BBC reverses Gary Lineker suspension for Twitter post

Lineker, as a freelancer who doesn’t work in news or current affairs, isn’t bound by rules that bar staff from expressing political opinions. (AFP/File)
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Updated 13 March 2023

BBC reverses Gary Lineker suspension for Twitter post

  • Presenter was suspended after he described UK government immigration plans “not dissimilar” to Nazi Germany
  • BBC faced weekend of chaos after it was accused of suppressing free speech, broadcast to review its social media rules

LONDON: Gary Lineker will return to the airwaves after the BBC reversed the former soccer great’s suspension on Monday for a tweet that had criticized the UK government’s new migration policy.
The about-face followed a weekend of chaos and crisis for Britain’s publicly funded national broadcaster, which faced a huge backlash over the suspension of one of its best-known hosts for expressing a political opinion.
“Gary is a valued part of the BBC and I know how much the BBC means to Gary, and I look forward to him presenting our coverage this coming weekend,” BBC Director-General Tim Davie said.
Lineker said he was “glad that we have found a way forward.”
Lineker, one of English soccer’s most lauded players and the corporation’s highest-paid television presenter, was suspended Friday after he described the government’s plan to detain and deport migrants arriving by boat as “an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s.”
The Conservative government called Lineker’s Nazi comparison offensive and unacceptable, and some lawmakers said the BBC should terminate his contract.
The broadcaster said the tweet breached its impartiality rules, but critics accused it of suppressing free speech. The BBC was forced to scrap much of its weekend sports programming after commentators, analysts and Premier League players refused to appear as a show of support of Lineker.
The flagship soccer show “Match of the Day” was reduced from the usual 90 minutes of highlights and analysis to a 20-minute compilation of clips from the day’s games, without commentary or punditry. Other TV and radio soccer shows were pulled from the schedule on Saturday and Sunday because of a lack of staff willing to present them.
Davie insisted Monday that the BBC “did the right thing” by suspending Lineker, but there would now be an independent review of the BBC’s social media rules to address the “gray areas” in the guidelines.
“Between now and when the review reports, Gary will abide by the editorial guidelines,” he said.
The 100-year-old BBC, which is funded by a license fee paid by all households with a television, has a duty to be impartial in its news coverage, and BBC news staff are barred from expressing political opinions.
Lineker, as a freelancer who doesn’t work in news or current affairs, isn’t bound by the same rules, and has sometimes pushed the boundaries of what the BBC considers acceptable. Last year, the BBC found that Lineker breached impartiality rules with a tweet about the Conservatives’ alleged Russian donations.
BBC neutrality has come under recent scrutiny over revelations that its chairman, Richard Sharp — a Conservative Party donor — helped arrange a loan for then Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2021, weeks before Sharp was appointed to the BBC post on the government’s recommendation.
Lineker said it had been “a surreal few days” and thanked people for their support.
“A final thought: however difficult the last few days have been, it simply doesn’t compare to having to flee your home from persecution or war to seek refuge in a land far away,” he tweeted. “It’s heartwarming to have seen the empathy toward their plight from so many of you.”


Meta previews generative AI tools planned for its platforms

Updated 09 June 2023

Meta previews generative AI tools planned for its platforms

  • Tools include ChatGPT-like chatbots for Messenger and WhatsApp, text-based image editing and emoji sticker creation

NEW YORK: Facebook owner Meta Platforms on Thursday gave employees a sneak peek at a series of AI tools it was building, including ChatGPT-like chatbots planned for Messenger and WhatsApp that could converse using different personas.
Company executives speaking at an all-hands meeting also demonstrated a coming Instagram feature that could modify user photos via text prompts and another that could create emoji stickers for messaging services, according to a summary of the session provided by a Meta spokesperson.
The showcase provided the first concrete indications of how the social media giant is planning to make its own generative AI tools available to its 3.8 billion monthly users, months after competitors like Google, Microsoft and Snapchat announced a rush of launches of such tools in their products.
Meta has yet to roll out any consumer-facing generative AI products, although it announced last month that it was working with a small group of advertisers to test tools that use AI to generate image backgrounds and variations of written copy for their ad campaigns.
The company has also been reorganizing its AI divisions and spending heavily to whip its infrastructure into shape, after determining early last year that it lacked the hardware and software capacity to support its AI product needs.
Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told employees at the session on Thursday that advancements in generative AI in the last year had now made it possible for the company to build the technology “into every single one of our products.”
In addition to the consumer-facing tools, executives at the meeting also announced a productivity assistant for employees called Metamate that could answer queries and perform tasks based on information gleaned from internal company systems.


Palestinian journalist seriously wounded by rubber bullet

Updated 09 June 2023

Palestinian journalist seriously wounded by rubber bullet

RAMALLAH: Moamen Sumreen, 22, a Palestinian journalist who was covering the Israeli raid, was seriously wounded after being hit in the head by a rubber bullet, his family told AFP.

