The art critic Brian Sewell had a low opinion of Banksy’s work. Now the Evening Standard wants to bring him back in AI form. CC-licensed photo by seanbjack on Flickr.

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There’s another post coming this week at the Social Warming Substack on Friday at 0845 UK time. Free signup.

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A selection of 9 links for you. Critical. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.

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How Google made the ad tech industry revolve around itself • The Verge

Lauren Feiner:

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the decisions Google made in growing its massive advertising technology business were cold-blooded and carefully crafted to primarily benefit itself, the Department of Justice argued during the first two weeks of its antitrust trial.

The DOJ finished arguing its case-in-chief on Friday in a Virginia federal court, and now it’s Google’s turn to haul in witnesses, including US government agencies that use the company’s products. Its challenge: to explain why the government is wrong to call it an illegal monopoly and why its decisions reflect reasonable business judgments that it shouldn’t be forced to change.

Over more than nine days of witness testimony, the DOJ told US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema that Google manipulated the ad tech industry to revolve around itself. The government contends that through its dominance across the entire ad tech stack, Google ensured rivals couldn’t compete and publishers couldn’t walk away. DOJ counsel Julia Tarver Wood put it this way: “The rules are set so that all roads lead back to Google.”

The government’s basic argument is that Google monopolized three markets: publisher-side tools (mainly publisher ad servers, where outlets sell ad space), a subset of advertiser-side tools (where advertisers offer their ads), and the ad exchanges where auctions take place. While Google says it’s achieved a large customer base by offering good products, the DOJ argues it simply bought up competitors — like the publisher tool DoubleClick — and tied its products together to lock customers in.

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There’s more detail in the story, but it’s pretty hard for Google to argue that it’s not a monopoly, nor that it excluded rivals, or recognised threats to its hold on the business.
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A $1bn solar + battery storage project just broke ground in Utah • Electrek

Michelle Lewis:

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Renewables developer rPlus Energies has broken ground on one of the largest solar + battery storage projects in the US, in east-central Utah.

The Green River Energy Center in Emery County, Utah, is a 400-megawatt (MW) solar and 400 MW/1,600-megawatt-hour battery storage project that will supply power to western electric utility PacifiCorp under a power purchase agreement.

EliTe Solar is supplying solar panels, and Tesla is providing battery storage. Sundt Construction is the engineering, procurement, and construction contractor for the project.

Securing over $1bn in construction debt financing in July, the Green River project is expected to create around 500 jobs. Salt Lake City-based rPlus Energies gives the target completion date as 2026.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), as of Q2 2024, Utah has nearly 3.5 GW of solar installed. It forecasts another 6.1 GW will be installed in the state over the next five years, moving it from 13th to 11th for national ranking.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, in 2023, 46% of Utah’s electricity net generation came from coal-fired power plants, down from 75% in 2015.

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Gradually but relentlessly, the US is shifting away from fossil fuels to non-fossil sources.
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Marques Brownlee says ‘I hear you’ after fans criticize his new wallpaper app – The Verge

Emma Roth:

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Marques Brownlee, the YouTuber known as MKBHD, has responded to backlash over the launch of his new wallpaper app, called Panels. In a post on Tuesday, Brownlee says he’s going to address users’ concerns about pricing and “excessive data disclosures.”

Brownlee revealed the new app as part of his iPhone 16 review on Monday — a video that’s usually among his biggest of the year. But a flood of criticism about the Panels app quickly overshadowed comments about the new iPhone. “Part of building in public is getting mass feedback immediately, which is pretty dope. Almost exactly like publishing a YouTube video,” Brownlee said.

Panels is meant to offer access to a curated selection of “stunning full resolution wallpapers” from digital artists, but fans aren’t happy about the subscription that comes along with it. It costs $49.99 per year (or $11.99 per month) for a Panels Plus subscription, which lets you download all the wallpapers in the app in high resolution. You can still access a more limited selection of wallpapers for free, but you can only download them in standard definition and have to watch two ads first.

