TikTok went on a counteroffensive Tuesday amid increasing Western pressure over cybersecurity and misinformation concerns, rolling out updated rules and standards for content as its CEO warned against a possible U.S. ban on the Chinese-owned video-sharing app. 

CEO Shou Zi Chew is scheduled to appear Thursday before U.S. congressional lawmakers, who will grill him about the company’s privacy and data-security practices and relationship with the Chinese government. 

Chew said in a TikTok video that the hearing “comes at a pivotal moment” for the company, after lawmakers introduced measures that would expand the Biden administration’s authority to enact a U.S. ban on the app, which the CEO said more than 150 million Americans use. 

“Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok. Now, this could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you,” said Chew, who was dressed casually in jeans and a blue hoodie, with the dome of the U.S. Capitol in Washington in the background. 

“I’ll be testifying before Congress this week to share all that we’re doing to protect Americans using the app,” he said. 

The TikTok app has come under fire in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific, where a growing number of governments have banned TikTok from devices used for official business over worries it poses risks to cybersecurity and data privacy or could be used to push pro-Beijing narratives and misinformation. 

So far, there is no evidence to suggest this has happened or that TikTok has turned over user data to the Chinese government, as some of its critics have argued it would do. 

Norway and the Netherlands on Tuesday warned that apps like TikTok should not be installed on phones issued to government employees, both citing security or intelligence agencies. 

There’s a “high risk” if TikTok or Telegram are installed on devices that have access to “internal digital infrastructure or services,” Norway’s Justice Ministry said without providing further details. 

TikTok also rolled out updated rules and standards for content and users in a reorganized set of community guidelines that include eight principles to guide content moderation decisions. 

“These principles are based on our commitment to uphold human rights and aligned with international legal frameworks,” said Julie de Bailliencourt, TikTok’s global head of product policy. 

She said TikTok strives to be fair, protect human dignity and balance freedom of expression with preventing harm. 

The guidelines, which take effect on April 21, were repackaged from TikTok’s existing rules with extra details and explanations. 

Among the more significant changes are additional details about its restrictions on deepfakes, also known as synthetic media, created by artificial intelligence technology. TikTok more clearly spells out its policy, saying all deepfakes or manipulated content that show realistic scenes must be labeled to indicate they’re fake or altered in some way. 

TikTok had previously banned deepfakes that mislead viewers about real-world events and cause harm. Its updated guidelines say deepfakes of private figures and young people are also not allowed. 

Deepfakes of public figures are OK in certain contexts, such as for artistic or educational content, but not for political or commercial endorsements. 
…

Amazon plans to eliminate 9,000 more jobs in the next few weeks, CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to staff Monday. 

The job cuts would mark the second largest round of layoffs in the company’s history, adding to the 18,000 employees the tech giant said it would lay off in January. The company’s workforce doubled during the pandemic, however, during a hiring surge across almost the entire tech sector. 

Tech companies have announced tens of thousands of job cuts this year. 

In the memo, Jassy said the second phase of the company’s annual planning process completed this month led to the additional job cuts. He said Amazon will still hire in some strategic areas. 

“Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago. The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them, so people had the information as soon as possible,” Jassy said. 

The job cuts announced Monday will hit profitable areas for the company including its cloud computing unit AWS and its burgeoning advertising business. Twitch, the gaming platform Amazon owns, will also see some layoffs as well as Amazon’s PXT organizations, which handle human resources and other functions. 

Prior layoffs had also hit PXT, the company’s stores division, which encompasses its e-commerce business as well as the company’s brick-and-mortar stores such as Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, and other departments such as the one that runs the virtual assistant Alexa. 

Earlier this month, the company said it would pause construction on its headquarters building in northern Virginia, though the first phase of that project will open this June with 8,000 employees. 

Like other tech companies, including Facebook parent Meta and Google parent Alphabet, Amazon ramped up hiring during the pandemic to meet the demand from homebound Americans that were increasingly making purchases online. 

Amazon’s workforce, in warehouses and offices, doubled to more than 1.6 million people in about two years. But demand slowed as the worst of the pandemic eased. The company began pausing or canceling its warehouse expansion plans last year. 

Amid growing anxiety over the potential for a recession, Amazon in the past few months shut down a subsidiary that’s been selling fabrics for nearly 30 years and shuttered its hybrid virtual, in-home care service Amazon Care among other cost-cutting moves. 

Jassy said Monday given the uncertain economy and the “uncertainty that exists in the near future,” the company has chosen to be more streamlined. 

He said the teams that will be impacted by the latest round of layoffs are not done making final decisions on which roles will be eliminated. The company plans to finalize those decisions by mid- to late April and notify those who will be laid off. 
…

Brazilian federal agents aboard three helicopters descended on an illegal mining site on Tuesday in the Amazon rainforest. They were met with gunfire, and the shooters escaped, leaving behind an increasingly familiar find for authorities: Starlink internet units.

Starlink, a division of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, has almost 4,000 low-orbit satellites across the skies, connecting people in remote corners of the Amazon and providing a crucial advantage to Ukrainian forces on the battlefield. The lightweight, high-speed internet system has also proved a new and valuable tool for Brazil’s illegal miners, with reliable service for coordinating logistics, receiving advance warning of law enforcement raids and making payments without flying back to the city.

Agents from the Brazilian environment agency’s special inspection group and the federal highway police rapid response group on Tuesday found one Starlink terminal up and running next to a pit, an officer who participated in the raid told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity over concerns for his personal safety.

They also seized mercury, gold and ammunition, and destroyed fuel and other equipment used by miners in an area known as Ouro Mil, controlled by Brazil´s most feared criminal organization, known as the First Command of the Capital, according to federal investigations.

Since taking office this year, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has sought to crack down on environmental violations, particularly illegal mining in Yanomami land, Brazil’s largest Indigenous territory. In recent years, an estimated 20,000 prospectors contaminated vital waterways with mercury used to separate gold. They have disrupted traditional Indigenous life, brought disease and caused widespread famine.

The environment agency, known as Ibama, has seized seven Starlink terminals in Yanomami land over the past five weeks, the agency’s press office said.

