consider the next big thing online.

The metaverse, which could spring up again when Facebook releases earnings Monday, is the latest buzzword to capture the tech industry's imagination.

It could be the future, or it could be the latest grandiose vision by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that doesn't turn out as expected or isn't widely adopted for years if at all.

Plus, many have concerns about a new online world tied to a social media giant that could get access to even more personal data and is accused of failing to stop harmful content.

Here's what this online world is all about:

WHAT IS THE METAVERSE?

Think of it as the internet brought to life, or at least rendered in 3D. Zuckerberg has described it as a virtual environment you can go inside of instead of just looking at on a screen. Essentially, it's a world of endless, interconnected virtual communities where people can meet, work and play, using virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphone apps or other devices.

It also will incorporate other aspects of online life such as shopping and social media, according to Victoria Petrock, an analyst who follows emerging technologies.

Its the next evolution of connectivity where all of those things start to come together in a seamless, doppelganger universe, so youre living your virtual life the same way youre living your physical life, she said.

But keep in mind that its hard to define a label to something that hasnt been created," said Tuong Nguyen, an analyst who tracks immersive technologies for research firm Gartner.

Facebook warned it would take 10 to 15 years to develop responsible products for the metaverse, a term coined by writer Neal Stephenson for his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash.

WHAT WILL I BE ABLE TO DO IN THE METAVERSE?

Things like go to a virtual concert, take a trip online, and buy and try on digital clothing.

The metaverse also could be a game-changer for the work-from-home shift amid the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of seeing co-workers on a video call grid, employees could see them virtually.

Facebook has launched meeting software for companies, called Horizon Workrooms, to use with its Oculus VR headsets, though early reviews have not been great. The headsets cost $300 or more, putting the metaverse's most cutting-edge experiences out of reach for many.

For those who can afford it, users would be able, through their avatars, to flit between virtual worlds created by different companies.

A lot of the metaverse experience is going to be around being able to teleport from one experience to another, Zuckerberg says.

Tech companies still have to figure out how to connect their online platforms to each other. Making it work will require competing technology platforms to agree on a set of standards, so there aren't people in the Facebook metaverse and other people in the Microsoft metaverse, Petrock said.

IS FACEBOOK GOING ALL IN ON THE METAVERSE?

Indeed, Zuckerberg is going big on what he sees as the next generation of the internet because he thinks it's going to be a big part of the digital economy. He expects people to start seeing Facebook as a metaverse company in coming years rather than a social media company.

A report by tech news site The Verge said Zuckerberg is looking at using Facebooks annual virtual reality conference this coming week to announce a corporate name change, putting legacy apps like Facebook and Instagram under a metaverse-focused parent company. Facebook hasnt commented on the report.

Critics wonder if the potential pivot could be an effort to distract from the company's crises, including antitrust crackdowns, testimony by whistleblowing former employees and concerns about its handling of misinformation.

Former employee Frances Haugen, who accused Facebook's platforms of harming children and inciting political violence, plans to testify Monday before a United Kingdom parliamentary committee looking to pass online safety legislation.

IS THE METAVERSE JUST A FACEBOOK PROJECT?

No. Zuckerberg has acknowledged that no one company will build the metaverse by itself.

Just because Facebook is making a big deal about the metaverse doesnt mean that it or another tech giant will dominate the space, Nguyen said.

There are also a lot of startups that could be potential competitors, he said. There are new technologies and trends and applications that weve yet to discover.

Video game companies also are taking a leading role. Epic Games, the company behind the popular Fortnite video game, has raised $1 billion from investors to help with its long-term plans for building the metaverse. Game platform Roblox is another big player, outlining its vision of the metaverse as a place where people can come together within millions of 3D experiences to learn, work, play, create and socialize.

Consumer brands are getting in on it, too. Italian fashion house Gucci collaborated in June with Roblox to sell a collection of digital-only accessories. Coca-Cola and Clinique have sold digital tokens pitched as a stepping stone to the metaverse.

Zuckerbergs embrace of the metaverse in some ways contradicts a central tenet of its biggest enthusiasts. They envision the metaverse as online culture's liberation from tech platforms like Facebook that assumed ownership of people's accounts, photos, posts and playlists and traded off what they gleaned from that data.

We want to be able to move around the internet with ease, but we also want to be able to move around the internet in a way were not tracked and monitored, said venture capitalist Steve Jang, a managing partner at Kindred Ventures who focuses on cryptocurrency technology.

WILL THIS BE ANOTHER WAY TO GET MORE OF MY DATA?

It seems clear that Facebook wants to carry its business model, which is based on using personal data to sell targeted advertising, into the metaverse.

Ads are going to continue being an important part of the strategy across the social media parts of what we do, and it will probably be a meaningful part of the metaverse, too," Zuckerberg said in the company's most recent earnings call.

That raises fresh privacy concerns, Nguyen said, involving all the issues that we have today, and then some weve yet to discover because were still figuring out what the metaverse will do.

Petrock she said shes concerned about Facebook trying to lead the way into a virtual world that could require even more personal data and offer greater potential for abuse and misinformation when it hasnt fixed those problems in its current platforms.

I dont think they fully thought through all the pitfalls, she said. I worry theyre not necessarily thinking through all the privacy implications of the metaverse.

___

OBrien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

___

See AP's complete technology coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/technology

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EXPLAINER: What the metaverse is and how it will work - Las Vegas Sun

Published Sunday, Oct. 24, 2021 | 4:21 a.m.

Updated 2 hours, 57 minutes ago

NEW DELHI, India (AP) Facebook in India has been selective in curbing hate speech, misinformation and inflammatory posts, particularly anti-Muslim content, according to leaked documents obtained by The Associated Press, even as its own employees cast doubt over the companys motivations and interests.

From research as recent as March of this year to company memos that date back to 2019, the internal company documents on India highlight Facebooks constant struggles in quashing abusive content on its platforms in the worlds biggest democracy and the companys largest growth market. Communal and religious tensions in India have a history of boiling over on social media and stoking violence.

The files show that Facebook has been aware of the problems for years, raising questions over whether it has done enough to address these issues. Many critics and digital experts say it has failed to do so, especially in cases where members of Prime Minister Narendra Modis ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the BJP, are involved.

Across the world, Facebook has become increasingly important in politics, and India is no different.

Modi has been credited for leveraging the platform to his party's advantage during elections, and reporting from The Wall Street Journal last year cast doubt over whether Facebook was selectively enforcing its policies on hate speech to avoid blowback from the BJP. Both Modi and Facebook chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg have exuded bonhomie, memorialized by a 2015 image of the two hugging at the Facebook headquarters.

The leaked documents include a trove of internal company reports on hate speech and misinformation in India. In some cases, much of it was intensified by its own recommended feature and algorithms. But they also include the company staffers' concerns over the mishandling of these issues and their discontent expressed about the viral malcontent on the platform.

According to the documents, Facebook saw India as one of the most at risk countries in the world and identified both Hindi and Bengali languages as priorities for automation on violating hostile speech. Yet, Facebook didnt have enough local language moderators or content-flagging in place to stop misinformation that at times led to real-world violence.

In a statement to the AP, Facebook said it has invested significantly in technology to find hate speech in various languages, including Hindi and Bengali which has resulted in reduced amount of hate speech that people see by half in 2021.

"Hate speech against marginalized groups, including Muslims, is on the rise globally. So we are improving enforcement and are committed to updating our policies as hate speech evolves online, a company spokesperson said.

This AP story, along with others being published, is based on disclosures made to the Securities and Exchange Commission and provided to Congress in redacted form by former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugens legal counsel. The redacted versions were obtained by a consortium of news organizations, including the AP.

Back in February 2019 and ahead of a general election when concerns of misinformation were running high, a Facebook employee wanted to understand what a new user in the country saw on their news feed if all they did was follow pages and groups solely recommended by the platform itself.

The employee created a test user account and kept it live for three weeks, a period during which an extraordinary event shook India a militant attack in disputed Kashmir had killed over 40 Indian soldiers, bringing the country to near war with rival Pakistan.

In the note, titled An Indian Test Users Descent into a Sea of Polarizing, Nationalistic Messages, the employee whose name is redacted said they were shocked by the content flooding the news feed which has become a near constant barrage of polarizing nationalist content, misinformation, and violence and gore.

Seemingly benign and innocuous groups recommended by Facebook quickly morphed into something else altogether, where hate speech, unverified rumors and viral content ran rampant.

The recommended groups were inundated with fake news, anti-Pakistan rhetoric and Islamophobic content. Much of the content was extremely graphic.

One included a man holding the bloodied head of another man covered in a Pakistani flag, with an Indian flag in the place of his head. Its Popular Across Facebook feature showed a slew of unverified content related to the retaliatory Indian strikes into Pakistan after the bombings, including an image of a napalm bomb from a video game clip debunked by one of Facebooks fact-check partners.

Following this test users News Feed, Ive seen more images of dead people in the past three weeks than Ive seen in my entire life total, the researcher wrote.

It sparked deep concerns over what such divisive content could lead to in the real world, where local news at the time were reporting on Kashmiris being attacked in the fallout.

Should we as a company have an extra responsibility for preventing integrity harms that result from recommended content? the researcher asked in their conclusion.

