Technologies

Twitter Spaces filled with hate speech, extremism, report says

The live audio chat feature has reportedly been tough for the social media site to police.

Taliban supporters, white nationalists and anti-vaccine activists have reportedly flocked to Twitter’s live audio chat feature, Spaces, with the social media site struggling to police the harmful content.

The Washington Post, citing researchers and users, as well as screenshots seen by the news outlet, reported Friday that hundreds of people have listened to these offensive live audio chats. Twitter users have made derogatory comments about Shiite Muslims, belittled transgender and Black Americans and spread misinformation on Spaces, according to the Post.

Twitter allows users to report live audio chats that violate its rules, and the company saves a copy of a flagged audio chat for at least 30 days to review for rule violations. Twitter also uses software to detect offensive keywords in the titles of Spaces. The social media site, though, doesn’t have human moderators or technology that scans audio in real time. Current and former employees told the Post that Twitter has also felt investor pressure to release products before they’re tested for safety.

Jack Dorsey, a Twitter co-founder, resigned as CEO in November, and Parag Agrawal, who was the company’s chief technology officer, stepped in to fill that role.

Twitter started testing Spaces in November 2020 as the social audio app Clubhouse rose in popularity. Clubhouse has also struggled to moderate misinformation, including about the COVID-19 vaccines.

Twitter’s software also mistakenly promoted some of the harmful live audio chats, which the company attributed to a bug, the Post reported.

A spokeswoman for Twitter told CNET that in the past week the company did discover bugs in its software and that this increased the amount of time it took to remove audio chats that violated its rules. «This left harmful conversations prominently visible and was a mistake. We’ve addressed these bugs and will continue exploring ways to further expand our proactive detection, as well as evaluating and developing new moderation options,» she said.

CNET asked Twitter how many audio chats it’s pulled down for violating its rules, but the company didn’t provide that information.

Technologies

This Transformable Electric Truck Could Become the Cheapest EV in the US

Merging retro touches with a high-tech electric platform, the Slate Truck offers a customizable, budget-friendly alternative to traditional EVs.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for April 27, #686

Hints and answers for Connections for April 27, #686.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections puzzle might make you hungry — especially if you spot the four words in the blue category. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Do the math.

Green group hint: Tresses.

Blue group hint: Munchies.

Purple group hint: Think Stockholm.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Calculator buttons.

Green group: Amounts of hair.

Blue group: Salty snack unit.

Purple group: Swedish ____.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is calculator buttons. The four answers are equals, minus, percent and times.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is amounts of hair. The four answers are lock, shock, thatch and tuft.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is salty snack unit. The four answers are Combo, Goldfish, Ruffle and Taki.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Swedish ____. The four answers are Chef, Fish, massage and meatball.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for April 27, #420

Here are hints — and answers — for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 420 for April 27.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Sleep used to be so simple, but now it can be complex, as we try to add in extra things to help us get that good night’s rest. Today’s NYT Strands puzzle highlights sleep assistance, and a few of the words are tricky. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Sleep tight

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Zzzzz…

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BEDS, MINE, TAKE, TAKES, TAKER, STAKE, LATS, EARL, PLUG, PLUGS, ROUT, MIKE, DATE

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you’ve got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers: