Someone out there doesn't like Twitter accounts critical of China
For the past few months, as the world is grappling with coronavirus that probably originated in China, it looks like Twitter too may have become victim of a censorship bug that could have the same origin.
By Saikiran Kannan
Twitter is the platform where people from all over the world, including leaders and celebrities, voice their opinions freely. But this free speech model did not go well within the governance framework of the Communist Party of China (CCP); the microblogging site was banned in mainland China and its equivalent called Sina Weibo emerged. Here's the catch: users' posts on Weibo are heavily-monitored and censored, removing the very essence of free speech.
For the past few months, as the world is grappling with coronavirus that probably originated in China, it looks like Twitter too may have become victim of a censorship bug that could have the same origin.
Row over Twitter hiring new AI expert
There was a lot of controversy when Fei-Fei Li, an artificial intelligence (AI) expert who allegedly has close connections with the CCP, was appointed to the board of Twitter as an Independent Director in May 2020.
Li quit her role as chief scientist of artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) from Google in October 2018 following a controversy surrounding Google's Project Maven initiative, which helped the Pentagon identify drone targets from blurry video footage.