Israeli troops on Thursday demolished the West Bank home of a Palestinian accused of carrying out twin bombings in Jerusalem last November that killed two Israelis, including a teenager.
His uncle Mohammed Sumreen, also a journalist, said they had been among a group of reporters watching events unfold from the roof of a nearby building.
“Throughout the coverage, the soldiers were shining laser lights on us, targeting us with gas bombs and firing live bullets in our direction,” he said.
“Moamen wanted to change his position, he stood up and was directly hit by a bullet in the area under the ear,” he said, noting that Sumreen was wearing a jacket marked “press” when he came under fire.
The Israeli army said that the incident was “under review.”

The army used explosives to make the first floor apartment in Ramallah where Aslam Faroukh lived uninhabitable, an AFP journalist reported.
Faroukh was arrested in December and accused of carrying out the November 23 bombings at Jerusalem bus stops that killed a 15-year-old Israeli-Canadian and an Israeli in his 50s. They were the first bombings to have targeted Israeli civilians since 2016.

“The home was demolished after an appeal to the Supreme Court against the demolition was rejected,” the army said in a statement.

Originally from Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, where he held an Israeli residency permit, Faroukh had lived in Ramallah for some years.
According to the army, he is alleged to have acted alone, “identifying with the Daesh (Daesh group) organization.”
Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967, routinely demolishes the homes of individuals it blames for deadly attacks on Israelis.
Human rights activists say the policy amounts to collective punishment, as it can render non-combatants, including children, homeless.
But Israel says the practice is effective in deterring some Palestinians from carrying out attacks.
Faroukh’s mother, Um Aslam, told AFP that the demolition would only “increase their hatred and (desire for) revenge.”


Microsoft to offer OpenAI’s GPT models to government cloud customers

Updated 08 June 2023

Microsoft to offer OpenAI’s GPT models to government cloud customers

  • Company said GPT technology will be integrated into Azure Government, which offers cloud solutions to government agencies

LONDON: Microsoft Corp. is bringing the powerful language-producing models from OpenAI to US federal agencies using its Azure cloud service, it said in a blog post on Wednesday.
The Redmond, Washington-based company has added support for large language models (LLMs) powering GPT-4 the latest and the most sophisticated of the LLMs from OpenAI, and GPT-3, to Azure Government.
Use of LLMs have boomed since the launch of ChatGPT from OpenAI, in which Microsoft holds a stake, and businesses of all shapes and sizes are racing to build features on top of them.
It is the first time Microsoft is bringing the GPT technology to Azure Government, which offers cloud solutions to US government agencies, and marks the first such effort by a major company to make the chatbot technology available to governments.
Microsoft generally offers it to Azure commercial cloud users through Azure OpenAI Services, which had 4,500 customers as of May.
Microsoft said government customers can adapt the language models for specific tasks including content generation, language-to-code translation and summarization. 


Meta introduces broadcast tool Channels on WhatsApp

Updated 08 June 2023

Meta introduces broadcast tool Channels on WhatsApp

  • New feature users will allow users to follow content on their hobbies, sports teams, updates from local officials

LONDON: Meta Platforms on Thursday introduced WhatsApp Channels, a feature that the social media giant said would help make the app a “private broadcast messaging product.”
Users in Colombia and Singapore will be the first to receive access to Channels. Over the coming months, Meta will expand the availability of the tool for users in more countries, it said.
The company said users will be able to follow content on their hobbies, sports teams, updates from local officials and others.
Profile photos and contact information of the channel admin would not be visible to followers. Similarly, followers will not have their phone numbers revealed.
Global launch partners for the feature will include the World Health Organization, FC Barcelona and Manchester City.


Fox News says Tucker Carlson breached his contract - Axios

Updated 08 June 2023

Fox News says Tucker Carlson breached his contract - Axios

  • Fox News accused Carlson of the violation in a letter to his legal team after he posted a clip of his new show on Twitter on Tuesday
  • Carlson was taken off the air by Fox last April following a damaging defamation lawsuit over false claims of election fraud

WASHINGTON: Fox News on Wednesday notified Tucker Carlson’s legal team that the former prime-time host violated his contract with the network when he launched his own Twitter show on Tuesday, Axios reported, citing a copy of a letter obtained by the news website.

Carlson released the first episode of his new show on Twitter on Tuesday, weeks after being taken off the air by Fox following a damaging defamation lawsuit over false claims of election fraud.
Fox News general counsel Bernard Gugar sent a letter to Carlson’s legal team saying Carlson “is in breach” of his contract agreement after he posted a clip of his new show on Twitter on Tuesday evening, according to Axios.
Carlson’s legal team could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters. His lawyer told Axios that any legal action by Fox would violate his First Amendment rights to free speech guaranteed by the US Constitution.
“Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds. Now they want to take Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events,” Carlson’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement cited by Axios.
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The letter quoted by Axios refers to Carlson’s contract, and said its former prime time star was “prohibited from rendering services of any type whatsoever, whether ‘over the Internet via streaming or similar distribution, or other digital distribution whether now known or hereafter devised.’“