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1: no idea why you’d want to pay money for wallpapers. Take a photo! Use Apple’s free ones!
2: amazing that Brownlee wouldn’t have tried the app out and noticed that the app wants to have location data and track you across sites. Even if he thinks the price is OK (which I think it isn’t, given the value it doesn’t add.)
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North Carolina governor candidate cries AI fabrication as defense for racist porn forum posts • Ars Technica

Benj Edwards:

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On Thursday, CNN reported about inflammatory comments made by Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, on a pornography website’s message board over a decade ago. After the allegations emerged, Mark Robinson played on what we call “deep doubt” and denied the comments were his words, claiming they were manufactured by AI.

“Look, I’m not going to get into the minutia about how somebody manufactured these salacious tabloid lies, but I can tell you this: There’s been over one million dollars spent on me through AI by a billionaire’s son who’s bound and determined to destroy me,” Robinson told CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski in a televised interview, referring to an AI-generated political commercial set to air next week. “The things that people can do with the Internet now is incredible. But what I can tell you is this: Again, these are not my words. This is simply tabloid trash being used as a distraction from the substantive issues that the people of this state are facing.”

The CNN investigation found that Robinson, currently serving as North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, used the username “minisoldr” on a website called “Nude Africa” between 2008 and 2012. CNN identified Robinson as the user by matching biographical details, a shared email address, and profile photos. The comments reportedly included Robinson referring to himself as a “black NAZI!” and expressing support for reinstating slavery, among other controversial comments.

Considering the trail of evidence CNN pieced together and the fact the comments were reportedly posted long before the current AI boom, Robinson’s claim of an AI-generated attack is very unlikely to be true.

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But that’s going to be the new defence: it wasn’t me, it’s fake, generated by AI. In which case resources such as the Wayback Machine keeping archives of sites (where one presumes Robinson’s previous posts are preserved) become even more valuable.
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Facebook loses jurisdiction appeal in Kenyan court paving the way for moderators’ case to proceed • AP News

Evelyne Musambi:

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Facebook ’s parent company Meta on Friday lost its appeal in a Kenyan labour court that ruled the company could be sued in Kenya over the mass sacking of content moderators.

The court had earlier ruled that Kenyan courts had jurisdiction over the matter, but Meta challenged the ruling on appeal.

The case filed by some 185 content moderators from different African countries who were working for a Meta contractor, Sama, in Nairobi will now proceed in the labor court, their lawyer, Mercy Mutemi, said Friday. They are seeking $1.6bn in compensation.

Facebook is facing two lawsuits in Kenya, the first one filed by content moderator Daniel Motaung who alleges the company exploited him and his colleagues and damaged their mental health. The second case filed by 185 moderators challenges the termination of their employment contracts.

Facebook and Sama have defended their employment practices.

Some of the petitioners have told The Associated Press that their jobs required them to watch horrific content for eight hours a day that overwhelmed many of them while being paid 60,000 Kenyan shillings, or $414 a month. They accused Sama of doing little to ensure post-traumatic professional counseling was offered.

The Kenyan workers’ case is supported by UK-based non-profit organization Foxglove whose director, Martha Dark, said Meta had played “legal tricks to delay the case” and expressed hope that justice would be served.

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Evening Standard to revive Brian Sewell as AI for Van Gogh review • Deadline

Jake Kanter:

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He was one of the most feared and revered British art critics of his generation — and now, nearly a decade after his death, Brian Sewell could be about to wield his pen once more.

Deadline understands that London’s historic Evening Standard newspaper has been making plans to revive its former writer using artificial intelligence. Two sources said AI Sewell has been assigned to review The National Gallery’s new Vincent van Gogh exhibition, titled Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers.

One person said the plans were discussed at the highest level of the Standard and in consultation with Lord Lebedev, the newspaper’s proprietor. Dylan Jones, editor-in-chief of the Standard, did not respond to requests for comment.

It is not clear how the AI will work or if the Standard has permission from Sewell’s estate. The critic was survived by his partner, the artist Dean Marsh.

The idea is part of an attempt to reinvent the Standard, a 197-year-old institution, after it stopped daily presses last week. It will pivot to weekly editions from Thursday. The embrace of AI has raised eyebrows among staff after the Standard made around 150 layoffs, including 70 editorial roles, as part of the move to weekly editions.

