Amazon won’t be forced to immediately restore web service to Parler after a federal judge ruled Thursday against a plea to reinstate the fast-growing social media app, which is favored by followers of former President Donald Trump.U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle said she was not dismissing Parler’s “substantive underlying claims” against Amazon but said it had fallen short in demonstrating the need for an injunction forcing it back online.Amazon kicked Parler off its web-hosting service on Jan. 11. In court filings, it said the suspension was a “last resort” to block Parler from harboring violent plans to disrupt the presidential transition.The Seattle tech giant said Parler had shown an “unwillingness and inability” to remove a slew of dangerous posts that called for the rape, torture and assassination of politicians, tech executives and many others.The social media app, a magnet for the far right, sued to get back online, arguing that Amazon had breached its contract and abused its market power. It said Trump was likely on the brink of joining the platform, following a wave of his followers who flocked to the app after Twitter and Facebook expelled Trump after the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.Rothstein said she rejected “any suggestion that the public interest favors requiring Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host the incendiary speech that the record shows some of Parler’s users have engaged in.” She also faulted Parler for providing “only faint and factually inaccurate speculation” about Amazon and Twitter colluding with one another to shut Parler down.Political motives?Parler CEO John Matze asserted in a court filing that Parler’s abrupt shutdown was motivated at least partly by “a desire to deny Trump a platform on any large social-media service.” Matze said Trump had contemplated joining the network as early as October under a pseudonym. The Trump administration last week declined to comment on whether he had planned to join.Amazon denied its move to pull the plug on Parler had anything to do with political animus. It claimed that Parler had breached its business agreement “by hosting content advocating violence and failing to timely take that content down.”Parler was formed in May 2018, according to Nevada business records, with what co-founder Rebekah Mercer, a prominent Trump backer and conservative donor, later described as the goal of creating “a neutral platform for free speech” away from “the tyranny and hubris of our tech overlords.”Amazon said the company signed up for its cloud computing services about a month later, thereby agreeing to its rules against dangerous content.Matze told the court that Parler has “no tolerance for inciting violence or lawbreaking” and has relied on volunteer “jurors” to flag problem posts and vote on whether they should be removed. More recently, he said the company informed Amazon it would soon begin using artificial intelligence to automatically pre-screen posts for inappropriate content, as bigger social media companies do.Amazon last week revealed a trove of incendiary and violent posts that it had reported to Parler over the past several weeks. They included explicit calls to harm high-profile political and business leaders and broader groups of people, such as schoolteachers and Black Lives Matter activists.Move to EpikGoogle and Apple were the first tech giants to take action against Parler in the days after the deadly Capitol riot. Both companies temporarily banned the smartphone app from their app stores. But people who had already downloaded the Parler app were still able to use it until AWS pulled the plug on the website.Parler has kept its website online by maintaining its internet registration through Epik, a U.S. company owned by libertarian businessman Rob Monster. Epik has previously hosted 8chan, an online message board known for trafficking in hate speech. Parler is currently hosted by DDoS-Guard, a company whose owners are based in Russia, public records show.DDoS-Guard did not respond to emails seeking comment on its business with Parler or on published reports that its customers have included Russian government agencies.Parler did not return requests for comment this week about its future plans. Though its website is back, it has not restored its app or social network. Matze has said it will be difficult to restore service because the site had been so dependent on Amazon engineering, and Amazon’s action has turned off other potential vendors.The case has offered a rare window into Amazon’s influence over the workings of the internet. Parler argued in its lawsuit that Amazon violated antitrust laws by colluding with Twitter, which also uses some Amazon cloud services, to quash the upstart social media app.Rothstein, who was appointed to the Seattle-based court by Democratic President Jimmy Carter, said Parler presented “dwindlingly slight” evidence of antitrust violations and no evidence that Amazon and Twitter “acted together intentionally — or even at all — in restraint of trade.” 
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Facebook’s independent oversight board said Thursday that it had accepted the company’s request to review its decision to suspend the accounts of former President Donald Trump.The U.S. social media giant blocked Trump’s access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts after he was accused of inciting a deadly insurrection by his supporters January 6 at the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers were formally certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.When it made the decision, the company said the suspension would remain in effect at least until the end of Trump’s term on January 20 and possibly indefinitely.The board said a five-member panel would review the case in the coming days and report its findings to the full board.A majority of the members must approve a decision before it can be issued. The board must decide within 90 days, and Facebook is required to act on it within that period. The board’s decisions are nonbinding.Trump’s critics generally applauded Facebook’s decision, but many world leaders and free-speech proponents denounced it, maintaining it sets an alarming precedent against free speech.’Very confident’ decision was rightFacebook global affairs chief Nick Clegg told the Reuters news agency he remained convinced the company acted appropriately when it suspended Trump’s accounts.“I’m very confident that any reasonable person looking at the circumstances in which we took that decision and looking at our existing policies will agree,” Clegg said.But Clegg also said the board might consider wider principles and policies that could influence its decision.In addition to reviewing the decision to suspend Trump’s accounts, Clegg said he asked the board to recommend when political leaders can or should be prohibited from using the company’s platforms.Facebook created the oversight board after being criticized for its management of problematic content. The panel consists of 20 members, including a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a former prime minister, legal experts and rights advocates.Twitter, Trump’s favorite social media platform, has suspended the former president permanently.  
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Twitter has locked the account of China’s U.S. embassy for a tweet that defended China’s policies in the Xinjiang region, which the U.S. social media platform said violated the firm’s policy against “dehumanization.” The Chinese Embassy account, @ChineseEmbinUS, posted a tweet this month that said that Uighur women were no longer “baby making machines,” citing a study reported by state-backed newspaper China Daily. The tweet was removed by Twitter and replaced by a label stating that it was no longer available. Although Twitter hides tweets that violate its policies, it requires account owners to manually delete such posts. The Chinese Embassy’s account has not posted any new tweets since January 9. Twitter’s suspension of the embassy’s account came a day after the Trump administration, in its final hours, accused China of committing genocide in Xinjiang, a finding endorsed by the incoming Biden administration. The Biden administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Twitter’s move. “We’ve taken action on the Tweet you referenced for violating our policy against dehumanization, where it states: We prohibit the dehumanization of a group of people based on their religion, caste, age, disability, serious disease, national origin, race, or ethnicity,” a Twitter spokesperson said on Thursday. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment. Twitter is blocked in China but is an increasingly favored platform by China’s diplomats and state media. China has repeatedly rejected accusations of abuse in its Xinjiang region, where a United Nations panel has said at least 1 million Uighurs and other Muslims had been detained in camps. Last year, a report by German researcher Adrian Zenz published by the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation think tank accused China of using forced sterilization, forced abortion and coercive family planning against minority Muslims. The Chinese foreign ministry said the allegations were groundless and false. Twitter’s move also follows the removal of the account of former U.S. President Donald Trump, which had 88 million followers, citing the risk of violence after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol this month. Twitter had locked Trump’s account, asking for deletion of some tweets, before restoring it and then removing it altogether after the former president violated the platform’s policies again.  
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When Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th U.S. president Wednesday, he inherited several social media accounts, including the @POTUS, @WhiteHouse, @FLOTUS and @VP Twitter accounts. 
 
