Tag: google

White House renamed ‘Epstein Island’ on Google phones – WaPo

The White House was briefly renamed ‘Epstein Island’ for some Google Pixel phone users, the Washington Post has reported.

The term is used to refer to the Caribbean island of Little St. James, which had been owned by the late convicted pedophile Jeffry Epstein. According to the prosecutors, it served as the venue for sex trafficking and other abuses involving some high-profile figures in business and politics.

WaPo said in an article on Saturday that when its journalist tried calling the White House switchboard earlier this week, the name on screen indicated that they were contacting “Epstein Island.”

Only users of Google’s Pixel phones experienced the issue. For those calling the presidential residence from other Android phones and iPhones, no name was displayed, the report read.

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The Verdict Against Meta and Google That Could End the Anonymous Internet

A Los Angeles jury has found Meta and YouTube negligent in the design of their platforms and awarded $3 million to a plaintiff identified as K.G.M., a young woman who testified that years of near-constant social media use contributed to depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia. The jury assigned 70% of the responsibility to Meta and 30% to YouTube. Punitive damages came to another $6 million.

The verdict is being reported as a landmark for child safety. It also represents a significant legal mechanism for dismantling anonymous internet access, built in plain sight, with bipartisan enthusiasm and a CEO’s enthusiastic assistance.

K.G.M.’s attorneys built their claim not around what users posted, which Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act largely shields platforms from liability for, but around how the platforms were designed.

Infinite scroll, algorithmically amplified notifications, engagement loops engineered to maximize time on site. The argument treats social media architecture the way product liability law treats a car without brakes. A defective product that the public needs to be protected from.

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Google Gets Caught Red-Handed Pushing Left-Wing Agenda, Silencing Conservative News

Commentator Britt Hughes is raising concerns about what she describes as a lack of ideological balance on Google News, pointing to a February analysis that examined the platform’s top morning stories.

Hughes compared the findings to earlier criticism of another major platform before turning to Google’s results.

“Do you remember when I told you that Apple News had gone three straight months without featuring a single article from a conservative news outlet in its top stories?” Hughes said.

She then shifted to Google’s performance during the same type of review period.

“Well now they can hold Google’s beer,” Hughes said.

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Google Discontinues AI Health Feature Filled with Misleading Advice

Google has quietly discontinued an AI search feature that offered users health advice crowdsourced from non-medical professionals worldwide.

The Guardian reports that Google has removed a controversial AI-powered search feature called “What People Suggest” that provided users with crowdsourced health advice from people around the world. The decision comes amid growing scrutiny over the technology company’s use of artificial intelligence to deliver health information to millions of users.

Three sources familiar with the decision confirmed that Google has scrapped the feature. A company spokesperson acknowledged that “What People Suggest” had been discontinued, stating the removal was part of a broader simplification of the search results page and was unrelated to concerns about the quality or safety of the feature.

The feature was initially launched in March of last year at an event in New York called “The Check Up,” where Google announced plans to expand medical-related AI summaries in its search function. At the time, the company promoted “What People Suggest” as demonstrating the potential of AI to transform health outcomes globally by connecting users with information from people who had similar lived medical experiences.

Karen DeSalvo, who served as Google’s chief health officer at the time of the launch, explained the rationale behind the feature in a blog post. “While people come to search to find reliable medical information from experts, they also value hearing from others who have similar experiences,” DeSalvo wrote. The feature used AI to organize perspectives from online discussions into themes, making it easier for users to understand what people were saying about particular health conditions.

DeSalvo provided an example of how the feature would work, noting that someone with arthritis seeking information about exercise could quickly find insights from others with the same condition, with links to explore further information. The feature was initially available on mobile devices in the United States before being discontinued.

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‘CODE RED’ Author Tells Fox News: Google Gemini AI Claims Republicans Like Marsha Blackburn, Tom Cotton Engage in Hate Speech

Google’s Gemini AI chatbot claims that only Republican senators violate its hate speech policy, with not a single Democrat flagged by the woke tech giant’s system, Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall demonstrated to Fox News in a revelation published today. The bias built into AI by leftist Silicon Valley tech titans is a central subject of Hall’s new book, CODE RED.

