The EU has opened an investigation into Elon Musk's X over the possible spread of terrorist and violent content, and hate speech, after Hamas' attack on Israel. The EU's industry chief, Thierry Breton, confirmed on Thursday the bloc had sent Twitter/X a "formal request for information" to determine whether the platform was complying with the Digital Services Act (DSA) - a law designed to protect users of big tech platforms which came into effect November, as misinformation about the conflict between Israel and Hamas spreads on social media. In a statement on Thursday, the EU said “the European Commission services sent to X a formal request for information under the Digital Services Act (DSA)”. “This request follows indications received by the Commission services of the alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech. The request addresses compliance with other provisions of the DSA as well.” In his letter to Musk, Breton said "violent and terrorist content" had not been taken down from X, despite warnings. Breton did not give details on the disinformation he was referring to in the letter, but said instances of "fake and manipulated images and facts" were widely reported on the social media platform. Responding on X, Musk said: "Our policy is that everything is open and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports. "Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that the public can see them." X chief executive Linda Yaccarino also said earlier on Thursday the platform had removed hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts and taken action to remove or label tens of thousands of pieces of content since Saturday's attack. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Nasa is sending a rocket to a metallic asteroid between Mars and Jupiter in the hope of finding diamonds and rubies. The mission, which is set to launch on Friday 13 October, will involve visiting the mysterious metallic asteroid 16 Psyche, which sits in an asteroid belt between the two planets. The journey will take seven years for Falcon Heavy, a craft made by Elon Musk’s space exploration firm SpaceX. It was due to take off on Thursday, but the launch was postponed because of bad weather. Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson said: “We are launching a billion dollar spacecraft all the way beyond Mars and close to Jupiter and it’s going to snuggle up next to a metallic asteroid, and we are going to learn something about that metallic asteroid. “I hope we might find diamonds and rubies on that asteroid. “Everything is a new discovery, and we are glimpsing more of the development of this magnificent thing we call the universe.” Falcon Heavy takes off on its four-billion-mile journey at 10.19am in Florida, from the Kennedy Space Center. That is 3.16pm UK time. By May 2026, it will pass by Mars and use the planet’s gravitational force to slingshot itself toward the asteroid. Four years later, it will reach its destination. There, it will find a rock made up of iron and nickel, scientists believe. But they also think it could contain precious metals and gems. 16 Psyche has puzzled astronomers since it was discovered by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis in 1852. In the 1980s, radar readings found that it was made of metal, leading scientists to speculate that the 130-mile boulder lost its outer shell by colliding with other asteroids. The spacecraft will spend about 26 months in orbit, taking images of the asteroid to get a clearer picture of its topography, surface features, gravity and magnetism. The asteroid will not be mined – but space agencies might just start taking more notice if they find its one massive diamond. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

UK antitrust officials have approved Microsoft's planned takeover of Activision Blizzard, the maker of "Call of Duty" and other hit games, greenlighting one of the biggest tech deals of all time.