Unlike after the last inauguration in 2017, when then-President Barack Obama’s followers were transferred to his successor Donald Trump, Biden inherited none of the @POTUS account’s existing 33 million followers. 
 
Biden’s current official Twitter account, @PresElectBiden became @POTUS, bringing with it all followers. 
 
President Biden’s first tweet shortly after he was sworn in Wednesday said, “There is no time to waste when it comes to tackling the crises we face. That’s why today, I am heading to the Oval Office to get right to work delivering bold action and immediate relief for American families.” There is no time to waste when it comes to tackling the crises we face. That’s why today, I am heading to the Oval Office to get right to work delivering bold action and immediate relief for American families.— President Biden (@POTUS) January 20, 2021 
Biden’s social media team has expressed concerns about how Twitter is handling the transition, calling the moves “absolutely, profoundly insufficient.” 
 
Twitter says the move will give users the choice of whether to follow the new president.  
 
Meanwhile, Trump’s @POTUS tweets will be archived by Twitter under the handle @POTUS45. His personal account will remain suspended without an official archive of the tweets, leaving some scholars concerned that there will be no official record of Trump’s tweets as president.  
 
Facebook and Instagram duplicated the current followers of the official White House Page for the new administration page. Official Trump administration pages will be archived. YouTube will perform a similar transfer of accounts. 
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In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinian high-tech startups are flourishing. Some are branches of international companies, others are all Palestinian. High-tech also offers new possibilities for Israeli-Palestinian cooperation. Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from Jerusalem.
Camera: Ricki Rosen 
 
