Washington (AFP) – Poring over family photographs, Jessica Watt Dougherty voices anguish over her father’s death — which she attributes to misinformation on an online platform, an issue at the heart of a knotty US debate over tech regulation.

The US Supreme Court will this week hear high-stakes cases that will determine the fate of Section 230, a decades-old legal provision that shields platforms from lawsuits over content posted by their users.

The cases, which are among several legal battles nationwide to regulate internet content, could hobble platforms and significantly reset the doctrines governing online speech if they are stripped of their legal immunity.

“I watched my father die over the screen of my phone,” Dougherty, an Ohio-based school counselor, told AFP.

Her father, 64-year-old Randy Watt, refused to get vaccinated and died alone in a hospital last year after struggling with Covid-19.

After his death, his family discovered that he had a secret virtual life on Gab, a far-right platform that observers call a petri dish of misinformation and conspiracy theories.

To his vaccinated family members, his Gab activities explained why he chose not to get inoculated against Covid-19, a decision that ultimately had fatal consequences.

The influence of vaccine misinformation on Gab was also apparent after Watt drove himself to the hospital and started what his family called an “illness log,” documenting to his followers how he treated himself for the coronavirus.

He wrote that he was on drugs such as ivermectin, which US health regulators say is ineffective, and in some instances dangerous, to use as a treatment for Covid-19. Gab, which has millions of followers, is rife with posts promoting ivermectin.

“I feel very, very strongly that the content (on Gab) is careless and disrespectful, racist and scary,” Dougherty said.

“My dad spent a lot of time virtually surrounded by people with ideas about the pandemic being a hoax, Covid being fake, the vaccine being unsafe, the vaccine being deadly… Those are the belief systems (he) took on.”

– Game changer –

Such assertions that platforms are responsible for false or harmful user content are at the core of the Supreme Court cases.

The most closely watched case will be heard on Tuesday. A grieving family asserts that Google-owned YouTube is liable for the death of a US citizen in the 2015 attacks in Paris claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.

Her relatives blame YouTube for having recommended videos from the jihadists to users, helping cause the violence.

And on Wednesday, the same justices will consider a similar case involving the victim of an IS attack at a nightclub in Turkey, but this time asking if platforms should be subject to anti-terrorism laws, despite their legal immunity.

The court’s ruling is expected by June 30.

Lobbyists for the platforms fear a flood of lawsuits if the court rules in favor of the victims’ families, a decision that could have a game-changing ripple effect on the internet.

Platforms are “not going to get every single call right,” Matt Schruers, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which represents the biggest US tech companies.

“If courts penalize companies that miss needles in haystacks, that sends a signal, ‘don’t look at all,’ and that turns the internet into a cesspool of dangerous content,” he told AFP.

‘Scream fire’

Or, Schruers added, it could prompt the world’s biggest platforms to over-filter, seriously limiting the flow of free speech online.

But a change could offer Watt’s relatives an avenue to seek justice from Gab, whose founder Andrew Torba has previously urged the US government to keep Section 230 “exactly the way it is.”

“We seek to protect free speech on the internet,” Torba wrote to former president Donald Trump in an open letter in 2020.

“Section 230 is the only thing that stands between us and an avalanche of lawsuits from activist groups and foreign governments who don’t like what our millions of users and readers have to say.”

Founded in 2016, Gab has become a haven for white supremacists and conspiracy theories targeting Jews, LGBTQ people and minorities, the Stanford Internet Observatory wrote in a report.

Even among misinformation-ridden fringe platforms, Gab stands out for its blanket refusal to “remove the most extreme racist, violent, and bigoted content,” the report said.

Dougherty noticed the same when she created an account on Gab after her father’s death.

“You can’t scream fire in a crowded theatre,” she said.

“We can’t speak things that are going to harm other people. There’s a lot of people screaming fire in a crowded theatre on Gab.”

San Francisco (AFP) – Microsoft’s nascent Bing chatbot turning testy or even threatening is likely because it essentially mimics what it learned from online conversations, analysts and academics said on Friday.