“The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now in this very room." So says Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus in sci-fi classic ‘The Matrix’ as he offers Keanu Reeves’s Neo the choice to find out just how “deep the rabbit hole goes”. Now, just as Neo discovered that the "life" he'd been living was little more than an algorithmic construct, scientists and philosophers are arguing that we could be stuck inside a simulation ourselves. In a paper published earlier this month, physicist Melvin Vopson, of the University of Portsmouth, offered scientific evidence for a philosophical theory known as the simulation hypothesis. This, in a nutshell, posits that the entire universe and our objective reality are just super-advanced virtual reality illusions. Elon Musk is among the well-known fans of the theory, which – as Dr Vopson notes in his paper – has been “gaining traction in scientific circles as well as in the entertainment industry”. The university lecturer also pointed out that recent developments in a branch of science known as information physics “appear to support this possibility”. Information physics suggests that physical reality is made up of bits of information. However, Dr Vopson has gone further and is working to prove that information has a physical mass and is a fundamental building block of the universe. He even claims that information could be the mysterious dark matter that makes up almost a third of the universe. In previous research, the physicist proposed that all elementary particles (the smallest known building blocks in the universe), store information about themselves, much like DNA in humans. Then, in 2022, he discovered a new law of physics, christened the second law of infodynamics, which states that entropy – the degree of randomness or disorder – within an isolated information system either remains constant or decreases over time. In other words, the system becomes less and less chaotic, implying that there is some kind of mechanism governing it rather than random chance. “I knew then that this revelation had far-reaching implications across various scientific disciplines,” Dr Vopson said in a statement released by the University of Portsmouth. “What I wanted to do next is put the law to the test and see if it could further support the simulation hypothesis by moving it on from the philosophical realm to mainstream science.” Is the Universe a Simulation? | Melvin Vopson www.youtube.com Dr Vopson employed the law in a range of different fields, including genetics, cosmology and even symmetry. Here, he found that the abundance of symmetry in the Universe (think snowflakes and facial structures) could be explained by the second law of infodynamics. "Symmetry principles play an important role with respect to the laws of nature, but until now there has been little explanation as to why that could be,” he said. “My findings demonstrate that high symmetry corresponds to the lowest information entropy state, potentially explaining nature's inclination towards it." Again, put simply, nature prefers things to be as well-ordered as possible. He continued: “This approach, where excess information is removed, resembles the process of a computer deleting or compressing waste code to save storage space and optimise power consumption.” As a result, this “supports the idea that we’re living in a simulation.” Dr Vopson is serious about this idea and, last year, even launched a crowdfunding campaign to test it. At the time, he announced that he had designed an experiment to determine whether we are all just characters in an advanced virtual world. “There is a growing community out there looking seriously at the possibility that information is more fundamental to everything than we think,” he said in a statement released back in December. “If information is a key component of everything in the universe, it would make sense that a vast computer somewhere is in control. “Assuming the universe is indeed a simulation, then it must contain a lot of information bits hidden everywhere around us. I’ve devised an experiment that proposes a way of extracting this information to prove it’s there.” His proposed experiment is based on his conclusion that information is physical and that elementary particles have a DNA of information about themselves. He posited that the information in an elementary particle could be detected and measured by using particle-antiparticle collision. “We can measure the information content of a particle by erasing it. If we delete the information from the particles, we can then look at what’s left,” he said in the December statement. “This experiment is highly achievable with our existing tools, and I’m hoping the crowdfunding site will help us achieve it.” And whilst the crowdfunder closed well before reaching its proposed £185,000 target, Dr Vopson still hopes to carry out the ambitious test. Following his most recent paper, he suggested the experiment had the power to confirm the “fifth state of matter in the universe” and “change physics as we know it.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The EU has launched an investigation into Elon Musk’s X – formerly known as Twitter — over its alleged spreading of disinformation, “in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech” over the recent Hamas attack on Israel. It will be the first inquiry conducted in relation to the European Union’s recently implemented tech regulations and will also scrutinise the procedures at X for managing complaints. Earlier, X announced that it removed numerous accounts associated with Hamas from its platform. In a statement on Thursday, the EU said that “the European Commission services sent to X a formal request for information under the Digital Services Act (DSA)”. “This request follows indications received by the Commission services of the alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech. The request addresses compliance with other provisions of the DSA as well.” The EU’s industry chief Thierry Breton clashed online with Mr Musk after telling him in a letter that “violent and terrorist content” had not been taken down from X despite warnings. Mr Breton refrained from giving more specific details about the disinformation mentioned in the letter. However, he noted that instances of “fake and manipulated images and facts” were widely documented on the social media platform. Mr Musk hit back on X saying: “Our policy is that everything is open and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports. Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that the public can see them.” TikTok and Meta have also received warnings from the European Union for their alleged failures in addressing disinformation on their social media platforms. The EU is requesting that X provide information related to its investigation by 18 October. Mr Breton had initially written that Mr Musk should respond within 24 hours. Mr Breton also reminded Mr Musk that the DSA “sets very precise obligations regarding content moderation,” and that X needs “to be very transparent and clear on what content is permitted under your terms and consistently and diligently enforce your own policies”. He added that he expects X “to be in contact with the relevant law enforcement authorities and Europol, and ensure that you respond promptly to their requests”. “I remind you that following the opening of a potential investigation and a finding of non-compliance, penalties can be imposed,” Mr Breton wrote. Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, announced on Thursday that the platform had taken action to remove hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts and had also initiated steps to either remove or label tens of thousands of pieces of content since the attack that occurred on Saturday. Read More Israel-Hamas war live: UN alarmed by north Gaza evacuation order as IDF ‘fires white phosphorus on Strip’ Hamas’s hostages: What to know about Israelis abducted by the militant group France has banned pro-Palestinian protests and vowed to protect Jews from resurgent antisemitism EU asks Elon Musk to ‘walk the talk’ on X/Twitter disinformation over Hamas attack Viral WhatsApp warning of cyberattack targeting Jewish people is fake Microsoft revised deal to buy Call of Duty maker Activision cleared by watchdog

Microsoft has been given approval to buy Call of Duty developer Activision, clearing the way for one of the biggest ever tech deals. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the Xbox owner could go ahead with the takeover after agreeing to buy Activision without cloud gaming rights. It puts an end to a half-year long battle between the watchdog and Microsoft, having moved to block the deal in April. But businesses and their advisors should be in no doubt that the tactics employed by Microsoft are no way to engage with the CMA Sarah Cardell, CMA's chief executive The new deal, which was initially worth 69 billion US dollars (£56.6 billion at the current exchange rate), will stop Microsoft from having a “stranglehold” over the UK cloud gaming market, the CMA said. The regulator said it would preserve competitive prices for gamers and make sure consumers get more choice. Assassin’s Creed video game maker Ubisoft is set to buy Activision’s cloud gaming rights instead. But the CMA criticised Microsoft for “dragging out” proceedings during its investigation into the merger. Sarah Cardell, the CMA’s chief executive, said: “With the sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft, we’ve made sure Microsoft can’t have a stranglehold over this important and rapidly developing market. “But businesses and their advisors should be in no doubt that the tactics employed by Microsoft are no way to engage with the CMA. “Microsoft had the chance to restructure during our initial investigation but instead continued to insist on a package of measures that we told them simply wouldn’t work. “Dragging out proceedings in this way only wastes time and money.” Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, said the group is “grateful” for the decision to approve the acquisition which he believes will “benefit players and the gaming industry worldwide”. Additional reporting by agencies Read More Incels using TikTok to spread ‘hateful beliefs’, research suggests Duke and Duchess of Sussex call for overhaul of social media Google to trial AI in UK traffic light systems to reduce stop-and-go emissions Broadband customers face £150 hikes because of ‘outrageous’ rises – Which? Rise of AI chatbots ‘worrying’ after man urged to kill Queen, psychologist warns William hails ‘amazing’ eco-friendly start-up businesses

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