Author: ITlines

Twitter has been important in burnishing the image President Donald Trump wants to portray of a brash straight-talking politician, but the social media company has recently begun to flag Trump’s tweets when they are deemed misleading. Other online platforms like Facebook and Snap are making their own decisions about content. Tina Trinh reports.Produced by: Tina Trinh    …

Twitter has been important in burnishing the image President Donald Trump wants to portray of a brash straight-talking politician, but the social media company has recently begun to flag Trump’s tweets when they are deemed misleading. Other online platforms like Facebook and Snap are making their own decisions about content. Tina Trinh reports.Produced by: Tina Trinh    …

Activists want to ban police from using facial recognition — and now some big tech companies are scaling back cooperation with law enforcement. Deana Mitchell reports.Camera: Deana Mitchell  Produced by: Deana Mitchell    …

Twitter Inc added a ‘manipulated media’ label on a video posted on U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed on Thursday that showed a doctored news clip with a mis-spelled banner flashing “Terrified todler runs from racist baby.”The original video, which went viral on social media in 2019, showed a black toddler and a white toddler running towards each other and hugging. It was published with the headline “These two toddlers are showing us what real-life besties look like” on CNN’s website last year.The clip shared in Trump’s tweet first shows the part where one of those toddlers is seen running ahead of the other. At one point the banner reads: “Racist baby probably a Trump voter.”pic.twitter.com/vnRpk0zl5y— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2020The tweeted video, with more than 7.7 million views and 125,000 retweets, then goes on to show the original video and concludes: “America is not the problem. Fake news is.””We may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context,” Twitter says in an explanation of its policies posted on its website.Twitter has been under fierce scrutiny from the Trump administration since it fact-checked Trump’s tweets about unsubstantiated claims of mail-in voting fraud. It also labeled a Trump tweet about protests in Minneapolis as “glorifying violence.”The president, who has battled Twitter and other tech companies over alleged censorship of conservative voices on social media platforms, said in late May he would propose legislation to potentially scrap or weaken the law shielding internet companies, in an extraordinary attempt to regulate outlets where he has been criticized.   …

Top social media companies Google, Facebook and Twitter told U.S. lawmakers Thursday that foreign interference on their platforms has evolved significantly since the 2016 presidential election.The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence heard how these companies are adapting their approaches to combating disinformation as COVID-19, Black Lives Matter protests and the upcoming 2020 presidential election present opportunities for the exploitation of partisan political differences in the United States.FILE – Nick Pickles, public policy director for Twitter, speaks during a full committee hearing, in Washington, Sept. 18, 2019.To date, Twitter has not seen signs of foreign actors attempting to exploit U.S. racial divides or differences of opinion on the coronavirus, Nick Pickles, Twitter’s director of global public policy strategy and development, told lawmakers.”We haven’t found evidence of concerted platform manipulation by foreign actors in either of those areas,” Pickles said.Facebook’s head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said his company has yet to see “coordinated inauthentic behavior on the part of foreign governments, particularly targeting voting systems or how to vote in the United States.”But in his opening statement, Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said that while social media companies have made efforts since the 2016 election to address concerns about manipulation of their platforms by foreign entities, “I can’t say that I am confident that the 2020 election will be free of interference by malicious actors, foreign or domestic, who aspire to weaponize your platforms to divide Americans, pit us against one another and weaken our democracy.”Representatives from Google, Facebook and Twitter told the panel they are seeing an evolution by many foreign actors, who are returning to methods last seen from the 1960s through the 1980s to disseminate misinformation and evade controls the companies put into place in response to concerns about Russian interference in the 2016 election. FILE – Facebook Head of Cybersecurity Policy Nathaniel Gleicher testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 22, 2019.”So far this year, we’ve taken down 18 coordinated networks seeking to manipulate public debate, including three networks originating from Russia, two from Iran and two based here in the United States,” Gleicher told lawmakers.A Pew Research survey found that 44% of Americans used social media platforms as a news source during the 2016 election. Lawmakers noted contentious discussions on social media do much of the work for malicious foreign actors.”I’m pretty convinced that when this republic dies, it doesn’t happen because the Russians broke … “Social Media Companies Battle Evolving Threat Ahead of 2020 Election” →

