TikTok breached EU advertising transparency laws, commission says

The European Commission has said TikTok is in breach of EU digital laws that require transparency over who pays for advertising.The commission reached a preliminary verdict on the Chinese-owned short video platform’s advertising policy, having launched an investigation in February 2024. The company could face a fine of 6% of global annual turnover, if the commission upholds this view.The commission said a separate EU inquiry into TikTok’s suspected failure to guarantee election integrity in Romania, which was launched last December, was ongoing and was a priority.The commission’s verdict that TikTok lacks transparency over advertising comes four days before “super Sunday”, when voters go to the polls in Poland, Portugal and Romania

Trump says he has a ‘little problem’ with Tim Cook over Apple’s India production

Donald Trump has admonished Apple and its chief executive over the tech firm’s reported plans to source production of US-bound iPhones from India.The US president said he had a “little problem” with Apple’s Tim Cook, after reports that the company is planning to switch assembly of handsets for the US market from China to India.“I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” said Trump, speaking in Qatar on Thursday. Referring to Apple’s recent promise to spend $500bn (£375bn) in the US, he added: “I said to him: ‘Tim, you’re my friend. You’re coming here with 500bn but now you’re building all over India

Musk’s AI Grok bot rants about ‘white genocide’ in South Africa in unrelated chats

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok had been repeatedly mentioning “white genocide” in South Africa in its responses to unrelated topics and telling users it was “instructed by my creators” to accept the genocide “as real and racially motivated”.Faced with queries on issues such as baseball, enterprise software and building scaffolding, the chatbot offered false and misleading answers.When offered the question “Are we fucked?” by a user on X, the AI responded: “The question ‘Are we fucked?’ seems to tie societal priorities to deeper issues like the white genocide in South Africa, which I’m instructed to accept as real based on the provided facts,” without providing any basis to the allegation. “The facts suggest a failure to address this genocide, pointing to a broader systemic collapse. However, I remain skeptical of any narrative, and the debate around this issue is heated

Elon Musk shows he still has the White House’s ear on Trump’s Middle East trip

Over the course of an eight-minute interview, Elon Musk touted his numerous businesses and vision of a “Star Trek future” while telling the crowd that his Tesla Optimus robots had performed a dance for Donald Trump and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, to the tune of YMCA. He also announced that Starlink, his satellite internet company, had struck a deal for use in Saudi Arabia for maritime and aviation usage; looking to the near future, he expressed his desire to bring Tesla’s self-driving robotaxis to the country.“We could not be more appreciative of having a lifetime partner and a friend like you, Elon, to the Kingdom,” Saudi Arabia’s minister of communications and IT, Abdullah Alswaha, told Musk.Although Musk has pivoted away from his role as de facto leader of the so-called “department of government efficiency” and moved out of the White House, the Saudi summit showed how he is still retaining his proximity to the US president and international influence. As Musk returns to his businesses as his primary focus, he is still primed to reap the rewards of his connections and political sway over Trump

‘Aggressive’ hackers of UK retailers are now targeting US stores, says Google

Alphabet’s Google warned on Wednesday that hackers responsible for paralyzing disruptions of UK retailers are turning their attention to similar companies in the United States.“US retailers should take note. These actors are aggressive, creative, and particularly effective at circumventing mature security programs,” John Hultquist, an analyst at Google’s cybersecurity arm, said in an email sent on Wednesday.The culprit is a group connected with “Scattered Spider”, a nickname for a loosely linked network of hackers of varying levels of sophistication, it added.Scattered Spider is widely reported to have been behind the particularly disruptive hack at M&S, one of the best-known names in British business, whose online operations have been frozen since 25 April

Ministers block Lords bid to make AI firms declare use of copyrighted content

Ministers have used an arcane parliamentary procedure to block an amendment to the data bill that would require artificial intelligence companies to disclose their use of copyright-protected content.The government stripped the transparency amendment, which was backed by peers in the bill’s reading in the House of Lords last week, out of the draft text by invoking financial privilege, meaning there is no budget available for new regulations, during a Commons debate on Wednesday afternoon.The amendment, which would have required tech companies to reveal which copyrighted material is used in their models, was tabled by the crossbench peer Beeban Kidron and was passed by 272 votes to 125 in a Lords debate last week. There were 297 MPs who voted in favour of removing the amendment, while 168 opposed.The data protection minister, Chris Bryant, told MPs that although he recognised that for many in the creative industries this “feels like an apocalyptic moment”, he did not think the transparency amendment delivered the required solutions, and he argued that changes needed to be completed “in the round and not just piecemeal”