Irish regulator fines Facebook owner €390m after EU rejects argument for use of data to drive personalised ads
The business model of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta empire has been dealt a blow following a ruling that its legal justification for targeting users with personalised ads broke EU data laws.
Campaigners said the move could force the Facebook and Instagram owner to ask users to “opt in” to having their data used for targeted ads.
Continue reading...Authority says it is holding digital assets until they can be returned to creditors and former customers
The Bahamas securities regulator has said it has seized assets worth $3.5bn (£2.9bn) from the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX and plans to return them to creditors and former customers.
The Securities Commission of the Bahamas said it had transferred all digital assets under the custody or control of FTX Digital Markets, a Bahamas subsidiary of the FTX operation, to its own digital wallets for “safekeeping”.
Continue reading...Former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison among politicians and celebrities whose details were in sample of allegedly hacked data published online
The former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison appears to have been caught up in a leak of partial data on 400 million Twitter users, along with celebrities including the model Cara Delevingne, US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and pop singer Shawn Mendes.
Morrison’s Twitter account was included in a sample of data released by an alleged cybercriminal last week.
Continue reading...Top official confirms feature was removed but only temporarily, following Reuters report that prompted criticism of Elon Musk
Twitter has restored a feature that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking up certain content, after coming under pressure from users and consumer safety groups.
The feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, placed a banner at the top of search results for certain topics, listing contacts for support organizations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, Covid-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression.
In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org
Continue reading...ByteDance said four employees were fired for examining data of two journalists in attempt to find leak source
ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of popular video app TikTok, said on Thursday that some employees improperly accessed TikTok user data of two journalists and were no longer employed by the company, an email seen by Reuters shows.
ByteDance employees accessed the data as part of an unsuccessful effort to investigate leaks of company information earlier this year, and were aiming to identify potential connections between two journalists, a former BuzzFeed reporter and a Financial Times reporter, and company employees, the email from ByteDance general counsel Erich Andersen said.
Continue reading...Elon Musk says he will honour the results of a Twitter poll asking whether the should resign as head of the social media platform
Telsa investors seem to pleased with the way that Musk’s Twitter poll is leaning towards his potential resignation, with shares up 4% in pre-market trading:
Economic data interlude:
Continue reading...The legislation aims to tackle problems as wide-ranging as misogyny, disinformation and consumer fraud
Nearly two decades after the birth of Facebook ushered in the social media era, the EU is introducing ambitious legislation designed to clean up the world’s biggest online forums.
Intended to tackle misogyny, protect children, stop consumer fraud, curb disinformation and protect democratic elections, the Digital Services Act (DSA) is wide-ranging. The UK is introducing its own statute, the online safety bill, but the EU’s rules are likely to have a bigger impact because they cover a bigger market, and the EU is more influential as a regulatory power.
Continue reading...Pressure grows on Elon Musk as EU says social media platform could face sanctions over suspensions
The United Nations is “very disturbed” by Twitter’s abrupt suspension of a group of US journalists, a spokesperson has said, warning that the move sets a “dangerous precedent” – as the EU said the social media platform could fall foul of forthcoming digital regulations.
Stéphane Dujarric said on Friday the UN was “very disturbed” by the barring of prominent tech reporters at news organisations including CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times who have written about Musk and the tech company he owns.
Continue reading...Authorities want Glory to Hong Kong axed from top results and replaced with China’s national anthem
Google has refused to change its search results to display China’s national anthem, rather than a protest song, when users search for Hong Kong’s national anthem, the city’s security chief has said, expressing “great regret” at the decision.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Continue reading...Those willing to pay $8 on the web or $11 a month via Apple’s app store will get more prominence
Twitter is relaunching its subscription service on Monday, offering users verified status for $8 (£6.50) a month or $11 a month on their iPhone.
The move follows a botched revamp of the service last month that resulted in a host of impersonator accounts appearing on the platform as some users took advantage of the chance to launch bogus “verified” accounts for major companies and public figures.
Continue reading...Former boss of collapsed crypto-exchange says he has duty to try to recoup investors’ lost money
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former boss of the failed crypto-exchange FTX, has said he hopes to start a new business to help pay back the victims of his old firm’s collapse.