Illegal miners have long used satellite internet to communicate and coordinate, but until now that entailed sending a technician, usually by plane, to install a heavy, fixed antenna that cannot be carried off when mining sites move or are raided. And the connection was slow and unstable, especially on rainy days.

Starlink – which first became available in Brazil last year and has spread rapidly – solved those problems. Installation is do-it-yourself, the equipment works even on the move, speed is as fast as in Brazil´s large cities and it works during storms.

Starlink has long viewed the Amazon as an opportunity. That was underscored by Musk’s visit to Brazil last May, when he met with then-President Jair Bolsonaro.

“Super excited to be in Brazil for launch of Starlink for 19,000 unconnected schools in rural areas & environmental monitoring of Amazon,” Musk tweeted at the time.

That project with the government hasn’t advanced, however. SpaceX and the communications ministry haven’t signed any contract, and only three terminals were installed in Amazon schools for a 12-month trial period, the ministry’s press office said in an emailed response to questions.

Nevertheless, Starlink has taken off in the region and begun ushering in change.

In Atalaia do Norte, on the western reaches of the Brazilian Amazon near the borders with Peru and Colombia, Rubeney de Castro Alves installed Starlink at his hotel in December. Now, he can make bank transfers and conduct video calls. He even started bingeing Netflix.

“There are so many new things to watch that I’m not even sleeping,” Alves said, chuckling.

His son once flew all the way to Manaus, the state capital 1,140 kilometers (708 miles) away, just to negotiate with a group of tourists via conference call. Today, internet at his 11-room hotel in Atalaia do Norte is more reliable than in Manaus, and he bought a second terminal for his tour boat to enable communications on its 10-day voyages, Alves said.

With high demand for internet, dozens of the riverside town’s 21,000 residents flock to Alves’ hotel each day. Its balcony is a meeting point for teenagers who spend hours playing online games on their phones.

“It made a revolution in our city,” Alves said.

A world away, in Ukraine, Starlink has yielded advantages on the battlefield in its war with Russia.

Ukraine has received some 24,000 Starlink terminals that allow continued internet in the most vulnerable regions of the southeast even amid ongoing Russian shelling. In large Ukrainian cities, authorities have set up “points of resilience” that offer free internet along with hot beverages.

The benefits of connectivity were immediately apparent to bad actors in the Amazon, Hugo Loss, operations coordinator for Brazil´s environment agency, told the AP in a phone interview.

“This technology is extremely fast and really improves the ability to manage an illegal mine,” Loss said. “You can manage hundreds of mining sites without ever setting foot in one.”

Another official with the environment agency told AP it is just beginning to expel miners from the Yanomami territory and the spread of Starlink has complicated that mission. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about personal safety.

An unauthorized reseller of Starlink in Boa Vista, the gateway for travel into Yanomami territory, has been marketing the units in a WhatsApp group for illegal miners and promising same-day delivery. Her price for a terminal is $1,600— six times what Alves pays for service at his little hotel in Atalaia do Norte. Others are selling the Starlink terminals on Facebook groups for illegal miners, like one called “Fanatics for Prospecting.”

As lawbreakers have gained access to superior internet service, authorities have started using Starlink themselves. Federal agents installed a terminal at a new checkpoint on the Uraricoera River – an important corridor for miners entering Yanomami territory. The official who informed the AP about the Tuesday raid used Starlink to send photos and even heavy video files of their operation.

Brazil’s environment agency told the AP via email that it, along with other federal bodies, is studying how to block Starlink’s signal in illegal mining areas, calling it crucial to stopping the activity.

The AP emailed James Gleeson, SpaceX’s Communications Director, questions about Starlink’s presence in Brazil and its use by illegal miners in remote areas, but received no response.
…

U.S. former officials and experts are urging greater efforts to thwart Chinese espionage, which many believe has enabled Beijing to develop a range of advanced weaponry on the back of stolen American technology.

James Anderson, a former acting undersecretary of defense for policy, said China stole U.S. military technology for developing its J-20 fighter jet and has benefited immensely.

“They have profited greatly from their thievery over the years,” he said. “They’ve put it to good use, and they’ve come up with an advanced fifth-generation fighter,” noting that it’s “hard to say, short of actual combat,” how the J-20 matches up against the U.S. F-22 Raptor fighter.

Matthew Brazil is a researcher and writer with Jamestown Foundation who served in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where he both promoted and controlled U.S. high-technology exports to China. He said the FBI doesn’t have enough people to keep track of China’s activities in the U.S.

Brazil told VOA Mandarin, “Chinese communist espionage is not like an army of cockroaches crawling up our arms with daggers between their teeth. It’s spying. We can handle it with a better counterespionage system that includes both the government and the private sector working more closely together.”

He noted the FBI lacks “enough agents trained in Chinese language, culture and area studies. Congress should step in here and fund this sort of program to train people.”

U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Mark Warner last month urged the Biden administration to expand the use of existing tools and authorities at the Treasury and Commerce departments to prevent China’s military-industrial complex and entities from benefiting from U.S. technology, talent and investments.

As of March 14, Warner’s office told VOA Mandarin, “We have not yet received a response and are following up with the relevant departments.”

VOA Mandarin emailed the Chinese Embassy in Washington asking for a comment but did not receive a response in time for publication. Anderson, who made his remarks to Fox News Digital last week, was sworn in on June 8, 2020, and resigned in November 2020.

US tech in Chinese weapons

China claims to have independently developed its fifth-generation stealth fighter J-20, which entered service in 2017. John Chipman, head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said on February 15 at an IISS event that China’s J-20A production is expected to surpass that of the U.S. F-22 Raptor fighter jet by the end of 2023.

China’s sixth-generation fighter jets, hypersonic weapons and missiles, and even the spy balloons that crossed the continental United States last month all appear to incorporate elements of American technology, according to DefenseOne, a Washington news site devoted to military issues.

U.S. defense officials say China has the world’s leading hypersonic arsenal.

Terry Thompson, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and war planner at the Pentagon who blogs, told VOA Mandarin that China lacks a solid technological foundation and has a long history of stealing technology.

