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Twitter is making policy and staffing moves to fight political misinformation
X's safety and elections teams will monitor for threats and manipulated content
Elon Musk’s takeover of X — formerly known as Twitter — has been tumultuous, to say the least. Aside from the name change, Musk has also made several changes to how people use the site and manage the visibility of their content. The Freedom of Speech, Not Reach policy that rolled out in April doubled down on the company’s intent to micromanage the content across the platform. Now, X is adding more people to its safety and elections teams and updating its Civil Integrity Policy to curb political misinformation.
The US Xiaomi ban is now completely off the table
Xiaomi has released a statement confirming that all restrictions have formally been lifted
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Xiaomi was labeled a national security threat in the United States during the waning days of the Trump administration, following similar action against Huawei and ZTE. The company filed a lawsuit against the US government in order to prevent the ban, and on May 12, both parties have reached a settlement that will remove the technology giant from being blacklisted altogether. Now, Xiaomi has published a statement on the litigation, announcing that the US District Court of Columbia issued a final order, formally lifting all restrictions.
Xiaomi and the US government come to an agreement, averting a ban
Fully resolved following a temporary exemption
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In the final days of Donald Trump's presidency, the US government wanted to follow up the Huawei and ZTE bans with another one, this time aimed at Xiaomi. However, the company was able to get a preliminary injunction from the US District Court for the District of Columbia, removing the restrictions on the business a week before they were scheduled to go into effect. And ass Bloomberg reports, it looks like Xiaomi and the US government have finally come to an agreement, completely removing the company from the entity list.
Trump administration issues one more middle finger to Huawei and its US suppliers
Reuters: $120 billion in US trade with Huawei held up
One of the President Donald Trump's choicest adversaries during his term has been China. He considers the country to be a trade scofflaw while politicians in intelligence circles have pegged it as a digital security threat. Huawei has been targeted to be the biggest casualty from multiple sanctions that have blocked it from acquiring American goods and services. Now, as the current administration makes way for another, we're learning of one of its final moves symbolizing a door slam.
Xiaomi responds to being blacklisted by the US government
Billions of dollars in funding could be at risk
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The Trump administration is dubbing Xiaomi a national security threat in a fashion similar to how it did Huawei and ZTE. However, the "Communist Chinese military company" label has a greater effect to this particular tech manufacturer than the others.
Ajit Pai stepping down as FCC chairman ahead of Biden inauguration
Conservative took heat for massive deregulation, fending off Trump moves
FCC chairman Ajit Pai has announced his intention to step down from his post when President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20. Pai's commissionership will be remembered for its intensive deregulation agenda and its somewhat adversarial relationship with the Trump administration.
The U.S. government threatened to ban TikTok and WeChat if no suitable U.S. company bought it, and even though TikTok and Oracle just recently signed a deal as "trusted tech partners," that apparently wasn't enough. The U.S. Commerce Department today shared that TikTok and WeChat will not be available for download from U.S. app stores anymore starting Sunday, September 20, confirming the initial announcement on August 6.
US government tightens ban on Huawei, potentially blocking future updates for some phones
38 new affiliates have been added the entity list additionally
Huawei's temporary license to trade with US companies just expired a few days ago following extension after extension, but the Chinese manufacturer is in for even more trouble. The US Department of Commerce and Department of State have announced that they will further restrict access to US technology and add 38 additional Huawei affiliates to the entity list.
Trump says he wants to outright ban TikTok rather than forcing a sale
Earlier reports said TikTok was to be sold off due to national security concerns
Earlier today, it was tipped that President Donald Trump was considering to sign an executive order forcing portions of TikTok to be sold off to a U.S. company due to national security concerns, but now the president specified his plans to reporters aboard the Air Force One, as the Washington Post reports. "As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States," he said.
How to kick political ads out of your Facebook feed
Now they'll will have to find some other way to influence you
If you happen to see a political ad pop up in your feed — either before or after employing the method above — you can also flag it to be hidden directly from the ad itself. Simply tap on the "Confirmed Organization" icon in the middle of the ad, and select "See fewer ads about this topic" from the popup menu. Again, this method isn't foolproof, but it's your best bet at clearing out the last of the political ad clutter.
Facebook will spare your eyes from the incessant stream of political ads coming your way this fall
If you opt out of them, anyway
Regardless of what side of any particular issue you're on, political ads kind of suck — and on top of that, it's not even clear how effective they are. The brass at Facebook is acknowledging that fact, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a piece published recently in USA Today that users will soon be able to opt out of seeing them entirely.
We all want to avoid a Terminator-style future where the machines have conquered humanity, but how do you do that? This is just one of the problems Google's Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC) was supposed to help answer. It won't, though. Following some very public drama, Google has decided to dissolve the board and look for a different approach.
Google, Amazon, and Facebook are some of the biggest tech companies on the planet, well know by just about anyone who uses the internet. While their gargantuan status has taken years to grow, Elizabeth Warren thinks they've gotten too big. In a release on her Medium page, she outlines her plan to trust bust these tech giants, for the good of emerging companies and the public at large.
According to a recent report by The Guardian based on internal documents leaked from a court case in California, Facebook has been lobbying and pressuring representatives and politicians from over 35 countries in its attempts to fight privacy laws. That much would seem pretty obvious, but the details revealed by these documents imply a greater degree of collaboration than you may expect, and potential quid pro quo actions by politicians.
It's been nothing but bad news for ZTE over the last couple months, but there's finally a positive development for the Chinese technology firm. The US Commerce Department has temporarily lifted part of the trade ban that effectively shut down ZTE back in April. This will help ZTE keep the lights on as it works toward full compliance.
Chinese technology firm ZTE says it has forked over $1 billion to the US government. This is the first step toward ZTE returning to operation after a ban on purchasing US technology in April forced it to partially shut down. However, it's not out of the woods yet as the entire incident has become a political firestorm for the US administration.
Facebook announced in a blog post last month that it would reward users who report abuses of user data by developers of Facebook apps. That rewards program, which Facebook is calling Data Abuse Bounty, launched today. Facebook says the monetary rewards will be valued on a case-by-case basis "based on the impact of each report."
International spying! Demagogic leaders! Jingoistic nationalism! Everything old is new again as the United States and Russia seem to be squaring up for another decades-long pissing contest. So while you wait for the next big hack or diplomatic faux pas, why not relive those happy memories of the original Cold War? Twilight Struggle, a two-player strategy title based on the 20th century's biggest game of chicken, has landed in the Play Store. It's five dollars, only a third of the price of the PC version.
Two bills recently passed in the states of New York and California that aim to weaken smartphone security in order to combat crime. The laws would prevent the sale of smartphones with full-disk encryption that could not be unlocked by the manufacturer (at the request of law enforcement). In response, Rep. Ted Lieu of California, a Democrat, and Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas, a Republican, have proposed a bill, the Ensuring National Constitutional Rights for Your Private Telecommunications (ENCRYPT) Act of 2016, that would block state-level attempts to ban encryption on smartphones sold in the US.
Google famously pulled out of China in 2010 following a data breach that it traced back to the Chinese government. It was the final straw as Google had already been irked by China's strict censorship laws. The explosion of cheap Android handsets in China changes the equation, though. Now The Information reports that Google is set to come back to China with a special version of the Play Store and other Google services that will play nice with the Chinese government.