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Facebook updates hate speech policy to ban Holocaust denial

October 13, 2020 | technology | No Comments

Oct. 12 (UPI) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday that the company will update its hate speech policy to ban Holocaust denial.

Zuckerberg made the announcement in a Facebook post.

“We’ve taken down posts that praise hate crimes or mass murder, including the Holocaust. But with rising anti-Semitism, we’re expanding our policy to prohibit any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust as well,” the post read. “If people search for the Holocaust on Facebook, we’ll start directing you to authoritative sources to get accurate information.”

The update reverses Facebook’s earlier policy on the issue.

In 2018, Zuckerberg said in a Recode Decode podcast interview that the social media company does not want to ban Holocaust denial posts because people should be able to make unintentional mistakes.

“I don’t think they’re intentionally getting it wrong,” Zuckerberg said on the podcast at the time.

Facebook Vice President of Content Policy

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By iwano@_84

Pakistan’s the latest country to ban China-owned app TikTok

October 10, 2020 | technology | No Comments

Illustration for article titled Pakistan Is Also Doing the Ban TikTok Challenge

Photo: Justin Sullivan (Getty Images)

Pakistan officials have announced a ban on TikTok after receiving complaints of unlawful content on the popular short-form video-sharing app. It’s the latest country to block the app after India instituted a similar ban and the U.S. attempted to do the same because of a squabble over who owns TikTok’s American business, which is currently the Beijing-based Bytedance.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said in a statement Friday that it came to the decision after TikTok failed to censor “immoral and indecent” content on its platform, the Associated Press reports. After receiving several complaints and petitions calling for the app to be banned, the authority gave TikTok a final warning in July to meet its guidelines and take down unlawful content (the Muslim-majority country has several media regulations intended to preserve conservative values), which the company purportedly failed to do.

“We have

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By iwano@_84

Facebook says it will ban groups that openly support QAnon

October 8, 2020 | technology | No Comments

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) —

Facebook said it will ban groups that openly support QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory that paints President Donald Trump as a secret warrior against a supposed child-trafficking ring run by celebrities and “deep state” government officials.

The company said Tuesday that it will remove Facebook pages, groups and Instagram accounts for “representing QAnon” — even if they don’t promote violence. The social network said it will consider a variety of factors to decide if a group meets its criteria for a ban, including its name, the biography or “about” section of the page, and discussions within the page, group or Instagram account.

Mentions of QAnon in a group focused on a different subject won’t necessarily lead to a ban, Facebook said. Administrators of banned groups will have their personal accounts disabled as well.

Less than two months ago, Facebook said it would stop promoting the group

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By iwano@_84

Facebook says it will ban QAnon groups

October 7, 2020 | technology | No Comments

By Barbara Ortutay | Associated Press

OAKLAND — Facebook said it will ban groups that openly support QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory that paints President Donald Trump as a secret warrior against a supposed child-trafficking ring run by celebrities and “deep state” government officials.

The company said Tuesday that it will remove Facebook pages, groups and Instagram accounts for “representing QAnon” — even if they don’t promote violence. The social network said it will consider a variety of factors to decide if a group meets its criteria for a ban, including its name, the biography or “about” section of the page, and discussions within the page, group or Instagram account.

Mentions of QAnon in a group focused on a different subject won’t necessarily lead to a ban, Facebook said. Administrators of banned groups will have their personal accounts disabled as well.

Less than two months ago, Facebook said it would

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By iwano@_84

Facebook, Instagram Ban QAnon Conspiracy-linked Accounts

October 7, 2020 | technology | No Comments

Facebook on Tuesday announced a ban on all accounts linked to the QAnon conspiracy group, as the social network tries to clamp down on misinformation ahead of the heated US presidential election.

The move against QAnon at Facebook and its image-sharing platform Instagram comes as the online giant tries to avoid being used to deceive or confuse voters, as was the case during the 2016 election that put US President Donald Trump in the White House.

“We will remove any Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content,” the internet titan said in a blog post.

From an anonymous 2017 posting claiming bizarre child exploitation and political plots, the headless and bodiless movement has earned a place in Trump’s Twitter stream.

