X has been fined for failure to disclose information regarding child abuse content.The platform formerly known as Twitter was handed down a USD 380k fine over violating Australia’s Online Safety Act, which was introduced in 2021 where online platforms report on how they crack down on child abuse content. Even though CEO Elon Musk said he is committed to addressing the issue, internal reports proved otherwise, according to CNBC, prompting the Australian eSafety commissioner to hand down the fine for lack of information on the platform’s crackdown on child abuse content.

A small fine but another big nail in X’s coffin: Since Musk’s acquisition and its rebrand to X, the company has come under constant fire for its content moderation practices — or lack thereof. Musk himself has been under scrutiny since his photo with Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted [redacted] trafficker sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring to [redacted] abuse minors, made rounds on the internet. In February of this year, the eSafety office sent a memo to X with specific questions about their handling of child exploitation content. However, the company left entire sections blank, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told CNBC.

X is the worst of a bad bunch. While other platforms such as Google, TikTok, Twitch, and Discord, received their own memos and exhibited their own shortfalls, Musk’s company showed exceptional failure, said the commissioner. It refused to provide information on how long reports of child abuse content go unchecked, the technology employed to detect child abuse content on the platform, and how many safety employees remain in the department indiscriminately pruned by Musk. Internal records obtained by CNBC in December of 2022 showed that only 25 employees with ties to the department remained, compared to X’s 368 mn active users.

AI extracts the first readable word from an ancient scroll charred by Vesuvius in AD79: As part of a machine learning competition Vesuvius challenge, where a USD 700k is awarded to anyone who is able to uncover the contents of the charred scroll, two computer students successfully deciphering the first ancient Greek word from the ashes: “πορφύραc” meaning “purple,” reports The Guardian. The scroll, part of a collection held by the Institut de France in Paris, was found in the library of a luxury villa thought to belong to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law in the town of Herculaneum that was buried under layers of hot mud and ashes from the infamous eruption in AD 79.

The competition kicked off in March to speed up the reading of scrolls. A University of Kentucky professor and his team published 3D X-ray photos of two rolled-up scrolls and three papyrus fragments to begin the challenge. They also provided an AI program trained to decipher the scrolls’ letters based on the ink’s effect on the papyrus. The next step in the challenge is for researchers to decipher the surrounding text. Federica Nicolardi, a papyrologist at the University of Naples Federico II, anticipates that more lines will become legible soon. A recent passage also revealed the presence of at least four visible text columns, according to The Evening Standard.

Got a bedbug problem? Scooby-Doo and the gang are on the case: Firms that have specially trained sniffer dogs are seeing a surge in demand from homes and hotels as bedbug infestations spike in the UK, according to The Guardian. Cocker spaniels, among other breeds, have the remarkable ability to spot a bed bug within minutes, hidden in even the tiniest areas, such as cracks in the wall, a TV remote, plug sockets, or deep within beds or pillows. However, these gifted canines need to be trained, and will take between a year to a year and a half to detect the pungent-smelling pheromones secreted by bedbugs.

Where do bed bugs come from? According to records, bedbug infestations can be attributed to various factors: Traveling, the purchase of second-hand furniture, and the insects’ growing resistance to insecticide. Unfortunately, the bed bug infestation is expected to rise following the Rugby World Cup, currently held in France, which is suffering from their own bed bug infestation.

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