A “sophisticated state-based cyber actor” has been attempting to hack a wide range of Australian organizations for months and had stepped up its efforts recently, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday.The attacks have targeted all levels of the government, political organizations, essential service providers and operators of other critical infrastructure, Morrison said in a news briefing in Canberra.”We know it is a sophisticated state-based cyber actor because of the scale and nature of the targeting,” he said.Morrison said there were not a lot of state actors that could launch this sort of attack, but Australia will not identify which country was responsible.Australia’s Defense Minister Linda Reynolds said advice showed no large-scale personal data breaches from the attack, as she urged businesses and organizations to ensure any web or email servers are fully updated with the latest software and the use of multifactor authentication.An Australian government source said Morrison’s public declaration was an attempt to raise the issue with those who could be targeted.Australia’s chief cyber intelligence agency said its investigations have so far found no evidence that the actor attempted to be “disruptive or destructive” once within the host’s network.Morrison said he spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday about the issue, while briefings to other allies have also been conducted.The revelation comes after Reuters reported Canberra had determined in March last year that China was responsible for a hacking attack on Australia’s parliament. Australia never publicly identified that source of the attack, and China denied it was responsible.A U.S. security ally, Australia strained ties with its largest trading partner, China, by pushing for an international inquiry into the source and spread of the new coronavirus that first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.   …

The Russian government has lifted a ban on Telegram two years after it announced attempts to restrict access to the encrypted instant-messaging app, the country’s communications regulator said Thursday.“As agreed with the Prosecutor General’s office, Roskomnadzor withdraws the demand to restrict access to the Telegram messenger,” the federal communications watchdog said in a statement.Roskomnadzor began blocking the popular app in accordance with a 2018 court order that demanded the messaging service be restricted because of its alleged use by Islamic State terrorists.Pavel Durov, the app’s Russian-born founder, was ordered to hand over the app’s encryption codes but refused, citing violations of user privacy.But even top-tier officials such as Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov continued using the app after its developers adjusted the code to slip past Roskomnadzor’s cybersecurity barriers.Its widespread use has continued, and even coronavirus task force operations in many Russian regions use Telegram for daily updates.Roskomnadzor on Thursday said it was prepared to lift restrictions because Durov, who has been living in self-imposed exile since 2014, was prepared to cooperate with Russian government counterterrorism efforts to combat extremism on the platform.Islamic State terrorists behind the November 2015 Paris attacks, which claimed 130 lives, used the app’s public channels to spread propaganda and other related content. The app shut the channels down after the attack.Telegram’s developers say that they have since increased their ability to spot and delete extremist content on the app without compromising user privacy.The Kremlin took note of Roskomnadzor’s decision and the reasoning for it, the Tass news agency reported, quoting Kremlin spokesman Peskov.Founded in 2013, Telegram now has an estimated 30 million users in Russia — nearly 20% of the population.Some information for this report came from AP and Reuters.   …

Engineers at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, are developing new technology for health care workers on the front lines of fighting the spread of COVID-19. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports from Chicago, an unexpected benefit of the current pandemic is technological innovation that could have a lasting impact.Camera: Kane Farabaugh        Produced by: Rob Raffaele …

Turkey criticized Twitter on Friday for suspending more than 7,000 accounts the social media company said were promoting narratives favorable to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and the AK Parti (AKP). The suspended 7,340 accounts were detected earlier this year “employing coordinated inauthentic activity,” Twitter said in a blog post uploaded on Friday. Republic of Turkey communications director Fahrettin Altun said the social media company was attempting to smear the government and trying to redesign Turkish politics. “This arbitrary act … has demonstrated yet again that Twitter is no mere social media company, but a propaganda machine with certain political and ideological inclinations,” Altun said in a written statement on Twitter.Statement regarding Twitter’s decision to suspend accounts in Turkey and the company’s allegations: pic.twitter.com/mi9abYDWEE — Fahrettin Altun (@fahrettinaltun) June 12, 2020The communications director closed with a warning to Twitter. “We would like to remind this company of the eventual fate of a number of organizations, which attempted to take similar steps in the past,” Altun said. In its Friday blog post, Twitter revealed it had shared data from the account takedowns related to Turkey, as well as China and Russia, with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute  (ASPI) and Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO). In what the SIO dubbed “The Turkey Operation,”  it found batches of fabricated personalities, all created on the same day. The suspended accounts were used for AKP “cheerleading,” to increase domestic support for Turkish intervention in Syria and compromised other Twitter accounts linked to organizations critical of the government, the SIO found.Twitter’s handling of the “Turkey Operation” has come to light as it removed 23,750 accounts posting pro-Beijing narratives, and 1,152 accounts engaging in state-backed political propaganda within Russia.  …

