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Metas Instagram has been blocking LGBTQ-related hashtags for months, according to reporting by User Mag. This was done under the companys sensitive content policy as an attempt to restrict sexually suggestive content. The blocked hashtags included stuff like #lesbian, #gay, #bisexualpride, #transwomen and dozens more. Those hashtags dont seem that sexually suggestive to me but, hey, what do I know. The terms were hidden from both search and discovery for any users who had their sensitive content filter turned on. Teenage users have that filter turned on by default. When teens attempted to search these terms, they were directed to a blank page and a prompt from Meta to review the companys sensitive content restrictions that hide sexually explicit posts. User Mags reporting caused Meta to reverse course on these restrictions, after having been in place for months. The company called it a simple mistake and said that its important to us that all communities feel safe and welcome on Meta apps, and we do not consider LGBTQ+ terms to be sensitive under our policies. The restrictions occurred after the company started hiding topics from teens as part of a larger youth and well-being privacy update. This was advertised as an effort to keep kids away from content that promoted self-harm. Its worth noting that heterosexual content, even stuff that showed couples engaged in romantic activities, werent restricted in any way, according to User Mag. A responsible and inclusive company would not build an algorithm that classifies some LGBTQ hashtags as sensitive content, hiding helpful and age-appropriate content from young people by default, a spokesperson for GLAAD said. LGBTQ creators have long suffered under Instagrams content policies, often experiencing shadow bans and having their content labeled as non-recommendable. While Meta says it was all a big misunderstanding, promising to get to the bottom of things, this is only one example of the company throwing marginalized communities under the bus. The company just changed its Hateful Content policy, adding language that seemingly allows folks to brazenly attack gay and trans people. The company says that it's now fine to post allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality. It's worth noting that the word "transgenderism" has long been used by bad actors to purposely misrepresent trans identities as an ideology. This is part of a larger effort by Meta to become more like the notoriously-thriving social media empire X. Meta just got rid of its fact checkers, in favor of community guidelines, and removed a mention in its Hateful Conduct policy that suggested online rhetoric could promote offline violence. WATCH: Were gonna get rid of fact-checkersIn what looks almost like a hostage video, Zuckerberg bends the knee to Trump entirely doing away with Facebook fact-checkers and moving the process to Texas under the guise of protecting free expression. pic.twitter.com/Ox0jeqBDBZ The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) January 7, 2025 CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also been cozying up to Donald Trump. Hes been busy pumping money into Trumps inauguration fund, flying down to Mar-a-Lago for chats, replacing Metas longtime policy chief Nick Clegg with a former George W. Bush aide and appointing UFC CEO (and Trump booster) Dana White to the companys board. Zuckerberg went as far as to explicitly indicate that many of the above changes were made because Donald Trump won the presidential election, calling it a cultural tipping point. He also called third-party fact checkers too politically biased and suggested that many of Europes laws against hate speech promoted censorship and make it difficult to build anything innovative there. Remember when he was going to fight Elon Musk? It looks like Zuckerberg just lost via submission to our new First Buddy without ever entering the ring.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/instagram-blocked-lgbtq-hashtags-and-treated-them-as-sexually-suggestive-content-200808209.html?src=rss
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The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration is investigating the remote parking features in some Tesla vehicles. The tools in question are Smart Summon and the unfortunately acronymed Actual Smart Summon, which uses cameras in the car to automatically control the parking process. The agency's Office of Defects Investigation has received 12 complaints of alleged crashes from the Smart Summon feature and one complaint about Actual Smart Summon use allegedly resulting in a crash. It has also reviewed three media reports of seemingly similar collisions involving Actual Smart Summon where the driver did not have the time to react to avoid a crash. The remote parking feature is available in an estimated 2.6 million vehicles, including the 2016-2025 Model S, 2016 Model X, 2018-2025 Model Xs, 2019-2025 Model 3s, and 2019-2025 Model Ys. Tesla reported its first ever drop in deliveries at the start of the month. The company reported about 1.78 million vehicle deliveries over 2024, compared with 1.81 million in 2023.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/nhtsa-opens-investigation-into-tesla-remote-parking-features-194559802.html?src=rss
