It’s a new hat!
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/06/77709...r-saudi-arabia
Two, now former, Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia.
The case represents the first time that federal prosecutors have charged Saudis with deploying agents inside the United States, reports The New York Times.
Ahmad Abouammo, a U.S. citizen, was a media partnerships manager at Twitter who was not authorized to access Twitter users' private information. He allegedly did exactly that, for which he received payments of up to $300,000 from a Saudi source identified in the complaint only as "Foreign Official-1." Abouammo also received a Hublot watch with a value of about $20,000.
Last year, Abouammo was interviewed in his home by the FBI about the watch and the payments he had received. According to the complaint, during the interview he created a false invoice on his home computer to try to justify the payments as compensation for media consulting he said totaled no more than $100,000.
Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi citizen, worked at Twitter beginning in August 2013 as a "site reliability engineer."
Between May 21, 2015, and Nov. 18, 2015, Alzabarah, without authorization, accessed "the Twitter data of over 6,000 Twitter users, including at least 33 usernames for which Saudi Arabian law enforcement had submitted emergency disclosure requests to Twitter," the complaint said. Among the accounts he accessed were those belonging to well-known critics of the Saudi government.
After being confronted by his superiors at Twitter, Alzabarah claimed that he had looked at the data out of curiosity. He left the Twitter building in San Francisco on Dec. 2, 2015. The following day he submitted his resignation in an email while en route back to Saudi Arabia, according to the complaint.
This is a must hear/read. This speech is insane and good.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50567751
Twitter to delete accounts that have been inactive for at least six months. Those who want to keep their must log in by December 11th.
Twitter is also considering another cull for users who are logged in, but are inactive (don't post or retweet).The cull will include users who stopped posting to the site because they died - unless someone with that person's account details is able to log-in.
It is the first time Twitter has removed inactive accounts on such a large scale.
The site said it was because users who do not log-in were unable to agree to its updated privacy policies.
A spokeswoman also said it would improve credibility by removing dormant accounts from people's follower counts, something which may give a user an undue sense of importance. The first batch of deleted accounts will involve those registered outside of the US.
Roflmao okay. Nothing of value lost if they delete mine.
im on twitter but have never posted anything or interacted with anyone, im just there to enjoy the shitshow
rip me
“I’m just here so I don’t get fined...er, deleted.”
I made a twitter one day in the off chance I somehow tried streaming. I never tried streaming.
I think I've tweeted twice, but I have tweeted in the last 6 months so I'm good for now.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50685595
WhatsApp users in Kashmir, India have had their accounts deactivated thanks to a four month internet blackout in the area.
It is a side-effect of the four-month internet blackout, imposed by the Indian government after the region was stripped of its autonomy in August.
In a statement, a WhatsApp spokesperson told the BBC it "cares deeply about providing users everywhere with the ability to privately communicate with their friends and loved ones".
But it added: "To maintain security and limit data retention, WhatsApp accounts generally expire after 120 days of inactivity.
Justifying the internet blackout, India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said social media and the internet had been used to radicalize people.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50890846
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/22/u...k-app-uae.html
ToTok, a WhatsApp alternative, has been removed from Google Play and iTunes after it's revealed to be a spy app managed by the UAE.
The NYT reports that the app's publisher, Breej Holding Ltd, is affiliated with DarkMatter, which is an Abu Dhabi-based intelligence and hacking firm that is allegedly under investigation by the FBI for possible cyber-crimes.
DarkMatter employs Emirati intelligence officials, former National Security Agency employees and former Israeli military intelligence operatives, according to the NYT.
Security firm Objective-See says that it worked with the NYT on the investigation.
In a blog, the company explained that it performed an analysis of ToTok's iOS app on a "jailbroken" iPhone - ie one which had been altered to bypass manufacturer restrictions. Analysts decrypted the ToTok app and the app's "network traffic".
The analysts said that the legitimacy of the app is "really the genius of the whole mass surveillance operation".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50952473
https://www.military.com/daily-news/...iktok-app.html
The US Army has banned TikTok from mobile devices because it considers the app a cyber threat.
Incoming Trump executive order to pardon TikTok.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51245616
Content moderating provider Accenture (who moderate Facebook, YouTube, & Twitter) is now requiring mods to sign an agreement that the content they view may give them PTSD.
"I understand the content I will be reviewing may be disturbing. It is possible that reviewing such content may impact my mental health, and it could even lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)," the statement read.
The forms sent to the moderators outline support services on offer, including a hotline and a wellness coach. But it concedes in the forms that neither one is staffed by medical professionals and "cannot diagnose or treat mental disorders".
Cases of PTSD and other mental health issues have been on the rise among content moderators. In 2019 The Verge published a behind the senses report of the of Facebook Moderators. One moderator quoted in that report said he "sleeps with a gun by his side" after doing the job.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52198946
YouTube is banning videos that link 5G to Covid.
https://www.axios.com/scoop-facebook...94d3de017.html
Facebook is purchasing Giphy for $400M.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fa...015-2020-06-28
https://www.washingtonpost.com/techn...rg-trump-hate/
Zuck was talked out of going against Trump and taking action against his campaign to avoid bad PR.
The Washington Post reported Sunday that Trump’s 2015 video post calling for a ban on Muslim immigrants drew outrage by many senior Facebook leaders, including Zuckerberg, who at first wanted it to be taken down. But Zuckerberg was talked out of removing the post by other senior executives, including Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s vice president of global policy and its most prominent Republican executive, and the company instead created an allowance for controversial political discourse that prevented such posts from violating community standards, the Post reported, citing sources and internal documents.
Among the issues debated during discussions over the posts were “PR risks,” the Post reported.
The Post also reported that in 2016, Zuckerberg was also talked out of writing a post condemning Trump’s call to build a border wall with Mexico, after advisers warned Zuckerberg that it would look like he was taking sides.
For years, Facebook has stood by its approach despite much criticism. “Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth,” Zuckerberg told Fox News during a May interview.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...thers-n1234541
Twitter has banned 7k Qanon accounts and limited access to another 150k for increased harassment of non-Trumpers.
Twitter will stop recommending accounts and content related to QAnon, including in email and follow recommendations and will take steps to limit content circulation in places like trends and search. This action will affect approximately 150,000 accounts, according to a spokesperson, who asked to remain unnamed due to concerns about the targeted harassment of social media employees.
The Twitter spokesperson also said the company had taken down more than 7,000 QAnon accounts in the last few weeks for breaking its rules on targeted harassment as part of its new policy.
The sweeping enforcement action will ban QAnon-related terms from appearing in trending topics and the platform's search feature, ban known QAnon-related URLs, and ban “swarming” of victims who are baselessly targeted by coordinated harassment campaigns pushed by its followers.
The spokesperson said while the targeted enforcement against QAnon fell under Twitter’s existing platform manipulation rules, its classification of QAnon as coordinated harmful activity was a new designation. The spokesperson said Twitter was taking action now because of an escalating degree of harm associated with the conspiracy theory.
Q predicted this
welp
when they go one, they go all