Zack Polanski falsely claimed to be British Red Cross spokesperson, charity says
Zack Polanski falsely claimed to be a spokesperson for the British Red Cross while campaigning for the Green party leadership, the charity has said.The claim was also mentioned on his personal website in 2020, where he said he was “really proud of the work we do”.The British Red Cross told the Times that Polanski “has not been a spokesperson” for the charity, and said it had raised the issue with the Greens.Polanski posted several examples on X of him hosting fundraisers for the organisation.“I’ve always admired the work of the British Red Cross.
From their work to support refugees to their work supporting people in Gaza and conflict zones around the world,” he wrote,A Green party spokesperson did not address the claims directly, but said the Times should apologise for what they described as an antisemitic cartoon of Polanski in the newspaper over the weekend, with an exaggerated large nose,“Instead of apologising, the same paper that published an incredibly offensive antisemitic cartoon of Zack Polanski is devoting column inches to bottom of the barrel stories,” they added,The Times story also alleged Polanski was not a full member of the National Council of Hypnotherapy, despite claiming to be one,Polanski’s time as a hypnotherapist has been under the spotlight after he was featured in a 2013 Sun article, before he entered politics, offering hypnosis intended to increase a woman’s breast size.
He has repeatedly apologised for the episode, but said it was not a service he routinely offered, and he had only agreed to what the Sun journalist had asked for,The BBC later uncovered an interview that Polanski did six days after the Sun piece, where he talks about “a successful project” with the journalist in changing the size of her breasts, indicating that he had tried the technique with other people,The Green party is hoping to make significant gains on Thursday, especially in London with disillusioned Labour voters who have been drawn to Polanski’s leadership,But the campaign has seen the party drawn into several controversies, including antisemitic comments made by several candidates,Two Green candidates for Lambeth council in south London, Sabine Mairey and Saiqa Ali, were arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred online.
On Tuesday, former Green leader Caroline Lucas urged the party to take immediate action against candidates who have made antisemitic comments or posts,“Statements that have now come to light from a handful of @TheGreenParty candidates are totally unacceptable & require immediate action,” she wrote on X,“There’s no place for antisemitism or any hate speech in the party,This is a society-wide problem and needs to be rooted out wherever it’s found,”A Labour spokesperson said Polanski should “come clean with the public”, adding: “After previously fibbing about his weird hypnotic past, Zack Polanski has been caught in the act again.
”“It’s not the first time the Green party leader hasn’t been straight with the public,He refuses to say if his council candidates have been suspended for vile antisemitism after claiming to have acted,Now there are serious questions about the work and qualifications he has boasted about,This is a matter of trust,”
GameStop shares fall 10% after CEO skirts questions over eBay acquisition details
GameStop’s shares fell more than 10% on Monday as questions emerged about how the company would finance its surprise $55.5bn bid for eBay.In an interview with CNBC, Ryan Cohen, GameStop’s CEO, skirted repeated inquiries about how the video games retailer could afford the deal, saying he didn’t understand the questions.A letter published on GameStop’s website outlines a half-cash, half-stock proposal to acquire eBay at $125 a share, using about $9.4bn in “cash on hand”, and a $20bn in potential debt financing from TD Securities
AI platforms reference Nigel Farage more than other leaders when prompted on UK politics, study shows
AI platforms are more likely to reference Nigel Farage than any other UK leader when prompted about British politics, according to an AI search analytics firm.“We are confident in saying that Reform are showing up significantly more than you would expect,” said Malte Landwehr, an expert at Peec AI, the firm that did the research. “So they’re doing something right when it comes to LLM [large language model] visibility.”Peec’s research tested leading AI models – including ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overview – on their responses to 5,000 different structured prompts related to British politics, including the economy and jobs, immigration, healthcare and crime. These prompts were run repeatedly over the course of several weeks, generating over 280,000 data points
Vine video-sharing app is back – and battling AI slop
As a pioneer of the short-form video format, Vine has been credited as one of the most influential – if short-lived – social media platforms.The app, which allowed users to record a looping six seconds of video, boomed in popularity after its launch in 2013, spawning a plethora of viral comedy sketches and internet memes. It hit 100 million monthly active users at its peak and helped launch the careers of influencers such as Logan Paul.It was snapped up by Twitter – now X – soon after its creation, but closed in 2017 after the platform failed to make the sums add up.Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder, is now backing an attempt to bring back a revamped version of the much-loved platform with a new philosophy: to be the short-form video app offering “freedom from AI slop”
GameStop makes $55.5bn takeover offer for eBay
US video games retailer GameStop has offered to buy eBay for $55.5bn (£41bn) in an unsolicited bid that its boss warned could turn hostile if the proposal is rebuffed by eBay’s board.GameStop, which has quietly accumulated a 5% stake in eBay, said it was willing to pay $125 a share, split 50-50 between cash and stock.It is an ambitious move by the games company, which catapulted to fame during the meme-stock craze of 2021 but is worth far less than its takeover target. GameStop had a market valuation of roughly $12bn on Friday before its bid, while eBay – originally launched as a side hobby by its founder Pierre Omidyar in 1995 – is worth about $46bn
AI facial recognition oversight lagging far behind technology, watchdogs warn
Britain’s biometrics watchdogs have warned that national oversight of AI-powered face scanning to catch criminals is lagging far behind the technology’s rapid growth.With the Metropolitan police almost doubling the number of faces they scan in London over the past 12 months and a rising use of the technology by retailers in the UK, Prof William Webster, the biometrics commissioner for England and Wales, said the “slow pace of legislation was trying to catch up with the real world” and “the cart had gone before the horse”.Dr Brian Plastow, who holds the same role in Scotland, warned the technology was “nowhere near as effective as the police claim it is” and said there was a “patchwork legal framework” throughout the UK. He said in England and Wales, police were “really just marking their own homework”.The watchdogs said new laws were needed to govern when and how police forces used live facial recognition technology, with a new regulator to clamp down on misuse
Guilty until proven innocent: shoppers falsely identified by facial recognition system struggle to clear their names
When Ian Clayton, a retired health and safety professional from Chester, popped into Home Bargains one February lunchtime, he was suddenly approached by a stern-looking member of staff.“Excuse me, can you please put everything down and leave the shop now?” she said. Clayton recalled how he was stunned, and it was only as he was briskly walked past the tills towards the exit that he stopped to ask what he had done.“You’ve come up on our system called Facewatch as a shoplifter,” came the reply. “There’s a poster in the window
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