Australia politics live: international border to stay closed until at least March

Government extends country’s biosecurity emergency declaration; Josh Frydenberg unveils laws requiring Google and Facebook to pay for news. All the latest updates

In the UK, Margaret Keenan, a 90-year old grandmother from Coventry, has become the first person to receive the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

Australia has currently secured enough doses of the vaccine for 5 million people.

Congratulations to Margaret Keenan on her pub quiz question immortality.

Related: Coventry woman, 90, first patient to receive Covid vaccine in NHS campaign

Independent senator Rex Patrick has tabled a bill today to ban the importing of goods made by the forced labour of Uighurs in China.

The bill would stop Australia importing any goods made in the Xinjing province of China, or goods from other parts of China produced “using forced labour” as defined by Australian criminal law.

The Chinese Communist regime’s persecution of the Uyghur people is undeniable. More than 1 million people have been rounded up and put in internment camps across Xinjiang and subjected to gross human rights abuses.

Continue reading...

More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

More than 1,500 researchers also sign letter after Black expert on ethics says Google tried to suppress her research on bias

More than 1,200 Google employees and more than 1,500 academic researchers are speaking out in protest after a prominent Black scientist studying the ethics of artificial intelligence said she was fired by Google after the company attempted to suppress her research and she criticized its diversity efforts.

Timnit Gebru, who was the technical co-lead of Google’s Ethical AI team, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that she had been fired after sending an email to an internal group for women and allies working in the company’s AI unit.

Continue reading...

Part human, part machine: is Apple turning us all into cyborgs?

With its iPhones, watches and forthcoming smart glasses, Apple’s gadgets are increasingly becoming extensions of our minds and bodies. It’s the big tech dream – but could it turn into a nightmare?

By Alex Hern
Illustration by Steven Gregor

At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Apple engineers embarked on a rare collaboration with Google. The goal was to build a system that could track individual interactions across an entire population, in an effort to get a head start on isolating potentially infectious carriers of a disease that, as the world was discovering, could be spread by asymptomatic patients.

Delivered at breakneck pace, the resulting exposure notification tool has yet to prove its worth. The NHS Covid-19 app uses it, as do others around the world. But lockdowns make interactions rare, limiting the tool’s usefulness, while in a country with uncontrolled spread, it isn’t powerful enough to keep the R number low. In the Goldilocks zone, when conditions are just right, it could save lives.

Continue reading...

Republicans use section 230 hearing to berate tech CEOs and claim Trump is ‘censored’

Congressional hearing with Twitter, Facebook and Google CEOs was meant to focus on federal law that protects internet companies

Republican lawmakers berated the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google in a hearing that was ostensibly about a federal law protecting internet companies but mostly focused on how those companies deal with disinformation from Donald Trump and other conservatives.

Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai testified before Congress on Wednesday about section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law underpinning US internet regulation that exempts platforms from legal liability for content generated by its users.

Continue reading...

Big tech accused of avoiding $2.8bn in tax to poorest countries

Reform of international corporate taxation could transform health and education, says report

Big US technology companies are exploiting loopholes in global tax rules to avoid paying as much as $2.8bn (£2.1bn) tax a year in developing countries, according to research by the anti-poverty charity ActionAid International.

Facebook, Google and Microsoft have been accused of failing to pay a fair amount of taxes in poor countries where governments are struggling to provide even basic healthcare or education to their citizens.

Continue reading...

US justice department sues Google over accusation of illegal monopoly

Lawsuit accuse tech company of abusing its position to dominate search and search advertising

The US justice department filed a lawsuit against Google on Tuesday, accusing the tech company of abusing its position to maintain an illegal monopoly over search and search advertising.

“Two decades ago, Google became the darling of Silicon Valley as a scrappy startup with an innovative way to search the emerging internet. That Google is long gone,” the suit alleged.

Continue reading...

Biden article row shows how US election is testing Facebook and Twitter

Online giants felt forced to take unprecedented action as they struggle with role during divisive presidential battle

Mere hours after the publication of a controversial New York Post article critical of Joe Biden, both Twitter and Facebook took unprecedented action to restrict distribution of the post.

Facebook, a company spokesman revealed, had immediately begun to “reduce its distribution on our platform”, altering how the company’s recommendation algorithm would normally react to such a viral story in order to buy its third-party fact checkers time to come to a conclusion about its veracity.

Continue reading...

Big tech firms may be handing Hong Kong user data to China

Allegation follows new law that lets Hong Kong ask for sensitive data if deemed to threaten national security

Big technology companies may already be complying with secret Chinese requests for user information held in Hong Kong and ought to “come clean” about the vulnerability of the data they hold there, a senior US state department official has said.

The allegation of possible secret cooperation between major companies and Hong Kong authorities follows the implementation of a sweeping and controversial new national security law that allows Hong Kong authorities to demand sensitive user data from companies if it is deemed to threaten national security.

Continue reading...

Twitter and Google join Facebook in tightening rules on US election claims

Platforms will target unverified claims of election rigging and premature results declarations

Premature claims of victory will be blocked from Twitter and Google in the run-up to November’s US presidential election, as both companies follow Facebook in trying to fight the prospect of a stolen vote.

Under its new rules, Twitter will treat as harmful misinformation any tweet which makes false claims about election rigging, or prematurely claims to announce the election results.

Continue reading...

