A popular TikTok channel featuring an "Aboriginal man" presenting animal facts has been exposed as an AI forgery.

AI is Iggy Azalea on an industrial scale:

"The self-described “Bush Legend” on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram is growing in popularity.

"These short and sharp videos feature an Aboriginal man – sometimes painted up in ochre, other times in an all khaki outfit – as he introduces different native animals and facts about them.
...
"But the Bush Legend isn’t real. He is generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

"This is a part of a growing influx of AI being utilised to represent Indigenous peoples, knowledges and cultures with no community accountability or relationships with Indigenous peoples. It forms a new type of cultural appropriation, one that Indigenous peoples are increasingly concerned about."
...
"We are seeing the rise of an AI Blakface that is utilised with ease thanks to the availability and prevalence of AI.

"Non-Indigenous people and entities are able to create Indigenous personas through AI, often grounded in stereotypical representations that both amalgamate and appropriate cultures."

https://theconversation.com/this-tiktok-star-sharing-australian-animal-stories-doesnt-exist-its-ai-blakface-273004

#ChatGPT #gemini #AI #TikTok #tiktoksucks #Claude #LLM #ArtificialIntelligence #AIslop

TikTok pulls a Polish far-right leader's videos over antisemitism.

Social media platform TikTok has reportedly removed six videos from the far-right Polish leader Grzegorz Braun, including one related to an attack on a Jewish celebration.

One of the removed videos showed Braun denying the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz, one of the largest German concentration camps during World War II.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20260109-tiktok-pulls-a-polish-far-right-leaders-videos-over-antisemitism?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

#TikTok #GrzegorzBraun #Antisemitism #Jews #Poland #SocialMedia #Auschwitz

404 Media: Hack Reveals the a16z-Backed Phone Farm Flooding TikTok With AI Influencers

(Requires an email signin to read the article; TLDR there are now networks of AI generated "influencers" hawking all kinds of stuff, and it's getting pretty tough to determine who is real and who isn't).

https://www.404media.co/hack-reveals-the-a16z-backed-phone-farm-flooding-tiktok-with-ai-influencers/

#ai #llm #deepfake #influencers #tiktok

Australia's #SocialMediaBan for #children takes effect in world first

#Australia has become the first country to ban #SocialMedia for children under 16, blocking access to platforms including #TikTok, #Alphabet’s #YouTube & #Meta’s #Instagram & #Facebook from midnight.

#law #tech #regulations #moderation #EngagementLoops #addiction #ChildDevelopment #MentalHealth
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/australia-social-media-ban-takes-effect-world-first-2025-12-09/?utm_source=braze&utm_medium=notifications&utm_campaign=2025_engagement

@georgetakei The irony is that I got a Twitter account in order to follow the "Arab Spring" in Egypt, which "mainstream" media were not covering. I got direct news, from real people.
Then I got a Mastodon account to escape Musk owning Twitter and turning it into a Nazi cesspool.
The pattern continues, with non-social media.
I guess hope #loops can supplant #tiktok

The French city of Lyon is dropping #Microsoft software in favor of #OpenSource alternatives. It doesn't want to depend on proprietary, closed-source software, and it doesn't want to depend on *American* software. It doesn't want "potential [US] governmental surveillance."
https://news.itsfoss.com/french-city-replaces-microsoft/

PS: It seems clear that #Trump is playing a role here. While he uses tariffs to boost American companies, he scares foreign buyers away from American companies, at least software companies that collect user data. He's creating a #TikTok problem for American software. Microsoft didn't help itself on this front by giving $1 million to the Trump inauguration.

BTW, many other US closed-source software companies gave $1m to the Trump inauguration, among them Adobe, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Perplexity.

#Oracle will also invest in the new #US #TikTok, as will the private #equity firm #SilverLake, another senior official said.

It will be “secured” in the US outside the control of TikTok’s Chinese owner, #ByteDance, one of the officials said. The U.S.-run TikTok will work to retrain the copy on #users’ #data in the US, & #China will not have access to the data, the officials added.

The software giant #Oracle will oversee the #security of #US #data & monitor changes & updates to #TikTok’s powerful recommendation #technology under a new deal to avert a ban of the service, acc/to a senior #Trump White House official.

A copy of the #algorithm, the recommendation engine that powers the app’s #addictive feed of short videos, will be licensed from China to a US *investor group* [#billionaires] that will oversee the app in the US, the official said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/politics/tiktok-deal-algorithm-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

#Trump reveals #billionaires #Murdoch & #Dell to take control of #TikTok

Trump said prominent billionaires – including #media mogul #RupertMurdoch & #tech founder Michael Dell – could be part of a deal in which the #US will take control of the #socialmedia video platform TikTok.

Trump namedropped the 94-yr-old Murdoch & his son #LachlanMurdoch, the head of #FoxNews & #NewsCorp, as part of participants in the deal.

#law #antitrust #monopoly #technocracy #plutocracy
https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-trump-ellison-dell-murdoch-algorithm-c175ddc4bdeaa269543870f1227cd0d9?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2025-09-21-TikTok+deal

Drive into the city & traffic cameras will automatically photograph your car, capturing your vehicle's license plate, make, model, color, distinctive markings & even passengers.

Post on #Facebook, #Instagram, #Twitter or #TikTok & the #NYPD can scrape & store your messages, capturing your thoughts, plans, political statements & friend groups.

#law #privacy #surveillance