Twitter has removed a vast network of accounts that it says is linked to the Chinese government and were pushing false information favorable to the country’s communist rulers. Beijing denied involvement Friday and said the company should instead take down accounts smearing China. The U.S. social media company suspended 23,750 accounts that were posting pro-Beijing narratives, and another 150,000 accounts dedicated to retweeting and amplifying those messages.   The network was engaged “in a range of coordinated and manipulated activities” in predominantly Chinese languages, including praise for China’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and “deceptive narratives” about Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, the company said.   The accounts also tweeted about two other topics: Taiwan and Guo Wengui, an exiled billionaire waging a campaign from New York against China’s president and party leader Xi Jinping and his administration. Most had little to no followers and failed to get much attention. The accounts were suspended under Twitter’s manipulation policies, which ban artificial amplification and suppression of information.   Twitter and other social media services like Facebook and YouTube are blocked in China.   “While the Chinese Communist Party won’t allow the Chinese people to use Twitter, our analysis shows it is happy to use it to sow propaganda and disinformation internationally,” said Fergus Hanson, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre, which worked with the company on the takedown.  China denied involvement.   “It holds no water at all to equate China’s response to the epidemic with disinformation,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily news briefing on Friday.   “If Twitter wants to make a difference, it should shut down those accounts that have been organized and coordinated to attack and discredit China,” she added. Twitter also removed more than 1,000 accounts linked to a Russian media website engaging in state-backed political propaganda in Russian, and a network of 7,340 fake or compromised accounts used for “cheerleading” the ruling party in Turkey. …

A popular podcasting platform, Pocket Casts, has been removed from Apple’s app store in China at Beijing’s request, according to the company’s Twitter thread. Pocket Casts confirmed Wednesday on Twitter that the request was made by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), Beijing’s top internet watchdog agency that controls which apps can be accessed on iOS and other platforms in the country. “We were contacted by the CAC through Apple around 2 days before the app was removed from the store,” it said.Pocket Casts has been removed from the Chinese App store by Apple, at the request of the Cyberspace Administration of China. We believe podcasting is and should remain an open medium, free of government censorship. As such we won’t be censoring podcast content at their request. — Pocket Casts (@pocketcasts) June 11, 2020Before Pocket Casts was removed, another podcast player for iPhone, Castro, said on June 4 that its app was also removed from the Chinese app store by Apple. Castro said about 10% of its user base is in China. Asked why its app was taken down, Castro said in a Twitter comment on June 6 that they think it might have been the company’s support of the protests in Hong Kong, but “we were not given specifics.”We think it might have been our support of the protests in the Discover tab. We were not given specifics. — Castro Podcasts (@CastroPodcasts) June 7, 2020Pocket Casts, originally developed by an Austrian company, was acquired by a group of American public radio companies in 2018. It is currently ranked 82nd most popular in the podcast news app section on Apple’s U.S website, where the Twitter app is number one. The app was not searchable within Apple’s Chinese app store at the time of writing. Apple could not be immediately reached for comment. This is not the first time that Apple has removed an app from the app store following a request by the Chinese government. According to a Transparency Report released on Apple’s website, for the first six months of 2019, the company received 56 requests from the Chinese government seeking removal of a third-party application offered on the app store related to alleged or suspected legal violations. In comparison, it received only two requests from Vietnam and five from Russia. Apple, by its own account, took down 194 apps in mainland China, none in Vietnam and 16 in Russia. The podcast removal comes … “Apple Removes Podcast Apps in China” →

