“The Russian Federation had a few final items of protocol to tick through with the man who had become its most famous prisoner…they had another piece of writing they required from him, an official request for presidential clemency. The text, moreover, should be addressed to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. The pro forma printout included a long blank space the prison could fill out if desired, or simply, as expected, leave blank. In the formal high Russian he had honed over 16 months imprisonment, the Journal’s Russia correspondent filled the page. The last line submitted a proposal of his own: After his release, would Putin be willing to sit down for an interview?”

“It may never be clear if Gershkovich was targeted for specific reporting, or simply because the Kremlin needed a hostage to further negotiations for a prisoner swap with the west, after numerous arrests of high-profile Russian assets and officers.”

“Since Russia imprisoned Mr. Gershkovich in March 2023, The Journal has pushed to keep his detainment top of mind.” (Nieman Lab also covered the Journal’s efforts here.

The 32-year-old’s release was secured as part of the largest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War. Read a letter from Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker is here.

“Mr. Lemon did not sign a contract cementing the agreement, which he believed would be a launchpad for his new show after CNN fired him last year, the lawsuit said. Mr. Musk told him during a phone call that there was no need to ‘fill out paperwork’ and reassured Mr. Lemon that X would financially support the show even if he did not like the views Mr. Lemon espoused, according to the court filing.”

“The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accuses Abraham Shafi of defrauding investors by making misleading statements about the company’s growth. IRL – which was once considered a potential rival to Facebook – took its name from its intention to get its online users to meet up in real life. However, the initial optimism evaporated after it emerged most of IRL’s users were bots, with the platform shutting in 2023.”

“In Futurism’s testing, ChatGPT regularly cited DNyuz’ plagiarism factory as an authoritative and original source. And even after we alerted OpenAI to the issue, ChatGPT continued basing its answers on DNuyz’s stolen content.”

“The signatories said they wanted ‘to draw X’s immediate attention to its persistent failings in the fight against the availability of unlawful content on its platform and urgently call for a meeting with X’s representatives to address this unacceptable situation.’”

“If it passes, the NO FAKES Act would create an option for people to seek damages when their voice, face or body are recreated by AI. Both individuals and companies would be held liable for producing, hosting or sharing unauthorized digital replicas, including ones made by generative AI.”

“[Reddit CEO Steve Huffman] said that Microsoft has been using Reddit’s data to train its AI and summarizing its content in Bing results ‘without telling us’ and that Reddit’s data has also been sold through the Bing API to other search engines.”