Category Archives: Technology

CMA to look into Facebook’s purchase of gif search engine

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Watchdog fears that social media giant’s takeover of Giphy may reduce competition

The UK’s competition regulator has opened an investigation into the proposed $400m (£320m) takeover of gif search engine Giphy by Facebook amid fears that the acquisition may reduce competition in the UK.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is inviting comments about Facebook’s purchase of a company that currently provides gif search across many of the social network’s competitors, including Twitter and the messaging service Signal.

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Apple removes two podcast apps from China store after censorship demands

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Pocket Casts says it refuses to restrict its content at request of Chinese authorities

Apple has removed two podcast apps from its Chinese app store, following government pressure to censor content.

Pocket Casts and Castro were both pulled from distribution in China after the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) demanded that the apps stop allowing content that breached the country’s restrictive speech laws.

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Twitter deletes 170,000 accounts linked to China influence campaign

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Content focused on Covid-19 and the protests in Hong Kong and over George Floyd in the US

Twitter has removed more than 170,000 accounts the social media site says are state-linked influence campaigns from China focusing on Hong Kong protests, Covid-19 and the US protests in relation to George Floyd.

The company announced on Thursday that 23,750 core accounts – and 150,000 “amplifier” accounts that boosted the content posted by those core accounts – had been removed from the platform after being linked to an influence campaign from the People’s Republic.

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Zoom admits cutting off activists’ accounts in obedience to China

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Meetings on Tiananmen Square massacre and Hong Kong crisis were taken down because Communist government complained

Zoom has admitted it suspended the accounts of human rights activists at the behest of the Chinese government and suggested it will block any further meetings that Beijing complains are illegal.

On Thursday the video conferencing platform was accused of disrupting or shutting down the accounts of three activists who held online events relating to the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary or discussing the crisis in Hong Kong. None were given an explanation by Zoom.

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Twitter aims to limit people sharing articles they have not read

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Test to promote informed discussion will ask users if they want to retweet unread links

Twitter is trying to stop people from sharing articles they have not read, in an experiment the company hopes will “promote informed discussion” on social media.

In the test, pushed to some users on Android devices, the company is introducing a prompt asking people if they really want to retweet a link that they have not tapped on.

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Sexist forum posts hundreds of private images of Australian female journalists and celebrities

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Women whose social media pictures were uploaded to the site say they feel ‘violated’ by intrusion on their privacy

Female journalists say they feel “violated” by a sexist forum that has been posting personal images and lewd comments about women in the Australian media industry for more than a decade.

Hundreds of high-profile journalists and emerging reporters have had their images uploaded onto the forum, which also posts suggestive images of Australian actresses, female sports stars and models.

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Facebook deactivates accounts of Tunisian political bloggers and activists

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Several accounts reactivated after protests with social media giant blaming ‘technical error’

The Facebook accounts of several high-profile bloggers and activists in Tunisia were among those deactivated without warning over the weekend.

Up to 60 accounts are understood to have been deactivated, including that of journalist and political commentator Haythem El Mekki.

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Embarrassing teenage posts on Facebook? Now you can delete them

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Firm that said privacy no longer a ‘social norm’ rolls out tool to delete or archive

Facebook users no longer need to worry about their teenage posts coming back to haunt them in later life, thanks to a new tool for deleting hundreds or thousands of posts at once.

The “manage activity” feature, available now on Facebook’s mobile apps, lets users search for and remove posts from a particular time, mentioning a particular person, or within a range of dates. 

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Mark Zuckerberg defends decision to allow Trump to threaten violence on Facebook

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CEO says decision was ‘tough’ but ‘thorough’ as company faces harsh criticism and public dissent from employees

Mark Zuckerberg is standing by his decision to allow Donald Trump to threaten violence against George Floyd protesters on the platform despite harsh criticism from civil rights leaders and public dissent from his own employees, including a public resignation.

In a video conference with staff on Tuesday, Zuckerberg said that his decision to not remove Trump’s warning on social media on Friday that “when the looting starts the shooting start” was “tough” but “pretty thorough”, the New York Times reported. The company usually holds an all-staff meeting on Thursdays, but the session was moved up to address growing discontent among employees, hundreds of whom staged a “walkout” on Monday by requesting time off.

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Electric cars gain market share in Europe despite Covid-19 crisis

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Data suggests that carmakers are making progress towards meeting emissions reductions targets

Electric and hybrid cars gained traction among European buyers in April despite coronavirus lockdowns stalling the market, suggesting carmakers are likely to avoid potential fines potentially worth billions of euros if they fail to reduce average emissions.

Battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid cars accounted for 17% of sales across all European markets, including the UK, in April, according to data collated by industry analysts Jato Dynamics. That was more than double the 7% market share achieved in April 2019.