The memo, circulated with other employees, did not answer that question. But it did expose how the platforms own algorithms or default settings played a part in spurring such malcontent. The employee noted that there were clear blind spots, particularly in local language content. They said they hoped these findings would start conversations on how to avoid such integrity harms, especially for those who differ significantly from the typical U.S. user.

Even though the research was conducted during three weeks that werent an average representation, they acknowledged that it did show how such unmoderated and problematic content could totally take over during a major crisis event.

The Facebook spokesperson said the test study inspired deeper, more rigorous analysis of its recommendation systems and contributed to product changes to improve them."

Separately, our work on curbing hate speech continues and we have further strengthened our hate classifiers, to include four Indian languages, the spokesperson said.

Other research files on misinformation in India highlight just how massive a problem it is for the platform.

In January 2019, a month before the test user experiment, another assessment raised similar alarms about misleading content. In a presentation circulated to employees, the findings concluded that Facebooks misinformation tags werent clear enough for users, underscoring that it needed to do more to stem hate speech and fake news. Users told researchers that clearly labeling information would make their lives easier.

Again, it was noted that the platform didnt have enough local language fact-checkers, which meant a lot of content went unverified.

Alongside misinformation, the leaked documents reveal another problem plaguing Facebook in India: anti-Muslim propaganda, especially by Hindu-hardline groups.

India is Facebooks largest market with over 340 million users nearly 400 million Indians also use the companys messaging service WhatsApp. But both have been accused of being vehicles to spread hate speech and fake news against minorities.

In February 2020, these tensions came to life on Facebook when a politician from Modis party uploaded a video on the platform in which he called on his supporters to remove mostly Muslim protesters from a road in New Delhi if the police didnt. Violent riots erupted within hours, killing 53 people. Most of them were Muslims. Only after thousands of views and shares did Facebook remove the video.

In April, misinformation targeting Muslims again went viral on its platform as the hashtag Coronajihad flooded news feeds, blaming the community for a surge in COVID-19 cases. The hashtag was popular on Facebook for days but was later removed by the company.

For Mohammad Abbas, a 54-year-old Muslim preacher in New Delhi, those messages were alarming.

Some video clips and posts purportedly showed Muslims spitting on authorities and hospital staff. They were quickly proven to be fake, but by then Indias communal fault lines, still stressed by deadly riots a month earlier, were again split wide open.

The misinformation triggered a wave of violence, business boycotts and hate speech toward Muslims. Thousands from the community, including Abbas, were confined to institutional quarantine for weeks across the country. Some were even sent to jails, only to be later exonerated by courts.

People shared fake videos on Facebook claiming Muslims spread the virus. What started as lies on Facebook became truth for millions of people, Abbas said.

Criticisms of Facebooks handling of such content were amplified in August of last year when The Wall Street Journal published a series of stories detailing how the company had internally debated whether to classify a Hindu hard-line lawmaker close to Modis party as a dangerous individual" a classification that would ban him from the platform after a series of anti-Muslim posts from his account.

The documents reveal the leadership dithered on the decision, prompting concerns by some employees, of whom one wrote that Facebook was only designating non-Hindu extremist organizations as dangerous.

The documents also show how the companys South Asia policy head herself had shared what many felt were Islamophobic posts on her personal Facebook profile. At the time, she had also argued that classifying the politician as dangerous would hurt Facebooks prospects in India.

The author of a December 2020 internal document on the influence of powerful political actors on Facebook policy decisions notes that Facebook routinely makes exceptions for powerful actors when enforcing content policy. The document also cites a former Facebook chief security officer saying that outside of the U.S., local policy heads are generally pulled from the ruling political party and are rarely drawn from disadvantaged ethnic groups, religious creeds or casts" which "naturally bends decision-making towards the powerful.

Months later the India official quit Facebook. The company also removed the politician from the platform, but documents show many company employees felt the platform had mishandled the situation, accusing it of selective bias to avoid being in the crosshairs of the Indian government.

Several Muslim colleagues have been deeply disturbed/hurt by some of the language used in posts from the Indian policy leadership on their personal FB profile, an employee wrote.

Another wrote that barbarism" was being allowed to flourish on our network.

Its a problem that has continued for Facebook, according to the leaked files.

As recently as March this year, the company was internally debating whether it could control the fear mongering, anti-Muslim narratives pushed by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a far-right Hindu nationalist group which Modi is also a part of, on its platform.

In one document titled Lotus Mahal, the company noted that members with links to the BJP had created multiple Facebook accounts to amplify anti-Muslim content, ranging from calls to oust Muslim populations from India and Love Jihad, an unproven conspiracy theory by Hindu hard-liners who accuse Muslim men of using interfaith marriages to coerce Hindu women to change their religion.