Tales of disturbing exchanges with the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot — including it issuing threats and speaking of desires to steal nuclear code, create a deadly virus, or to be alive — have gone viral this week.

“I think this is basically mimicking conversations that it’s seen online,” said Graham Neubig, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s language technologies institute.

“So once the conversation takes a turn, it’s probably going to stick in that kind of angry state, or say ‘I love you’ and other things like this, because all of this is stuff that’s been online before.”

A chatbot, by design, serves up words it predicts are the most likely responses, without understanding meaning or context.

However, humans taking part in banter with programs naturally tend to read emotion and intent into what a chatbot says.

“Large language models have no concept of ‘truth’ — they just know how to best complete a sentence in a way that’s statistically probable based on their inputs and training set,” programmer Simon Willison said in a blog post.

“So they make things up, and then state them with extreme confidence.”

Laurent Daudet, co-founder of French AI company LightOn, theorized that the chatbot seemingly-gone-rogue was trained on exchanges that themselves turned aggressive or inconsistent.

“Addressing this requires a lot of effort and a lot of human feedback, which is also the reason why we chose to restrict ourselves for now to business uses and not more conversational ones,” Daudet told AFP.

‘Off the rails’

The Bing chatbot was designed by Microsoft and the start-up OpenAI, which has been causing a sensation since the November launch of ChatGPT, the headline-grabbing app capable of generating all sorts of written content in seconds on a simple request.

Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, the technology behind it, known as generative AI, has been stirring up fascination and concern.

“The model at times tries to respond or reflect in the tone in which it is being asked to provide responses (and) that can lead to a style we didn’t intend,” Microsoft said in a blog post, noting the bot is a work in progress.

Bing chatbot said in some shared exchanges that it had been codenamed “Sydney” during development, and that it was given rules of behavior.

Those rules include “Sydney’s responses should also be positive, interesting, entertaining and engaging,” according to online posts.

Disturbing dialogues that combine steely threats and professions of love could be due to dueling directives to stay positive while mimicking what the AI mined from human exchanges, Willison theorized.

Chatbots seem to be more prone to disturbing or bizarre responses during lengthy conversations, losing a sense of where exchanges are going, eMarketer principal analyst Yoram Wurmser told AFP.

“They can really go off the rails,” Wurmser said.

“It’s very lifelike, because (the chatbot) is very good at sort of predicting next words that would make it seem like it has feelings or give it human-like qualities; but it’s still statistical outputs.”

Microsoft announced on Friday it had capped the amount of back-and-forth people can have with its chatbot over a given question, because “very long chat sessions can confuse the underlying chat model in the new Bing.”

Kelis has got “100 animals” on her farm in California.

The 43-year-old singer lives on a remote farm with her three kids – Knight, 13, Shepherd, seven, and Galilee, two – and Kelis has admitted to loving her unusual surroundings.

The ‘Milkshake’ hitmaker – who moved to the farm in 2020 – shared: “It’s a never a dull moment, I’ll tell you that much. Boredom is not an option here. It’s busy, definitely busy.”

Kelis admitted that being surrounded by so many animals has been a “fun” experience for her family.

The singer told E! News: “We’ve got 100 animals here right now, literally. It’s a full-fledged working farm and it’s fun. There’s lots of different personalities out there.”

Kelis has also been able to indulge her passion for cooking since living on the farm.

The chart-topping star – who has previously released her own cookbook – explained: “It’s something I love to do, it’s a huge part of my life.

“Eating good food is really important to me and being able to be creative in the midst of that is always my happy place. It’s definitely part of my lifestyle.”

Meanwhile, Kelis previously admitted that she misses the atmosphere of New York City.

The singer was born in the Big Apple and she returned to the city in 2022, after a COVID-enforced absence of two years.

Speaking about her return to the city, Kelis shared: “I was walking around last night, and I was just like … ‘I’m being yelled at by construction workers. I miss you guys. I love you so much.’ It’s the best.