Videoconferencing company Zoom temporarily shut down the account of a U.S.-based activist group days after it held an event commemorating the 31st anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square protests. Humanitarian China, an organization focused on providing relief for political prisoners and activists, held the Zoom conference on May 31. A week later June 7, the account used for the conference displayed a message that it had been shut down.  The meeting was streamed by 4,000 people and joined by more than 250 participants worldwide, including organizers of the Hong Kong Candlelight Vigil, writers and scholars, former student leaders of the Tiananmen Square protests and the Tiananmen Mothers.  The Tiananmen Square student-led protest has long been a sensitive topic in China’s political history.  30 Years After Tiananmen, Remembering a Pivotal Night On June 4, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party ordered tanks and soldiers to fire at its own people gathered at Tiananmen Square, which is located in the heart of Beijing. Three decades later, the shots fired still reverberate today.The bravery of a lone man confronting a row of Chinese tanks became a symbol of the night of resistance between the people of China and the hard-liners of the Communist Party that ordered the army action. His identity remains unknown. On June 4, 1989, in what critics and activists call a “massacre,” the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ordered tanks and soldiers to fire at pro-democracy protesters. Humanitarian China is currently led by human rights activist Zhou Fengsuo, who was a student during the protests in 1989. The organization said it is “outraged” Zoom shut its account and that “it seems possible Zoom acted on pressure from the CCP.” Humanitarian China also mentioned that former Tiananmen Square protester Dong Shengkun, previously imprisoned by the Chinese government for 17 years, was detained for five days to prevent him from attending the conference live.  Zoom has since reactivated the account and released a statement explaining the shutdown. “When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws,” the company said in an emailed statement.  “We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local laws and continuously review and improve our process on these matters.”         …

Microsoft has become the third big tech company this week to say it won’t sell its facial recognition software to police, following similar moves by Amazon and IBM.Microsoft’s president and chief counsel, Brad Smith, announced the decision and called on Congress to regulate the technology during a Washington Post video event on Thursday.”We’ve decided we will not sell facial recognition technology to police departments in the United States until we have a national law in place, grounded in human rights, that will govern this technology,” Smith said.The trio of tech giants is stepping back from law-enforcement use of systems that have faced criticism for incorrectly identifying people with darker skin. Ongoing protests following the death of George Floyd have focused attention on racial injustice in the U.S. and how police use technology to track people.Amazon Bans Police Use of its Face Recognition for a Year Civil rights groups and Amazon’s own employees have pushed the company to stop selling its technology, called Rekognition, to government agencies, saying that it could be used to invade people’s privacy and target minoritiesBut while all three companies are known for their work in developing artificial intelligence, including face recognition software, none is a major player in selling such technology to police. Smith said Thursday that Microsoft currently doesn’t sell its face recognition software to any U.S. police departments. He didn’t say if that includes federal law enforcement agencies or police forces outside the U.S.Several other companies that are less well known dominate the market for government facial recognition contracts in the U.S., including Tokyo-based NEC and the European companies Idemia and Gemalto.Microsoft, Amazon and IBM are calling on Congress to set national rules over how police use facial recognition — something that’s now being considered as part of a police reform package sparked by the protests following Floyd’s death.”If all of the responsible companies in the country cede this market to those that are not prepared to take a stand, we won’t necessarily serve the national interest or the lives of the black and African American people of this nation well,” Smith said. “We need Congress to act, not just tech companies alone.”Microsoft has spent two years warning of the potential dangers of face-scanning technology being abused to enable oppressive mass surveillance, but the company has opposed outright bans on government use of the technology passed in San Francisco and other cities. That’s led … “Microsoft Joins Amazon, IBM in Pausing Face Scans for Police” →