He said, “If you look back at the epic progression of Chinese aircraft, they say they’ve produced an aircraft that looks like and flies like the F-16 and like the F-15 and the F-18. I mean, they look just like our aircraft. They’re not building something new that comes from their own base of technology. They don’t have a base of technology.”

Thompson said China targets engine and power system technology, but also “the aerodynamics. They didn’t have the capability to coat airplanes with stealth material. They stole that from us.

“But now China is making its way right up to the table that the rest of the free world is playing on, because they are just stealing their pathway to that table.”

Old-style spies and cyberattacks

Anderson told Fox News Digital that China’s intelligence practices include the old-fashioned — spies and bribes to buy American contractors, university professors and government officials — and high-tech cyberactivity to steal key information on military weapons.

“In effect, we end up subsidizing a portion of their research and development budget because they are successfully stealing some of our secrets,” Anderson said.

Kris Osborn, president and editor-in-chief of the U.S. Military Modernization Center, said in an article published last month that China has hired at least 162 Chinese scientists who had worked at the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory on deep-penetrating warheads, new hardened heat-resistant nanocomposite materials, vertical-takeoff-and-landing drones and a new generation of submarine “quiet” technologies.

“However, to put things simply and clearly, many of the U.S.-driven technological advances in these critical areas appear to have been stolen by Chinese spies,” Osborn wrote.

A report published in April 2022 by BluePath Labs, a consulting firm commissioned by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said, “Despite a wide body of research on China’s scientific progress, the laboratory system remains a less understood component. … This opacity not only leads to gaps in our knowledge of Chinese defense research, but in many cases has allowed these labs to fly under the radar, leading to cases of close interaction, and even cooperation between Chinese defense labs and U.S. and allied academic institutions.”

In 2023, China’s military expenditure will expand significantly, by 7.2% to $224.8 billion, according to the official budget discussed in an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

When meeting with a delegation of the People’s Liberation Army and the Armed Police Force on March 8, China’s President Xi Jinping said China should accelerate the promotion of high-level technological self-reliance.

Emily de La Bruyere, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA Mandarin that China wants semiconductor technology for military functions, development of algorithms and valuable data.

“Stealing technology has been an escalating priority. And I also say that just general aggressiveness of China when it comes to the development of these capabilities, but also its use of international presence in order to coerce – all of those are increasing,” she said. “Not only are they working to catch up, but also if they’re stealing technology from the international system for their military modernization, they’re then able to modernize more cheaply than anybody else.”

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
…

New Zealand said on Friday it would ban TikTok on devices with access to the country’s parliamentary network due to cybersecurity concerns, becoming the latest nation to limit the use of the video-sharing app on government-related devices.

Concerns have mounted globally about the potential for the Chinese government to access users’ location and contact data through ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company.

The depth of those concerns was underscored this week when the Biden administration demanded that TikTok’s Chinese owners divest their stakes or the app could face a U.S. ban.

In New Zealand, TikTok will be banned on all devices with access to parliament’s network by the end of March.

Parliamentary Service Chief Executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero said in an email to Reuters that the decision was taken after advice from cybersecurity experts and discussions within government and with other countries.

“Based on this information, the Service has determined that the risks are not acceptable in the current New Zealand Parliamentary environment,” he said.

Special arrangements can be made for those who require the app to do their jobs, he added.

ByteDance did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Speaking at a media briefing, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said New Zealand operated differently from other nations.

“Departments and agencies follow the advice of the (Government Communications Security Bureau) in terms of IT and cybersecurity policies … we don’t have a blanket across the public sector approach,” Hipkins said.

Both New Zealand’s defense force and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said on Friday they had already implemented bans on TikTok on work devices.

A spokesperson for the New Zealand Defense Force said in an email to Reuters the move was a “precautionary approach to protect the safety and security” of personnel.

On Thursday, Britain banned the app on government phones with immediate effect. Government agencies in the U.S. have until the end of March to delete the app from official devices.

TikTok has said it believes the recent bans are based on “fundamental misconceptions” and driven by wider geopolitics, adding that it has spent more than $1.5 billion on rigorous data security efforts and rejects spying allegations.
…

The Biden administration has demanded that TikTok’s Chinese owners divest their stakes in the popular video app or face a possible U.S. ban, the company told Reuters this week.

The move follows the introduction of a new U.S. legislation that would allow the White House to ban TikTok or other foreign-based technologies if they pose a national security risk.

Other countries and entities have also elected to ban the app.

TikTok is owned by China-based ByteDance, the world’s most valuable start-up. Numerous countries have raised concerns over its proximity to the Chinese government and hold over user data across the world.

Here is a list of countries and entities that have implemented a partial or complete ban on TikTok:

New Zealand

Became the latest country to target TikTok, imposing a ban on the use of the app on devices with access to the parliamentary network amid cybersecurity concerns.

United Kingdom

Would ban TikTok on government phones with immediate effect, and asked the National Cyber Security Centre to look at the potential vulnerability of government data from social media apps and risks around how sensitive information could be accessed and used.

India

Banned TikTok and dozens of other apps by Chinese developers on all devices in June 2020, claiming that they were potentially harmful to the country’s security and integrity.

Afghanistan

Is in talks to ban TikTok and video game PUBG, with the Taliban claiming those were leading Afghan youths “astray.”

Pakistan

Banned TikTok at least four times, with the latest ban ending in November, over what the government said was immoral and indecent content on the app.

Belgium

Belgian federal government employees will no longer be allowed to use TikTok on their work phones, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on March 10.

Canada

The nation has banned TikTok on government-issued devices due to security risks.

Taiwan

Banned TikTok and some other Chinese apps on state-owned devices and in December 2022 launched a probe into the social media app over suspected illegal operations on the island.

United States

The U.S. government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a powerful national security body, in 2020 unanimously recommended ByteDance divest TikTok because of fears that user data could be passed on to China’s government.

In early March, legislators from both major U.S. parties introduced a bill to ban the popular app in the United States.

Congress previously passed a bill in December 2022 to ban TikTok on federal devices.

