ISTANBUL: Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority has imposed advertising bans on Twitter, Periscope and Pinterest under a new social media law, according to decisions published in the country’s Official Gazette on Tuesday.
The law, which critics say will muzzle dissent, requires social media companies to appoint local representatives in Turkey. On Monday, Facebook joined other companies in saying it would be appointing such a representative.
YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google, said a month ago it had decided to appoint a representative.
The decisions in the Official Gazette said the advertising bans went into effect from Tuesday. Twitter, its live-streaming app Periscope, and image sharing app Pinterest were not immediately available to comment.
The law allows authorities to remove content from platforms, rather than blocking access as they did in the past. The move has caused concern as people turn more to online platforms after Ankara tightened its grip on mainstream media.
In previous months Facebook, YouTube and Twitter had faced fines in Turkey for not complying with the law. Companies that do not follow the law will ultimately have their bandwidth slashed by 90 percent, essentially blocking access.
Turkey imposes advertising ban on Twitter, Periscope, Pinterest
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Turkey imposes advertising ban on Twitter, Periscope, Pinterest
- Decisions in Official Gazette say the advertising bans went into effect from Tuesday
Google launches AI music model in English, Arabic
- Lyria 3 lets users generate 30-second audio tracks via Gemini
DUBAI: Google has launched Lyria 3, a generative AI music model currently in final testing, that can be used via the Gemini website and app to create customized audio tracks.
Users can provide text prompts such as “an upbeat, modern Arabic fusion track for Ramadan” or “a massive, anthemic rock song with an emotive male singer.”
They can add images to their prompts and ask the model to generate a track that reflects the ideas within the pictures. They can also add lyrics or ask the model to generate them.
Lyria 3 then produces a 30-second track along with cover art generated by Google’s artificial intelligence image generator and editor, Nano Banana.
Google said the aim was not to create a musical masterpiece or for copying existing artists but to let users express themselves in unique ways. However, if a prompt specifies a particular artist, the model can draw inspiration their style while still creating an original track.
Lyria was launched in 2023 and is the company’s most advanced music generation model. SynthID, Google’s tool to watermark and identify AI-generated content, is embedded in all tracks it creates.
Users can also upload a file to check whether it was generated using Google AI. Gemini will examine it for SynthID and provide a response based on its analysis.
Lyria 3 is available in Arabic, English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese, with more languages expected in the future. It will be available on the mobile app in the coming days.
