trump

Florida has banned tech sites from banning politicians from posting. The law takes effect on July 1st, 2021, but seems destined for the Supreme Court. The law was first proposed in February, shortly after Facebook and Twitter banned then-President ... Donald Trump. It's now passed the legislature and has been signed into law by the state's governor. Under the law, sites can still remove specific posts. They can also suspend a user for up to 14 days for violating its policies. No Permanent Bans However, the law bans longer suspensions or permanent bans for anyone known to be a candidate for ... (view more)

Twitter is asking volunteers to add notes explaining why posts are misleading. It calls it a "community-driven approach to help address misleading information on Twitter." The company appears to believe that using volunteers will make it easier to ... address quickly-spreading misinformation rather than rely on paid staff. It says the project, dubbed Birdwatch, won't involve labeling posts as "true" or "false". It also won't involving hiding or removing any posts as already happens after staff review reports of users breaching the site's guidelines. Volunteers Will Reach Consensus Birdwatch will ... (view more)

A dating app has removed – and then replaced – a filter for political views among potential partners. Bumble discovered some users were taking advantage of the filter to "entrap" people involved in the recent breach of the US Capitol. Bumble is a dat ...ing app that works like several others in that it shows users potential matches in their geographic area. If two users both indicate an interest in each other's profile, they can begin communication. However, unlike most such services, with a male-female match, only the woman can initiate contact and begin an exchange of messages. Users can filter ...ref="/news/10884/dating-app-politics-filter-turned-against-rioters" class="more-link">view more)

A dispute over Internet law has led to a Presidential veto of a major defense bill. Lawmakers will now decide whether to reject Donald Trump's demands to remove rules on how websites and services handle content posted by users. The bill in question ... authorizes US military spending for the next year. One of the quirks of the US legislative system is that bills can include measures which have little or nothing to do with the main subject of the proposed law. These measures are often the result of negotiation between politicians. In this case, Trump wants the defense bill to include a repeal of ... (view more)

A judge has blocked a Department of Commerce ban on a Chinese messaging app. The judge said there wasn't enough specific evidence against the app to override free speech complaints. The department introduced the ban on WeChat (along with video app ... TikTok) following an executive order from the President. The ban meant it was illegal for app stores to distribute or update the apps in the US. The ban also outlawed US use of WeChat's mobile payment facility, which is hugely popular with American citizens of Asian descent. One estimate puts the number of US users at 19 million. In both cases, the ... (view more)

Two years ago Facebook commissioned an audit on its effect on civil rights. The results are in, and they don't make for pretty reading. The report makes a series of suggestions for Facebook to change its policies, but the company says it won't ... implement all of them. Arguably the most damaging conclusion in the report is that Facebook isn't just hosting extremist views and hatred, but that its very setup may actually be encouraging and boosting such material. The biggest criticism is that Facebook's own algorithms may have pushed users towards "self-reinforcing echo chambers of extremism." The ... (view more)

Facebook chief says the site will let users opt-out of seeing political advertising for this year's US presidential elections. But the site won't seek to block controversial content posted by politicians themselves unless it breaks the law. Writing ... in USA Today, company chief Mark Zuckerberg announced a voter registration drive. Facebook will have a dedicated section with information about how to register, cast a vote, or arrange mail-in or early votes. The section will include verified content from election officials. This section will be promoted at the top of user's news feeds and on ... (view more)

Russia may briefly disconnect from the Internet as a cyber-defense exercise. It's being billed as an attempt to see if the country could keep the benefits of the Internet without having to interact with the rest of the world, though critics suggest ... it is nothing more than political censorship. Russian officials are said to fear that other countries may be taking measures to block its country from the Internet. On paper there does not appear to be any such proposals, though NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) has threatened some form of sanctions over alleged cyber attacks by Russia ... (view more)

President Trump has blocked a Singapore-based company from taking over a major American tech firm. He says the proposed Broadcom buyout of Qualcomm posed a credible national security risk. The deal would have been the biggest in tech history. ... Qualcomm makes a wide range of computer and gadget components with a particular emphasis on those used in communications devices such as phones. It helped develop key systems used to carry data over cellphone networks, allowing smartphones and tablets to get Internet access without relying on WiFi. Broadcom had offered $140 million to buyout Qualcomm. ... (view more)

Critics of Google say the search engine's algorithm is giving undue credibility to a website claiming to have final voting figures for the US election. The site, which is given prime position when users search for several election-related terms, ... appears to be unauthoritative and rely on questionable sources. As with any story in this year's US presidential election, its likely to prove partisan responses on both sides. However, this specific scenario is about Google's quality control, rather than political arguments. The issue surrounds the way Google doesn't just produce a ... (view more)