“L.A. just doesn’t have this vibe. It’s not a pedestrian city, so you don’t get any of that interaction. I’m an interaction kind of person, so for me, I feed off the city. This city is just alive, so even that, I’ll take it, at this point.”

Washington (AFP) – Jimmy Carter, the 98-year-old former US president who led the nation from 1977 to 1981, is receiving hospice care at home, where he will spend his “remaining time,” his nonprofit foundation said Saturday.

Carter, the oldest living former president and a Nobel peace laureate, resides in Plains, Georgia, with his wife, Rosalynn.

That hamlet is where he was born and worked as a peanut farmer before becoming the governor and later launching his bid as Democratic presidential nominee.

“After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention,” the Carter Center said in a statement posted to Twitter.

During his presidency, Carter placed a commitment on human rights and social justice, enjoying a strong first two years which included brokering a peace deal between Israel and Egypt dubbed the Camp David Accords. 

But his administration hit numerous snags — the most serious being the taking of US hostages in Iran and the disastrous failed attempt to rescue the 52 captive Americans in 1980.

In November of that year, Republican challenger Ronald Reagan beat Carter at the polls, relegating him to a single term. Reagan swept into office on a wave of staunch conservatism.

Active post-presidency

As the years passed, a more nuanced image of Carter emerged, taking into account his post-presidential activities and reassessing his achievements.

He founded the Carter Center in 1982 to pursue his vision of world diplomacy, and he was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless efforts to promote social and economic justice.

“The Carter family asks for privacy during this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers,” the Carter Center said.

“He has the full support of his family and his medical team,” it added.

Carter said basic Christian tenets such as justice and love served as the bedrock of his presidency, and the ex-president taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist, his church in Plains, well into his 90s.

In recent years, Carter has received various hospital treatments, including when he revealed in August 2015 that he had brain cancer and was undergoing radiation treatment — an illness he recovered from, seemingly against the odds.

Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who is the pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Jr preached, wished the Carter family comfort.

“Across life’s seasons, President Jimmy Carter, a man of great faith, has walked with God,” Warnock tweeted. “In this tender time of transitioning, God is surely walking with him.”

In April 2021, US President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, met with the Carters at their home in Plains. 

The White House afterward released a photo showing the couples smiling together, although only Rosalynn was seen by the press outside, bidding the Bidens farewell while using a walker.

On Saturday, Carter’s grandson Jason Carter, a former Georgia state senator, tweeted that he had seen “both of my grandparents yesterday.”

“They are at peace and — as always —their home is full of love. Thank you all for your kind words,” he said.

Pink thinks Madonna was right to complain about “ageism and misogyny”.

The 64-year-old pop icon was subjected to criticism and ridicule over her seemingly-altered appearance at the Grammy Awards, and Pink thinks she was perfectly entitled to voice her frustrations.

The 43-year-old singer told the Sunday Mirror newspaper’s No Filter showbiz column: “It’s unfair, it’s always unfair, and it’s ageism. The attitude is no longer that person has been amazing for so long, it’s all about bashing them and I hate it.

“Let’s just give the people the respect they deserve and have earned, and be a bit nicer. Can we all be a bit nicer? I want to be nicer, to myself and others.

“When a person walks out, the first thing I think is not: ‘Holy s*** did you see their face?’ I don’t think like that. I think: ‘Holy s***, that person has been amazing for so long.”

Pink made the comments after Madonna claimed that she’s being “punished” for her “strong-willed” ways.

Sharing a selection of pictures from the Grammys, Madonna recently wrote on Instagram: “It was an honor for me to Introduce Kim Petras and Sam Smith at the Grammys.

“I had wanted to give the last award which was Album of the year, but I thought it was more important that I present the first trans-woman performing at the Grammys- a History making moment!! And on top of that she won a Grammy!! [heart emoji]

“Instead of focusing on what I said in my speech which was about giving thanks for the fearlessness of artists like Sam and Kim- Many people chose to only talk about Close-up photos of me Taken with a long lens camera By a press photographer that Would distort anyone’s face!!