Speaking to the BBC from the Bahamas, he said he would “give anything” to be able to begin a new venture in order to recoup his users’ lost investments.
Continue reading...EU-funded survey of people aged 16-19 finds one in four have trolled someone – while UK least ‘cyberdeviant’ of nine countries
Risky and criminal online behaviour is in danger of becoming normalised among a generation of young people across Europe, according to EU-funded research that found one in four 16- to 19-year-olds have trolled someone online and one in three have engaged in digital piracy.
An EU-funded study found evidence of widespread criminal, risky and delinquent behaviour among the 16-19 age group in nine European countries including the UK.
Continue reading...The French president had flagged concerns over the platform’s content moderation just a day before
Emmanuel Macron said he had a “clear and honest” discussion with Elon Musk about Twitter’s content moderation policies, just a day after the French president had flagged his concerns on the issue.
“Transparent user policies, significant reinforcement of content moderation and protection of freedom of speech: efforts have to be made by Twitter to comply with European regulations,” Macron said in a tweet after his meeting with Musk on Friday afternoon.
Continue reading...Government websites and email still offline, leading to delays in payments and services across the country
One month after a cyber-attack brought down government servers and websites in Vanuatu, frustrated officials were still using private Gmail accounts, personal laptops, pen and paper, and typewriters to run the government of the prime minister, Ishmael Kalsakau, who came into office just a few days after the crash.
The malware attack on state networks has caused delays in communication and coordination in the Pacific island nation of 314,000 people and 80 islands.
Continue reading...Activity indicates ‘first major failure’ to stop government interference under ownership of Elon Musk
Twitter has been flooded with nuisance posts designed to obscure news of the coronavirus lockdown protests in China, in an apparent state-directed attempt to suppress footage of the demonstrations.
Chinese bot accounts – not operated by humans – are being used to flood the social networking service with adverts for sex workers, pornography and gambling when users search for a major city in the country, such as Shanghai or Beijing, using Chinese script.
Continue reading...Critics say telecoms firms such as BT – which made £1.9bn profit last year – can afford to keep customers on benefits connected
BT has warned that the telecoms industry cannot afford an estimated potential loss of up to £2bn annually providing low-cost broadband to millions of the UK’s most financially pressured households, but critics have said they have an obligation to do so.
Marc Allera, the chief executive of BT’s consumer division, which includes the mobile company EE, said the industry needed government support to help cover the ongoing cost of providing cheap tariffs, the same way households have been helped with energy bills.
Continue reading...Online scams such as banking and credit card fraud are the most prevalent cyberthreat, say Interpol
Police and investigators fear organised gangs of fraudsters are expanding across sub-Saharan Africa, exploiting new opportunities as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the global economic crisis to make huge sums with little risk of being caught.
The growth will have a direct impact on the rest of the world, where many victims of “hugely lucrative” fraud live, senior police officials have said.
Continue reading...Nonconsensual explicit images to be tackled in bill returning to parliament next month
Nonconsensual “deepfake” pornography and “downblousing” will be made illegal when the online safety bill returns to parliament in December, the government has announced.
Explicit images taken without someone’s consent, through hidden cameras or surreptitious photography, will be criminalised, including so-called downblousing pictures. A previous law banning “upskirt” voyeurism left a loophole that failed to tackle images that weren’t taken with the intent of photographing the victim’s genitals or buttocks.
Continue reading...Speaking of Trump and lawyers, another of his former top White House officials is going to South Carolina’s high court to stop a subpoena from a Georgia prosecutor looking into meddling in the state’s 2020 election, Politico reports:
The appeal to South Carolina’s supreme court by Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff for his final months in the White House, is the latest development in his lengthy battle to resist the summons from Fanni Willis. She’s the district attorney in Fulton county, which contains most of Atlanta, and has empaneled a special grand jury to look into attempts by Trump’s allies to interfere in Joe Biden’s election victory in the state.
Continue reading...‘The people have spoken,’ says site’s owner, having acknowledged during online poll that automated bots were voting too
Elon Musk has reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account after users on the social media platform voted by a slim majority to lift a ban on the former US president.
Trump’s account was suspended in 2021 after the January 6 Capitol riot, for violating Twitter guidelines and because of the risk of “further incitement of violence”.
Continue reading...