Facebook co-founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sits in his seat inside a bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum for all U.S. senators hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 13, 2023.
Leah Millis | Reuters
Facebook and Instagram created “prime locations” for sexual predators that enabled child sexual abuse, solicitation, and trafficking, New Mexico’s attorney general alleged in a civil suit filed Wednesday against Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The suit was brought after an “undercover investigation” allegedly revealed myriad instances of sexually explicit content being served to minors, child sexual coercion, or the sale of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, New Mexico attorney general Raúl Torrez said in a press release.
The suit alleges that “certain child exploitative content” is ten times “more prevalent” on Facebook and Instagram as compared to pornography site PornHub and adult content platform OnlyFans, according to the release.
“Child exploitation is a horrific crime and online predators are determined criminals,” Meta said in a statement to CNBC. A spokesperson said that the company deploys “sophisticated technology, hire child safety experts, report content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and share information and tools with other companies and law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to help root out predators.”
The New Mexico suit follows coordinated legal actions against Meta by 42 other attorneys general in October. Those actions alleged that Facebook and Instagram directly targeted and were addictive to children and teens.
New Mexico’s suit, by contrast, alleges Meta and Zuckerberg violated the state’s Unfair Practice Act. The four-count suit alleges that the company and Zuckerberg engaged in “unfair trade practices” by facilitating the distribution of CSAM and the trafficking of minors, and undermined the health and safety of New Mexican children.
The lawsuit argues that Meta’s algorithms allegedly promote sex and exploitation content to users and that Facebook and Instagram lack “effective” age verification. The suit also alleges that the company failed to identify child sexual exploitation “networks” and to fully prevent users it had suspended for those violations from rejoining the platform using new accounts
“In one month alone, we disabled more than half a million accounts for violating our child safety policies,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.
“Mr. Zuckerberg and other Meta executives are aware of the serious harm their products can pose to young users, and yet they have failed to make sufficient changes to their platforms that would prevent the sexual exploitation of children,” Torres said in the release.
New Mexico seeks civil penalties and for Meta to implement effective age verification, improve its detection and removal systems for CSAM, and address the alleged functionalities that “amplify” CSAM.
An Amazon worker moves boxes on Amazon Prime Day in the East Village of New York City, July 11, 2023.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Amazon is extending its Prime Day discount bonanza, announcing that the annual sale will run four days this year.
The 96-hour event will start at 12:01 a.m. PT on July 8, and continue through July 11, Amazon said in a release.
For the first time, the company will roll out themed “deal drops” that change daily and are available “while supplies last.” Amazon has in recent years toyed with adding more limited-run and invite-only deals during Prime Day events to create a feeling of urgency or scarcity.
Amazon launched Prime Day in 2015 as a way to secure new members for its $139-a-year loyalty program, and to promote its own products and services while providing a sales boost in the middle of the year. In 2019, the company made Prime Day a 48-hour event, and it’s since added a second Prime Day-like event in the fall.
Prime Day is also a significant revenue driver for other retailers, which often host competing discount events.
Illustration of the SK Hynix company logo seen displayed on a smartphone screen.
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Shares in South Korea’s SK Hynix extended gains to hit a more than 2-decade high on Tuesday, following reports over the weekend that SK Group plans to build the country’s largest AI data center.
SK Hynix shares, which have surged almost 50% so far this year on the back of an AI boom, were up nearly 3%, following gains on Monday.
The company’s parent, SK Group, plans to build the AI data center in partnership with Amazon Web Services in Ulsan, according to domestic media. SK Telecom and SK Broadband are reportedly leading the initiative, with support from other affiliates, including SK Hynix.
SK Hynix is a leading supplier of dynamic random access memory or DRAM — a type of semiconductor memory found in PCs, workstations and servers that is used to store data and program code.
The company’s DRAM rival, Samsung, was also trading up 4% on Tuesday. However, it’s growth has fallen behind that of SK Hynix.
On Friday, Samsung Electronics’ market cap reportedly slid to a 9-year low of 345.1 trillion won ($252 billion) as the chipmaker struggles to capitalize on AI-led demand.
SK Hynix, on the other hand, has become a leader in high bandwidth memory — a type of DRAM used in artificial intelligence servers — supplying to clients such as AI behemoth Nvidia.
A report from Counterpoint Research in April said that SK Hynix had captured 70% of the HBM market by revenue share in the first quarter.
This HBM strength helped it overtake Samsung in the overall DRAM market for the first time ever, with a 36% global market share as compared to Samsung’s 34%.
OpenAI has been awarded a $200 million contract to provide the U.S. Defense Department with artificial intelligence tools.
The department announced the one-year contract on Monday, months after OpenAI said it would collaborate with defense technology startup Anduril to deploy advanced AI systems for “national security missions.”
“Under this award, the performer will develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains,” the Defense Department said. It’s the first contract with OpenAI listed on the Department of Defense’s website.
Anduril received a $100 million defense contract in December. Weeks earlier, OpenAI rival Anthropic said it would work with Palantir and Amazon to supply its AI models to U.S. defense and intelligence agencies.
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s co-founder and CEO, said in a discussion with OpenAI board member and former National Security Agency leader Paul Nakasone at a Vanderbilt University event in April that “we have to and are proud to and really want to engage in national security areas.”
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Defense Department specified that the contract is with OpenAI Public Sector LLC, and that the work will mostly occur in the National Capital Region, which encompasses Washington, D.C., and several nearby counties in Maryland and Virginia.
Meanwhile, OpenAI is working to build additional computing power in the U.S. In January, Altman appeared alongside President Donald Trump at the White House to announce the $500 billion Stargate project to build AI infrastructure in the U.S.
The new contract will represent a small portion of revenue at OpenAI, which is generating over $10 billion in annualized sales. In March, the company announced a $40 billion financing round at a $300 billion valuation.
In April, Microsoft, which supplies cloud infrastructure to OpenAI, said the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency has authorized the use of the Azure OpenAI service with secret classified information.