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Mark Zuckerberg criticised by civil rights leaders over Donald Trump Facebook post

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Activists say Facebook boss’s decision to leave ‘shooting threat’ up sets dangerous precedent

Civil rights leaders have criticised Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to take no action against a Facebook post from Donald Trump appearing to threaten to start shooting “looters”, after a Monday night meeting with the company’s executives ended in acrimony.

“We are disappointed and stunned by Mark’s incomprehensible explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up,” Vanita Gupta, Sherrilyn Ifill and Rashad Robison said in a statement. “He did not demonstrate understanding of historic or modern-day voter suppression and he refuses to acknowledge how Facebook is facilitating Trump’s call for violence against protesters.

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Facebook employees hold virtual walkout over Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to act against Trump

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  • Workers dissatisfied with decision to not remove the president’s post
  • An oversight board member is involved in a racist speech controversy

Facebook employees are staging a rebellion over Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to act against Donald Trump, expressing their dissatisfaction with their boss on social media in a rare public display of dissent and, in some cases, staging a “virtual” walkout.

Disagreement came from employees at all levels of the company, including some senior staff. Particular criticism was levelled at Zuckerberg’s personal decision to leave up the Facebook version of a tweet sent by Trump in which the president appeared to encourage police to shoot rioters. By contrast, Twitter hid the message behind a warning.

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Cutting edge: Japanese paper art inspires a non-slip shoe

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Scientists use kirigami techniques to create a sole with pop-up, high-friction spikes

The Japanese art of paper cutting and folding, or kirigami, has led to mind-bending 3D structures from 2D sheets, including spectacular pop-up designs. But now researchers have been getting to grips with the technique for a very down-to-earth reason: creating non-slip shoes.

Scientists have revealed they have developed a kirigami-inspired sole, where tiny spikes pop up from its surface as the shoe is bent during walking. The team found the spikes enhance grip, which could help prevent potentially fatal falls.

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Maps show UK pavements not wide enough for social distancing – in pictures

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Spatial analysis by Esri UK has found that most pavements around the country are less than 3 metres wide, making it difficult for pedestrians to remain 2 metres apart and follow government guidelines for social distancing. Using measurements from Ordnance Survey, Esri UK has created a map of all pavement widths, discovering that only 30% of Great Britain’s pavements are at least 3 metres wide, 36% are between 2 and 3 metres and 34% are less than 2 metres wide

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SpaceX successfully launches Nasa astronauts into orbit

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  • Donald Trump and Mike Pence witness launch in Florida
  • First attempt was cancelled minutes from blast-off

A rocketship named Dragon breathed new fire into America’s human spaceflight programme on Saturday, carrying two astronauts on a much-anticipated adventure.

Related: Trump wants America looking at the stars as he drags it through the gutter

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Microsoft sacks journalists to replace them with robots

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Users of the homepages of the MSN website and Edge browser will now see news stories generated by AI

Dozens of journalists have been sacked after Microsoft decided to replace them with artificial intelligence software.

Staff who maintain the news homepages on Microsoft’s MSN website and its Edge browser – used by millions of Britons every day – have been told that they will be no longer be required because robots can now do their jobs.

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Trump signs executive order to narrow protections for social media platforms

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Move comes amid president’s feud with Twitter after it fact-checked him for the first time

Donald Trump has fired a shot across the bows of “big tech” companies by signing an executive order that aims to narrow their protections from liability over the content posted on their services.

The move came as the US president stepped up his attacks against social media giants after Twitter fact-checked him for the first time over a false assertion that mail-in voting leads to widespread voter fraud.

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Most online grooming offences in UK committed on Facebook-owned apps

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Data shows 55% of offences where the means of communication was given involved firm’s apps

More than half of online grooming offences recorded under a law that made it illegal to send sexual messages to children were committed on Facebook-owned apps, figures reveal.

The data, obtained by the NSPCC under freedom of information laws, show 10,019 offences of sexual communication with a child were recorded since the legislation was introduced in April 2017.

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Trump expected to sign executive order in bid to target Twitter and Facebook

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  • Move could erode legal protections for social media platforms
  • Twitter placed warning on Trump tweets that spread falsehoods

Donald Trump is preparing to sign an executive order that could erode legal protections for social media companies for content posted on their platforms, potentially opening them to liability claims over controversial content.

Related: Trump focuses on possible social media regulation as US coronavirus death toll passes milestone – live

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Zuckerberg says Facebook won’t be ‘arbiters of truth’ after Trump threat

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President announced plan to strip social media companies of liability protections after Twitter factchecked his tweets

Two years after admitting under political pressure that Facebook must do more to prevent disinformation campaigns on its platform, founder Mark Zuckerberg told Fox News on Thursday that the company should step away from regulating online speech.

Related: Trump expected to sign executive order in bid to target Twitter and Facebook

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