Month: October 2021

The past several weeks have been difficult for the social media behemoth Facebook, with a series of whistleblower revelations demonstrating that the company knew its signature platform was exacerbating all manner of social ills around the globe, from human trafficking to sectarian violence.    The tide shows no sign of receding. New revelations this week have demonstrated that the company’s supposed commitment to freedom of expression takes a back seat to its bottom line when repressive governments, like Vietnam’s, demand that dissent be silenced. They showed that Facebook knew its algorithms were steering users toward extreme content, such as QAnon conspiracy theories and phony anti-vaccine claims, but took few steps to remedy the problem.   In statements to various media outlets, the company has defended itself, saying it dedicates enormous resources…

A popular new music app uses artificial intelligence to “democratize” how musicians of all skill levels learn and play music. VOA's Julie Taboh has more. ...

Car rental company Hertz says it will buy 100,000 electric cars from Tesla.  Hertz interim CEO Mark Fields said the Model 3 cars could be ready for renters as early as November, The Associated Press reported.  Fields said the reason for the move was that electric cars are becoming mainstream, and consumer interest in them is growing. "More are willing to try and buy," he told AP. "It's pretty stunning."  All of the cars should be available by the end of 2022, the company said. When all are delivered, they will make up 20% of the company’s fleet. Hertz, which emerged from bankruptcy in June, did not disclose the cost of the order, but it could be valued at as much as $4 billion, according to some news reports.  The…

The U.S. State Department plans to establish a bureau of cyberspace and digital policy in the face of a growing hacking problem, specifically a surge of ransomware attacks on U.S. infrastructure.  State Department spokesperson Ned Price said a Senate-confirmed ambassador at large will lead the bureau.  Hackers have struck numerous U.S. companies this year.  One such attack on pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline led to temporary fuel supply shortages on the U.S. East Coast. Hackers also targeted an Iowa-based agricultural company, sparking fears of disruptions to Midwest grain harvesting.  Two weeks ago, the Treasury Department said suspected ransomware payments totaling $590 million were made in the first six months of this year. It put the cryptocurrency industry on alert about its role fighting ransomware attacks.    ...

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen told British lawmakers Monday that the social media giant "unquestionably" amplifies online hate.  In testimony to a parliamentary committee in London, the former Facebook employee echoed what she told U.S. senators earlier this month. Haugen said the media giant fuels online hate and extremism and does not have any incentive to change its algorithm to promote less divisive content. She argued that as a result, Facebook may end up sparking more violent unrest around the world. Haugen said the algorithm Facebook has designed to promote more engagement among users “prioritizes and amplifies divisive and polarizing extreme content” as well as concentrates it.  Facebook did not respond to Haugen's testimony Monday. Earlier this month, Haugen addressed a Senate committee and said the company is harmful. Facebook rejected…

The U.S. technology giant Microsoft says that the same Russia-backed hackers responsible for the 2020 SolarWinds breach of corporate computer systems is continuing to attack global technology systems, this time targeting cloud service resellers. Microsoft said the group, which it calls Nobelium, is employing a new strategy to take advantage of the direct access resellers have to their customers' IT systems, hoping to "more easily impersonate an organization's trusted technology partner to gain access to their downstream customers." Resellers are intermediaries between software and hardware producers and the eventual technology product users. In a statement Sunday, Microsoft said it has been monitoring Nobelium's attacks since May and has notified more than 140 companies targeted by the group, with as many as 14 of the companies’ systems believed to have been…

In Gaza and Syria, journalists and activists feel Facebook censors their speech, flagging inoffensive Arabic posts as terrorist content. In India and Myanmar, political groups use Facebook to incite violence. All of it frequently slips through the company's efforts to police its social media platforms because of a shortage of moderators who speak local languages and understand cultural contexts. Internal company documents from the former Facebook product manager-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen show the problems plaguing the company's content moderation are systemic, and that Facebook has understood the depth of these failings for years while doing little about it. Its platforms have failed to develop artificial-intelligence solutions that can catch harmful content in different languages. As a result, terrorist content and hate speech proliferate in some of the world's most volatile regions.…

Former Facebook data scientist turned whistleblower Frances Haugen plans to answer questions Monday from lawmakers in the United Kingdom who are working on legislation to rein in the power of social media companies.  Haugen is set to appear before a parliamentary committee scrutinizing the British government’s draft legislation to crack down on harmful online content, and her comments could help lawmakers beef up the new rules. She’s testifying the same day that Facebook is set to release its latest earnings and that The Associated Press and other news organizations started publishing stories based on thousands of pages of internal company documents she obtained.  It will be her second appearance before lawmakers after she testified in the U.S. Senate earlier this month about the danger she says the company poses, from…

Researchers at a specialized lab in Italy say understanding climate change effects requires recreating them in a controlled environment. So, they built one. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. ...

Very few companies can boast of having their name also used as a verb. Zoom is one of them. The popularity of the videoconferencing platform continues to grow around the world despite continued questions about whether Chinese authorities are monitoring the calls. Since Zoom became a household word last year during the pandemic, internet users including companies and government agencies have asked whether the app’s data centers and staff in China are passing call logs to Chinese authorities. “Some of the more informed know about that, but the vast majority, they don’t know about that, or even if they do, they really don’t give much thought about it,” said Jack Nguyen, partner at the business advisory firm Mazars in Ho Chi Minh City. He said in Vietnam, for example, many…

Facebook in India has been selective in curbing hate speech, misinformation and inflammatory posts, particularly anti-Muslim content, according to leaked documents obtained by The Associated Press, even as its own employees cast doubt over the company's motivations and interests. From research as recent as March of this year to company memos that date back to 2019, the internal company documents on India highlight Facebook's constant struggles in quashing abusive content on its platforms in the world's biggest democracy and the company's largest growth market. Communal and religious tensions in India have a history of boiling over on social media and stoking violence. The files show that Facebook has been aware of the problems for years, raising questions over whether it has done enough to address these issues. Many critics and…