US educational institutions

Boise State University, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Texas-Austin, and West Texas A&M University are some of the schools to ban TikTok on university devices and Wi-Fi networks.

US states

Texas, Maryland, Alabama and Utah are among the more than 25 states that have issued orders to staff against using TikTok on government devices.

European Commission and European Parliament

The European Union’s executive arm, the European Commission, has issued an order to ban the use of popular Chinese app TikTok on its staff’s phones due to cybersecurity concerns. Separately, the European Parliament also banned the app from staff phones.
…

Time may be running out in the U.S. for Chinese-owned entertainment platform TikTok, with the White House on Thursday supporting proposed legislation that would effectively ban the app over concerns about the safety of the data of the 100 million Americans who use the trendy video platform.

“The bottom line is that when it comes to potential threats to our national security, when it comes to the safety of Americans, when it comes to privacy, we’re going to speak out, and we’re going to be very clear about that, and the president has been over the last two years,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

“And so we’re asking Congress to act, we’re asking Congress to move forward with this bipartisan legislation, the RESTRICT Act … and we’re going to continue to do so,” Jean-Pierre said.

When asked if the administration had any concrete evidence that the platform has used data maliciously, she pointed to an ongoing study by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and said the White House was “not going to get ahead of their process.”

The CFIUS is an inter-agency panel that reviews certain transactions involving foreign investment and national security concerns.

Also Thursday, the U.K. prohibited the use of the app on government-issued devices – a move already imposed by the U.S., the European Union, Canada and India. And in the U.S., other entities, such as universities, have banned use of the app on their networks.

Earlier this week, TikTok leadership told U.S. media that the Biden administration has demanded that the platform’s Chinese owners divest their stakes or face a ban, issuing a statement that said “a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access.”

In recent weeks, the company has been promoting its $1.5 billion plan, called “Project Texas,” for the Texas software company it has partnered with to construct a firewall between U.S. users and ownership in Beijing.

“The best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent, U.S.-based protection of U.S. user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, vetting, and verification, which we are already implementing,” the statement read.

A Trojan giraffe or just a chocolate one?

TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, is best known for its bite-sized dance videos and unconventional recipes — one video providing a tutorial for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos macaroni and cheese provoked more than 24,000 reactions, including one commenter who described the recipe as “worse than first-degree murder.” It also has offered some truly revelatory feats of food engineering, like the French pastry chef who made an impressively realistic 8-foot-tall giraffe out of chocolate.

But critics of the platform say its close ties to the Chinese government make it a Trojan horse: Once the compelling app gains entry to users’ devices, it then has access to their data and information.

Earlier in March, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced the RESTRICT Act, which stands for “Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology.”

“Over the past several years, foreign adversaries of the United States have encroached on American markets through technology products that steal sensitive location and identifying information of U.S. citizens, including social media platforms like TikTok,” said Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat. “This dangerous new internet infrastructure poses serious risks to our nation’s economic and national security.”

Senator Mark Warner, also a Democrat, one of the bill’s main sponsors, is calling for “a comprehensive, risk-based approach that proactively tackles sources of potentially dangerous technology before they gain a foothold in America, so we aren’t playing Whac-A-Mole [dealing with a recurring problem with no solution] and scrambling to catch up once they’re already ubiquitous.”

This is not the first time the White House has gone after the popular video service — the Trump administration also pushed the platform to divest. In 2020, CFIUS unanimously recommended that ByteDance divest the platform. The company tried to make a deal with Walmart, the largest U.S. retailer, and Austin, Texas-based Oracle Corp. to shift its assets into a new entity.

But analysts are divided on the next move.

“A forced sale is the right move,” said Lindsay Gorman, senior fellow for emerging technologies at the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

“The app gives a name and a face to the export of China’s surveillance state around the world. But now there’s bipartisan consensus that TikTok poses a national security threat to the United States’ democracy. The China tech threat — today exemplified by TikTok — may be the only thing Congress agrees on,” Gorman said.

Caitlin Chin, a fellow with the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said stopping TikTok won’t solve the larger issue over apps using data maliciously.

“The strongest approach would be for Congress to establish comprehensive rules across the entire data ecosystem that would limit how all companies — including TikTok — use personal information in ways that could amplify the spread of harmful content,” she said.

“Policymakers should take popular interest in TikTok as an opportunity to implement industrywide protections that could benefit all of society, rather than just a messaging tool primarily geared toward the Chinese Communist Party,” Chin said.

Some information in this article came from Reuters.
…

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is scheduled to testify before the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce on March 23. Lawmakers have questions about the app’s connections to China. For VOA, Deana Mitchell reports.
…

Microsoft on Thursday trumpeted its latest plans to put artificial intelligence into the hands of more users, answering a spate of unveilings this week by its rival Google with upgrades to its own widely used office software.

The company previewed a new AI “copilot” for Microsoft 365, its product suite that includes Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and Outlook emails.  

Going forward, AI can offer a first draft in Microsoft’s applications, speeding up content creation and freeing up workers’ time, the company said.

“We believe this next generation of AI will unlock a new wave of productivity growth,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, said in a livestreamed presentation.

This week’s drumbeat of news including new funding for AI startup Adept reflects how companies large and small are locked in a fierce competition to deploy software that could reshape how people work. At the center are Microsoft and Google-owner Alphabet Inc, which on Tuesday touted AI features for Gmail and a “magic wand” to draft prose in its own word processor.

The frenzy to invest in and build new products began with the launch last year of ChatGPT, from the Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI. Chatbot showed the potential of so-called large language models, technology that learns from past data how to create content anew. It is rapidly evolving. Just this week, OpenAI began the release of a more powerful version known as GPT-4.
…

Britain said on Thursday it would ban TikTok on government phones with immediate effect, a move that follows other Western countries in barring the Chinese-owned video app over security concerns.

TikTok has come under increasing scrutiny due to fears that user data from the app owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance could end up in the hands of the Chinese government, undermining Western security interests.

“The security of sensitive government information must come first, so today we are banning this app on government devices. The use of other data-extracting apps will be kept under review,” Cabinet Office minister Oliver Dowden said in a statement.

