Widow looking for answers after Quebec man dies in Texas Ironman competition
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
New Twitter owner Elon Musk said Thursday that he is granting "amnesty" for suspended accounts, which online safety experts predict will spur a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinformation.
The billionaire's announcement came after he asked in a poll posted to his timeline to vote on reinstatements for accounts that have not "broken the law or engaged in egregious spam." The yes vote was 72%.
"The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei," Musk tweeted using a Latin phrase meaning "the voice of the people, the voice of God."
Musk used the same Latin phrase after posting a similar poll last last weekend before reinstating the account of former U.S. president Donald Trump, which Twitter had banned for encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Trump has said he won't return to Twitter but has not deleted his account.
Such online polls are anything but scientific and can easily be influenced by bots.
In the month since Musk took over Twitter, groups that monitor the platform for racist, antisemitic and other toxic speech say it's been on the rise on the world's de facto public square. That has included a surge in racist abuse of World Cup soccer players that Twitter is allegedly failing to act on.
The uptick in harmful content is in large part due to the disorder following Musk's decision to lay off half the company's 7,500-person workforce, fire top executives, and then institute a series of ultimatums that prompted hundreds more to quit. Also let go were an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation. Among those resigning over a lack of faith in Musk's willingness to keep Twitter from devolving into a chaos of uncontrolled speech were Twitter's head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth.
Major advertisers have also abandoned the platform.
On Oct. 28, the day after he took control, Musk tweeted that no suspended accounts would be reinstated until Twitter formed a "content moderation council" with diverse viewpoints that would consider the cases.
On Tuesday, he said he was reneging on that promise because he'd agreed to at the insistence of "a large coalition of political-social activists groups" who later "broke the deal" by urging that advertisers at least temporarily stop giving Twitter their business.
A day earlier, Twitter reinstated the personal account of far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which was banned in January for violating the platform's COVID misinformation policies.
Musk, meanwhile, has been getting increasingly chummy on Twitter with right-wing figures. Before this month's U.S. midterm elections he urged "independent-minded" people to vote Republican.
A report from the European Union published Thursday said Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it this year compared with 2021. The report was based on data collected over the spring -- before Musk acquired Twitter -- as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms' compliance with the bloc's code of conduct on disinformation. It found that Twitter assessed just over half of the notifications it received about illegal hate speech within 24 hours, down from 82% in 2021.
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
The world is seeing a near breakdown of international law amid flagrant rule-breaking in Gaza and Ukraine, multiplying armed conflicts, the rise of authoritarianism and huge rights violations in Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar, Amnesty International warned Wednesday as it published its annual report.
A photographer who worked for Megan Thee Stallion said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that he was forced to watch her have sex, was unfairly fired soon after and was abused as her employee.
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
The Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would force TikTok's China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban, a contentious move by U.S. lawmakers that's expected to face legal challenges.
People living near a wildfire burning about 15 kilometres southwest of Peace River are being told to evacuate their homes.
The U.S. Senate has passed US$95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden after months of delays and contentious debate over how involved the United States should be in foreign wars.
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a Grade 4 student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.