The FBI last year said in a report that QAnon was one of several movements that could drive “both groups and individual

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By iwano@_84

Facebook Says It Will Ban Groups That Openly Support QAnon | Business News

October 7, 2020 | technology | No Comments

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer

Facebook said it will ban groups that openly support QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory that paints President Donald Trump as a secret warrior against a supposed child-trafficking ring run by celebrities and “deep state” government officials.

The company said Tuesday that it will remove Facebook pages, groups and Instagram accounts for “representing QAnon” — even if they don’t promote violence. The social network said it will consider a variety of factors to decide if a group meets its criteria for a ban, including its name, the biography or “about” section of the page, and discussions within the page, group or Instagram account.

Mentions of QAnon in a group focused on a different subject won’t necessarily lead to a ban, Facebook said. Administrators of banned groups will have their personal accounts disabled as well.

Less than two months ago, Facebook said it would stop promoting

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By iwano@_84

U.S. Judge to Hold November 4 Hearing on Commerce Dept TikTok Ban | Top News

October 7, 2020 | technology | No Comments

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. judge said on Tuesday he would hold a Nov. 4 hearing on whether to allow the U.S. government to bar transactions with TikTok, a move that the Chinese-owned short video-sharing app has warned would effectively ban its use in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington issued a preliminary injunction on Sept. 27 that barred the U.S. Commerce Department from ordering Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google app stores to remove TikTok for download by new users.

Nichols must now decide whether to block the other aspects of the Commerce Department order set to take effect on Nov. 12. Nichols’ new hearing is scheduled for one day after the presidential election.

Talks are ongoing to finalize a preliminary deal for Walmart Inc and Oracle Corp to take stakes in a new company, TikTok Global, that would oversee U.S. operations. U.S. President Donald

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By iwano@_84

TikTok’s US ban is on hold. What comes next?

October 6, 2020 | technology | No Comments

TikTok averted a ban in the United States last week when a federal judge ruled that Washington couldn’t block it from app stores just yet.



The logo of TikTok is seen on a smartphone screen in New York, the United States, Aug. 30, 2020.

© Chine Nouvelle/Sipa/Shutterstock
The logo of TikTok is seen on a smartphone screen in New York, the United States, Aug. 30, 2020.

The short-form video app is still accessible, but its fate in the country is far from certain.

The court ruling is only temporary, and could be appealed by the US government. The ruling could also eventually be thrown out: The judge only weighed in because TikTok challenged the ban, and the company could lose its court case.

To make things more confusing, TikTok’s court case isn’t the only thing governing the future of the app.

TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, is racing to close a deal with the American firms Oracle and Walmart that might be enough to satisfy the Trump administration’s concerns

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By iwano@_84

TIkTok hired former China diplomat to decide on ban policies: FT

October 5, 2020 | technology | No Comments

  • A former diplomat for the Chinese government was head of TikTok’s global content moderation team for two years, the Financial Times reported. 
  • Cai Zheng was a diplomat at the Chinese embassy in Iran prior to taking up the post at TikTok. 
  • The company has long maintained that Beijing influences its content moderation policy. The FT reported that Cai is not a Chinese Communist Part ideologue. 
  • Cai’s time at TikTok coincides with numerous instances of the suppression of topics such as LGBTQ issues, Tibetan independence and even users deemed too “ugly” to be seen on the main page. 
  • A TikTok spokesperson told Business Insider that Cai was not involved in devising its early policies but oversaw efforts to localize them internationally. 
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

TikTok hired a former Chinese diplomat to oversee its global content policy unit, which decided what content should be allowed on the short-form

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By iwano@_84

U.S. government appeals judge’s ruling to block WeChat app store ban

October 3, 2020 | technology | No Comments

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Friday said it was appealing a judge’s decision to block the government from barring Apple Inc <AAPL.O> and Alphabet Inc’s <GOOGL.O> Google from offering Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat for download in U.S. app stores.

The government said it was appealing the Sept. 19 preliminary junction issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The injunction blocked the U.S. Commerce Department order, which would also bar other U.S. transactions with Tencent Holding’s <0700.HK> WeChat, potentially making the app unusable in the United States.

A U.S. spokesman for Tencent did not immediately comment.

The Justice Department said earlier that Beeler’s order was in error and “permits the continued, unfettered use of WeChat, a mobile application that the Executive Branch has determined constitutes a threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United

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By iwano@_84