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At a surprisingly star-studded event this morning, BMW showed off the final form of its long-awaited and long-teased Panoramic iDrive system. It's a combination of an oddly angular touchscreen, a windshield-spanning heads-up display, and an LLM-powered AI assistant. The big news? It's coming to every future BMW. Comedians Tim Meadows and Ken Jeong welcomed the assembled crowd into a studio designed to look like an oversized interior of the company's upcoming Neue Klasse. They did their best to goad BMW's Bavarian executives into a series of jokes and bits that mostly fell as flat as the central touchscreen that now dominates the iDrive experience. Thankfully, it's not comedy that brought us to Las Vegas this week, and the good news for BMW is that the interface looks good. The software behind the scenes is called BMW Operating System X, and it powers a new iDrive that combines screens and voice commands to create a familiar but far more comprehensive interface than anything we've seen in a BMW before. It all starts with that central touchscreen, but even that is different. Rather than being square or curved like in other BMWs, the new panel is rhomboid-shaped, a slanted polygon whose leaning posture doesn't seem to really augment the experience but does at least look distinctive. The panel is also tilted slightly towards the driver and is running software that is at least familiar to anyone who's used the current iDrive interface. A static bar along the bottom provides quick access to the most important things, like controls for the heating system. Above that, a stylized, 3D view of the world makes sure you're always situated. Things get more interesting when you move up the dashboard. Running along the base of the windshield is what BMW calls Panoramic Vision. It spans the width of the car, with the left-most portion handling typical gauge cluster duties like displaying current speed, active safety controls, and even warnings. Tim Stevens for Engadget The rest of the Panoramic Vision display is customizable, with six widgets that you can drag up from the central touchscreen covering things like outside temperature, navigation ETA, and even another widget showing you turn-by-turn information. It's much that we've seen in demos from BMW before, but now nearly ready for prime-time with the cars shipping at the end of this year. Given the Panoramic Vision's importance in the overall in-car experience, I asked the guy who oversaw the development of all this, BMW's SVP of connected company technical operations Stephan Durach, whether there were any visibility issues in the bright sunlight. "This technology is a little bit different than a traditional heads-up display... we're using black print on the bottom. In bright sunlight, it's even performing a little bit better," he said. "You'll not have any issues at all." If that's not enough displays for you, there's another HUD situated on the left, up above the Panoramic Vision, which gives 3D navigation information for the driver. Yes, between the touchscreen, the Panoramic Vision display, and the HUD, you can get three separate feeds of turn-by-turn directions. In other words, if you miss a turn in this thing, you have nobody to blame but yourself. BMW BMW also quickly demonstrated a new in-car LLM that, for now at least, is only for navigation. It was all pre-recorded, so it's anyone's guess how well this will work in reality, but in the demo, at least, it quickly found "the best beach" and navigated there. When our pretend driver left the city, the car even asked whether to automatically engage Sport Mode, which was a nice touch. BMW's Durach confirmed that Android Auto and Apple CarPlay will still be supported. He also teased that there are some more fun tricks to come that will get passengers more involved in the experience. BMW ended the presentation by confirming that Panoramic iDrive will not only be coming to the Neue Klasse when it finally hits the market at the end of this year but will be the standard interface for all new BMWs that launch after that. That means the days of the rotary iDrive controller are now officially numbered. I asked Durach if he had any parting words for this once-revolutionary vehicular interface. "We take a look at all of our data and usage... you can really see that the usage of our rotary controller is declining dramatically," he said. "People don't even touch it." It's a harsh send-off, but these days you just can't cry over progress.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/ces-2025-bmws-vision-spanning-panoramic-idrive-will-make-sure-you-never-miss-another-navigation-prompt-192022046.html?src=rss
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