The British government had asked the National Cyber Security Centre to look at the potential vulnerability of government data from social media apps and risks around how sensitive information could be accessed and used.

The United States, Canada, Belgium and the European Commission have already banned the app from official devices.

“Restricting the use of TikTok on government devices is a prudent and proportionate step following advice from our cyber security experts,” Dowden said.

TikTok said it was disappointed with the decision and had already begun taking steps to further protect European user data.

“We believe these bans have been based on fundamental misconceptions and driven by wider geopolitics, in which TikTok, and our millions of users in the UK, play no part,” a TikTok spokesperson said.

China said the decision was based on political considerations rather than facts.

The move “interferes with the normal operations of relevant companies in the UK and will ultimately only harm the UK’s own interests”, its embassy in London said in a statement.

Dowden told parliament government devices would now only be able to access third party apps from a pre-approved list.

The TikTok ban does not include personal devices of government employees or ministers and there would be limited exemptions where TikTok was required on government devices for work purposes, he added.

British government departments and ministers have been increasingly using TikTok and other platforms to communicate with voters.

Energy Minster Grant Shapps said the ban on government devices was sensible, but he would stay on the platform on his personal phone.

He posted a clip from the movie “Wolf of Wall Street” in which Leonardo DiCaprio’s character says “I’m not f****** leaving”, and “The show goes on”.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense posted a video on the platform shortly before the ban was announced showing how the British army was training Ukrainian forces to use the Challenger 2 battle tank.
…

TikTok confirmed Wednesday that U.S. officials have recommended the popular video-sharing app part ways with its Chinese parent ByteDance to avoid a national ban.

Western powers, including the European Union and the United States, have been taking an increasingly tough approach to the app, citing fears that user data could be used or abused by Chinese officials.

“If protecting national security is the objective, calls for a ban or divestment are unnecessary, as neither option solves the broader industry issues of data access and transfer,” a TikTok spokesperson told AFP.

“We remain confident that the best path forward to addressing concerns about national security is transparent, U.S.-based protection of U.S. user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, vetting, and verification.”

The Wall Street Journal and other U.S. news outlets on Wednesday reported that the White House set an ultimatum: if TikTok remains a part of ByteDance, it will be banned in the United States.

“This is all a game of high stakes poker,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors.

Washington is “clearly… putting more pressure on ByteDance to strategically sell this key asset in a major move that could have significant ripple impacts,” he continued.

The White House last week welcomed a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate that would allow President Joe Biden to ban TikTok.

The bipartisan bill “would empower the United States government to prevent certain foreign governments from exploiting technology services… in a way that poses risks to Americans’ sensitive data and our national security,” Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said in a statement.

The bill’s introduction and its quick White House backing accelerated the political momentum against TikTok, which is also the target of a separate piece of legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Appearing tough on China is one of the rare issues with potential for bipartisan support in both the Republican-run House and the Senate, where Biden’s Democratic Party holds the majority.

Concern ramped up among American officials earlier this year after a Chinese balloon, which Washington alleged was on a spy mission, flew over U.S. airspace.

TikTok use rocketing

TikTok claims it has more than a billion users worldwide including over 100 million in the United States, where it has become a cultural force, especially among young people.

Activists argue a ban would be an attack on free speech and stifle the export of American culture and values to TikTok users around the world.

U.S. government workers in January were banned from installing TikTok on their government-issued devices.

Civil servants in the European Union and Canada are also barred from downloading the app on their work devices.

According to the Journal report, the ultimatum to TikTok came from the U.S. interagency board charged with assessing risks foreign investments represent to national security.

U.S. officials declined to comment on the report.

TikTok has consistently denied sharing data with Chinese officials and says it has been working with the U.S. authorities for more than two years to address national security concerns.

Time spent by users on TikTok has surpassed that spent on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and is closing in on streaming television titan Netflix, according to market tracker Insider Intelligence.
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Moonwalking astronauts will have sleeker, more flexible spacesuits that come in different sizes when they step onto the lunar surface later this decade. 

Exactly what that looks like remained under wraps. The company designing the next-generation spacesuits, Axiom Space, said Wednesday that it plans to have new versions for training purposes for NASA later this summer. 

The moonsuits will be white like they were during NASA’s Apollo program more than a half-century ago, according to the company. That’s so they can reflect heat and keep future moonwalkers cool. 

The suits will provide greater flexibility and more protection from the moon’s harsh environment, and will come in a wider range of sizes, according to the Houston-based company. 

NASA awarded Axiom Space a $228.5 million contract to provide the outfits for the first moon landing in more than 50 years. The space agency is targeting late 2025 at the earliest to land two astronauts on the moon’s south pole. 

At Wednesday’s event in Houston, an Axiom employee modeled a dark spacesuit, doing squats and twisting at the waist to demonstrate its flexibility. The company said the final version will be different, including the color. 

“I didn’t want anybody to get that mixed up,” said Axiom’s Russell Ralston. 
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From 5G infrastructure to mobile phones and more, Chinese technologies are used in many parts of the world. It’s part of China’s Digital Silk Road initiative, which is getting mixed reviews: welcomed by some countries, while others are assessing the potential risks of Chinese technology. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee explains. Camera: Henry Ridgwell, Adam Greenbaum
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Facebook-parent Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it would cut 10,000 jobs, just four months after it let go 11,000 employees, the first Big Tech company to announce a second round of mass layoffs. 

“We expect to reduce our team size by around 10,000 people and to close around 5,000 additional open roles that we haven’t yet hired,” Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a message to staff.  

The layoffs are part of a wider restructuring at Meta that will see the company flatten its organizational structure, cancel lower priority projects and reduce its hiring rates as part of the move. The news sent Meta’s shares up 2% in premarket trading. 

The move underscores Zuckerberg’s push to turn 2023 into the “Year of Efficiency” with promised cost cuts of $5 billion in expenses to between $89 billion and $95 billion. 

A deteriorating economy has brought about a series of mass job cuts across corporate America: from Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to Big Tech firms including Amazon.com  and Microsoft.  

The tech industry has laid off more than 280,000 workers since the start of 2022, with about 40% of them coming this year, according to layoffs tracking site layoffs.fyi.  