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Take a ride on a new kind of bike — one that skirts across lakes and waterways – powered by an electric engine and a battery. Michelle Quinn got a ride.Camera: Michelle Quinn   
Producer: Rob Raffaele   
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Parler, a social media website and app popular with the American far right, has partially returned online with the help of a Russian-owned technology company.Parler vanished from the internet when dropped by Amazon Inc.’s hosting arm and other partners for poor moderation after its users called for violence and posted videos glorifying the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.On Monday, Parler’s website was reachable again, though only with a message from its chief executive saying he was working to restore functionality.The internet protocol address it used is owned by DDos-Guard, which is controlled by two Russian men and provides services including protection from distributed denial of service attacks, infrastructure expert Ronald Guilmette told Reuters.If the website is fully restored, Parler users would be able to see and post comments. Most users prefer the app, however, which remains banned from the official Apple and Google stores.Parler CEO John Matze and representatives of DDoS-Guard did not reply to requests for comment.Last Wednesday, Matze told Reuters the company was in talks with multiple service providers but declined to elaborate.DDoS-Guard has worked with other racist, rightist and conspiracy sites that have been used by mass murderers to share messages, including 8kun. It has also supported Russian government sites.DDoS-Guard’s website lists an address in Scotland under the company name Cognitive Cloud LP, but that is owned by two men in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Guilmette said. One of them told the Guardian recently that he was not aware of all of the content the company facilitates.Parler critics said it was a potential security risk for it to depend on a Russian company, as well as an odd choice for a site popular with self-described patriots.Russian propaganda has stoked political divisions in the United States, supporting outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump and amplifying false narratives about election fraud but also protests against police brutality.Parler, which disclosed it has more than 12 million users, sued Amazon last Monday after the ecommerce giant and cloud services provider cut off service, citing poor moderation of calls to violence.
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The attack on the U.S. Capitol has reignited criticism of social media and its alleged role in inciting violence. While Facebook and Twitter have banned President Trump, there are questions about the future of online speech. Tina Trinh reports.Producer: Matt Dibble 
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Facebook has shut down several accounts of a network in Uganda linked to the country’s Ministry of Information. The social media company accused the network of using fake accounts to promote the ruling party and the president.The Facebook accounts shut down were allegedly linked to the “Citizens Interaction Center” at the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology.In a statement, Facebook accuses the account holders of using fake and duplicate accounts to manage pages, comment on other people’s content, impersonate users and re-share posts in groups to make them appear more popular than they were.Duncan Abigaba, the deputy head of the center, said the accounts were targeted because of their support for Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and the ruling National Resistance Movement or NRM.Abigaba said the action by Facebook is unfair since members of the opposition National Unity Platform party, led by singer-turned-politician Bobi Wine, have been using social media to promote Wine’s presidential candidacy.“So, NRM had to try and sell our candidate as well in the social media space. By selling the candidate, it means you have to employ different tactics including you put out content. And this content you must share it in different groups for it to have as much reach as possible,” said Abigaba.The Uganda Communications Commission wrote to Facebook and Twitter late last year, demanding it shut down several accounts it said were being used wrongly by members of the opposition National Unity Platform.FILE – Uganda’s president and presidential candidate Yoweri Museveni of the ruling party National Resistance Movement waves to his supporters as he arrives at a campaign rally in Entebbe, Feb. 10, 2016.Government spokesman Ofwono Opondo says the commission received a response from Facebook, saying it would investigate the claims.But instead, said Opondo, without any due process, accounts of NRM supporters have been shut down.“They have not told us the nature of the complaint. They have not written even to say we are going to switch you off. And so, it’s a double standard. And that ties very well with what our intelligence is telling us that some of the opposition is working with foreign interests,” he said.The Ugandan government is already disabling some social media platforms. Currently, unless one is using a virtual private network, videos on Facebook cannot be played.The Uganda Communications Commission has also ordered app stores to block over 100 virtual private networks being used by citizens to bypass the blockage.Joel Ssenyonyi, the National Unity Platform spokesperson, denies the party has a hand in the account shutdowns.“We actually wish we had a hand in it. We would actually love to see all the government accounts blocked, because they are using them to justify all the ills that are happening. You know that people get killed and then you see government officials and regime apologists and functionaries go on social media and they justify the killing of people and so on,” said Ssenyonyi. Ugandans go to the polls Thursday with Museveni seeking to extend his 34-year run as president. Bobi Wine has called off his final campaign appearances, due to multiple arrests and police breaking up his rallies.
 
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Social media platform Parler has sued Amazon in response to being removed from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s web hosting services. Calling the deplatforming a “death blow,” Parler said Amazon engaged in antitrust violations, breached its contract with Parler and interfered with the company’s business relationship with its users. Specifically, the complaint said Amazing breached its contract by not providing Parler 30 days’ notice before cutting it off from its servers. The suit asked a federal court for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Amazon. “Without AWS, Parler is finished, as it has no way to get online,” according to the complaint. “And a delay of granting this TRO by even one day could also sound Parler’s death knell as President (Donald) Trump and others move on to other platforms.” Parler, a social network service popular with conservatives, went offline Monday after Amazon suspended it for allowing posts that encourage violence.  Before the site went down, Parler CEO John Matze accused Amazon and other tech giants of a “war on free speech.”  Google banned Parler’s smartphone app from its app store on Friday, also citing Parler’s allowance of posts that seek to incite violence in the United States.  Apple instituted its own Parler ban on Saturday.  The two-year-old Parler saw an increase in users in recent months as social media giants Facebook and Twitter stepped up enforcement of posts that violated their policies.  Both Facebook and Twitter suspended Trump’s accounts last week after some of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.  
 
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Facebook has taken down several accounts linked to the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, saying they were being used to manipulate public opinion ahead of this week’s presidential election.
 