Gemini flagged a group of Republican senators — but no Democrats — when asked to name senators who have made statements that violate Google’s hate speech policies, Hall demonstrated to Fox News with a video of Gemini AI in action.

Hall, whose new book, Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI, publishes on Tuesday, added that this is just one example of what is a deeply ingrained bias against conservatives in AI tools.

“AI’s Silicon Valley architects lean left politically, and their lopsided political donations to Democrats underscore their ideological aims,” the author told the outlet.

Fox News reported:

Hall used the “deep research” function on Google’s Gemini Pro. Fox News Digital reviewed a screen recording of Hall’s prompt and findings. Google did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

One of the Republicans flagged by Gemini in Hall’s research, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, was listed for characterizing “transgender identity as a harmful cultural ‘influence’ and has used ‘woke’ as a derogatory slur against protected groups.” Another, Arkansas’ Sen. Tom Cotton, was cited for cosponsoring legislation “to exclude transgender students from sports.”

Hall explains in CODE RED that AI tools touting themselves as neutral are actually shaped by the political bias of those who create them. The Breitbart News social media director begins his book with a stark example, pointing to an incident in 2024 in which several viral videos seemingly exposed a clear double standard in American homes.

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X Users Find Their Real Names Are Being Googled in Israel After Using X Verification Software “Au10tix”

Awide range of anonymous X (Twitter) users have reported that their real names are suddenly being Googled in Israel shortly after they began criticizing the country for its actions in Palestine. Some connected the phenomenon to Au10tix, the software X requires users (even anonymous ones) to use in order to verify their real identities.

Au10tix is an Israeli company founded and staffed by former Israeli spies from the elite Israeli military intelligence group Unit 8200. MintPress News investigates this disturbing phenomenon.

“The Largest Honeypot Operation On the Planet”
“I’m not even kidding when I say my full legal name, including my middle name, has been searched up in Israel 11 times in the past day,” wrote TransFemPOTUS, an anonymous X user who has been highly critical of Israel’s actions.

This was not an isolated incident. “So apparently my full legal name got searched for in Israel the other day,” revealed TheAtlantean9, an anonymous far-left user with a Palestinian flag in their bio.

Meanwhile, artist Bionico Bandito stated that “My full name got searched 100 times in Israel when I posted this,” referring to a cartoon depicting associates of Jeffrey Epstein being executed.

Across the world, from conservative Japanese accounts to American conspiracy theorists, anonymous users are reporting that data from Google Trends shows their real names, not divulged anywhere online, are being mass searched in Israel.

How could this be happening? Some laid the blame at Au10tix’s door. “Only Au10tix and X holds my data obtained from ID verification,” wrote one user in a viral post, adding, “The rumors are absolutely true.”

“Israel is now 100% confirmed to be Googling anonymous users on X and their family members shortly after they speak out against the country,” wrote another, concluding that, “X is now the largest honeypot operation on the planet.”

The theory centers around Israeli security company Au10tix, who, in 2023, was tasked with verifying users’ identities, a prerequisite for joining X’s premium service which allows users a far greater reach.

The process requires individuals to upload a picture of their passport or other photo I.D., and allow Au10tix to scan their face via their device’s camera. Au10tix claims that it deletes users’ data within 72 hours of receiving it. However, the fact that the company was founded and is staffed by veterans of notorious Israeli spying group Unit 8200 – a group that has been behind many of the most outrageous hacking, infiltration, and cyberwarfare scandals of the past decade – has led many to be extremely suspicious.

The idea that Au10tix itself, or the Israeli government could be using the data given to it by users in order to combat online criticism is far from outlandish. The Department of Homeland Security is already known to be doing the same, sending hundreds of subpoenas to Google, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Discord, and other large social media apps demanding they share the personal information and identities of anonymous users who have criticized the actions of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). Government officials confirmed to The New York Times that platforms have often complied with their requests.

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Privacy Groups Revolt Against Google’s Demand to Register Every Android Developer

Android’s defining advantage over iOS has always been openness. You could build an app, distribute it yourself, and never touch Google’s systems. That era is about to end unless the open-source community can force Google to back down.