Amazon on Wednesday banned police use of its face-recognition technology for a year, making it the latest tech giant to step back from law-enforcement use of systems that have faced criticism for incorrectly identifying people with darker skin.   The Seattle-based company did not say why it took action now. Ongoing protests following the death of George Floyd have focused attention on racial injustice in the U.S. and how police use technology to track people. Floyd died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into the handcuffed black man’s neck for several minutes even after Floyd stopped moving and pleading for air.  Law enforcement agencies use facial recognition to identify suspects, but critics say it can be misused. A number of U.S. cities have banned its use by police and other government agencies, led by San Francisco last year. On Tuesday, IBM said it would get out of the facial recognition business, noting concerns about how the technology can be used for mass surveillance and racial profiling. Civil rights groups and Amazon’s own employees have pushed the company to stop selling its technology, called Rekognition, to government agencies, saying that it could be used to invade people’s privacy and target minorities.   In a blog post Wednesday, Amazon said that it hoped Congress would put in place stronger regulations for facial recognition. “Amazon’s decision is an important symbolic step, but this doesn’t really change the face recognition landscape in the United States since it’s not a major player,” said Clare Garvie, a researcher at Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology. Her public records research found only two U.S. two agencies using or testing Rekognition. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon has been the most public about using it. The Orlando police department tested it, but chose not to implement it, she said.   Studies led by MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini found racial and gender disparities in facial recognition software. Those findings spurred Microsoft and IBM to improve their systems, but irked Amazon, which last year publicly attacked her research methods. A group of artificial intelligence scholars, including a winner of computer science’s top prize, last year launched a spirited defense of her work and called on Amazon to stop selling its facial recognition software to police. A study last year by a U.S. agency affirmed the concerns about the technology’s flaws. The National Institute of Standards and Technology tested leading facial recognition systems — though not Amazon’s, which didn’t submit its … “Amazon Bans Police Use of its Face Recognition for a Year” →

Four Republican U.S. senators on Tuesday urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to review whether to revise liability protections for internet companies after President Donald Trump urged action.Trump said last month he wants to “remove or change” a provision of a law that shields social media companies from liability for content posted by their users and directed a U.S. Commerce Department agency to petition the FCC to take action within 60 days.Senators Marco Rubio, Kelly Loeffler, Kevin Cramer and Josh Hawley asked the FCC to review Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and “clearly define the criteria for which companies can receive protections under the statute.”FILE – FCC Chairman Ajit Pai testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 5, 2019.Last week, an advocacy group backed by the tech industry sued, asking a judge to block the executive order.FCC Chairman Ajit Pai — who in 2018 said he did not see a role for the agency to regulate websites like Facebook Inc , Alphabet Inc’s Google and Twitter — declined to comment on potential actions in response to Trump’s executive order. He told reporters on Tuesday it would not be appropriate to “prejudge a petition that I haven’t seen.”FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said on Tuesday the order poses a lot “of very complex issues.”O’Rielly tweeted earlier “as a conservative, I’m troubled voices are stifled by liberal tech leaders. At same time, I’m extremely dedicated to the First Amendment which governs much here.”    …

As tension grows between China and the United States, there is worry in Beijing that the conflict could end up further restricting Chinese access to American technology.Of foremost concern is that despite decades of effort, China has yet to build a homegrown operating system good enough to replace Microsoft Windows. “Our operating system market is dominated by U.S. companies such as Microsoft, Google and Apple,” a recent report by state-run Xinhua News Agency said. “To fundamentally solve the problem of ‘being choked in [the] neck’, creating a domestic operating system and supporting software and hardware ecosystem is a must.” To be fair, China is not alone. Other countries including Russia, Germany and South Korea have been trying to develop their own operating systems. But none of them have gotten very far yet. Washington has already targeted China’s technology vulnerabilities. The U.S. Commerce Department has banned FILE – In this June 19, 2017, file photo, President Donald Trump, from left, and Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, listen as Jeff Bezos, Chief Executive Officer of Amazon, speaks during an American Technology Council roundtable.Decoupling fallout          Economists now talk about “decoupling” the Chinese and U.S. economies, severing supply chains and business relationships that account for trillions of dollars in trade, because of the political tensions between Washington and Beijing. “Some decoupling in the high-tech area seems inevitable and already in process,” said Doug Barry, the spokesman for communications and publications at the US-China Business Council. Driven by the U.S. campaign to restrict China’s technology giants because of threats to U.S. national security, experts say the U.S.-China decoupling could widen to include desktop computers as well.  “To keep China from using Windows would be devastating to China,” Dr. Feng Chongyi, associate professor in China Studies at Australia’s University of Technology Sydney, wrote in an email to VOA. “I am afraid this is a logical step when the Cold War II escalates to a higher level.”  China’s vulnerability Like the rest of the world, China is heavily dependent on American technology companies that design microchips and the most popular computer operating systems.According to a market report released last July by a Chinese research firm, Microsoft enjoys a dominant position in desktop and server operating systems, with nearly 90% of the market share in China. “Domestic desktop and mobile operating systems are still in their infancy, accounting for less than 1% of the domestic market share,” said … “China’s Computers Run on Microsoft Windows: Are They Vulnerable to US Pressure?” →

