If there can be driverless cars on the road, why not driverless boats on the water? Faith Lapidus has details of a team building a robotic boat, and what they want it to do.
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Category Archives: News
Worldwide news. News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. News is sometimes called “hard news” to differentiate it from soft media
Pompeo: US Won’t Send Any Americans to Russia for Questioning
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the United States will not send Americans to Russia for questioning. Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to let U.S. investigators question officials in Moscow about Russia’s interference in U.S. 2016 elections if Russian investigators are allowed to question American officials. U.S. President Donald Trump called Putin’s proposal an “incredible offer.” But in an interview with VOA on Thursday, Pompeo rejected the idea. Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Trump Invites Putin to a Summit in US
U.S. President Donald Trump is inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to a second summit meeting. The announcement came as the storm of criticism and confusion that followed the first summit is still making headlines and getting the attention of the U.S. Congress. Here to explain is VOA’s Carolyn Presutti at the White House.
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China Boosts Liquidity as Trade War Threatens Economy
Chinese policymakers are pumping more liquidity into the financial system and channeling credit to small- and medium-sized firms, and Beijing looks set to further loosen monetary conditions to mitigate threats to growth from a heated Sino-U.S. trade war.
The world’s second-biggest economy has started to lose momentum this year as a government campaign to reduce a dangerous build-up of debt has lifted borrowing costs, hitting factory output, business investment and the property sector.
As an intensifying trade conflict raises risks to exporters and overall growth, many economists expect the central bank to further reduce reserve requirements in the coming months, on top of the three reductions made so far this year.
Benchmark rate unchanged
However, few see a cut in the benchmark policy rate this year, as authorities walk a fine line between keeping liquidity conditions supportive and preventing any destabilizing capital outflows that could put the skids on a fragile yuan currency.
On Wednesday, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) plans to introduce incentives that will boost the liquidity of commercial banks.
These are aimed at encouraging banks to expand lending and increase their investment in bonds issued by corporations and other entities, such as local government financing vehicles (LGFVs).
The PBOC has also been ensuring ample liquidity by allowing commercial banks to tap its Medium-Term Loan Facility (MLF), especially lenders that have invested in bonds rated AA+ and below, the source said.
The improved cash conditions have been reflected in reduced short-term borrowing costs for banks, with the country’s key seven-day money rate at 2.6409 percent Thursday, 37 basis points lower than recent highs at the end of June.
Economy expansion slows
The combination of lower interbank rates and the push to boost bank support should help to ease financing pressures for weaker firms, analysts said.
“This should spell good news for lower-grade bond markets which have been suffering from a flight to quality-grade bonds, and some firms have subsequently found access to liquidity difficult,” analysts at Everbright Sun Hung Kai said in a note.
China’s economy expanded a slower-than-expected 6.7 percent in the second quarter, and June factory output growth weakened to a two-year low as the trade dispute with the United States intensified.
To be sure, markets don’t expect aggressive policy loosening, given Beijing’s broad deleveraging pledge and fears that doing so could hit the yuan and trigger a spike in capital outflows.
Trade war worries have already weighed on the yuan, which hit a one-year low on Thursday.
Focus on small, medium businesses
A key focus is on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which account for 80 percent of all jobs in China, and have suffered from rising borrowing costs and a shrinking credit pool amid Beijing’s three-year-long crackdown on off-balance sheet financing and a corporate debt build-up.
A trader at a state-run copper smelter in southern China told Reuters his firm has resorted to selling inventory to raise cash in light of the tougher financing conditions.
“Banks give, but the cost has gone up,” said the trader, who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to comment on his firm’s finances.
While the PBOC did not respond to faxed questions about its plans, a Shanghai-based trader at an Asian bank said the bond market had seen a notable pick-up in the volume of trade of LGFV debt.
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Rosenstein Defends Charging Foreign Agents US Can’t Arrest
The top law enforcement official overseeing the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election is defending the prosecution of foreign agents who may never see the inside of a U.S. courtroom.
Speaking Thursday at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein also said the Justice Department will notify the U.S. public when it identifies efforts by foreign government to target U.S. politics. Rosenstein unveiled a report identifying the major cyber threats that the U.S. faces.
“Exposing schemes to the public is an important way to neutralize them,” he said. “The American people have a right to know if foreign governments are targeting them with propaganda.”
He offered a rebuttal to criticism that charging foreign agents involved in cyber-attacks or covert campaigns to sow dissent is futile if they are unlikely to be extradited.
“That is a shortsighted view,” he said.
Indictments as deterrent
The debate has been sparked by the probe of special counsel Robert Mueller, who has indicted more than two dozen Russian nationals on charges related to Russia’s meddling in the election.
Rosenstein said such indictments can act as a deterrent.
“People who thought they were safely under the protection of foreign governments when they committed crimes against America sometimes later find themselves in federal prisons,” he said.
He added that at a minimum, the indictments impede the suspects from traveling to other countries that might extradite them. He said revealing the charges also serves to air the allegations to the U.S. public, bolstering confidence in the justice system.
More active approach
Rosenstein signaled a more active approach by the Justice Department to counter foreign influence and cyber operations. The report outlines how the department will work to expose the foreign efforts without damaging counter-intelligence efforts or wading into U.S. politics.
“The challenge calls for the application of neutral principles,” he said.
More broadly, the report identifies six categories of cyber threats and current efforts to counter them.
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Cyberattacks on 2018 US Political Campaigns Already Underway
Hackers targeted the campaigns of at least three candidates running for Congress in the upcoming 2018 U.S. elections, but the attacks were detected and thwarted, a Microsoft executive said Thursday.
The attempted attacks tried to use a fake Microsoft domain as a landing page for phishing attacks, said Tom Burt, Microsoft vice president for customer security and trust. He refused to name which candidates were targeted, citing privacy concerns.
“They were all people who, because of their positions, might have been interesting targets from an espionage standpoint, as well as an election disruption standpoint,” Burt told an audience at the annual Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado.
He also did not identify the source of the phishing attacks, though the tactic was similar to those used by Russian operatives to target the Republican and Democratic parties during their presidential nominating conventions in 2016.