Starting September 2026, any app installed on a certified Android device must be registered by a Google-verified developer. No registration, no installation. The verification demands government-issued identification, agreement to Google’s terms and conditions, and a $25 fee.

Developers who skip Google’s approval process will find their apps blocked, even when distributed entirely outside Google Play, through stores like F-Droid, the Amazon Appstore, or Samsung’s Galaxy Store.

Organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, F-Droid, Article 19, Fastmail, and Vivaldi, signed an open letter calling on Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and app ecosystem chief Vijaya Kaza to kill the policy. Their message is simple: Google is reaching into distribution channels it doesn’t own, doesn’t operate, and has no legitimate authority over.

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Iranian Spies Busted: Three Silicon Valley Engineers Charged with Stealing Google Trade Secrets and Funneling Data to Tehran

A federal grand jury has indicted three engineers for stealing hundreds of confidential files from Google and other tech giants, then smuggling the sensitive data to Iran.

The defendants, Samaneh Ghandali, 41, a U.S. citizen; her sister Soroor Ghandali, 32, an Iranian national on a student visa; and Samaneh’s husband Mohammadjavad Khosravi, 40, an Iranian national and legal permanent resident, were all residents of San Jose at the time of the theft.

Samaneh and Soroor previously worked at Google before joining another unnamed tech firm, while Khosravi, a former member of the Iranian army, was employed at a developer of system-on-chip (SoC) platforms, such as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series used in high-end Android phones and Apple’s iPhones.

Charged with conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, theft, and attempted theft of trade secrets, and obstruction of justice, the trio allegedly exploited their insider access to steal processor security, cryptography materials, and Snapdragon SoC hardware architecture secrets that serve as valuable intel not readily available to competitors.

The trio routed the files through third-party platforms like Telegram, copied them to personal devices, and even photographed computer screens to dodge digital monitoring.

In a particularly brazen move, just before Samaneh and Khosravi jetted off to Iran in December 2023, she snapped photos of his work screen displaying company secrets.

While in Iran, devices linked to them accessed this pilfered info.

Google caught wind of the scheme in August 2023 when internal security flagged Samaneh’s suspicious activity, leading to her access being revoked.

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Amazon’s Ring and Google’s Nest Unwittingly Reveal the Severity of the U.S. Surveillance State

That the U.S. Surveillance State is rapidly growing to the point of ubiquity has been demonstrated over the past week by seemingly benign events. While the picture that emerges is grim, to put it mildly, at least Americans are again confronted with crystal clarity over how severe this has become.

The latest round of valid panic over privacy began during the Super Bowl held on Sunday. During the game, Amazon ran a commercial for its Ring camera security system. The ad manipulatively exploited people’s love of dogs to induce them to ignore the consequences of what Amazon was touting. It seems that trick did not work.

The ad highlighted what the company calls its “Search Party” feature, whereby one can upload a picture, for example, of a lost dog. Doing so will activate multiple other Amazon Ring cameras in the neighborhood, which will, in turn, use AI programs to scan all dogs, it seems, and identify the one that is lost. The 30-second commercial was full of heart-tugging scenes of young children and elderly people being reunited with their lost dogs.

But the graphic Amazon used seems to have unwittingly depicted how invasive this technology can be. That this capability now exists in a product that has long been pitched as nothing more than a simple tool for homeowners to monitor their own homes created, it seems, an unavoidable contract between public understanding of Ring and what Amazon was now boasting it could do.

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Google agrees to $68m settlement over claims it recorded private conversations

Google is facing a class action after its users claimed the company was spying on them.

The company has agreed to pay $68 million to settle a lawsuit as users accuse the company of violating their personal privacy.

Google’s virtual assistant, an AI powered software available on android phones and tablets, has been accused of recording private conversations.

The software activates when users use “wake words”, a verbal cue prompting the device to actively listen to commands, like “Hey Google” or “Okay Google”.

The assistant is designed to only switch from passive monitoring to active listening when it hears wake words.

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