Facebook threatens to block Australians from sharing news in battle over landmark media law

Digital giant says it will stop users of Facebook and Instagram sharing local and international news if new law proposed by competition watchdog is approved

Facebook will block Australians from sharing news if a landmark plan to make digital platforms pay for news content becomes law, the digital giant has warned.

The sharing of personal content between family and friends will not be affected and neither will the sharing of news by Facebook users outside of Australia, the social network said.

Continue reading...

UK to drop ‘Facebook tax’ in favour of post-Brexit trade deal

Recently introduced tax would have raised £500m, helping to reduce Britain’s huge Covid bill

The UK government is preparing to drop a recently introduced tax on global technology companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon, due to fears that the so-called “Facebook tax” could jeopardise a post-Brexit trade deal.

Rishi Sunak is reportedly planning to ditch the digital services tax which was expected to generate about £500m to help pay towards the huge cost of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Continue reading...

Google Maps gets worldwide visual overhaul

Updated version promises ‘more vibrant’ representation of natural features and built environment

Google Maps is getting a visual overhaul worldwide, finally letting users distinguish forest from floodplain, and desert from snowfield, at a glance.

Alongside the changes to natural environments, a new set of maps will be rolling out in major cities, beginning with London, New York City and San Francisco, aiming to more accurately represent the built-up environment to help pedestrians and cyclists navigate.

Continue reading...

Google giving far-right users’ data to law enforcement, documents reveal

Exclusive: in some cases Google did not necessarily ban users who were often threatening violence or expressing extremist views

A little-known investigative unit inside search giant Google regularly forwarded detailed personal information on the company’s users to members of a counter-terrorist fusion center in California’s Bay Area, according to leaked documents reviewed by the Guardian.

But checking the documents against Google’s platforms reveals that in some cases Google did not necessarily ban the users they reported to the authorities, and some still have accounts on YouTube, Gmail and other services.

Continue reading...

Apple and Google remove Fortnite video game from app stores

Move over payment guideline violations prompts maker Epic Games to take legal action

Apple and Google have removed the enormously popular video game Fortnite from their app stores for violating their in-app payment guidelines, prompting the maker, Epic Games, to take legal action challenging the tech giants’ iron grip over the industry.

Its removal from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store came after Fortnite circumvented the companies’ in-app payment system and hefty fees, encouraging users to pay the gaming company directly.

Continue reading...

New York unveils landmark antitrust bill that makes it easier to sue tech giants

The legislation comes as a federal panel is investigating the market power of Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google

New York state is introducing a bill that would make it easier to sue big tech companies for alleged abuses of their monopoly powers.

New York is America’s financial center and one of its most important tech hubs. If successfully passed, the law could serve as a model for future legislation across the country. It also comes as a federal committee is conducting an anti-trust investigation into tech giants amid concerns that their unmatched market power is suppressing competition.

Continue reading...

‘Too much power’: Congress grills top tech CEOs in combative antitrust hearing

The US’s top tech bosses were told they have “too much power”, are censoring political speech, spreading fake news and “killing” the engines of the American economy, at a combative congressional hearing on Wednesday.

The historic hearing in Washington saw Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google’s parent Alphabet appear before members of the House judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee and face intense questioning from lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

Continue reading...

Google says it will no longer save a complete record of every search

The firm will now delete its saved records of a new user’s activity after 18 months

Google will no longer save a complete record of every search made by new users, the company says, as it launches a push to promote its privacy credentials against concerted competition from arch-rival Apple.

The company will now automatically delete its saved records of a new user’s activity on the web and in its apps after 18 months, chief executive Sundar Pichai announced on Wednesday. Previously, such information had been kept indefinitely by default, which the company argued was necessary to personalise its services for individual users.

Continue reading...

Apple update to allow iPhone users to choose default apps

Move in autumn will let users set Gmail as default email app and Firefox as main web browser

iPhone users will be able to set Gmail as their default email app, Firefox as their main web browser, and listen to Spotify on their HomePod speakers, after Apple announced concessions to competitors who argue the company is abusing its monopoly.

The new openness will arrive with a wave of software updates in the autumn, Apple said, alongside the other new features the company promised at its Worldwide Developers Conference, held remotely from Cupertino, California, on Monday.

Continue reading...

UK abandons contact-tracing app for Apple and Google model

NHS to switch to alternative design by tech giants, says Matt Hancock in latest U-turn

The government has been forced to abandon a centralised coronavirus contact-tracing app after spending three months and millions of pounds on technology that experts had repeatedly warned would not work.

In an embarrassing U-turn, Matt Hancock said the NHS would switch to an alternative designed by the US tech companies Apple and Google, which is months away from being ready.

Continue reading...

Piloted in May, ditched in June: the failure of England’s Covid-19 app

How the government came to scrap its contact-tracing app in favour of Apple and Google’s

Designed to be a key component of the test, track and trace programme to forge a way out of lockdown, the NHS Covid-19 app has been beset by problems from day one – despite repeated claims to the contrary.

After a trial on the Isle of Wight at the start of May, the contact-tracing app was meant to be rolled out to the rest of England by the middle of the month. That soon slipped to some time in June. Then on Wednesday it emerged that we would have to wait until the winter. Now – after much behind-the-scenes scrambling, and head-scratching in Westminster – officials have decided to ditch the app entirely in its current form.

Continue reading...