Technology

Tesla (TSLA) has to replace the ‘self-driving’ computer inside about 4 million vehicles or likely compensate the owners of those vehicles.

The liability could be more significant than the largest automotive recall in terms of cost.

In 2016, Tesla claimed that all its vehicles in production going forward have “all the hardware necessary for full self-driving capability.”

Tesla’s use of the term “full self-driving” has changed over the years, but at the time and for years later, CEO Elon Musk claimed that it would mean Tesla owners would eventually receive a software update that would turn their vehicles into “robotaxis” capable of level-4-5 self-driving, which means unsupervised autonomous driving even with no one in the cars.

Almost 10 years later, this has yet to happen and won’t happen soon in most of the cars Tesla has delivered over the last decade.

Archive link: https://archive.is/kJO23

Civil society organisations Bits of Freedom, Convocation Design + Research, European Digital Rights (EDRi), and Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF) are filing a complaint against Meta for violating the Digital Services Act (DSA).

https://www.jftc.go.jp/en/pressreleases/yearly-2025/April/250415.html

Facebook is hosting dozens of black market groups where people can buy or rent Uber driver accounts, giving them a way to drive for these services under a false identity and putting passengers and customers at risk, a new Tech Transparency Project (TTP) investigation has found.

TTP identified 80 Facebook groups with a combined membership of more than 800,000 users that trade in driver accounts for Uber, DoorDash, and other rideshare and delivery apps. Many of the groups made no secret of their activity, with obvious names like “Uber Delivery Drivers Account For Rent."

This black market allows people to acquire driver accounts for Uber and other services without going through the required screening process or even having a valid driver’s license. The activity endangers passenger and customer safety and may violate U.S. law. A recent case involving a similar alleged scheme resulted in wire fraud and identity theft charges against more than a dozen people.

Facebook is allowing this market to thrive on its platform even though its parent company Meta has policies against fraud and the sale of “fake or forged documents.” Meta also bars Facebook groups from promoting “illegal activities, products, or services.” Uber, for its part, prohibits fraudulent activities including “creating fake, duplicate, or otherwise improper accounts” and “falsifying documentation.”

Facebook has faced years of criticism for failing to effectively enforce its content policies. When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a Trump-friendly pivot away from fact checking and policing hate speech in January, the company made clear that its automated systems would continue to tackle clearly illegal activity such as fraud. But as TTP’s investigation shows, Meta is failing to meet its new, lowered bar for policy enforcement by hosting a thriving trade in fraudulent Uber driver accounts.

Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.

Asked about TTP's findings, Uber said it does not allow account sharing and has "robust safeguards" to verify that "the person using an account is the rightful owner." According to the company, social media platforms can help discourage this kind of illicit activity.

"Protecting the integrity of our platform is a top priority," Uber said in a statement. "When we determine that an account holder is engaging in account sharing, or other forms of fraud, we ban their account from the platform."

TTP conducted the bulk of its investigation from January to February 2025. As of April 1, nine of the 80 Facebook groups had been removed and one changed its focus, but the other 70 remained active and some had increased their membership.

Community colleges have been dealing with an unprecedented phenomenon: fake students bent on stealing financial aid funds. While it has caused chaos at many colleges, some Southwestern faculty feel their leaders haven’t done enough to curb the crisis.

A little-known database logs hundreds of millions of wire transfers sent to or from Mexico, Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.

• Research from the World Economic Forum shows it’s becoming easier for citizens to be monitored, allowing governments, technology companies and threat actors to “reach deeper into people’s lives”.
• In response, people are “waking up” to privacy, according to Meredith Whittaker, president of secure messaging service Signal.
• Here, she explores the drivers behind this shift and how it could impact the digital landscape.

Hugging Face, a company that hosts open source artificial intelligence models and software, announced today that it has acquired Pollen Robotics, the French startup behind the bug-eyed, two-armed, humanoid robot called Reachy 2. Hugging Face plans to sell the robot and will also allow developers to download, modify, and suggest improvements to its code.