Burt said Microsoft coordinated with the U.S. government and was able to take down the fake domains. He also said none of the campaign staffers targeted by the phishing attacks were infected.
More attacks are coming
Thursday’s revelation came in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s news conference Monday in Helsinki, Finland, after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump sided with Putin, supporting the Russian leader’s assertions that his country did not meddle with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Trump’s comments, which directly contradicted the findings of the U.S. intelligence community, have drawn harsh criticism from politicians, and former diplomatic and intelligence officials.
Current intelligence and security officials have warned repeatedly that not only was Russia responsible for meddling in the 2016 election, but that more attacks — both in the form of hacks and in the form of more subtle information operations — are coming.
Russia taking lead
“What we assessed and reassessed and have carefully gone over still stands,” U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said of Russia’s efforts.
“It’s undeniable that the Russians are taking the lead on this,” Coats added, speaking during an appearance at the same security forum. “They are the ones who are trying to undermine our basic values, divide us with our allies.”
But U.S. and private sector officials say that, at least to this point, Russian efforts to influence the 2018 elections appear to be somewhat subdued.
“We’re not seeing the targeting of the actual state and local election systems that we saw in 2016 right now,” said Jeanette Manfra, the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary for cybersecurity.
New tools working
For now, some leading private sector technology and social media companies agree.
Facebook, which Russia used to run ads and false news stories as part of its 2016 influence campaign, thinks some of that could be related to more awareness and crackdowns on the fake accounts Russian-linked operatives had been using.
“The new tools that would identify and remove fake accounts like the IRA [Russia’s Internet Research Agency] was running, combined with the new requirements for transparency in advertising, are such that I think we’re not seeing that same conduct,” Monika Bickert, head of Facebook’s product policy and counterterrorism, said.
“But we are watching for that activity,” Bickert said.
Microsoft’s Burt is also cautious, despite his experts “not seeing the same level of activity by the Russian activity groups” as they did two years ago.
“It doesn’t mean we’re not going to see it,” he said. “There’s a lot of time left.”
“I think we should all be prepared, given that capability and will, that they’ll do it again,” U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen warned Thursday. “We would be foolish to think they’re not.”
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Trump Administration Wants to Scrap Some Species Protection
The Trump administration wants to scrap automatic federal protection for threatened plants and animals, a move that would anger environmentalists but please industry.
A proposal unveiled Thursday would no longer grant threatened species the same instant protection given to endangered species. It would also limit what can be declared a critical habitat for such plants and animals.
Officials with the Interior Department and Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday that they wanted to streamline regulations. They said current rules under the Endangered Species Act were inconsistent and confusing.
Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said the new rules would still be very protective of endangered animals.
“At the same time, we hope that they ameliorate some of the unnecessary burden, conflict and uncertainty that is within our current regulatory structure,” he told reporters.
But conservationists called the changes a “wrecking ball” and a gift to big businesses.
“They could decide that building in a species habitat or logging in trees where birds nest doesn’t constitute harm,” the Center for Biological Diversity’s Noah Greenwald said.
Industries such as logging, mining and oil drilling have long complained that the Endangered Special Act has stopped them from gaining access to new sources of energy and has stifled economic development.
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US Seen Receiving Frosty Reception at G-20 Meeting
The financial leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies meet in Buenos Aires this weekend for the first time since long-simmering trade tensions burst into the open when China and the United States put tariffs on $34 billion of each other’s goods.
The United States will seek to persuade Japan and the European Union to join it in taking a more aggressive stance against Chinese trade practices at the G-20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank presidents, according to a senior U.S. Treasury Department official who spoke on condition on anonymity.
But those efforts will be complicated by frustration over U.S. steel and aluminum import tariffs on the EU and Canada. Both responded with retaliatory tariffs in an escalating trade conflict that has shaken markets and threatens global growth.
“U.S. trading partners are unlikely to be in a conciliatory mood,” said Eswar Prasad, international trade professor at Cornell University and former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China Division. “[U.S.] hostile actions against long-standing trading partners and allies have weakened its economic and geopolitical influence.”
At the close of the last G-20 meeting in Argentina in March, the financial leaders representing 75 percent of world trade and 85 percent of gross domestic product released a joint statement that rejected protectionism and urged “further dialogue,” to little concrete effect.
Since then, the United States and China have slapped tariffs on $34 billion of each other’s imports and U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened further tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods unless Beijing agrees to change its intellectual property practices and high-technology industrial subsidy plans.
Trump has said the U.S. tariffs aim to close the $335 billion annual U.S. trade deficit with China.
U.S. Treasury Minister Steven Mnuchin has no plans for a bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Buenos Aires, a U.S official said this week.
Growth concerns
Rising trade tensions have led to concerns within the Japanese government over currency volatility, said a senior Japanese G-20 official who declined to be named. Such volatility could prompt an appreciation in the safe-haven yen and threaten Japanese exports.
Trump’s metals tariffs prompted trade partners to retaliate with their own tariffs on U.S. goods ranging from whiskey to motorcycles. The United States has said it will challenge those tariffs at the World Trade Organization.
The EU finance ministers signed a joint text last week that will form their mandate for this weekend’s meeting, criticizing “unilateral” U.S. trade actions, Reuters reported. The ministers will stress that trade restrictions “hurt everyone,” a German official said.
In a briefing note prepared for the G-20 participants, the International Monetary Fund said if all of Trump’s threatened tariffs — and equal retaliation — went into effect, the global economy could lose up to 0.5 percent of GDP, or $430 billion, by 2020.
Global growth also may have peaked at 3.9 percent for 2018 and 2019, and downside risks have risen due to the tariff spat, the IMF said.
“While all countries will ultimately be worse off in a trade conflict, the U.S. economy is especially vulnerable,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde wrote in a blog post. “Policymakers can use this G-20 meeting to move past
self-defeating tit-for-tat tariffs.”
Trade is not on host country Argentina’s published agenda for the July 21-22 ministerial, which focuses on the “future of work” and infrastructure finance. But it will likely be discussed during a slot devoted to risks facing the global
economy, much as in March, according to an Argentine official involved in G-20 preparations, who asked not be named.
