Top social media companies Google, Facebook and Twitter told U.S. lawmakers Thursday that foreign interference on their platforms has evolved significantly since the 2016 presidential election.The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence heard how these companies are adapting their approaches to combating disinformation as COVID-19, Black Lives Matter protests and …
Engineers at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, are developing new technology for health care workers on the front lines of fighting the spread of COVID-19. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports from Chicago, an unexpected benefit of the current pandemic is technological innovation that could have a lasting impact.Camera: Kane Farabaugh …
Turkey criticized Twitter on Friday for suspending more than 7,000 accounts the social media company said were promoting narratives favorable to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and the AK Parti (AKP). The suspended 7,340 accounts were detected earlier this year “employing coordinated inauthentic activity,” Twitter said in a blog post uploaded on Friday. Republic of Turkey communications …
Twitter has removed a vast network of accounts that it says is linked to the Chinese government and were pushing false information favorable to the country’s communist rulers. Beijing denied involvement Friday and said the company should instead take down accounts smearing China. The U.S. social media company suspended 23,750 …
A popular podcasting platform, Pocket Casts, has been removed from Apple’s app store in China at Beijing’s request, according to the company’s Twitter thread. Pocket Casts confirmed Wednesday on Twitter that the request was made by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), Beijing’s top internet watchdog agency that controls which apps …
Microsoft has become the third big tech company this week to say it won’t sell its facial recognition software to police, following similar moves by Amazon and IBM.Microsoft’s president and chief counsel, Brad Smith, announced the decision and called on Congress to regulate the technology during a Washington Post video …
Videoconferencing company Zoom temporarily shut down the account of a U.S.-based activist group days after it held an event commemorating the 31st anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square protests. Humanitarian China, an organization focused on providing relief for political prisoners and activists, held the Zoom conference on May 31. A week later …
Amazon on Wednesday banned police use of its face-recognition technology for a year, making it the latest tech giant to step back from law-enforcement use of systems that have faced criticism for incorrectly identifying people with darker skin. The Seattle-based company did not say why it took action now. Ongoing protests following the …
Four Republican U.S. senators on Tuesday urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to review whether to revise liability protections for internet companies after President Donald Trump urged action.Trump said last month he wants to “remove or change” a provision of a law that shields social media companies from liability for …
As tension grows between China and the United States, there is worry in Beijing that the conflict could end up further restricting Chinese access to American technology.Of foremost concern is that despite decades of effort, China has yet to build a homegrown operating system good enough to replace Microsoft Windows. …
A South Korean Court has rejected an arrest warrant for the heir to the legendary Samsung Group conglomerate in connection with a controversial merger. Prosecutors have accused Lee Jae-yong, the vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, of stock manipulation and illegal trading involving the 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates, Samsung C&T …
Google is adding features on its Maps service to alert users about COVID-19-related travel restrictions to help them plan their trips better, the Alphabet Inc unit said Monday. The update would allow users to check how crowded a train station might be at a particular time, or if buses on a …
The heir to South Korea’s Samsung empire appeared in a Seoul court Monday for a hearing to decide whether he will be arrested and jailed in connection with a controversial merger. Lee Jae-yong was silent as he walked through an army of shouting reporters when he arrived at the courthouse. If the …
A Virginia NGO called Computer CORE helps low-income immigrants master using computers in order to help them find jobs. However, the coronavirus pandemic has made life hard for the organization because so few of the students have computers or an internet connection at home. VOA’s Maxim Moskalkov has the story. Camera: …
Protesters are using a variety of technology tools to organize rallies, record police violence and communicate during the marches sweeping the U.S. and other countries following the death of George Floyd. Some of that involves secure messaging services like Signal, which can encrypt messages to thwart spies. Those apps, along …
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian announced his resignation from the board of the social media site and urged the board to replace him with a black candidate. Ohanian, who is white, implicitly linked his move to protests around the globe over the killing of George Floyd, a black man who died …
A group of young professionals in California’s Silicon Valley has created a non-profit organization called “Code for Venezuela,” dedicated to bringing together tech innovators to solve the most pressing needs of the South American nation. The group’s latest initiative aims to help residents in Venezuela find information about COVID-19. Cristina …
In Ethiopia, mobile applications are spreading fast to help health care workers and the public fight against COVID-19, which has claimed 12 lives in the country and affected about 1,100 people. Ethiopian web developers have designed seven apps that do everything from virus tracing to sharing data and patient information …
An advocacy group backed by the tech industry filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against President Donald Trump’s executive order on social media, as U.S. technology companies have been fighting White House efforts to weaken a law that protects them. The Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology said in its lawsuit that …
Several prominent media and entertainment organizations, including Apple and ViacomCBS, paid tribute to the call for racial equality and justice in the United States amid the recent protests, some violent, by pausing regular services and company events on what they are calling “Black Out Tuesday.” According to Reuters, CBS said it would spend the day reflecting on “building community,” …
Though Black Out Tuesday was originally organized by the music community, the social media world also went dark in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, joining voices around the world outraged by the killings of black people in the U.S. Instagram and Twitter accounts, from top record label to …
Facebook employees walked away from their work-from-home desks on Monday and took to Twitter to accuse Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg of inadequately policing U.S. President Donald Trump’s posts as strictly as the rival platform has done.Reuters saw dozens of online posts from employees critical of Zuckerberg’s decision to leave Trump’s …
President Donald Trump posted identical messages on Twitter and Facebook this week. But while the two social platforms have very similar policies on voter misinformation and glorifying violence, they dealt with Trump’s posts very differently, proof that Silicon Valley is far from a united front when it comes to political …
Fourteen Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee are requesting that Federal Trade Commission regulators investigate the popular video app TikTok for violations of children’s privacy.The Energy and Commerce Committee conducts oversight on the FTC’s privacy unit. The lawsuit filed Thursday follows claims submitted by …
QUESTION: What is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act?ANSWER: Section 230 “is one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression and innovation” on the internet, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a U.S.-based global nonprofit digital rights group.The original purpose of the 1996 Communications Decency Act …
U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Thursday regarding social media platforms, after Twitter tagged a pair of his tweets with a fact-check warning.Sources close to the White House say the president’s executive order would require the Federal Communication Commission to clarify a section of the Communications Decency …