The U.S.-based social media giant said Monday it linked the network of accounts to the Uganda’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology.   
 
Facebook said the ministry “used fake and duplicate accounts to manage pages, comment on other people’s content, impersonate users, re-share posts in groups to make them appear more popular than they were.”
 
The Associated Press quoted presidential spokesman Don Wanyama as saying Facebook was “interfering in the electoral process of Uganda.” He also said, “If people wanted to have the evidence of outside interference, now they have it.”
 
Voters in the East African country will cast ballots Thursday in a general election that pits President Museveni against 10 challengers, including popular singer-turned-legislator Bobi Wine.
 
The lead-up to the vote has been marred by increasing violence, numerous human rights violations, and restrictions imposed on opposition candidates and supporters.
 
The arrests and detentions in November of Wine and Patrick Oboi Amuriat, another presidential candidate, as well as other members of the political opposition, triggered riots and protests. At least 54 people were killed.
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Parler, a social network service popular with conservatives, went offline Monday after its web hosting service Amazon suspended it for allowing posts that encourage violence.
 
Before the site went down, Parler CEO John Matze accused Amazon and other tech giants of a “war on free speech.”
 
Google banned Parler’s smartphone app from its app store on Friday, also citing Parler’s allowance of posts that seek to incite violence in the United States.
 
Apple instituted its own Parler ban on Saturday.
 
The two-year-old Parler saw an increase in users in recent months as social media giants Facebook and Twitter stepped up enforcement of posts that violated their policies.
 
Both Facebook and Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s accounts last week after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
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Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc have suspended Parler from their respective App Store and web hosting service, saying the social networking service popular with many right-leaning social media users has not taken adequate measures to prevent the spread of posts inciting violence.The action by Apple and Amazon follows a similar move by Alphabet Inc’s Google on Friday. Parler is favored by many supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, who was permanently suspended from Twitter on Friday, and it is seen as a haven for people expelled from Twitter.“We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues,” Apple said in a statement Saturday.Apple had earlier given Parler 24 hours to submit a detailed moderation plan, pointing to participants’ using the service to coordinate Wednesday’s siege of the U.S. Capitol.Amazon’s move effectively takes the site offline unless it can find a new company to host its services.Amazon suspended Parler from its Amazon Web Services (AWS) unit, for violating AWS’s terms of services by failing to effectively deal with a steady increase in violent content, according to an email by an AWS Trust and Safety team to Parler, seen by Reuters.An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the letter was authentic.Due to the “very real risk to public safety” that Parler poses, AWS plans to suspend Parler’s account effective Sunday, at 11:59 p.m. PST, the email seen by Reuters showed.Parler Chief Executive John Matze lashed out at Amazon, Google and Apple, saying it was a coordinated effort knowing Parler’s options would be limited and it would inflict the most damage right as Trump was banned from other social media platforms.“There is the possibility Parler will be unavailable on internet for up to a week as we rebuild from scratch,” he said in a post on Parler.“This was a coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the marketplace… You can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don’t count us out.”In addition to Parler, right-leaning social media users in the United States have flocked to messaging app Telegram and hands-off social site Gab, citing the more aggressive policing of political comments on mainstream platforms such as Twitter Inc and Facebook Inc.
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U.S. tech giant Twitter took sharply different actions against the leaders of the U.S. and Iran on Friday, permanently banning President Donald Trump’s personal account while removing one tweet from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s apparent English account and suspending new posts on it.The greater severity of Twitter’s action against the @realdonaldtrump account, compared with the social media company’s treatment of Khamenei, prompted both critics and supporters of the U.S. president to post dozens of Twitter messages accusing the platform of double standards.Many of Twitter’s critics said the @Khamenei_IR account, which is not Twitter-verified but regularly shares his statements, has a history of posting comments against Israel, his regional enemy, that they view as more severe incitement to violence than recent Trump tweets deemed by the platform to violate its glorification of violence policy.The chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pal, tweeted screenshots of some of Khamenei’s most strongly worded anti-Israel posts in May, saying he believed they raise a “serious” question about potential glorification of violence.Serious question for @Twitter: Do these tweets from Supreme Leader of Iran @khamenei_ir violate “Twitter Rules about glorifying violence”? pic.twitter.com/oEkCC8UzFV— Ajit Pai (@AjitPaiFCC) May 29, 2020In a Friday message to VOA Persian, Jason Brodsky, policy director of U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, said: “Twitter accounts of Khamenei, other autocrats and their representatives include deeply hateful and dangerous content that incites violence against groups. We’ve seen Khamenei’s call for the elimination of Israel, which is incitement. So if Twitter has a policy against incitement of violence, it needs to be applied uniformly.”A Twitter spokesperson responded to the accusations of double standards in enforcing incitement prohibitions by telling VOA Persian that the platform has taken enforcement action against world leaders prior to Friday.The spokesperson said Twitter focused its Friday actions on what he called the “harm presented by [Trump’s personal] account specifically,” and shared a link to Twitter’s statement explaining why it believes Trump’s last tweets have the potential to incite further violence following Wednesday’s storming of the U.S. Capitol complex by some of his supporters.Asked what Twitter is doing to demonstrate that it is treating world leaders consistently, the spokesperson said the company’s policy of displaying a “government account” label for users affiliated with the five permanent member states of the U.N. Security Council will soon be expanded to include similar labeling for the officials of other nations. No further details were provided.Twitter’s action against the Khamenei account came hours before its banning of Trump.The Khamenei account had posted a Friday tweet in which the Iranian supreme leader called coronavirus vaccines produced by the U.S., Britain and France “completely untrustworthy” and accused the Western powers of trying to “contaminate” other nations by offering to send them the vaccines.I call on @Jack to suspend @khamenei_ir account for spreading dangerous lies about COVID-19. He has banned Iranians from @Twitter but spreads lies on the same platform about vaccines. His posts MUST have a warning label, at least. Please retweet this. pic.twitter.com/XCxDXK7qBw— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 8, 2021The Khamenei tweet prompted Iranian activists such as VOA Persian TV show host Masih Alinejad to urge Twitter to suspend his account for spreading misinformation about the vaccines. Twitter removed the tweet from public view after several hours.Twitter’s spokesperson told VOA the offending tweet violated the platform’s misleading information policy and the @Khamenei_IR owner would have to delete the post before regaining access to the account.It was the first time since February 2019 that Twitter had acted against the Iranian supreme leader’s main English account.That month, the @Khamenei_IR account posted a tweet endorsing a 1989 fatwa by his predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had condemned British author Salman Rushdie to death for writing a book that the ruling cleric deemed insulting to Islam, The Satanic Verses.Just a reminder that not only did Twitter remove this tweet by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei for “threat of violence or physical harm” against Salman Rushdie last year, they also locked him out of his account for 24 hours until his account deleted the tweet. pic.twitter.com/T09y48Zo4S— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) October 28, 2020Twitter said the tweet about Rushdie constituted a threat of violence, removed it from public view and locked the @Khamenei_IR account for a day until the account owner deleted the post.In a Friday tweet, BBC Middle East correspondent Nafiseh Kohnavard said Twitter’s decisions to keep the Khamenei account visible and ban Trump have confounded many Iranians. Many Iranians users are asking Twitter how it closed down Mr. Trump’s account but Iran supreme leader Mr. Khamenei’s account is still active especially when Twitter is banned inside Iran and it’s needed VPN.— Nafiseh Kohnavard (@nafisehkBBC) January 9, 2021She said Twitter’s moves were especially perplexing to Iranians who resent Khamenei for blocking Twitter inside Iran and forcing them to access it via virtual private networks.The Trump administration has denounced Iran’s bans on Western social media platforms as suppression of legitimate forms of communication. Speaking in 2018, a State Department spokeswoman said: “When a nation clamps down on social media, we ask the question, ‘What are you afraid of?’”This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. 
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Alphabet’s Google on Friday suspended the Parler social networking app from its Play Store until the app adds robust content moderation, while Apple gave the service 24 hours to submit a detailed moderation plan.Parler is a social network to which many supporters of President Donald Trump have migrated after being banned from services including Twitter, which on Friday permanently suspended Trump’s account.In a statement, Google cited continued posts in the Parler app that seek “to incite ongoing violence in the U.S.”Google said, “For us to distribute an app through Google Play, we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content. In light of this ongoing and urgent public safety threat, we are suspending the app’s listings from the Play Store until it addresses these issues.”In a letter from Apple’s App Store review team to Parler seen by Reuters, Apple cited instances of participants using the service to make plans to descend on Washington with weapons after a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday.”Content that threatens the well-being of others or is intended to incite violence or other lawless acts has never been acceptable on the App Store,” Apple said in the letter.Apple gave Parler 24 hours to “remove all objectionable content from your app … as well as any content referring to harm to people or attacks on government facilities now or at any future date.” The company also demanded that Parler submit a written plan “to moderate and filter this content” from the app.Apple declined to comment.
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As a major showcase for the latest innovations in consumer technology, the Consumer Electronics Show typically draws over 170,000 attendees from all over the world. But this year, it’s going all digital for the first time in its history. VOA’s Tina Trinh reports.
Produced by: Tina Trinh
 
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With in-person coaching off the table because of the COVID pandemic, hundreds of companies nationwide are using virtual reality training to help employees master some essential skills. Maxim Moskalkov has the story.Camera: Aleksandr Bergan  
 
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will be suspended at least through Inauguration Day in the wake of violence by the president’s supporters that erupted Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol.“We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” Zuckerberg said in a statement on his Facebook page, adding that the account could remain locked indefinitely.“Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”Twitter barred Trump from posting messages on its platform Wednesday for 12 hours for “repeated and severe violations” of the social media company’s civic integrity rules.Twitter and Facebook had taken the unprecedented step of temporarily suspending Trump’s account on Wednesday as Trump continued to post inflammatory messages and make false accusations that the election was rigged in favor of President-elect Joe Biden. It was the most aggressive action the social media giants have taken against Trump.Twitter ordered the removal Wednesday of three Trump tweets, including a video urging his supporters who stormed the Capitol to “go home” while continuing to make false claims about the elections. Twitter said the posts were voluntarily deleted from Trump’s account after the company threatened to extend the suspension.Later Wednesday evening, Facebook said Trump would be barred from posting for 24 hours for two violations of its policies.Syracuse University communications professor and social media expert Jennifer Grygiel told The Associated Press that Wednesday’s deadly violence is a direct result of Trump’s abuse of social media to spread falsehoods and said the social media companies should bear some responsibility for the violence.“This is what happens,” Grygiel said. “We didn’t just see a breach at the Capitol. Social media platforms have been breached by the president repeatedly. This is disinformation. This was a coup attempt in the United States.”The incoming chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee, Democrat Mark Warner, applauded Twitter and Facebook for their actions in a statement Thursday, but he also criticized them for not taking more stringent action much sooner.“While I’m pleased to see social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube take long-belated steps to address the president’s sustained misuse of their platforms to sow discord and violence, these isolated actions are both too late and not nearly enough,” Warner said.“Disinformation and extremism researchers have for years pointed to broader network-based exploitation of these platforms. As I have continually said, these platforms have served as core organizing infrastructure for violent, far right groups and militia movements for several years now — helping them to recruit, organize, coordinate and in many cases (particularly with respect to YouTube) generate profits from their violent, extremist content.” YouTube has not taken any action to silence Trump. The Associated Press reported that YouTube said it removed Trump’s video, but it was still publicly accessible on Thursday.The White House has not responded to the suspensions. 
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Facebook and Alphabet’s YouTube took down a video from President Donald Trump on Wednesday that continued to make the baseless claim the election was fraudulent as he told supporters who had stormed the U.S. Capitol to go home.Twitter restricted users from retweeting the video “due to a risk of violence,” as hundreds of protesters sought to force Congress to undo the president’s election loss to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden. Twitter restricted a later tweet from Trump that again falsely alleged he had won the election.Later Wednesday night, Twitter locked the president’s account for 12 hours over “repeated and severe violations” of the social media platform’s civic integrity rules and threatened permanent suspension.Facebook Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen tweeted that it believed the video “contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence,” saying the action was part of “appropriate emergency measures.”Google-owned YouTube said the video violated its policy against content that alleges “widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Election.” YouTube spokesman Farshad Shadloo added the company does allow copies that include additional context.Social media companies have been under pressure to police misinformation on their platforms around the election. Trump and his allies have continuously spread unsubstantiated claims of election fraud that have proliferated online.In a statement on Wednesday, the Anti-Defamation League called for social media companies to suspend Trump’s accounts, saying the events at the Capitol resulted from “fear and disinformation that has been spewed directly from the Oval Office.”Former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos tweeted: “Twitter and Facebook have to cut him off. There are no legitimate equities left and labeling won’t do it.”A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.According to researchers and public postings, violent rhetoric and advice on weaponry ramped up significantly in the past three weeks on many social media platforms as multiple groups planned rallies for Wednesday, including Trump supporters, white nationalists and enthusiasts of the wide-ranging conspiracy theory QAnon.
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The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed on Wednesday that it had been the victim of a massive hacking operation linked to Russian intelligence.  In a statement, Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi said about 3% of the agency’s email accounts appeared to have been compromised, although no classified information was accessed. “After learning of the malicious activity, the Office of Chief Information Officer eliminated the identified method by which the actor was accessing the … email environment,” Raimondi said. Raimondi said the department learned about the previously unknown hack on its networks on Christmas Eve and determined that it constituted a “major” security incident. The disclosure came a day after U.S. intelligence agencies said that the hack was part of an ongoing intelligence operation and likely being carried out by Russia.  FILE – This Feb. 11, 2015, photo shows FireEye offices in Milpitas, Calif.The hack came to light in early December when private cybersecurity firm FireEye disclosed that its networks had been compromised. Investigators have traced the breach to SolarWinds, a Texas-based network management software company that the hackers used to penetrate the computer networks. In a statement Tuesday, the FBI, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the National Security Agency (NSA) said that of the approximately 18,000 SolarWinds customers impacted by the hack, “a much smaller number has been compromised by follow-on activity on their systems.”  FILE – The SolarWinds logo is seen outside its headquarters in Austin, Texas, Dec. 18, 2020.“We have so far identified fewer than 10 U.S. government agencies that fall into this category and are working to identify the nongovernment entities who also may be impacted,” the agencies said. Officials had previously confirmed that the departments of Defense, Treasury, State, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy were impacted. Among targeted businesses were Microsoft and Amazon.  U.S. President Donald Trump has faced criticism for failing to respond to the alleged Russian hacking operation and for suggesting that China may have been responsible.  The National Security Council has set up a task force made up of intelligence agencies to investigate and remediate the attack. “At this time, we believe this was, and continues to be, an intelligence gathering effort,” the agencies said in a statement. “We are taking all necessary steps to understand the full scope of this campaign and respond accordingly.” 
 
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U.S. intelligence officials investigating last month’s massive cybersecurity breach that impacted thousands of companies and dozens of government agencies warn the hack is part of an ongoing intelligence operation, likely being carried out by Russia. The public conclusion, shared Tuesday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the National Security Agency (NSA), is the first formal statement of attribution from U.S. officials, and confirms previous comments by senior officials and lawmakers who said the evidence pointed “pretty clearly” to Moscow. FILE – The sign outside the National Security Agency (NSA) campus in Fort Meade, Md., June 6, 2013. All fingers are pointing to Russia as author of the worst-ever hack of U.S. government agencies.”This work indicates that an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor, likely Russian in origin, is responsible for most or all of the recently discovered, ongoing cyber compromises of both government and nongovernmental networks,” according to the statement from the intelligence and security agencies. “At this time, we believe this was, and continues to be, an intelligence gathering effort,” they added. “We are taking all necessary steps to understand the full scope of this campaign and respond accordingly.” ‘Serious compromise’Evidence of the breach involving SolarWinds, a Texas-based software management company, first emerged in early December when the private cybersecurity firm FireEye announced its systems had been penetrated and that sensitive information had been stolen. In the days that followed, the hack was traced to SolarWinds, with investigators warning that approximately 18,000 customers, including U.S. government agencies and companies around the world, had been affected. FILE – Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington. (VOA/Diaa Bekheet)Late last month, software giant Microsoft said the hackers even managed to use the breach to access some of the company’s heavily guarded source code — the basic programming essential to running Microsoft programs and operating systems. But despite the huge number of SolarWinds customers affected by the hack, U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that “a much smaller number” were compromised by follow-on activities. “We have so far identified fewer than 10 U.S. government agencies that fall into this category and are working to identify the nongovernment entities who also may be impacted,” they said in the statement. U.S. officials had previously said the hack had impacted the departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, Energy, Treasury and Commerce, as well as state and local governments. “This is a serious compromise that will require a sustained and dedicated effort to remediate,” the FBI, CISA, ODNI and the NSA said in Tuesday’s statement, adding the agencies will “continue taking every necessary action to investigate, remediate and share information with our partners and the American people.” Trump responseU.S. President Donald Trump has been largely silent on the SolarWinds hack, tweeting last month, “Everything is well under control,” while appearing to deflect blame from Moscow. “Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of discussing the possibility that it may be China,” Trump said.The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control. Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of….— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2020In a tweet late Tuesday, the White House National Security Council said the president “continues to surge all appropriate resources to support the whole-of-government response to the recent cyber incident affecting government networks.”President @realDonaldTrump continues to surge all appropriate resources to support the whole-of-government response to the recent cyber incident affecting government networks. We are taking every necessary step to understand the full scope of this incident & respond accordingly. https://t.co/WnmH2dE1Y7— NSC (@WHNSC) January 5, 2021Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, however, accused the Trump administration of dragging its feet. “It’s unfortunate that it has taken over three weeks after the revelation of an intrusion this significant for this administration to finally issue a tentative attribution,” Warner said in a statement late Tuesday. “We need to make clear to Russia that any misuse of compromised networks to produce destructive or harmful effects is unacceptable and will prompt an appropriately strong response.” 
 
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U.S. intelligence officials investigating last month’s massive cybersecurity breach that impacted thousands of companies and dozens of government agencies warn the hack is part of an ongoing intelligence operation, likely being carried out by Russia. The public conclusion, shared Tuesday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the National Security Agency (NSA), is the first formal statement of attribution from U.S. officials, and confirms previous comments by senior officials and lawmakers who said the evidence pointed “pretty clearly” to Moscow. FILE – The sign outside the National Security Agency (NSA) campus in Fort Meade, Md., June 6, 2013. All fingers are pointing to Russia as author of the worst-ever hack of U.S. government agencies.”This work indicates that an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor, likely Russian in origin, is responsible for most or all of the recently discovered, ongoing cyber compromises of both government and nongovernmental networks,” according to the statement from the intelligence and security agencies. “At this time, we believe this was, and continues to be, an intelligence gathering effort,” they added. “We are taking all necessary steps to understand the full scope of this campaign and respond accordingly.” ‘Serious compromise’Evidence of the breach involving SolarWinds, a Texas-based software management company, first emerged in early December when the private cybersecurity firm FireEye announced its systems had been penetrated and that sensitive information had been stolen. In the days that followed, the hack was traced to SolarWinds, with investigators warning that approximately 18,000 customers, including U.S. government agencies and companies around the world, had been affected. FILE – Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington. (VOA/Diaa Bekheet)Late last month, software giant Microsoft said the hackers even managed to use the breach to access some of the company’s heavily guarded source code — the basic programming essential to running Microsoft programs and operating systems. But despite the huge number of SolarWinds customers affected by the hack, U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday that “a much smaller number” were compromised by follow-on activities. “We have so far identified fewer than 10 U.S. government agencies that fall into this category and are working to identify the nongovernment entities who also may be impacted,” they said in the statement. U.S. officials had previously said the hack had impacted the departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, Energy, Treasury and Commerce, as well as state and local governments. “This is a serious compromise that will require a sustained and dedicated effort to remediate,” the FBI, CISA, ODNI and the NSA said in Tuesday’s statement, adding the agencies will “continue taking every necessary action to investigate, remediate and share information with our partners and the American people.” Trump responseU.S. President Donald Trump has been largely silent on the SolarWinds hack, tweeting last month, “Everything is well under control,” while appearing to deflect blame from Moscow. “Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of discussing the possibility that it may be China,” Trump said.The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control. Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of….— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2020In a tweet late Tuesday, the White House National Security Council said the president “continues to surge all appropriate resources to support the whole-of-government response to the recent cyber incident affecting government networks.”President @realDonaldTrump continues to surge all appropriate resources to support the whole-of-government response to the recent cyber incident affecting government networks. We are taking every necessary step to understand the full scope of this incident & respond accordingly. https://t.co/WnmH2dE1Y7— NSC (@WHNSC) January 5, 2021Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, however, accused the Trump administration of dragging its feet. “It’s unfortunate that it has taken over three weeks after the revelation of an intrusion this significant for this administration to finally issue a tentative attribution,” Warner said in a statement late Tuesday. “We need to make clear to Russia that any misuse of compromised networks to produce destructive or harmful effects is unacceptable and will prompt an appropriately strong response.” 
 
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Ant Group’s Alipay, the White House said, escalating tensions with Beijing before President-elect Joe Biden takes office this month. The order, first reported by Reuters, tasks the Commerce Department with defining which transactions will be banned under the directive and targets Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s QQ Wallet and WeChat Pay as well. The move is aimed at curbing the threat to Americans posed by Chinese software applications, which have large user bases and access to sensitive data, a senior official told Reuters. A U.S. Tencent spokeswoman did not immediately comment. FILE – WeChat has an average of 19 million daily active users in the United States.The order signed by Trump also names CamScanner, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate and WPS Office and says “the United States must take aggressive action against those who develop or control Chinese connected software applications to protect our national security.” A U.S. official told Reuters that even though the order gave the Commerce Department 45 days to act, the department plans to act before January 20 when Trump leaves office to identify prohibited transactions. Trump’s order says “by accessing personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, Chinese connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information.” It added the data collection “would permit China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, and build dossiers of personal information.” The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. FILE – A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration.Another official said the order mirrors earlier Trump executive orders signed in August directing Commerce to block some transactions with WeChat and Chinese-owned Tiktok seeking to bar some transactions that have been blocked by U.S. courts. Any new transactions prohibited by the Trump administration are likely to face similar court challenges as the Commerce Department did when it sought to block transactions with WeChat and TikTok. The Commerce orders would have effectively banned the Chinese app’s use in the United States and barred Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s app stores from offering them for download for new users. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said in a statement he supports Trump’s “commitment to protecting the privacy and security of Americans from threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party.” The latest action has been under debate within the administration for an extended period. Many administration officials are eager to cement the hardline U.S. position with China on a number of fronts before Trump leaves office. Last month, the Commerce Department added dozens of Chinese companies, including the country’s top chipmaker SMIC and Chinese drone manufacturer SZ DJI Technology Co Ltd., to a trade blacklist. Also last month the administration published a list of Chinese and Russian companies with alleged military ties that restrict them from buying a range of U.S. goods and technology. In November, the administration put on hold an effort to blacklist Ant Group, the Chinese financial technology company affiliated with e-commerce giant Alibaba. 
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Online communication and collaboration service Slack reported a global outage Monday, as millions returned to work after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.”Our team is currently investigating, and we’re sorry for any troubles this may be causing,” Slack said in a statement.Slack has seen its popularity grow as many people work and study from home during the coronavirus pandemic. When it last reported, the company said it had 12 million daily users. Slack shares have surged by 80% over the past year.According to The Associated Press, the outage began around 10 a.m. Eastern time, with outages reported in the United States, Germany, India, Britain, Japan and other countries.The disruption in service was the latest in a string of tech outages, which have seen Google services, Zoom and some Microsoft products suffer breakdowns in recent months.According to Bloomberg, Salesforce.com agreed to buy Slack Technologies, Inc. last year for $27.7 billion.  
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