The Washington Post has sparked controversy after publishing an article based on an “interview” with an AI Harriet Tubman. While seen by the creators as an innovative way to engage with history, many have labeled the move unethical and exploitative. AI Article Writer Gillian Brokell interviewed an AI version of American abolitionist and social activist Harriet Tubman using the online educator Khan Academy’s new AI learning tool Khanmigo. Khanmigo uses Chat4 technology to enable live chats with multiple simulated historical figures, such as Winston Churchill. “I was curious to see what would
Atlanta’s Black-founded and centered membership club, The Gathering Spot, has allegedly fired one of their Black co-founders, TK Petersen. What Is The Gathering Spot? The Gathering Spot is a private membership network focused on the Black community and was created to support its members in making connections while gaining business experiences. Ryan Wilson, a Georgetown Law School attendee, and TK Petersen, a former Portfolio Manager at Fannie Mae, co-founded the Gathering Spot. Their goal was to foster a community that would gather a diverse mix of individuals, including entrepreneurs, creatives,
Spill, a new social platform, has recently launched in beta on iOS and has quickly gained popularity within the Black community. Its surge in users can be attributed in part to Elon Musk’s announcement to limit the number of daily tweets visible on Twitter as well as several technical mishaps in recent months. What is Spill? The platform is invite-only while in beta and has been described as a visual-first, multimedia microblogging app with an interface similar to Tumblr. The app has a live news feed and allows people to
Following Elon Musk’s announcement to buy Twitter in April 2022, many users, particularly Black users, opposed it. Some have found other platforms, such as Mastodon, Spill, and Bluesky. Bluesky, however, has recently raised some alarm bells after a moderation policy change following a death threat against a Black woman left many questioning the safety of the platform. What is Bluesky? Bluesky is a decentralized social app that started off as a project by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey in 2019 when he was Twitter’s CEO. Dorsey chose Jay Graber to lead
From a mere idea to becoming the chosen social media platform for many, Spill is on the road to becoming one of the most inclusive social platforms. Earlier this week, founders Alphonzo Terrell and DeVaris Brown announced the close of their $2.75M pre-seed funding round for the social platform Spill. The pre-seed funding round Even though Black founders tend to go unnoticed when seeking venture capital funding for their business, Terrell and Brown were able to sell their business model to investors in just 10 minutes. The funding round, which was co-led by MaCVentureCap and Kapor Center, also
Are we leaving Twitter or not? That’s the question many Black Twitter users have been asking themselves for months now. The only problem is, where exactly will we be leaving to go? What is Spill? Enter: Spill. The social media app, designed by former Twitter employees, Alphonzo “Phonz” Terrell and DeVaris Brown, is slowly becoming the chosen alternative for many. The pair who met on their first day working at Twitter made friends after noticing they were the only Black guys. Their friendship has since blossomed into a partnership that led
Since Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, many users have been searching for a new social networking platform they can call home. Mastodon, a social network built on open-source software, seems to be their best bet, with just over a million active users already signed up. But is it worth the hype? What is Mastodon? The events which have transpired since Elon’s takeover has sent Twitter on a tumultuous downward spiral. From the exodus (or ousting) of thousands of staff to the new Twitter Blue feature being pulled from the site in
According to Twitter trolls, the old rules against bigotry and hate speech no longer apply now that Musk has officially taken over the popular social media app. The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) shared that the number of tweets using the N-word had increased by 500% more in 12 hours following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s Head of Safety and Integrity, also reported a huge increase in tweets with bigoted content, racial slurs and hate speech. He tweeted that a short-term trolling campaign was largely to blame, with