Meta, which is pouring billions of dollars to build the futuristic metaverse, has struggled with a post-pandemic slump in advertising spending from companies facing high inflation and rising interest rates.  

Meta’s move in November to slash headcount by 13% marked the first mass layoffs in its 18-year history. Its headcount stood at 86,482 at 2022-end, up 20% from a year ago. 
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Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse rattled the technology industry that had been the bank’s backbone, leaving shell-shocked entrepreneurs thankful for the government reprieve that saved their money while they mourned the loss of a place that served as a chummy club of innovation.

“They were the gold standard, it almost seemed weird if you were in tech and didn’t have a Silicon Valley Bank account,” Stefan Kalb, CEO of Seattle startup Shelf Engine, said during a Monday interview as he started the process of transferring millions of dollars to other banks.

The Biden administration’s move guaranteeing all Silicon Valley Bank’s deposits above the insured limit of $250,000 per account resulted in a “palpable sigh of relief” in Israel, where its booming tech sector is “connected with an umbilical cord to Silicon Valley,” said Jon Medved, founder of the Israeli venture capital crowdfunding platform OurCrowd.

But the gratitude for the deposit guarantees that will allow thousands of tech startups to continue to pay their workers and other bills was mixed with moments of reflection among entrepreneurs and venture capital partners rattled by Silicon Valley Bank’s downfall.

The crisis “has forced every company to reassess their banking arrangements and the companies that they work with,” said Rajeeb Dey, CEO of London-based startup Learnerbly, a platform for workplace learning.

Entrepreneurs who had deposited all their startups’ money in Silicon Valley Bank are now realizing it makes more sense to spread their funds across several institutions, with the biggest banks considered safer harbors.

Kalb started off Monday by opening an account at the largest in the U.S., JP Morgan Chase, which has about $2.4 trillion in deposits. That’s 13 times more than the deposits at Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th largest in the U.S.

Bank of America is getting some of the money that Electric Era had deposited at Silicon Valley Bank, and the Seattle startup’s CEO, Quincy Lee, expects having no difficulty finding other candidates to keep the rest of his company’s money as part of its diversification plan.

“Any bank is happy to take a startup’s money,” Lee said.

Even so, there are fears it will be more difficult to finance the inherently risky ideas underlying tech startups that became a specialty of Silicon Valley Bank since its founding over a poker game in 1983, just as the advent of the personal computer and faster microprocessors unleashed more innovation.

Silicon Valley quickly established itself as the “go-to” spot for venture capitalists looking for financial partners more open to unconventional business proposals than its bigger, more established peers who still didn’t have a good grasp of technology.

“They understood startups, they understood venture capital,” said Leah Ellis, CEO and co-founder of Sublime Systems, a company in Somerville, Massachusetts, commercializing a process to make low-carbon cement. “They were woven into the fabric of the startup community that I’m part of, so banking with SVB was a no brainer.”

Venture capitalists set up their accounts at Silicon Valley Bank just as the tech industry started its boom and then advised the entrepreneurs that they funded to do the same.

That cozy relationship came to an end when the bank disclosed a $1.8 billion loss on low-yielding bonds that were purchased before interest rates began to spike last year, raising alarms among its financially savvy customer base who used the fruits of technology to spread warnings that turned into a calamitous run on deposits.

Bob Ackerman, founder and managing director of venture funder AllegisCyber Capital, likened last week’s flood of withdrawal demands from Silicon Valley Bank to a self-inflicted wound by “a circular firing squad” intent on “shooting your best friend.”

Many of Silicon Valley Bank’s roughly 8,500 employees now find themselves hanging in limbo, too, even though government regulators now overseeing the operations have told them they will be offered jobs at 1.5 times their salaries for 45 days, said Rob McMillan, who had worked there for 32 years.

“We don’t know who’s going to pay us when,” McMillan said. “I think we all missed a paycheck. We don’t know if we have benefits.”

Even though all of Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors are being made whole, its demise is expected to leave a void in the technology sector that may be difficult to fill. In an essay that he posted on his LinkedIn page, prominent venture capitalist Michael Moritz compared Silicon Valley Bank to a “cherished local market where people behind the counters know the names of their customers, have a ready smile but still charge the going price when they sell a cut of meat.”

Silicon Valley Bank is fading away at a time when startups were already having a tougher go at raising money, with a downturn in technology stock values and a steady ride in interest rates caused venture capitalists to retrench. The bank often helped fill the financial gaps with one of its specialties — loans known as “venture debt” because it was woven into the funding provided by its venture capitalist customers.

“There’s going to be a lot of great ideas, a lot of great teams that don’t get funding because the barriers to entry are too high or because there are not enough people who are willing to invest,” said William Lin, co-founder of cybersecurity startup Symmetry Systems and a partner at the venture capital firm ForgePoint.

With Silicon Valley Bank gone and venture capitalists pulling in their reins, Lin expects there will be fewer startups getting money to pursue ideas in the same fields of technology. If that happens, he foresees a winnowing of competition that will eventually make the biggest tech companies even stronger than they already are.

“There’s a real day of reckoning coming in the startup world,” predicted Amit Yoran, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Tenable.

That may be true, but entrepreneurs like Lee and Kalb already feel like they had been through an emotional wringer after spending the weekend worrying that all their hard work would go down a drain if they couldn’t get their money out of Silicon Valley Bank.

“It was like being stuck inside a doomsday loop,” Lee said.

Even as he focuses on growing Shelf Engine’s business of helping grocers managing their food orders, he vowed not to forget “a very hard lesson.”

“I obviously now know banks aren’t as safe as I used to think they were,” he said.
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Boeing structural analysis engineer George Ndayizeye, who grew up in Burundi, has won a 2023 Black Engineer of the Year Legacy Award. He spoke with VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya outside Seattle.
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A global shortage of semiconductor chips in the automotive industry starting in 2020 has motivated many countries to increase their domestic manufacturing. The United States has allocated more than $50 billion to promote semiconductor production and research stateside as the global need for the chips is expected to double over the next decade. Keith Kocinski has more from New York.
Camera: Keith Kocinski and Rendy Wicaksana
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The Netherlands’ government on Wednesday said it planned new restrictions on exports of semiconductor technology to protect national security, joining the United States’ effort to curb chip exports to China. 

