Category Archives: Technology

Mark Zuckerberg hits back at Facebook whistleblower claims

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Frances Haugen’s testimony that social networking company puts profit before people ‘just not true’

Mark Zuckerberg has hit back at the testimony of the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, saying her claims the company puts profit over people’s safety are “just not true”.

In a blogpost, the Facebook founder and chief executive addressed one of the most damaging statements in Haugen’s opening speech to US senators on Tuesday, that Facebook puts “astronomical profits before people”.

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Huawei hopes US decision on Meng Wanzhou heralds new era in relations

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US justice department suspended fraud charges against chief financial officer of Chinese telecoms giant

The Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei hopes that the US justice department’s decision to abandon its efforts to extradite Meng Wanzhou may mark the starting point in a new era in relations between the company, China and the US government.

Meng, the firm’s chief financial officer and daughter of its founder, was freed last month after three years of house arrest in Canada following an agreement with the justice department to suspend fraud charges against her.

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Facebook explains error that caused global outage

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Engineers’ command accidentally disconnected company’s network from rest of world, blogpost says

Facebook has said an error during routine maintenance of its network of data centers caused a cascade of problems that took down its platforms for more than six hours on Monday.

In a blogpost published on Tuesday, Santosh Janardhan, vice-president of engineering, said the global outage that saw Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp go dark for billions of users had begun when the company’s engineers issued a command that unintentionally disconnected Facebook data centers from the rest of the world.

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Facebook outage highlights global over-reliance on its services

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Shutdown heavily impacts ability to communicate and do business for many of platform’s 2.8 billion users

From bereft Brazilians to relaxed Russians and internet-savvy Indians, Facebook’s outage highlighted the dependence much of the world has developed on its social media products, and put the spotlight on its global power.

The fallout of Facebook’s unprecedented almost six-hour outage has mostly focused on the financial impact to the $1tn social media empire: $50bn (£37bn) was wiped off the company’s market value by jittery investors, founder Mark Zuckerberg’s paper fortune shrunk by $7bn and more than $13m of the advertising dollars that are its lifeblood disappeared each hour the platform was offline.

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Tesla ordered to pay $137m to Black former employee for racial abuse

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California federal court orders company to pay Owen Diaz who alleges he faced ‘daily racial epithets’ including the ‘N-word’

Tesla has been ordered by a federal court in California to pay almost $137m in damages to a Black former employee who said he endured racial abuse while working at a factory in Fremont.

Owen Diaz, a former contracted elevator operator who worked at the plant between 2015 and 2016, alleged he was harassed and faced “daily racial epithets” including the “N-word”. He also said employees drew swastikas and left racist graffiti and drawings around the plant.

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Facebook whistleblower to take her story before the US Senate

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Frances Haugen, who came forward accusing the company of putting profit over safety, will testify in Washington on Tuesday

A former Facebook employee who has accused the company of putting profit over safety will take her damning accusations to Washington on Tuesday when she testifies to US senators.

Frances Haugen, 37, came forward on Sunday as the whistleblower behind a series of damaging reports in the Wall Street Journal that have heaped further political pressure on the tech giant. Haugen told the news program 60 Minutes that Facebook’s priority was making money over doing what was good for the public.

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Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp hit by outage

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Users in UK, US and other countries find services inaccessible as company apologises

Facebook’s network of services including Instagram and WhatsApp has been hit by an outage in several countries including UK and the US, as the company admitted users were having “trouble accessing our apps”.

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp became inaccessible for large numbers of people at around 5pm UK time, with the downdetector.com site reporting more than 120,000 outages for Facebook users.

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Will all submarines, even nuclear ones, be obsolete and ‘visible’ by 2040?

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Technologies could render the ocean transparent by the time Australia’s new submarines are ready, some experts say

Australia’s proposed nuclear-powered submarines could be obsolete by the time they hit the water in the 2040s due to new technologies making underwater vessels “visible”, some experts argue.

One of the controversies over the federal government’s decision to ditch the $90bn deal to build conventional submarines in favour of nuclear boats is the timeline for getting them battle-ready.

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How ‘losing friend to misinformation’ drove Facebook whistleblower

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Frances Haugen was frustrated that Facebook was not publicly acknowledging the harm its platforms could cause

Frances Haugen, the whistleblower behind a series of damaging revelations about Facebook, is adamant that she wants to help the social media company and not foment hatred of it.

The 37-year-old leaked tens of thousands of internal company documents after becoming frustrated that Facebook was not publicly acknowledging the harm its platforms could cause.

