Connected newsletter: Tech sector welcomes budget measures, misinformation spreads on social media
Connected at the Business Post is your source for the news that matters in technology and innovation, all told from an Irish perspective
What a busy week it has been, with all manner of surprises, not least a budget that largely delivered for the tech sector.
As I wrote in my analysis on Tuesday, there was a sense of shock that many of the things the tech sector has been seeking for years were finally granted. No wonder then that the response from representative groups was largely positive.
There have been plenty of concerns raised since Elon Musk took over what was formerly known as Twitter late last year about the spread of misinformation. The Israel-Hamas war has shown that those fears weren’t without substance.
X was last week flooded with what EU commissioner Thierry Breton described in a letter to Musk as “fake and manipulated imagery” that “repurposed old images of unrelated armed conflicts or military footage that actually originated from video games”.
Breton asked both X and Facebook parent Meta to take firm steps to comply with the EU’s new Digital Services Act. Musk being Musk, he sought to draw Breton into a fiery debate rather than tackle the issue. Meanwhile, X chief executive Linda Yaccarino claimed the platform had scrubbed or labelled tens of thousands of posts, in a move which was met with scepticism.
The Business Post on Thursday revealed that tech giants are at odds with Ireland’s new online safety commissioner Niamh Hodnett over her office’s plans to introduce measures that require social media firms to quickly remove unlawful content from their platforms under the same EU act.
Staying in the political sphere, and Amnesty International this week urged the Irish government to investigate spyware company Intellexa Ireland, amid claims it has been involved in attacks against civil society, journalists, politicians and academics in the EU, US and Asia.
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Microsoft is to appeal a US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) decision that it owes at least $28.9 billion in taxes related to how it allocated income and expenses among global subsidiaries from 2004 to 2013. In better news for the company, it seems the tweaks it has done to its bid to acquire Activision Blizzard in a $64 billion deal have been sufficient to avoid further EU investigation.
On the funding front, Alt21, the fintech company formerly known as Assure Hedge, completed a €21 million raise this week. Elsewhere, Manna Drone Delivery secured $4 million in venture debt from HSBC Innovation Banking.
In a significant deal, DataSolutions, the Dublin-based IT reseller, was this week acquired in a $16.3 million deal by Nasdaq-listed company Climb Global.
CWSI, Snigel, TEKenable, Shopbox AI and Spanish Point Technologies have been shortlisted to take home the top prize at Technology Ireland’s annual awards ceremony, which takes place next month.
On the AI front, we ran a story earlier this week that Google insiders are questioning the value of Bard, its rival to ChatGPT. Separately, Klarna, the buy-now-pay-later company, announced new tools to help with purchasing decisions.
Lastly, congratulations to Irishman Conor Walsh who has been appointed as the US boss of Monzo, the British digital challenger bank.
All the best
Charlie
Nearly 10% of people ask AI chatbots for explicit content. Will it lead LLMs astray? (ZD Net)
Beyond programming tips and writing help, a million conversations reflect people's desires for other kinds of 'unsafe' information
Nearly half a billion small tech items thrown away every year (BBC)
‘Fast tech’ electrical items such as cables, lights, mini fans and disposable vapes are the fastest growing e-waste type