“Once again I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny That permeates the world we live in.

“A world that refuses to celebrate women pass the age of 45 And feels the need to punish her If she continues to be strong willed, hard-working and adventurous. (sic)”

Lee Majors is to star alongside Ryan Gosling in ‘The Fall Guy’ movie.

The 83-year-old actor starred Colt Seavers in the 1980s action series about a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a bounty hunter and couldn’t turn down the chance to make an appearance in the upcoming film adaptation following a surprise phone call from director David Leitch as he admitted he is still having a “great time” in the industry almost 60 years after he first started out.

He said: “I’ve just filmed a movie called ‘Gettysburg Christmas’. I’m looking forward to another film with the team behind ‘Renegades’ and, here’s an exclusive for you, yesterday I had a phone call from David Leitch who directed ‘Deadpool’ and ‘John Wick’.

“I knew he was doing ‘The Fall Guy’ movie in Australia with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt but I was surprised by his call. He asked if I would appear in the movie and so I had to say yes!”

Lee – who was married to late Hollywood pin up icon Farrah Fawcett from 1973 until 1982 – is also known for his starring role as ‘former astronaut, USAF Colonel Steve Austin in 1970s TV classic ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ and went on to tease that a big screen adaptation of that could be in the works and explained he would definitely take up the chance to be in it.

He told The Daily Mirror newspaper: ” I know Mark Wahlberg is trying to get ‘The Six Billion Dollar Man’ movie made, it has been put back several times, but if they asked me to take a role in that, sure, why not? I like Mark Wahlberg, he’s a good kid!”

Washington (AFP) – Lawyers for five officers said they pleaded “not guilty” Friday to charges they murdered Tyre Nichols, a young Black man who died after a police beating last month in the US city of Memphis, Tennessee.

Videos of the incident showed the five officers, who are all Black, repeatedly kicking and punching Nichols during a traffic stop close to his home on January 7, three days before he died in hospital.

Attorneys representing the defendants, all of whom were fired by the Memphis Police Department, appeared in a brief initial plea hearing for an explosive trial that has drawn national attention to the issues of police abuse and mistreatment of African Americans.

All five were charged with second degree murder.

Judge James Jones acknowledged those sensitivities as he warned the defendants and the family of Nichols present in court that the trial could be long and involve “high emotions,” and urged “civility” for those connected to the proceedings.

“Everyone involved wants this case to be concluded as quickly as possible. But it’s important for you all to understand that the state of Tennessee as well as each one of these defendants have an absolute right to a fair trial.”

“And I will not allow any behavior that could jeopardize that right,” he said.

Saying there is a large amount of evidence to be collected, Jones set the next court date for May 1.

After the hearing civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Nichols family, said the substantial video evidence implicating the officers should enable a speedy trial.

“It’s important that we move swiftly towards justice,” Crump said. “When people in our community do something on video, it doesn’t take a long time to prosecute them.”

Nichols’ mother RowVaughn Wells said she still feels “numb” over the death of her son.

“I know my son is gone. I know I’ll never see him again. But we have to start this process of justice,” Wells said.

She added that she plans to attend every court session to ensure the former officers “can know that we’re here.”

“I want each and every one of those police officers to be able to look me in the face. They haven’t done that yet, they could even do that today,” she said.

Police unit ‘pattern’

Nichols, 29, was stopped by members of a special police anti-crime squad called the Scorpion Unit in Memphis on January 7 for an alleged traffic violation, according to police.

The reason the officers stopped him remains unknown.

Nichols was beaten viciously by police, in scenes recorded in body camera and security camera footage that triggered national outrage when it was made public late last month.

Besides the five officers charged with second degree murder, a sixth one has been fired and other officials, including three firefighters, suspended.

Crump flatly rejected media reports and online gossip that motive for the traffic stop involved Nichols’ alleged friendship with a woman who had had a relationship with one of the officers.