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Facebook whistleblower to claim company contributed to Capitol attack

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Former employee is set to air her claims and reveal her identity in an interview airing Sunday night on CBS 60 Minutes

A whistleblower at Facebook will say that thousands of pages of internal company research she turned over to federal regulators proves the social media giant is deceptively claiming effectiveness in its efforts to eradicate hate and misinformation and it contributed to the January 6 attack on the Capitol in Washington DC.

The former employee is set to air her claims and reveal her identity in an interview airing Sunday night on CBS 60 Minutes ahead of a scheduled appearance at a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

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‘Email is a zombie that keeps rising from the dead’: the endless pursuit of Inbox Zero

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As emails loom omnipresent in our connected lives, is the quest for an empty inbox a noble pursuit or an unwinnable war?

Last week, I asked my Twitter followers about their email inboxes.

Author Mohammed Massoud Morsi likened his to a “Kalashnikov on semi-automatic…Nudge, Nudge, Nudge. Nudge. Nudge, Nudge.” Human rights lawyer Diana Sayed replied that hers functions as a to-do list that is emptied on the regular. And when editor Caitlin Chang revealed that her inbox is sitting at over 1,000 and counting (she says she only ever reads the ones at the top, as they’re probably the most important), someone’s response to her was, “I threw up a little in my mouth”.

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Trump asks judge to force Twitter to reinstate his account

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Company suspended former president’s account in January following the attack on the US Capitol

Donald Trump has asked a federal judge in Florida to force social media giant Twitter to restore his account, which the company suspended in January following the attack that month on the US Capitol in Washington DC.

Trump’s use of the platform was a signature mark of his run for the presidency in 2016 and one he continued to use in office. He wielded it to attack enemies and dominate news cycles.

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Donald Trump asks Florida judge to force Twitter to reinstate account

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The request follows the former president suing Twitter, Facebook and Google in July accusing them of censoring conservative voices

Donald Trump, the former US president, has asked a federal judge in Florida to force Twitter to reinstate his account.

In July Trump sued Twitter, Facebook and Google, as well as their chief executives, alleging they unlawfully silence conservative viewpoints.

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Jeff Bezos’s space flight firm ‘rife with sexism’, employees’ letter claims

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Open letter by current and ex-staffers alleges ‘consistently inappropriate’ behaviour by Blue Origin leaders

A group of current and former employees at Blue Origin, the space flight company owned by the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, has accused the business of operating a work environment that is “rife with sexism” and prefers “breakneck speed” to safety.

An open letter written by Alexandra Abrams, the former head of employee communications at Blue Origin and 20 other current and former workers, says the company’s culture “reflects the worst of the world we live in now” and must change.

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Cutting methane should be a key Cop26 aim, research suggests

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Oil and gas producers could reduce emissions at low cost or even at a profit by staunching leaks, says thinktank

Sharp cuts in methane from leaking gas drilling platforms and production sites could play a major role in the greenhouse gas emissions reductions necessary to fulfil the Paris climate agreement, and should be a key aim for the Cop26 UN climate talks, new research suggests.

Cutting global emissions of methane by 40% by 2030 is achievable, with most cuts possible at low cost or even at a profit for companies such as oil and gas producers. It would make up for much of the shortfall in emissions reductions plans from national governments, according to the Energy Transitions Commission thinktank.

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YouTube to remove misinformation videos about all vaccines

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Streaming site cracks down on harmful content about all approved Covid jabs

YouTube is to remove videos that spread misinformation about all vaccines, as it steps up a crackdown on harmful content posted during the coronavirus pandemic.

From Wednesday, the video streaming site, which has already banned Covid jab falsehoods, will take down content that contains misinformation such as claiming any approved vaccine is dangerous, causes chronic health defects or does not reduce spread of disease.

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YouTube deletes RT’s German channels over Covid misinformation

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Russian state-backed broadcaster was found to have breached YouTube’s rules on coronavirus coverage

YouTube has deleted Russian state-backed broadcaster RT’s German-language channels, saying they had breached its Covid misinformation policy.

“YouTube has always had clear community guidelines that outline what is allowed on the platform,” said a spokesperson.

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Screen time: are Harry and Meghan right to limit it to just 20 minutes?

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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are advising visitors to their Archewell website to take regular screen breaks. How does this approach line up with the evidence?

Name: Screen time.

Age: It’s less about how old, more about how long.

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Online child abuse survey finds third of viewers attempt contact with children

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Largest major survey of its kind finds 70% of respondents first saw child sexual abuse material when they were under 18

The largest major survey of people who watch online child sexual abuse has found that one-third of respondents attempted to directly contact a child as a result of the illegal images they watched online.

The survey, by Protect Children, a Finnish human rights group, was posted on the “dark web” so users would find it while actively searching for illegal content of children. The analysis was based on more than 5,000 people who responded initially to the survey about why and how they watched children being abused online, although 10,000 responses have been received so far.

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