Sewell, who died in 2015 at the age of 84, worked for the Standard for more than 30 years and was renowned for his biting critiques. Known as Britain’s poshest art critic, he described a Damien Hirst exhibition as “detestable” and said Banksy should have been “put down at birth.” He once said there has “never been a first-rank woman artist” and “only men are capable of aesthetic greatness.”

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I dunno, I’d leave him dead with opinions like those. Sewell was always too fond of his own voice.
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X will let people you’ve blocked see your posts • The Verge

Emma Roth and Kyle Robison:

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X will now make your posts visible to users you’ve blocked. In a reply on Monday, X owner Elon Musk said the “block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public post.”

Currently, X displays a “You’re blocked” message when trying to view the profile of a person who’s blocked you. In addition to blocking all posts, it also prevents you from seeing their replies, media, followers, and following list.

While a source at X told The Verge that the platform is making this change because people can already view posts from users who’ve blocked them when using another account or when logged out, several of us at The Verge (myself included) have noticed that X actually prevents you from viewing someone’s profile if you’re logged out.

Musk has been vocal about his dislike of the block button. Last year, he said the feature “makes no sense” and that “it needs to be deprecated in favor of a stronger form of mute.” He also threatened to stop letting users block people on the platform completely, except for direct messages.

Even though X’s block button will continue to prevent someone from interacting with a person’s posts, they’ll still be able to see them, potentially making it easier for bad actors to continue harassing their victims.

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What Musk misses, in arguing that you can look at someone’s profile via an alt, is that that adds friction: you have to change profile, navigate to the person (if they haven’t blocked your alt), screenshot whatever, save it, go back to your original profile, post your screenshot with dunking quote tweet. The idea of blocking has been clearly applied for the past 20 years; this would mess it up.
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After X’s ban in Brazil, Tumblr reports quadrupled user growth • TechCrunch

Sarah Perez:

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Bluesky isn’t the only social networking service to benefit from X’s ban in Brazil. Tumblr this week is also reporting an increase in both active users and blog creation, the company tells TechCrunch.

According to Tumblr, in the days since the X ban in Brazil, the site saw 222.99% [tripled] growth in communities and 349.55% [quadrupled] growth in users. More specifically, Tumblr’s daily active users in Brazil have shot up by 30% from the 110,000 it was seeing, on average, in the days ahead of the ban.

What’s more, the new users aren’t just visiting the site, they’re creating accounts, too, Tumblr claims. The company says blog creation and community joins have also increased. (The company didn’t provide metrics on this front, however.)

Of those users who joined communities, Tumblr found that the percentage of daily active users in Brazil was also five times higher than those in the rest of the world.

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I think this is the reason why Musk backed down over the Brazil legal ban: losing users like this isn’t sustainable.
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Perplexity in talks with top brands on ads model as it challenges Google • FT

Cristina Criddle:

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Artificial intelligence-powered search engine Perplexity is in talks with brands including Nike and Marriott over its new advertising model, as the start-up mounts an ambitious effort to break Google’s stranglehold over the $300bn digital ads industry.

The San Francisco-based group is seeking to redesign the auction-based ads system pioneered by Google, where marketers bid to have a sponsored link placed against search queries.

At present, Perplexity’s AI chatbot gives a comprehensive response to user questions based on information from the internet, citing sources and including links to web pages. Below this, Perplexity offers suggested follow-up queries.

Under its new advertising model, brands will be able to bid for a “sponsored” question, which features an AI-generated answer approved by the advertiser.

Perplexity has held talks with a small number of top companies, including Nike and Marriott, according to correspondence seen by the Financial Times. The company said it hoped to roll out the ads system by the end of the year and was targeting “premium” brands. Nike and Marriott declined to comment.

Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity’s chief executive and a former Google intern, said: “Ads are really useful when they are relevant and coming from brands that are high quality, and a lot of people make purchases based on that.”

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I’m not sure *lots* of people do. Instagram and Google have to show a lot of ads to people to get them to buy things – though Instagram perhaps has a better hit rate. Also, Google (and Instagram, and Facebook) have pretty tight holds on the ad market. Along with Netflix and everyone else you can imagine.
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• Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more.

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Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified