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TIRANA, ALBANIA — Albania's prime minister said Saturday the government will shut down the video service TikTok for one year, blaming it for inciting violence and bullying, especially among children.  Albanian authorities held 1,300 meetings with teachers and parents following the stabbing death of a teenager in mid-November by another teen after a quarrel that started on TikTok.  Prime Minister Edi Rama, speaking at a meeting with teachers and parents, said TikTok "would be fully closed for all. ... There will be no TikTok in the Republic of Albania." Rama said the shutdown would begin sometime next year.  It was not immediately clear if TikTok has a representative in Albania.  In an email response Saturday to a request for comment, TikTok asked for "urgent clarity from the Albanian government" on the…

Generative artificial intelligence companies are racing to build on the popularity of programs like ChatGPT, but AI regulation has not kept pace with the technology. Now, an incoming administration could favor U.S. domination over risk mitigation. Tina Trinh reports. ...

As new potential threats from Chinese hackers were identified this week, the federal government issued one of its strongest warnings to date about the need for Americans — and in particular government officials and other "highly targeted" individuals — to secure their communications against eavesdropping and interception. The warning came as news was breaking about a Commerce Department investigation into the possibility that computer network routers manufactured by the Chinese firm TP-Link may pose a threat to the millions of U.S. businesses, households and government agencies that use them. Also on Wednesday, Congress took long-awaited steps toward funding a program that will purge other Chinese technology from U.S. telecommunications systems. The so-called rip-and-replace program targets gear manufactured by Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE. Too far behind While experts said the…

washington — Experts on cybersecurity and online foreign influence campaigns are urging social media company Bluesky, whose app has exploded in popularity in recent weeks, to step up moderation to counter potential state-sponsored influence efforts. Over the past month, Bluesky, a microblogging platform with its roots in Twitter, has seen one of its biggest increases in new user registrations since it was publicly released in February. Over 25 million are now on the platform, close to half of whom joined after the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Rose Wang, Bluesky’s chief operating officer, said in a recent interview that Bluesky does not intend to push any political ideologies. “We have no political viewpoint that we are trying to promote,” she said in early December. Exploiting users’ political leanings Many who joined Bluesky…

WASHINGTON — The U.S. cybersecurity watchdog CISA is telling senior American government officials and politicians to immediately switch to end-to-end encrypted messaging following intrusions at major American telecoms blamed on Chinese hackers.  In written guidance released on Wednesday, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said "individuals who are in senior government or senior political positions" should "immediately review and apply" a series of best practices around the use of mobile devices.  The first recommendation: "Use only end-to-end encrypted communications."  End-to-end encryption — a data protection technique that aims to make data unreadable by anyone except its sender and its recipient — is baked into various chat apps, including Meta Platforms' WhatsApp, Apple's iMessage, and the privacy-focused app Signal. Corporate offerings, which allow end-to-end encryption, also include Microsoft's Teams and Zoom Communications'…

WASHINGTON — Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell on Wednesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a bid by TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance to block a law intended to force the sale of the short-video app by January 19 or face a ban on national security grounds. The court has scheduled arguments on the case for January 10. McConnell in a brief filed with the court called the companies' arguments "meritless and unsound. ... This is a standard litigation play at the end of one administration, with a petitioner hoping that the next administration will provide a stay of execution. This court should no more countenance it coming from foreign adversaries than it does from hardened criminals." McConnell noted Congress set the January 19 date that "very clearly…

A bipartisan effort to protect children from the harms of social media is running out of time in this session of the U.S. Congress. If passed, the Kids Online Safety Act would institute safeguards for minors’ personal data online. But free speech advocates and some Republicans are concerned the bill could lead to censorship. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more. Kim Lewis contributed to this story. ...

Paris — The Democratic Republic of Congo has filed criminal complaints against Apple subsidiaries in France and Belgium, accusing the tech firm of using conflict minerals in its supply chain, lawyers for the Congolese government told Reuters.  Congo is a major source of tin, tantalum and tungsten, so-called 3T minerals used in computers and mobile phones. But some artisanal mines are run by armed groups involved in massacres of civilians, mass rapes, looting and other crimes, according to U.N. experts and human rights groups.  Apple does not directly source primary minerals and says it audits suppliers, publishes findings and funds bodies that seek to improve mineral traceability.  Apple last year said it had "no reasonable basis for concluding" its products contain illegally exported minerals from conflict-hit zones. The tech giant has…

LONDON — European Union regulators said Tuesday they're investigating whether TikTok breached the bloc's digital rulebook by failing to deal with risks to Romania's presidential election, which has been thrown into turmoil over allegations of electoral violations and Russian meddling. The European Commission is escalating its scrutiny of the popular video-sharing platform after Romania's top court canceled results of the first round of voting that resulted in an unknown far-right candidate becoming the front-runner. The court made its unprecedented decision after authorities in the European Union and NATO member country declassified documents alleging Moscow organized a sprawling social media campaign to promote a long-shot candidate, Calin Georgescu. "Following serious indications that foreign actors interfered in the Romanian presidential elections by using TikTok, we are now thoroughly investigating whether TikTok has violated…

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Brendan Carr to lead the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates communications in the United States. Carr, an FCC commissioner since 2017, has taken aim at big tech and China’s influence on U.S. communications. VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports. ...

Hundreds of thousands of Rhode Island residents' personal and bank information, including Social Security numbers, were likely hacked by an international cybercriminal group asking for a ransom, state officials said on Saturday.  In what Rhode Island officials described as extortion, the hackers threatened to release the stolen information unless they were paid an undisclosed amount of money.  The breached data affects people who use the state's government assistance programs and includes the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and healthcare purchased through the state's HealthSource RI, Governor Dan McKee announced on Friday.  Hackers gained access to RIBridges, the state's online portal for obtaining social services earlier this month, the governor's office said in a statement, but the breach was not confirmed by its vendor, Deloitte,…