IBM is getting out of the facial recognition business, saying it’s concerned about how the technology can be used for mass surveillance and racial profiling. Ongoing protests responding to the death of George Floyd have sparked a broader reckoning over racial injustice and a closer look at the use of police technology to track demonstrators and monitor American neighborhoods. IBM is one of several big tech firms that had earlier sought to improve the accuracy of their face-scanning software after research found racial and gender disparities. But its new CEO is now questioning whether it should be used by police at all. “We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies,” wrote CEO Arvind Krishna in a letter sent Monday to U.S. lawmakers. People stand in front of facial recognition software before entering the Icon Siam luxury shopping mall as it reopened after restrictions to halt the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus were lifted in Bangkok on May 17, 2020.IBM’s decision to stop building and selling facial recognition software is unlikely to affect its bottom line, since the tech giant is increasingly focused on cloud computing while an array of lesser-known firms have cornered the market for government facial recognition contracts. “But the symbolic nature of this is important,” said Mutale Nkonde, a research fellow at Harvard and Stanford universities who directs the nonprofit AI For the People. Nkonde said IBM shutting down a business “under the guise of advancing anti-racist business practices” shows that it can be done and makes it “socially unacceptable for companies who tweet Black Lives Matter to do so while contracting with the police.” Software engineers work on a facial recognition program that identifies people when they wear a face mask at the development lab of the Chinese electronics manufacturer Hanwang (Hanvon) Technology in Beijing.Krishna’s letter was addressed to a group of Democrats who have been working on police reform legislation in Congress fueled by the mass protests over Floyd’s death. The sweeping reform package could include restrictions on police use of facial recognition.  The practice of using a form of artificial intelligence to identify individuals in photo databases or video feeds has come under heightened scrutiny after researchers found racial and gender disparities in systems built by companies including IBM, Microsoft and Amazon. IBM had previously tested its facial recognition software with the New York Police Department, although the department … “IBM Quits Facial Recognition, Joins Call for Police Reforms “ →

A South Korean Court has rejected an arrest warrant for the heir to the legendary Samsung Group conglomerate in connection with a controversial merger.   Prosecutors have accused Lee Jae-yong, the vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, of stock manipulation and illegal trading involving the 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates, Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, of which Lee is the largest shareholder.  He allegedly sought to inflate the value of Cheil Industries and lower the value of Samsung C&T to give him a bigger stake in the merged company, a move that would give him increasing control of South Korea’s largest conglomerate and smooth the transition from his ailing father, Lee Kun-hee, who suffered a heart attack in 2014.    But the Seoul Central District Court ruled Tuesday that while prosecutors had amassed enough evidence against Lee in their investigation, there was not enough to justify detaining him.   The 51-year-old Lee arrived at the courthouse Monday for the hearing, which lasted nine hours, and awaited the decision at a detention center.      Samsung released a statement last week denying the allegations against Lee, who prosecutors have also accused of inflating the value of Samsung Biologics, a subsidiary of Cheil Industries.    Lee is also awaiting a retrial on his original 2017 conviction for bribing a confidante of then-President Park Geun-hye in return for Park’s support for the 2015 merger, a scandal that forced Park out of office and eventually landed her in prison. Lee served a year in prison before an appeals court suspended his sentence, but South Korea’s Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s decision last year.    …

Google is adding features on its Maps service to alert users about COVID-19-related travel restrictions to help them plan their trips better, the Alphabet Inc unit said Monday. The update would allow users to check how crowded a train station might be at a particular time, or if buses on a certain route are running on a limited schedule, Google said.The transit alerts would be rolled out in Argentina, France, India, Netherlands, the United States and United Kingdom among other countries, the company said in a blog post.The new features would also include details on COVID-19 checkpoints and restrictions on crossing national borders, starting with Canada, Mexico and the United States.In recent months, the company has analyzed location data from billions of Google users’ phones in 131 countries to examine mobility under lockdowns and help health authorities assess if people were abiding with social-distancing and other orders issued to rein in the virus.Google has invested billions of dollars from its search ads business to digitally map the world, drawing 1 billion users on average every month to its free navigation app.    …

The heir to South Korea’s Samsung empire appeared in a Seoul court Monday for a hearing to decide whether he will be arrested and jailed in connection with a controversial merger.   Lee Jae-yong was silent as he walked through an army of shouting reporters when he arrived at the courthouse. If the court approves the warrant, Lee could be detained and taken into custody. A final decision is expected late Monday night or early Tuesday morning. Prosecutors have accused Lee, the current vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, of stock manipulation and illegal trading during the 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates, Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, of which Lee is the largest shareholder. He allegedly sought to inflate the value of Cheil Industries and lower the value of Samsung C&T to give him a bigger stake in the merged company, a move that would give him increasing control of South Korea’s largest conglomerate and smooth the transition from his ailing father, Lee Kun-hee, who suffered a heart attack in 2014.   Lee is also accused of inflating the value of Samsung Biologics, which is a subsidiary of Cheil Industries. Samsung released a statement last week denying the allegations against Lee. Lee was convicted in 2017 for bribing a confidante of then-President Park Geun-hye in return for Park’s support for the 2015 merger, a scandal that forced Park out of office and eventually landed her in prison.  Lee served a year before an appeals court suspended his sentence. South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered a retrial on the original charges.  …

A Virginia NGO called Computer CORE helps low-income immigrants master using computers in order to help them find jobs. However, the coronavirus pandemic has made life hard for the organization because so few of the students have computers or an internet connection at home. VOA’s Maxim Moskalkov has the story. Camera: Sergey Sokolov       …

Protesters are using a variety of technology tools to organize rallies, record police violence and communicate during the marches sweeping the U.S. and other countries following the death of George Floyd. Some of that involves secure messaging services like Signal, which can encrypt messages to thwart spies. Those apps, along with others for listening to police scanners and recording video, are enjoying an uptick in popularity. But experts say convenience and reach remain key, which favors standbys like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. White nationalists, however, are also turning to apps like Telegram to blast disruptive messages to their supporters, hoping to wreak havoc on demonstrations.When a friend shared a Facebook post with Michelle Burris inviting her to protest in downtown Washington, D.C., last Saturday, she knew she had to go. So she bought a Black Lives Matter mask from a street vendor before marching the streets of the district with a “No Justice, No Peace” sign.After that march ended, she pulled up details on Instagram for a car caravan demonstration just a few blocks away. “It was extremely powerful, not only Facebook but Instagram,” Burris said. “It was very easy to mobilize.”Protesters are using a variety of technology tools to organize rallies, record police violence and communicate during the marches sweeping the U.S. and other countries following the death of George Floyd. Some of that involves secure messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram, which can encrypt messages to thwart spies. Those apps, along with others for listening to police scanners and recording video, are enjoying an uptick in popularity.But experts say convenience and reach are key. “Reaching as many people as possible is the number one criterion for which platform someone is going to use,” said Steve Jones, a University of Illinois at Chicago media researcher who studies communication technology.That means Twitter, Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram remain the easiest ways for people to organize and document the mass protests. Facebook’s tools remain popular despite a barrage of criticism over the platform’s inaction after President Donald Trump posted a message that suggested protesters in Minneapolis could be shot.”I don’t want to support or be a part of something that is possibly supporting Trump and his racist, hate filed spew,” said Sarah Wildman, who’s been to three protests in Atlanta and has used Instagram exclusively to locate and to document the demonstrations she attended. But she said she feels that, at … “How Messaging Technology is Helping Fuel Global Protests” →

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian announced his resignation from the board of the social media site and urged the board to replace him with a black candidate. Ohanian, who is white, implicitly linked his move to protests around the globe over the killing of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after a police officer pressed his knee against his neck for several minutes, even after he stopped pleading for air and became unresponsive. The entrepreneur, who is married to tennis star Serena Williams, said he made the decision for the sake of his daughter. “I’m writing this as a father who needs to be able to answer his black daughter when she asks: “What did you do?,” Ohanian said in a blog post. He pledged to use future gains on his Reddit stock to “serve the black community, chiefly to curb racial hate.” He also said he would give $1 million to Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp. Former NFL player Kaepernick is known for  kneeling to protest police brutality and racism in 2016, and later filed a grievance claiming the league had blacklisted him as a result. Reddit, based in San Francisco, calls itself “the front page of the internet” and has millions of users. LIke all social media sites, it has had issues over the years balancing freedom of speech against posts with racist, inflammatory and abusive intent. Co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman said in a Reddit post that the board would honor Ohanian’s wish to be replaced by a black candidate. He also said Reddit was working with moderators to explicitly address hate speech.  …

A group of young professionals in California’s Silicon Valley has created a non-profit organization called “Code for Venezuela,” dedicated to bringing together tech innovators to solve the most pressing needs of the South American nation.  The group’s latest initiative aims to help residents in Venezuela find information about COVID-19.   Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story …

In Ethiopia, mobile applications are spreading fast to help health care workers and the public fight against COVID-19, which has claimed 12 lives in the country and affected about 1,100 people.  Ethiopian web developers have designed seven apps that do everything from virus tracing to sharing data and patient information among health workers.  But while the apps are spreading in cities, getting into remote and poor areas of Ethiopia remains a challenge.  FILE – Ethiopians have their temperature checked for symptoms of the new coronavirus, at the Zewditu Memorial Hospital in the capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 18, 2020.Just days after Ethiopia confirmed its first case of the coronavirus in March, 38-year-old software engineer Mike Endale, who emigrated to the U.S. 20 years ago, sent out a solitary tweet calling for help.   He called on all software developers and engineers in the Ethiopian diaspora to help the health ministry by contributing open source software to respond to COVID-19. Endale became coordinator of the Ethiopia COVID-19 Response Team, a volunteer force of doctors, artificial intelligence specialists, software engineers and data analysts.   He spoke via a messaging application from Washington, D.C., where he works as principal technologist at BLEN Corporation, a company that provides technology solutions for the public sector and charities.   “People just organically gathered around a slack channel and we started figuring out how to help,” he said.  “So, the impetus for the group was… to see if we could augment the Ministry of Health’s work in a couple of areas.  One originally was around tech.  Luckily for that there was already an internal initiative going on that started a day before [we originated].  We got connected with them and we started working on broad-based solutions.”  Alongside software engineers at the Ministry of Health and the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, Endale’s army of tech gurus helped to develop a series of applications to aid health workers.   The apps allow health workers to register the identity and medical profiles of people entering the country and also record information about those in contact with COVID-19 patients.  The ministry’s contact tracing team is then sent into communities with tablet computers to identify suspected infections and test for the virus.   Though still limited in their use, the apps are modernizing how health workers and hospitals accurately and quickly share information in Ethiopia, where — until the pandemic — patient data was recorded on paper.   Other apps created through the response … “Ethiopian Diaspora Champions Digital Apps in Fight Against COVID “ →

An advocacy group backed by the tech industry filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against President Donald Trump’s executive order on social media, as U.S. technology companies have been fighting White House efforts to weaken a law that protects them. The Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology said in its lawsuit that Trump’s executive order violates the First Amendment rights of social media companies. It noted that the order was issued after Twitter Inc amended one of Trump’s tweets and called it “plainly retaliatory.” The lawsuit argues that Trump’s executive order will “chill future online speech by other speakers” and reduce the ability of Americans to speak freely online. Trump, in an attempt to regulate social media platforms where he has been criticized, said last week he will introduce legislation that may scrap or weaken a law that has protected internet companies, including Twitter and Facebook. The proposed legislation was part of an executive order Trump signed on Thursday afternoon. Trump had attacked Twitter for tagging his tweets about unsubstantiated claims of fraud about mail-in voting with a warning prompting readers to fact-check the posts. Trump said he wants to “remove or change” a provision of a law known as Section 230 that shields social media companies from liability for content posted by their users. He also said Attorney General William Barr will begin drafting legislation “immediately” to regulate social media companies. The White House declined comment on the lawsuit. “Twitter appended the President’s tweets … in immediate retaliation, the President issued the Executive Order,” said the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.  …