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Trump Slams Record EU Fine Against Google
President Donald Trump lashed out Thursday after Brussels hit US tech giant Google with a record fine, and warned he would no longer allow Europe to take “advantage” of the United States.
“I told you so! The European Union just slapped a Five Billion Dollar fine on one of our great companies, Google,” Trump tweeted in reaction to the 4.34 billion euro penalty imposed on Google for abusing the dominance of its mobile operating system.
“They truly have taken advantage of the US, but not for long!” he said.
In announcing the fine on Wednesday, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager accused Google of using the Android system’s near-stranglehold on smartphones and tablets to promote the use of its own Google search engine while shutting out rivals.
The decision, which followed a three-year EU investigation, comes as fears of a transatlantic trade war mount because of President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports.
The new sanction nearly doubles the previous record EU antitrust fine of 2.4 billion euros, which also targeted Google, in that case for the Silicon Valley titan’s shopping comparison service in 2017.
Denmark’s Vestager ordered Google to “put an effective end to this conduct within 90 days or face penalty payments” of up to five percent of its average daily turnover.
The Google decision came one week before European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker was due to travel to the United States for crucial talks with the American president on the tariffs dispute and other issues.
Google chief Sundar Pichai immediately said the firm would appeal.
“Today’s decision rejects the business model that supports Android, which has created more choice for everyone, not less. We intend to appeal,” he said in a blog post.
Google provides Android free to smartphone manufacturers and generates most of its revenue from selling advertisements that appear along with search results.
The EU says Android is used on around 80 percent of mobile devices, both in Europe and worldwide.
The Android case originated when a lobbying group called FairSearch — with members then including huge tech companies like Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle — complained that Google was unfairly tilting the field of competition.
Google’s parent company Alphabet ranked as the fifth largest information technology company in the world in 2017, with global revenue of $111 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
That figure represented a doubling in global revenue in only four years.
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US Intelligence Chief is Tough on Russia, at Odds with Trump
National Intelligence Director Dan Coats’ drumbeat of criticism against Russia is clashing loudly with President Donald Trump’s pro-Kremlin remarks, leaving the soft-spoken spy chief in an uncomfortable – and perhaps perilous – seat in the administration.
Trump’s remarks after Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, where he appeared to deny the longtime U.S. foe was still targeting American elections, are just the latest in a growing list of statements that conflict with Coats’. His job is to share the work of the 17 intelligence agencies he oversees with the president.
Coats, who will be speaking Thursday at a national security conference in Aspen, Colorado, is a former Republican lawmaker. He was banned from traveling to Russia in 2014 for calling out its annexation of Crimea, and he has continued to raise the alarm on Russia since his appointment by Trump as intelligence chief in March 2017.
That’s left Coats in a tight spot. Trump has been determined to forge closer ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, culminating in this week’s extraordinary summit in Helsinki. The disconnect with Coats was laid bare after Trump sparked outrage back home by giving credence to Russia’s denial of interference in the 2016 U.S. election as he stood alongside Putin.
Back in Washington, Coats was quick to issue a statement Monday to rebut that position. He restated the U.S. intelligence assessment about Russian meddling and “their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy.”
Former intelligence officials say Coats is just speaking truth to power, a mantra often used in describing the intelligence agencies’ historical relationship with any president. But in the Trump administration, Coats could be walking into a minefield, given the president’s track record of firing officials who don’t toe his line.
Michael Morell, former deputy and acting director of the CIA, said Coats and other national security officials in the Trump administration are just doing their jobs, and the president undermines them and the institutions they lead when he makes “inaccurate statements.”
“By doing this, the president is undermining our national security,” Morell said.
Trump did walk back his post-Putin summit comments on Tuesday, saying he’d misspoken when he said he saw no reason why it was Russia that had interfered in the 2016 election. He also said he accepted the intelligence agencies’ conclusion of Russian meddling. But he added, “It could be other people also. A lot of people out there.”
The president’s mixed messaging grew even more confusing Wednesday. He was asked if Russia was still targeting the U.S. and answered “no” – a statement that Morell contended was “flat-out wrong” because the Russians never stopped trying to interfere in the U.S. democracy.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said later that Trump does believe that Russia may try to target U.S. elections again and the “threat still exists.”
When asked Wednesday in a CBS News interview whether Trump agrees with Coats that the Russian threat is ongoing, the president said he did.
“Well, I accept. I mean, he’s an expert. This is what he does. He’s been doing a very good job. I have tremendous faith in Dan Coats, and if he says that, I would accept that. I will tell you though, it better not be. It better not be,” Trump said.
Trump has had a tense relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies since before he was elected, largely because of their conclusion that Putin ordered “an influence campaign” in 2016 aimed at helping the Trump campaign and harming his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Earlier in the administration, Coats’ voice was drowned out by the more outspoken Mike Pompeo, who was CIA director before Trump tapped him as secretary of state. Now with Pompeo heading the State Department, Coats has been thrust into the limelight as the voice of the intelligence community. In Aspen on Thursday, he’s expected to outline the cyberthreats the U.S. faces from Russia as well as other countries, such as China, North Korea and Iran.
Coats, 75, has been immersed in Washington politics for years. He served in the House in the 1980s and the Senate in the 1990s and 2010s and was the U.S. ambassador to Germany from 2001 to 2005. In 2014, Coats, who was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, denounced Russia’s interference in eastern Ukraine and was banned from Russia.
Coats blew it off: “Our summer vacation in Siberia is a no-go,” he joked.
Still, Coats is not known as being flippant. He’s prided himself as being a steady voice, but it’s clear he is no fan of Russia.
In comments at a Washington think tank last week, he said, “The Russian bear … is out of the cave, hungry and clawing for more territory, more influence and using the same tactics we saw in the Cold War and more.”
He said the “more” is cyberthreats that are targeting U.S. government and businesses in the energy, nuclear, water, aviation and critical-manufacturing sectors. He said that while there had not been the scale of electoral interference detected in 2016, “we fully realize that we are just one click on a keyboard away from a similar situation repeating itself.”
Those tough remarks came just days before the Trump-Putin summit – and that was not the first time Coats has made statements starkly at odds with his boss.
On June 8, when Trump suggested at a summit in Canada that Russia should be asked to rejoin the G-7 organization of industrialized nations, Coats was making a speech in Normandy, France. There, Coats offered a laundry list of what he said were recent malign activities by Moscow. Those included political hacking in France, Germany and Norway, a damaging cyberassault on Ukraine, and Russian agents’ alleged attempt to kill two people in Britain with a nerve agent.
“These Russian actions are purposeful and premeditated and they represent an all-out assault, by (Russian President) Vladimir Putin, on the rule of law, Western ideals and democratic norms,” he said.
Presidential Power Key Issue in Court Confirmation Fight
President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, federal judge Brett Kavanaugh, can expect tough questions on a range of issues when he faces a Senate confirmation hearing sometime in the next few months.
Democrats are likely to pepper Kavanaugh with questions about his stance on abortion, gay rights and affirmative action. But another key area of interest is Kavanaugh’s expansive view of presidential power, something Democrats want to press him on with Trump in the White House.
When he was nominated at the White House earlier this month, Kavanaugh pledged to bring an independent mindset to the high court.
WATCH: Scope of Presidential Power Key Issue in Court Confirmation Fight
“I believe that an independent judiciary is the crown jewel of our constitutional republic,” he said. “If confirmed by the Senate, I will keep an open mind in every case, and I will always strive to preserve the Constitution of the United States and the American rule of law.”
Democrats have vowed to fight Kavanaugh’s nomination from the start, fearing his appointment could ensure a strongly conservative court for a generation. Several have also expressed concern about his views on executive power.
Kavanaugh’s experience
Before his confirmation as a federal judge in 2006, Kavanaugh got an up-close view of presidential power working in the White House of President George W. Bush. Before that, Kavanaugh worked with independent counsel Ken Starr in his investigation of President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s.
Reflecting on those experiences, Kavanaugh wrote an article in 2009 for the Minnesota Law Review that laid out his view on presidential power and the Constitution. Kavanaugh wrote that presidents “should be excused from the burdens of ordinary citizenship while serving in office.”
In Kavanaugh’s view, that includes excusing a president from having to deal with civil suits or criminal investigations while in office.
“A president who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as president,” he wrote.
Skeptical Democrats
Democrats are expected to closely question him on the issue, especially in light of the ongoing Russia probe involving Trump and whether special counsel Robert Mueller might eventually try to compel the president to submit to an interview.
“Not only did Mr. Kavanaugh say that a president should not be subpoenaed, he said a president should not be investigated,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said. “Mr. Kavanaugh, is the president above the law?”
Kavanaugh’s view of presidential power is not unusual among conservative legal scholars, Jonathan Turley of George Washington University said.
“Kavanaugh’s natural default position is Article II (of the Constitution) on presidential power. He tends to defer greatly to presidents,” Turley told The Associated Press. “That can only help President Trump if an issue goes before the court. But that is his philosophy. It does not mean he’s biased.”
Compelling a president
Some experts predict that if Kavanaugh is confirmed to the high court, he could find himself in the middle of a debate over whether a sitting president could be subpoenaed by an investigating special counsel like Mueller.
“So if, for example, the president chooses not to sit for a voluntary interview, and special counsel Mueller tries to subpoena the president,” ABC News legal analyst Kate Shaw said. “There is an open legal question about whether you can subpoena a sitting president, and that could end up very quickly going before the Supreme Court if there is a legal fight over it.”
Kavanaugh’s view worries liberal activists who will be pushing Democrats to press him during the confirmation process.
“Brett Kavanaugh has a very frighteningly wide view of presidential power, and I think that is something very much in play, given the investigations that are going on right now,” said Drew Courtney with People for the American Way, a liberal group that has lined up against Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Republican defenders
Kavanaugh’s Republican allies said they are prepared for a range of attacks on his record, including his stand on presidential power.
“That kind of cheap political fearmongering insults the intelligence of the American people, because Americans understand the difference between a political office and a judicial office,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said during a recent speech on the Senate floor.
A new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows Americans are divided along party lines when it comes to Kavanaugh’s confirmation. The poll found 71 percent of Republicans want Kavanaugh confirmed, while only 17 percent of Democrats support him.
A Quinnipiac poll from earlier this month found that American voters also want the Supreme Court to act as a check on Trump, by a margin of 65 percent to 24 percent. For Republicans, the poll found 48 percent supported that, while 37 percent did not.
Kavanaugh’s confirmation requires a majority vote in the Senate, where Republicans hold a narrow 51- to 49-seat margin over Democrats.
Doctors Can Prevent More Amputations With Limb Saving Surgery
For more than 30 years, doctors have worked to save people’s arms and legs. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports, saving a limb after an accident or infection can take an entire team of specialists at a limb preservation center.
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Facebook to Remove ‘Fake News’ That Leads to Violence
Facebook says it will begin removing false information from its site that could lead to violence.
“There are certain forms of misinformation that have contributed to physical harm” in certain countries, the U.S. social media giant said in a statement Wednesday announcing the policy.
The company says it will work with local organizations to identify such information, including written posts and doctored photos.
Facebook has been accused for allowing users to spread hate speech and false information that has led to recent violence in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and India. Sri Lanka imposed a state of emergency in March after false news posted on Facebook led to deadly attacks on the country’s minority Muslim population by Buddhist mobs.
The California-based company was thrust into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign through the spread of misinformation among voters. It was revealed last September that Russians, using fake names, used social media to try to influence voters ahead of the election.
Facebook founder and chief operating officer Mark Zuckerberg sparked criticism Wednesday when he tried to explain the difference between misinformation and offensive speech.
In an interview published by the technology news site Recode, Zuckerberg said he would not ban people who deny the Holocaust, the mass genocide of 6 million European Jews carried out by Nazi Germany.
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Report: Asia-Pacific Factories Lead in Using Digital Technology
She may not be the warmest waitress, but she serves a nice, hot cup of “Joe” at a café on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City.
Though this robotic barista is still getting help from her human counterpart, she is a signal that Asia is ahead of the curve in embracing new technologies ahead of the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
A recent report from PwC Global, a professional services firm, studied 1,155 manufacturing businesses based on how much they were embracing and incorporating innovations in technology, from drones to 3-D printing.
Across the board, companies in the Asia-Pacific region scored higher than their counterparts elsewhere in the world.
In Thailand, for instance, manufacturing companies have widely adopted new technologies to transform their operations.
“Many are using robots to assemble products at their factories to rely less on human labor, reduce costs, and boost overall efficiency,” said Vilaiporn Taweelappontong, consulting lead partner at PwC Thailand.
ASEAN catches up
The report graded firms based on questions about the kinds of tools they were introducing into their workplaces. For example, manufacturers were asked if they made use of virtual reality; 44 percent in the Asia Pacific said they did compared with 34 percent in the United States and 19 percent in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
The regional group Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) reports that small and medium enterprises are using new technology to catch up to bigger rivals.
“Digitization is enabling SMEs across ASEAN to participate in cross-border trade, allowing them to grow and scale their businesses while reducing costs,” said Bidhan Roy, a general manager at Cisco Systems Pte Ltd.
Benefits of youth
Observers say the Asia-Pacific region benefits from its youth.
The relatively young population means people are amenable to different work environments and business operations, as well as having a keen interest in using new technology.
Another advantage? The region’s economies are also somewhat young, with many just opening up to global trade in the last two decades. In addition its underdeveloped infrastructure has the ability to adapt for future needs, like public transit or drone deliveries.
“Asian companies have the advantage of setting up robust digital operations from essentially a blank slate in terms of factory automation, workforce, and even organizational IT [information technology] networks as a whole,” the PwC report said.
Baby steps
But more is needed to make these companies successful.
Cisco Systems’ Roy noted that small and medium firms “are at varying stages of maturity in terms of digital adoption” and could use collaboration with governments and corporations.
PwC Thailand’s Vilaiporn agreed on the benefit of collaboration.
“Thailand 4.0 will only be successful if both the government and private sectors understand their roles in fostering investment and focusing on research and development, as well as equipping the workforce with necessary skill sets and capabilities,” he said.
The “4.0” refers to the latest industrial revolution, which goes beyond mechanization and automation. It entails business processes becoming more efficient through a comprehensive application of technology, from smart devices to machine learning.
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NY Times: Trump Learned Extent of Russian Meddling Before Inaugural
A report in Wednesday’s edition of The New York Times reveals the extent of the intelligence U.S. President Donald Trump received about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direct role in that country’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The report sheds light on President Trump’s consistent efforts to shift the focus away from any role Moscow played in his victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, including his back-and-forth statements that at first contradicted, then accepted, the intelligence community’s findings since his meeting with Putin in Helsinki Monday.
The Times says Trump first learned of Russia’s interference January 6, 2017, two weeks before his inauguration, during a meeting in New York at Trump Tower with then-CIA Director John Brennan; James Clapper, then-director of national intelligence; then-FBI Director James Comey; and Admiral Mike Rogers, then-director of the National Security Agency.
The high-ranking officials showed president-elect Trump highly classified information that Putin had personally ordered the hacking and disinformation campaign, including texts and emails from Russian military officers, and information from a top-secret source close to Putin himself, according to The Times.
The evidence included stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee that was key in swaying voters away from Clinton.
But after the briefing, Trump issued a statement spreading the blame among “Russia, China and other countries, outside groups and countries.”
The president has routinely dismissed the investigation into the Russian cyberattacks as both a hoax perpetrated by Democrats and a “witch hunt” aimed at undermining his presidency.
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White House: Russia Continues to Target US With Cyberattacks
The White House said Wednesday it believes Russia is continuing to target the United States with cyberattacks related to the upcoming November congressional elections.
“We believe that the threat still exists,” President Donald Trump’s spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.
Her statement came hours after the U.S. leader appeared to contradict an assessment last week by Dan Coats, his director of national intelligence, that “the digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack.” Coats singled out Russia as the “most aggressive foreign actor, no question.”
Trump, meeting with his Cabinet at the White House, shook his head and said “no” when asked by a reporter whether Russia was still attempting to interfere in U.S. elections. But Sanders later said Trump was saying “no,” he would not answer reporters’ questions.
Trump said, “We’re doing very well, probably as well as anybody has ever done with Russia. And there’s been no president ever as tough as I have been on Russia.”
Earlier, in a string of predawn Twitter comments, Trump boasted again about his Monday summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying critics of his performance in Helsinki were suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“Some people HATE the fact that I got along well with President Putin of Russia,” Trump tweeted. “They would rather go to war than see this.”
“So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki,” Trump said. “Putin and I discussed many important subjects at our earlier meeting. We got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match. Big results will come!”
The president’s Twitter comments came hours after he said he accepted the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election, walking back his Monday comments embracing Putin’s denial that Moscow had interfered.
“I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place,” Trump told reporters at the White House Tuesday.
But he then added: “Could be other people also. A lot of people out there,” an assessment of the possibility that other countries tried to interfere in the U.S. election that was not part of the intelligence community’s finding.
The U.S. holds congressional elections in November, when the entire 435-member House of Representatives is being contested and a third of the 100-member Senate.
On Twitter Wednesday, Trump wrote that his meeting with Putin could be more successful than the NATO summit in the long-term.
Trump’s revision of the comments he made as he stood alongside Putin at a news conference at the end of their summit came after a torrent of criticism from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike, who said the U.S. leader appeared to be weak compared to his Russian counterpart.
Only a handful of Republican colleagues of Trump praised his performance.
Trump said that after he reviewed a transcript of his Helsinki remarks, he realized he misspoke.
“In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t.’ The sentence should have been … ‘I don’t see any reason why it WOULDN’T be Russia” — that Russia interfered in the election, Trump said.
But he added that the Russian actions had no impact on the outcome of his victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state, and reiterated his frequent statement denying that there was any collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives.
U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller is continuing his 14-month criminal investigation of Russian interference.
Trump said his administration will do everything it can to thwart any Russian efforts to interfere with November’s U.S. congressional elections.
“We will stop it, we will repel it,” Trump vowed.
Before back-tracking, Trump said on Twitter he had a great summit with Putin and gave no ground in changing his statements about accepting Putin’s denial of interference in the U.S. election two years ago.
On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, responded to Trump’s initial rosy assessment.
“Let’s be very clear: Russia meddled in our election,” Ryan said. “We know they interfered with our elections, and we have passed sanctions on Russia to hold them accountable.”
When asked about election meddling during the joint news conference with Putin on Monday, Trump said, “President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”
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Elon Musk Apologizes for Comments About Cave Rescue Diver
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has apologized for calling a British diver involved in the Thailand cave rescue a pedophile, saying he spoke in anger but was wrong to do so.
There was no immediate public reaction from diver Vern Unsworth to Musk’s latest tweets.
Musk’s initial tweet calling Unsworth a “pedo” was a response to a TV interview Unsworth gave. In it, he said Musk and SpaceX engineers orchestrated a “PR stunt” by sending a small submarine to help divers rescue the 12 Thai soccer players and their coach from a flooded cave. Unsworth said the submarine, which wasn’t used, wouldn’t have worked anyway.
“My words were spoken in anger after Mr. Unsworth said several untruths …” Musk tweeted.
“Nonetheless, his actions against me do not justify my actions against him, and for that I apologize to Mr. Unsworth and to the companies I represent as leader. The fault is mine and mine alone.”
Musk’s Sunday tweet, later deleted, had sent investors away from Tesla stock, which fell nearly 3 percent Monday but recovered 4.1 percent Tuesday. Unsworth told CNN earlier this week that he was considering legal action. He did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
In his latest tweets, Musk said the mini-sub was “built as an act of kindness & according to specifications from the dive team leader.”
Musk has 22.3 million followers and his active social media presence has sometimes worked well for Tesla. The company has said in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it doesn’t need to advertise because it gets so much free media attention.
But straying away from defending his companies into personal insult brought Musk some unfavorable attention at a time when Tesla, worth more than $52 billion, is deep in debt and struggling for profitability.
In northern Thailand on Wednesday, the 12 Thai soccer players and their coach answered questions from journalists, their first meeting with the media since their rescues last week. Doctors said all are healthy.
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Trump Upends Norms of Presidential Behavior, Historians Say
President Donald Trump’s tumultuous trip across Europe, historians say, smashed the conventions of American leaders on the world stage.
Trump’s “America First” approach to foreign policy had him seeming to accept the word of a hostile power over his own intelligence agencies, insulting allies and sowing doubts about his commitment to the NATO alliance.
“We’ve never had a president go abroad and not only lecture to our NATO allies, but also to embarrass them,” said Russia expert William Pomeranz, deputy director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center. “We’ve never had our president go on a foreign tour and categorize our allies as foes. And we’ve never had our president hold a joint news conference with a Russian leader where he assigned blame, from his perspective, to both parties, but in fact dedicated most of his time to blaming the U.S. Justice Department and intelligence services.”
While past presidents have had difficult foreign trips and been criticized for their summits with Soviet leaders, Trump’s behavior has few parallels, in the view of presidential historians and longtime Russia watchers.
Franklin Roosevelt was accused of “selling out” to Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference in 1945; John F. Kennedy and his aides admitted that he’d been unprepared for his 1961 Vienna summit with Nikita Khrushchev; the Reykjavik summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986 was seen at the time to have ended in failure; and George W. Bush was mocked for telling reporters in 2001 after meeting with Putin that he had “looked the man in the eye” and “found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy.”
Trump’s trip was seen as different.
“Frankly, I don’t think those U.S. presidents at any point came off as not pursuing U.S. security interests, as being taken in by the Soviet leader they were meeting with,” said Alina Polyakova, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution. “I think even President George W. Bush’s meeting, where he had that famous quote about looking into Putin’s eyes and seeing into his soul — this summit dwarfs that by a factor of a thousand.”
Indeed, even before he departed Washington, Trump had made clear that he was itching for a fight. He criticized members of NATO, the decades-old military alliance, for failing to spend enough on defense and suggested he might not be interested in “paying for Europe’s protection” any longer.
Germany
In his first appearance at a pre-summit breakfast in Brussels, he went after German Chancellor Angela Merkel, claiming Germany was “totally controlled” by Russia and later asked on Twitter, “What good is NATO.” The summit ended in a whiplash-inducing proclamation from the president that NATO was stronger than ever, as he claimed he’d secured new commitments to defense spending, which those present later disputed.
United Kingdom
The drama continued as Trump headed to his next stop, the U.K. His first official visit was overshadowed by fallout from the rhetorical grenade he’d lobbed at British Prime Minister Theresa May before arriving. In a tabloid interview, he criticized May’s Brexit plans, said he might no longer be open to a trade deal with the U.K., and said one of May’s political rivals would be an excellent prime minister, undermining her at a time when her government is in turmoil.
Then came yet another interview, this one from one of his golf courses in Scotland, in which Trump categorized the European Union as a top geopolitical “foe.”
Putin summit
Nothing, however, had quite prepared the world for Trump’s comments in Helsinki after hours of meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose government, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded, meddled in the 2016 election, hacked Democratic Party emails and disseminated them in an effort to help Trump win.
Standing on stage with the man accused of complicity in an attack on American democracy, Trump said his intelligence people “think it’s Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.” He also went after his Justice Department, calling its investigation into Russia’s efforts and potential collusion with Trump’s campaign a “disaster for our country.”
It was a stunning comment from an American president — one that he partially tried to walk back 24 hours later by blaming a grammatical glitch. But he did not retreat from a number of his other comments giving credence to Putin’s denials of election interference.
“Trump 0 – Putin 1,” blared the front page of Finland’s Kauppalehti newspaper.
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian and professor at Rice University, compared Trump to “a bull carrying his own china shop around with him.”
“Just standing and selling your country downriver on foreign soil in front of your adversary — there’s no precedent for such disgraceful and irrational behavior,” Brinkley said.
Pomeranz said Trump had done himself political damage by suggesting both sides were to blame for the Russia probe that has hurt U.S. relations with Moscow — just as Trump did when he blamed both sides when responding to violent white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Pomeranz said the damage Trump did by describing the E.U. as a foe and lecturing his NATO allies was significant.
“I think that is what’s going to be remembered from this week,” he said.
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Cute Robots Invade Smithsonian Museum
Known as the largest education, and research complex in the world, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC is a collection of 19 museums that house more than 140 million unique items. It’s no wonder it’s been called “the nation’s attic.” But there’s a novel addition to the venerable complex — a smart new technology that interacts with visitors. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti introduces us to the Smithsonian’s newest resident.
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Trump Slams Haters, Touts Putin Meeting
U.S. President Donald Trump boasted again Wednesday about his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying critics of his performance in Helsinki were suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“Some people HATE the fact that I got along well with President Putin of Russia,” Trump said on Twitter. “They would rather go to war than see this.”
“So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki,” Trump tweeted in the predawn hours. “Putin and I discussed many important subjects at our earlier meeting. We got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match. Big results will come!”
The president’s Twitter comments came hours after he said he accepted the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election, walking back his Monday comments embracing Putin’s denial that Moscow had interfered.
“I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place,” Trump told reporters at the White House Tuesday. But he then added: “Could be other people also. A lot of people out there,” an assessment of the possibility that other countries tried to interfere in the U.S. election that was not part of the intelligence community’s finding.
On Twitter Wednesday, Trump said, “While the NATO meeting in Brussels was an acknowledged triumph, with billions of dollars more being put up by member countries at a faster pace, the meeting with Russia may prove to be, in the long run, an even greater success. Many positive things will come out of that meeting.”
The U.S. leader, referring to his demands that North Korea end its nuclear weapons program, said, “Russia has agreed to help with North Korea, where relationships with us are very good and the process is moving along. There is no rush, the sanctions remain! Big benefits and exciting future for North Korea at end of process!”
Trump’s revision of his comments he made as he stood alongside Putin at a news conference at the end of their summit came after a torrent of criticism from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike, who said the U.S. leader appeared to be weak compared to the Russian leader. Only a handful of Republican colleagues of Trump praised his performance.
Trump said that after he reviewed a transcript of his Helsinki remarks, he realized he misspoke.
“In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t.’ The sentence should have been…’I don’t see any reason why it WOULDN’T be Russia” that Russia interfered in the election, Trump said.
But he added that the Russian actions had no impact on the outcome of his victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state, and reiterated his frequent statement denying that there was any collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives. U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller is continuing his 14-month criminal investigation of Russian interference.
Trump said his administration will do everything it can to thwart any Russian efforts to interfere with November’s U.S. congressional elections.
“We will stop it, we will repel it,” Trump vowed.
Before back-tracking, Trump said on Twitter he had a great summit with Putin and gave no ground in changing his statements about accepting Putin’s denial of interference in the U.S. election two years ago.
On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, responded to Trump’s initial rosy assessment.
“Let’s be very clear: Russia meddled in our election,” Ryan said. “We know they interfered with our elections, and we have passed sanctions on Russia to hold them accountable.”
When asked about election meddling during the joint news conference with Putin on Monday, Trump said, “President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”
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Cute Robots Invade the Smithsonian
Known as the largest education, and research complex in the world, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC is a collection of 19 museums that house more than 140 million unique items. It’s no wonder it’s been called “the nation’s attic.” But there’s a novel addition to the venerable complex — a smart new technology that interacts with visitors. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti introduces us to the Smithsonian’s newest resident.
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Fashion Firms Upend Design Routine to Focus on Speed, Trends
Prototypes? Passe. Fashion company Betabrand saw that knitwear was a hot style in sneakers and wanted to quickly jump on the trend for dressier shoes. It put a poll up on its website asking shoppers what style they liked, and based on that had a shoe for sale online in just one week.
What web shoppers saw was a 3-D rendering — no actual shoe existed yet. Creating a traditional prototype, tweaking the design and making a sample would have taken six to nine months, and the company might have missed out on the interest in knit.
“The web attention span is short,” said Betabrand CEO Chris Lindland. “So if you can develop and create in a short time, you can be a real product-development machine.”
Shoppers looking at the shoe online could examine the peekaboo detail or check out how the sole was put together, as they would from photos of a real product. They don’t get the actual shoes instantaneously — they have to wait a few months. But the use of digital technology in designing and selling means hot trends are still getting to people far faster than under the old system.
“Retailers and brands who are embracing this are going to be winners of the future,” said David Bassuk, managing director of consulting group AlixPartners. “This is flipping the business model on its head.”
It’s a big cultural change for clothing makers. For decades, the process meant designers sketched ideas on paper, a design got approved, and the sketches went to a factory that created prototypes. Designers and product developers made tweaks and sent prototypes back and forth. Once a final version was approved, it was sent to the factory to be copied for mass production. Getting something from design to a store could take at least a year.
Now, some companies have designers sketching on high-resolution tablets with software that can email 3-D renderings of garments with specifications straight to factories, as better technology makes the images look real and the pressure to get shoppers new products swiftly intensifies. The goal is to reduce to six months or less the time it takes to get to store shelves.
Even chains like H&M, which once set the standard for speed by flying in frequent small batches, are realizing that’s not fast enough. H&M, which has seen sales slow, is starting to digitize certain areas of its manufacturing process.
For clothing makers and retailers, the shift means design decisions can happen closer to when the fashions actually hit the shelves or website. That means less guessing so stores aren’t stuck with piles of unsold clothes that need to be discounted.
The 3-D technology is used in just 2 percent of the overall supply networks, estimates Spencer Fung, group CEO of Li & Fung, which consults with more than 8,000 retailers including Betabrand and 15,000 suppliers globally. But he believes that will change as retailers begin prioritizing speed and realize that cutting down on design time and prototypes saves money.
“You can actually essentially create an entire collection before you even cut one garment,” said Whitney Cathcart, CEO of the Cathcart Technologies consulting firm. “So it reduces waste, it reduces lead times, it allows decision making in real time, so the entire process becomes more efficient.”
Fung imagines a scenario where a social media post with a celebrity in a red dress gets 500,000 “likes.” An alert goes to a retailer that this item is trending. Within hours, a digital sample of a similar dress is on its website. A factory can start to produce the dress in days.
“Consumers see it and they want it now,” says Michael Londrigan of fashion college LIM in New York. “How do you bring it to market so you don’t miss those dollars?”
Nicki Rector of the Sonoma Valley area in California bought a pair of Betabrand’s Western-style boots last summer based on the 3-D rendering.
“It looked real,” said Rector, who examined the images of the heel and the insoles. She didn’t worry about buying off a digital image, reasoning that if you’re buying online you can’t really know how something’s going to fit until you put it on your feet. She said knowing it was designed from customer input also helped make the wait OK.
Betabrand has sold 40,000 pairs of shoes priced from $128 to $168 over the past year, all from digital renderings, and plans to add 15 to 20 such projects this year.
At a Levi Strauss & Co. research and development facility in San Francisco, designers use programs that offer the look of a finished garment and let them make changes like adding pockets quickly, rather than requiring a new prototype. When they’re set, they can send a file to the factory for mass production. Using digital samples can shorten the design time to one week or less from an eight-week timeframe, Levi’s says.
Few companies are yet selling directly to shoppers off digital renderings like Betabrand, and are instead showing them to store buyers or to factories rather than using traditional samples.
Xcel Brands uses them for its own brand of women’s tops and for the company’s Judith Ripka jewelry line. The company, which also makes clothes for Isaac Mizrahi and Halston, will start using them for other brands within the year. CEO Robert D’Loren hopes to start putting 3-D samples on its website next year.
Tommy Hilfiger has an interactive touchscreen table where buyers can view every item in the collection and create custom orders. And Deckers Brands, the maker of Ugg boots, is using digital renderings of the classic boot in 10 colors, eliminating the need for 10 prototypes for store buyers. That helps reduce cost and increases speed.
Using digital designs also mean the exact specifications for different Levi’s design finishes can be uploaded to a machine that uses lasers to scrape away at jeans. No need to teach employees how to execute a designer’s vision, in a minute and a half the lasers have given the jeans the exact weathered look that took workers wielding pumice stones twenty minutes to half an hour.
“Thirty years ago, jeans were only available in three shades — rinse, stonewash and bleach,” said Bart Sights, head of the Levi’s Eureka lab. “Our company now designs 1,000 finishes per season.” Such a long lead time “pushes production and creation too far away.” Levi’s latest technology alleviates this issue, he said.
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US Judge Denies Motion by Trump Ex-Campaign Chief to Move Virginia Trial
A federal judge in Virginia on Tuesday denied a motion by former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to move a trial set to start next week from the Washington suburb of Alexandria to the city of Roanoke, Virginia.
Manafort had requested a change of venue on the grounds that local publicity about the case would make it hard to get a fair trial. But U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis denied the request, saying a questionnaire would ensure that a panel of impartial jurors could be selected.
The trial is one of two at which Manafort must defend himself against a number of charges ranging from bank fraud to failing to register as a foreign agent for lobbying work for pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine.
Manafort’s prosecution arose out of U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. One trial is set for July 25 in Alexandria, Virginia, and the second case in Washington has a Sept. 17 trial date.
Judge Ellis, who is overseeing the Alexandria case, has yet to rule on Manafort’s motion to postpone proceedings until after the Washington trial is done.
Earlier on Tuesday, Mueller filed a series of sealed motions calling for immunity for five potential witnesses in the Alexandria trial.
Ellis last week denied Manafort’s bid to stay at a jail in rural Virginia where he said he was being treated like a “VIP,” and ordered him moved to a jail in Alexandria closer to his attorneys and his home.
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Twitter Suspended 58M Accounts in Last Quarter of ’17, AP Says
Twitter suspended at least 58 million user accounts in the final three months of 2017, according to data obtained by The Associated Press. The figure highlights the company’s newly aggressive stance against malicious or suspicious accounts in the wake of Russian disinformation efforts during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
Last week, Twitter confirmed a Washington Post report that it had suspended 70 million accounts in May and June. The huge number of suspensions raises questions as to whether the crackdown could affect Twitter’s user growth and whether the company should have warned investors earlier. The company has been struggling with user growth compared with rivals like Instagram and Facebook.
The number of suspended accounts originated with Twitter’s “firehose,” a data stream it makes available to academics, companies and others willing to pay for it.
The new figure sheds light on Twitter’s attempt to improve “information quality” on its service, its term for countering fake accounts, bots, disinformation and other malicious occurrences. Such activity was rampant on Twitter and other social media networks during the 2016 campaign, much of it originating with the Internet Research Agency, a since-shuttered Russian “troll farm” implicated in election disruption efforts by the U.S. special counsel and congressional investigations.
Twitter declined to comment on the data. But its executives have said that efforts to clean up the platform are a priority, while acknowledging that its crackdown has affected and may continue to affect user numbers.
Twitter has 336 million monthly active users, which it defines as accounts that have logged in at least once during the previous 30 days. The suspensions do not appear to have made a large dent in this number. Twitter maintains that most of the suspended accounts had been dormant for at least a month, and thus weren’t included in its active user numbers.
Following the Post report, which caused Twitter’s stock to drop sharply, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal took to Twitter to reassure investors that this number didn’t count in the company’s user metrics. “If we removed 70M accounts from our reported metrics, you would hear directly from us,” he tweeted last Monday.
Shares recovered somewhat after that tweet. The stock has largely been on an upswing lately, and more than doubled its value in the past year.
Twitter is taking other steps besides account deletions to combat misuse of its service, working to rein in hate and abuse even as it tries to stay true to its roots as a bastion of free expression. Last fall, it vowed to crack down on hate speech and sexual harassment, and CEO Jack Dorsey echoed the concerns of critics who said the company hadn’t done enough to curb such abuse.
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