The U.S. in October imposed sweeping export restrictions on shipments of American chipmaking tools to China, but for the restrictions to be effective, they need other key suppliers in the Netherlands and Japan, who also oversee key chipmaking technology, to agree. The allied countries have been in talks on the matter for months. 

Dutch Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher announced the decision in a letter to parliament, saying the restrictions would be introduced before the summer. 

Her letter did not name China, a key Dutch trading partner, nor did it name ASML Holding NV, Europe’s largest tech firm and a major supplier to semiconductor manufacturers, but both will be affected. It specified one technology that would be affected: “DUV” lithography, the second-most advanced machines that ASML sells to computer chip manufacturers. 

“Because the Netherlands considers it necessary on national security grounds to get this technology into oversight with the greatest of speed, the Cabinet will introduce a national control list,” the letter said. 

ASML said in a response it expected to have to apply for licenses to export the most advanced segment among its DUV machines, but that would not affect its 2023 financial guidance. 

ASML dominates the market for lithography systems, multimillion-dollar machines that use powerful lasers to create the minute circuitry of computer chips. The company expects sales in China to remain about flat at $2.3 billion in 2023 – implying relative shrinkage as the company expects overall sales to grow by 25%. Major ASML customers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Intel are engaged in capacity expansion. 

ASML has never sold its most advanced “EUV” machines to customers in China, and the bulk of its DUV sales in China go to relatively less advanced chipmakers. Its biggest South Korean customers, Samsung and SK Hynix, both have significant manufacturing capacity in China. 

The Dutch announcement leaves major questions unanswered, including whether ASML will be able to service the more than $8 billion worth of DUV machines it has sold to customers in China since 2014. 

Schreinemacher said the Dutch government had decided on measures “as carefully and precisely as possible … to avoid unnecessary disruption of value chains.” 

“It is for companies of importance to know what they are facing and to have time to adjust to new rules,” she wrote.  

Japan is expected to issue an update on its chip equipment export policies as soon as this week.
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Drones are routinely used in warfare, law enforcement and agriculture. Now more and more U.S. businesses are using them to deliver cookies and coffee right to your front door. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. Camera: Adam Greenbaum, Chad Baugh 
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Add a top U.S. intelligence official to the list of Americans expressing concern about Chinese-made technology and Chinese social media platforms like TikTok. 

General Paul Nakasone, who heads both the U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, told lawmakers Tuesday there are multiple reasons to be wary of China’s rapid expansion in cyberspace, calling Beijing “a very formidable foe.”

“TikTok concerns me for a number of different reasons,” Nakasone said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “One is that the data that they have. Secondly is the algorithm and the control. Who has the algorithm?”  

Third, he said, “is the broad platform” both for unleashing potential influence operations but also for the ability to give China a way to “turn off the message.” 

Last month, the United States moved forward with plans to ban TikTok — a social media app used by more than 100 million Americans — from government devices. Some U.S. lawmakers have called for giving U.S. President Joe Biden the ability to ban use of the social media app nationwide. 

Others, however, object to giving Biden the ability to issue a blanket nationwide ban, arguing TikTok is only a small part of a larger issue.  

“The threat that everyone is talking about is TikTok, and how it could enable surveillance by the Chinese Communist Party or facilitate the spread of malign influence campaigns in the U.S,” Democratic Senator Mark Warner told reporters.”Before TikTok, however, it was Huawei and ZTE, which threatened our nation’s telecommunications networks. And before that, it was Russia’s Kaspersky Lab.”

“We need a comprehensive, risk-based approach that proactively tackles sources of potentially dangerous technology before they gain a foothold in America,” he said.

The Restrict Act, being pushed by Warner and others, would establish a rule-based process — informed by the U.S. intelligence community and directed by the Department of Commerce — to identify and address foreign technological threats. 

For its part, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has dismissed concerns it would improperly use user data as “political theater.” 

But concerns about Chinese companies and Chinese technology keep growing. 

On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported U.S. defense officials are worried that  Chinese-made ship-to-shore cranes used at many of America’s ports could be used to spy on materials being shipped in and out of the U.S. 

“Communist China has monopolized the port crane industry, and I will continue to spearhead efforts to decouple from the regime in Beijing and incentivize the near-shoring and reshoring of our strategic manufacturing capabilities,” Republican Congressman Carlos Gimenez told VOA when asked about the potential for Chinese espionage at U.S. ports. “I will fight to protect our critical infrastructure from the CCP’s espionage tactics.”

Tensions also have been rising since the U.S. shot down what it identified as a Chinese spy balloon last month after it had traveled across much of the continental United States.

And Biden is expected to issue an executive order in the coming days that would tighten rules on the ability of U.S. companies to invest in China. 

China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang chastised the U.S. Tuesday, telling reporters in Beijing that Washington’s China policy has “entirely deviated from the rational.” 

But Nakasone told lawmakers that politicians and businesses alike would be smart to be careful about how they make use of Chinese-made platforms and technology. 

“What I would do is ensure that the areas that are most sensitive to our operations are well-sensored, and I have the confidence that’s what’s being utilized there. I understand where that information may be going,” the CYBERCOM commander said.  

“I would take a very, very hard look at anything that would come from an adversarial nation,” Nakasone said, though he acknowledged it would be “very difficult” to proceed with an all-out ban of Chinese products. 

“So much of what we do is based upon international trade,” he said, “and China has the corner on some things.”
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U.S. National Security Agency director Paul Nakasone on Tuesday expressed concern about Chinese-owned video app TikTok’s data collection and potential to facilitate broad influence operations.

In response to a lawmaker’s question about any concerns he has on the influence of TikTok on American children, Nakasone told a Senate hearing, “TikTok concerns me for a number of different reasons.”

Nakasone said his concerns include “the data that they have.”

“Secondly is the algorithm and the control of who has the algorithm,” Nakasone added.

Nakasone ended his comments by asserting that the TikTok platform could enable sweeping influence operations. Nakasone said his concern is not only the fact that TikTok can proactively influence users, but also its ability to “turn off the message,” and noted its large number of users.

The app is used by more than 100 million Americans.

The NSA, part of the Defense Department, is the agency responsible for U.S. cryptographic and communications intelligence and security.

A TikTok representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

TikTok, a unit of China’s ByteDance, has come under increasing fire over fears that user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government, undermining Western security interests. TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew is due to appear before the U.S. Congress on March 23.

A bipartisan group of 12 U.S. senators is set to introduce legislation on Tuesday that would give Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo new powers to ban TikTok and other foreign-based technologies if they are found to pose national security threats.

The U.S. government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a powerful national security body, in 2020 unanimously recommended ByteDance divest TikTok because of fears that user data could be passed on to China’s government.
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Japan’s new medium-lift rocket failed on its debut flight in space on Tuesday after the launcher’s second-stage engine did not ignite as planned, in a blow to its efforts to cut the cost of accessing space and compete against Elon Musk’s SpaceX. 

The 57-metre tall H3 rocket lifted off without a hitch from the Tanegashima space port, a live-streamed broadcast by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) showed. 

But upon reaching space, the rocket’s second-stage engine failed to ignite, forcing mission officials to manually destroy the vehicle. 

“It was decided the rocket could not complete its mission, so the destruct command was sent,” a launch broadcast commentator from JAXA said. “So what happened? It’s something we will have to investigate looking at all the data.” 

The failed attempt followed an aborted launch last month. 

“Unlike the previous cancellation and postponement, this time it was a complete failure,” said Hirotaka Watanabe, a professor at Osaka University with expertise in space policy. 

“This will have a serious impact on Japan’s future space policy, space business and technological competitiveness,” he added. 

Japan’s first new rocket in three decades was carrying the ALOS-3, a disaster management land observation satellite, which was also equipped with an experimental infrared sensor designed to detect North Korean ballistic missile launches. 

H3 builder Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd (MHI) said it was confirming the situation surrounding the rocket with JAXA and did not have an immediate comment. 

MHI has estimated that the H3’s cost per launch will be half that of its predecessor, the H-II, helping it win business in a global launch market increasingly dominated by SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rocket. 

A company spokesperson said earlier that it was also relying on the reliability of Japan’s previous rockets to gain business. 

In a report published in September, the Center for Strategic and International Studies put the cost of a Falcon 9 launch to low Earth orbit at $2,600 per kilogram. The equivalent price tag for the H-II is $10,500. 

A successful launch on Tuesday would have put the Japanese rocket into space ahead of the planned launch later this year of the European Space Agency’s new lower-cost Ariane 6 vehicle. 

Powered by a new simpler, lower-cost engine that includes 3D-printed parts, the H3 is designed to lift government and commercial satellites into Earth orbit and will ferry supplies to the International Space Station. 

As part of Japan’s deepening cooperation with the United States in space, it will also eventually carry cargo to the Gateway lunar space station that U.S. space agency NASA plans to build as part of its program to return people to the moon, including Japanese astronauts. 

Shares of MHI fell 1.8% in morning trade, while the broader Japanese benchmark index was up 0.4%.  
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A group of attorneys general from 45 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., demanded Monday that social media app TikTok produce materials as part of an investigation into its effect on young users’ mental health.   

“We know that social media is taking a devastating toll on young people’s mental health and well-being, and through our investigation we are getting a clearer sense of TikTok’s role,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement.   

The investigation began last year when eight states, including California, Massachusetts and Tennessee, launched a bipartisan probe of TikTok, focusing on whether the popular video-sharing app is endangering young people and violating state consumer protection laws.    

On Monday, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti asked a Tennessee court to order TikTok to produce subpoenaed materials sought by the investigation. Attorneys general from across the United States filed a brief in support of the motion to compel TikTok to hand over the information.    

The Tennessee court petition alleges that TikTok has failed to preserve potentially relevant evidence in the investigation, including internal employee chat messages.   

It says TikTok has shared some internal messages in response to its request but said the company has rendered them “unrecognizable and nearly incomprehensible.”   

TikTok has not commented on the case.   

“We need to know more about the company’s business practices so we can keep our kids safe,” North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said in a statement Monday.   

California’s Department of Justice said in a statement that heavy use of social media is “strongly associated with self-harm, depression, and low self-esteem in teens — and every additional hour young people spend on social media is associated with an increased severity of the symptoms of depression.”   

The latest court challenge comes as TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, faces security concerns. The United States, Canada and the European Union have all banned the use of the app on government-issued devices.    

Like other social media apps, TikTok has also received criticism that it is not doing enough to protect younger users from inappropriate content.   

Last week, TikTok said it was developing a tool that would allow parents to block certain content on the app. The company also said parents will now be able to set time limits on the app for their teens, depending on the day of the week.   

Some information in this report came from Reuters. 
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Twitter users reported a string of problems with the social media site on Monday, including broken links and images not loading.

The company’s tech support account said in a tweet, “Some parts of Twitter may not be working as expected right now. We made an internal change that had some unintended consequences. We’re working on this now and will share an update when it’s fixed.”

Twitter’s billionaire owner, Elon Musk, tweeted Monday: “This platform is so brittle (sigh). Will be fixed shortly.” 

The problems appeared to be resolved about an hour after they began.

“Things should now be working as normal,” the company tweeted around 1 p.m. Eastern time.

The glitches started around midday Monday, with users around the world saying they were unable to read links to articles from outside websites.

Internet observation group NetBlocks said the issue was also affecting image and video content.

Musk tweeted later Monday in response to another user, “A small API change had massive ramifications. The code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason. Will ultimately need a complete rewrite.”

API, or Application Programming Interface, refers to software that is made available to outside developers and defines how two software components — in this case, those of Twitter and those belonging to outside platforms — can communicate with each other.

Musk has held several rounds of layoffs at Twitter, letting go more than half of the company’s staff. Some former employees have raised concerns that the mass layoffs could lead to technical problems for the platform.

Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, following a deal to buy the company for $44 billion.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence-France Presse. 
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