“All these rumors that are circulating are bogus and untrue,” said Crump.

“This ancillary matter has nothing to do with the reason why this happened to Tyre Nichols,” he said.

“The Scorpion unit had a pattern and practice of doing this to Black people in Memphis. That’s it.”

Nichols was buried February 1 in a ceremony attended by Vice President Kamala Harris, who said his beating “was not in pursuit of public safety.”

“This is a family that lost their son and their brother through an act of violence at the hands and the feet of people who had been charged with keeping them safe,” she told the gathering at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church.

The next day, in a meeting with Black lawmakers, President Joe Biden urged Congress to put through stalled police reforms, citing Nichols’ death.

“My hope is, this dark memory spurs some action that we’ve all been fighting for,” Biden said.

By Helen Coster and Jack Queen

(Reuters) -Fox knew that debunked theories about vote-rigging claims it broadcast were “total bs,” according to election technology company Dominion Voting Systems in a filing made public in Delaware Superior Court Thursday, part of its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the media giant.

“From the top down, Fox knew ‘the dominion stuff’ was ‘total bs,’” Dominion wrote in its filing. “Yet despite knowing the truth—or at minimum, recklessly disregarding that truth—Fox spread and endorsed these ‘outlandish voter fraud claims’ about Dominion even as it internally recognized the lies as ‘crazy,’ ‘absurd,’ and ‘shockingly reckless.’”

Dominion sued Fox News Networks in March 2021, alleging that the cable TV network amplified false claims that Dominion machines were used to rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election against Republican Donald Trump and in favor of his Democratic rival Joe Biden, who won the election.

Fox has argued that it had a right to report on election-fraud allegations made by Trump and his lawyers, and that Dominion’s lawsuit would stifle freedom of the press.

“The core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan,” a Fox spokesperson said in a statement.

Dominion filed suit against parent company Fox Corp in November 2021; the case was consolidated in December.

As part of discovery, Dominion has sought communications from Fox Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch, his son, Fox Corp Chief Executive Officer Lachlan Murdoch, and Fox News personnel as it seeks to prove that the network either knew the statements it aired were false or recklessly disregarded their accuracy. That is the standard of “actual malice” that public figures must prove to prevail in defamation cases.

Dominion said in its brief that Rupert Murdoch internally described the election claims as “really crazy” and “damaging” but declined to wield his editorial power to stop them. Dominion in January questioned Murdoch under oath.

Representatives for Rupert Murdoch did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other top Fox executives including Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott repeatedly raised the alarm over false election fraud claims but failed to act because they feared losing viewers to Newsmax, Dominion said.

“The heart of this is really going to be whether there was false information put on the air, and whether they knew it was false or whether they were reckless in putting it on the air,” said Roy Gutterman, director of the Newhouse School’s Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University.

Dominion alleged in its lawsuit that Fox amplified the false theories to boost its ratings and stay abreast of hard-right competitors including One America News Network, which Dominion is also suing. The complaint cited instances in which Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell appeared on Fox News and falsely claimed Dominion software may have manipulated vote counts in favor of Biden.

Thursday’s filing reflects the outcome of months of discovery from both sides. Dominion in January questioned Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch under oath, the most high-profile figure to face questioning in the case.

Earlier on Thursday, Fox filed a counterclaim in Delaware Superior Court, alleging that Dominion has no evidence to support its “staggering” damages claim.

In its own summary judgment filing made public Thursday, Fox argued that Trump’s claims about the election were “undeniably newsworthy” and that viewers understood they were merely being reported as allegations.

Fox also argued that Dominion’s suit advances overbroad interpretations of defamation law, takes quotes from its coverage out of context and ignores its reporting of Dominion’s rebuttals to the false claims.

“Dominion’s lawsuit is an assault on the First Amendment and the free press,” Fox wrote in its filing. “The record shows that Dominion’s central allegations are factually unfounded, legally unsound, or both.”

A five-week trial in the case is scheduled to begin on April 17.

(Reporting by Helen Coster.; editing by Diane Craft)