The research found that much of this content was never flagged or actioned since Facebook lacked classifiers and moderators in Hindi and Bengali languages. Facebook said it added hate speech classifiers in Hindi starting in 2018 and introduced Bengali in 2020.

The employees also wrote that Facebook hadnt yet put forth a nomination for designation of this group given political sensitivities.

The company said its designations process includes a review of each case by relevant teams across the company and are agnostic to region, ideology or religion and focus instead on indicators of violence and hate. It did not, however, reveal whether the Hindu nationalist group had since been designated as dangerous.

___

Associated Press writer Sam McNeil in Beijing contributed to this report.

___

See full coverage of the Facebook Papers here: https://apnews.com/hub/the-facebook-papers

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Facebook dithered in curbing divisive user content in India - Las Vegas Sun

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Catalytic converter theft investigation leads to murder suspect arrest in Las Vegas - FOX5 Las Vegas

Even before live entertainment with limited audience sizes began returning to the Las Vegas Strip last year, we at Las Vegas Weekly were among those speculating about the potential for livestreaming shows from Vegas during the pandemic. We wrote about it. But for a variety of reasonsmostly related to moneyit didnt happen in a big way.

Adam Lambert, always known for doing things in a big way, is going to give it a shot. The powerhouse vocalist known for a breakthrough run on American Idol and as the current singer of Queen continues his headlining engagement at Venetian this week, and hell broadcast his October 29 concert live via Looped. Tickets for the stream are available at adamlambert.net.

Its the first time an artist has offered a ticketed livestream for concertgoers at any venue at Venetian or Palazzo, and its likely one of the first such endeavors on the Las Vegas Strip.

I feel very lucky to have fans who travel internationally and like to come to my shows, and Vegas is an amazing place to be performing from in that regard, Lambert, who played a series of shows with Queen at Park MGM in 2018, tells the Weekly. A lot of them cant get into the country right now, and a lot of others just dont feel comfortable traveling in our country. It just seemed like a great thing to do to give more fans some of this experience.

The pandemic postponed the Vegas dates Lambert had on the books last year, which were to be part of some big tour plans behind fourth studio album Velvet, released in March 2020. The timing was disappointing, because I put so much energy into it and Im so proud of that album and I really wanted to share it, he says. But after that feeling wore off, it was, OK, lets get back on the horse and figure out a way to stay creative.

That positivity sparked a lot of writing and collaboratingand eventually the creation of a musical Lambert is keeping under wraps but which is expected to evolve into a concept album. Even without more info, we wouldnt mind seeing a stage version come to Vegas.

I dont know where its going to go yet, he says. I love performing and I love writing, and artists shouldnt limit ourselves to one type of thing. I love exploring new avenues and journeys, and for me, this one is very exciting. Its something Ive always thought about.

Lambert also isnt finished singing with Queen. This version of the iconic British band was set for a residency at Londons O2 Arena to kick off a European tour last year, plans that have been pushed to 2022. Hes in touch with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor and says, Were all itching to get back on the road together. [Queen] is like a battery, a life force when were doing it, and I miss it.

ADAM LAMBERTOctober 22-23, 27, 29-30, 8 p.m., $71-$172. Venetian Theatre, 702-414-9000.

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Live From Las Vegas: Adam Lambert is back and broadcasting from Venetian - Las Vegas Weekly

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Las Vegas police say thousands of catalytic converter thefts go unreported - FOX5 Las Vegas

Sometimes, it takes players a hot minute to get adjusted to the NFL.

In the case of Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Henry Ruggs III, his rookie season was all that was needed to settle into the NFL.

The numbers speak for themselves.

Last season, he received a total of 452 yards on the season. He had two touchdowns. Keep in mind these are season stats, not just shy of halfway through the season.

This year, hes pretty much about to match his numbers from his rookie campaign.

Entering Week 7, Ruggs has 445 receiving yards. He is 16th in the league in receiving yards. Meanwhile, Ruggs already has two touchdowns this season. He is six catches away from tying his rookie catch numbers.

Again, there is over half a season still left to play.

Clearly, Ruggs has proved his value to the Silver and Black and just needed a season to get settled in.

The Silver and Black trusted in him and he has delivered.

Ruggs now needs to work on his consistency and continue to stay consistent throughout his career.

Keep an eye on him today as the Raiders host the Philadelphia Eagles.

Want the latest breaking Las Vegas Raiders news delivered straight to you? CLICK THE FOLLOW button at the top of the page. Don't miss any of the latest up to the second updates for your Las Vegas Raiders when you follow onTwitter @HondoCarpenter,@HikaruKudo1@BaydounDarin

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Raiders Wide Receiver Henry Ruggs III Proving His Worth - Sports Illustrated