Australia politics live: Steven Miles says Suncorp Stadium will host Brisbane Olympics opening and closing ceremonies

Posted on March 18, 2024 by Admin

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‘There’ll be a lot of people grieving today’

Both Barnaby Joyce and Tanya Plibersek were asked about soldier Jack Fitzgibbon, the son of former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon.

The Fitzgibbon family are a family of honour. Jack died in service to our nation. Joel has served our nation. The family will be absolutely grieving. We hope and pray Jack is with our maker, give comfort to them. You’ve seen the Fitzgibbons, you’ve watched them on television. They’re a great family. He is also my mate. We’ll turn up and give what support we can to Jack’s family.

It’s just the worst thing that any parent can imagine and so our hearts go out to Joel and Diane and their family and the friends and comrades that Jack had in the service as well. We know there’ll be a lot of people grieving today.

Well, first of all, of course it’s not on government devices in Australia either. We’ve got a ban here in Australia on government devices. But there are 8.5 million Australians who are using it.

We’ll take the advice of our security and intelligence agencies on anything we need to do around TikTok. I think people should be careful of the data that they put online in general. Like I say, if the security and intelligence agencies give us advice on TikTok, we’ll take it.

Liberal MP urges Australia to follow US in TikTok crackdown, calling app a ‘serious threat’ to national security

Posted on March 16, 2024 by Admin

Shadow home affairs spokesperson James Paterson labels social media platform a ‘bad faith actor’

The shadow home affairs spokesperson has labelled TikTok a “bad faith actor” and a “serious threat” to Australia’s national security, urging the Albanese government to follow the United States in its crackdown on the video-sharing app.

The Liberal senator James Paterson said he was not advocating for a total ban on the popular app but wants Australia to emulate the United States in its bid to force the Chinese tech company that owns TikTok to divest its business in the US.

Paterson told ABC’s Insiders on Sunday he hoped changes to the app’s ownership structure would lower the risk of Australian data being harvested by the Chinese government and prevent its influence in spreading disinformation.

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Congress passed a TikTok bill. Will the US really ban the app?

Posted on March 13, 2024 by Admin

A bill passed by Congress and signed by Biden requires owner ByteDance to sell or face a US ban – it’s its biggest threat yet

Senate passes bill banning TikTok if parent company does not sell it

The House of Representatives passed a bill that would require TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the social media platform or face a total ban in the United States. The Senate passed it less than a week later. Joe Biden signed it a day after the Senate voted yes.

TikTok is facing its biggest existential threat yet in the US. The app was banned in Montana last year, but courts found that prohibition unconstitutional, and it never went into effect.

Brianna Ghey’s mother warns tech bosses more children will die without action

Posted on February 12, 2024 by Admin

Exclusive: Esther Ghey says she believes social media use left her daughter vulnerable, while killers were able to access violent content online

‘I want to make things better’: Esther Ghey on her hopes for online reform

The mother of Brianna Ghey has called for her murder to be a “tipping point” in how society views “the mess” of the internet, warning that a generation of anxious young people will grow up lacking resilience.

Esther Ghey said technology companies had a “moral responsibility” to restrict access to harmful online content. She supports a total ban on social media access for under-16s – a move currently under debate in certain legislatures, including Florida in the US.

Instagram and Facebook delete the accounts of Iran’s supreme leader

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Admin

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei supported Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, which Meta said violated its policies

Meta has removed Instagram and Facebook accounts run on behalf of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following criticism over his support for Hamas after the group’s 7 October attack on Israel that sparked the months-long war still raging in the Gaza Strip, the company confirmed on Friday.

Meta, based in Menlo Park, California, offered no specifics about its reasoning. However, it said it removed the accounts “for repeatedly violating our Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy”.

Mark Zuckerberg to receive $700m from Meta dividends

Posted on February 2, 2024 by Admin

Facebook’s parent company to pay out to shareholders as it reports $40bn revenues for final quarter

Meta revenue soars as it pivots to AI

Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is expected to receive $700m (£549m) a year in dividends.

On Thursday, Meta announced it would pay its first-ever quarterly dividend to investors since Facebook floated on the stock market in 2012, after beating Wall Street expectations with $40bn in revenues for the final quarter last year.

‘It was forced’: grieving parents unfazed by sorry tech CEOs at US Senate hearing

Posted on February 1, 2024 by Admin

Many parents held up images of the children who died after falling prey to abusers on apps such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat

Mark Zuckerberg apologized to the parents of children who killed themselves after being subjected to online sexual exploitation during a US Senate hearing Wednesday. Evan Spiegel offered condolences to parents whose children obtained deadly illegal drugs via Snapchat. The words were too little, too late for their intended audience, though. The grieving guardians expressed only frustration with the social media CEOs’ responses to their plight and to questions from members of Congress.

“I’m not happy with the answers the CEOs are giving. They can’t give a straight answer. Not even ‘yes’ or ‘no,’” said Tammy Rodriguez, the mother of Selena Rodriguez, who was 11 when she died by suicide three years ago after being solicited for sexually exploitative content by strangers on Instagram and Snapchat.

‘You will not replace us’: a deadly attack on a Slovakian gay bar – and its link to a fast-spreading racist ideology

Posted on January 21, 2024 by Admin

Fifteen months after two men were shot in Bratislava, evidence suggests the killer may have been helped by an unidentified US-based extremist

The October evening was warm and sunny. At about 7pm, two young men stepped out of the Tepláreň bar on Zámocká Street in the centre of Bratislava, to sit on a concrete bench and drink lemonade. Matúš, 23, had just arrived in the Slovakian capital to study Chinese. His 26-year-old friend worked in a local clothes shop and enjoyed anime, K-pop and dance.

Standing in an alcove a few metres away was Juraj Krajčík. The 19-year-old had been loitering for about half an hour, witnesses later said. Shortly after the two patrons of the Tepláreň sat down, Krajčík stepped forward, raised a .45-calibre handgun and fired several shots at them. Then he turned and ran, gun in hand.

Jewish students condemn antisemitic tweets about French PM Gabriel Attal

Posted on January 12, 2024 by Admin

Students’ union calls for sanctions over posts on social network that have also contained homophobic abuse

The French Union of Jewish Students has called for sanctions against people who have written antisemitic and homophobic comments about France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, on the social network X.

Attal, 34, who was appointed by the president, Emmanuel Macron, this week, is France’s youngest prime minister and also the first out gay politician in the job.