Facebook removes hundreds of boogaloo accounts for ‘promoting violence’ in coordinated takedown

Facebook on Tuesday removed hundreds of accounts and groups associated with a network of the far-right “boogaloo” movement whose followers have been linked to violence that disrupted mostly peaceful protests around the United States. Facebook said it was designating the faction of the boogaloo movement that advocates violence as a “dangerous organization” and had taken […]

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Facebook bans violent ‘boogaloo’ groups, not the term itself

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Facebook has banned an extremist anti-government network loosely associated with the broader “boogaloo” movement, a slang term supporters use to refer to a second Civil War or a collapse of civilization. But the platform didn’t try to name the group, underscoring the difficulty of grappling with an amorphous network linked to […]

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UK allows e-scooter rentals to aid transport in pandemic

LONDON (AP) — Britain gave the green light Tuesday for trials of electric scooter rental programs, as authorities look for ways to help people get moving while maintaining distance and easing pressure on public transit as pandemic lockdown restrictions ease. The Transport Department unveiled new regulations that take effect Saturday and pave the way for […]

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India bans TikTok, other Chinese apps amid border standoff

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian TikTok users awoke Tuesday to a notice from the popular short-video app saying their data would be transferred to an Irish subsidiary, a response to India’s ban on dozens of Chinese apps amid a military standoff between the two countries. The quick workaround showed the ban was largely symbolic since […]

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Pandemic delays Yahoo Japan, Line merger past October

TOKYO (AP) — Online services Yahoo Japan and Line Corp. said Tuesday the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is causing delays that will push back their merger to later than the scheduled October date. Z Holdings Corp., which operates Yahoo Japan, and Naver Corp. of South Korea, which owns a majority stake in Line, announced […]

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Google removes misleading ads related to voting, elections

Google said Monday it has removed misleading and fraudulent ads targeting Americans looking for information about how to vote in November’s presidential election. Some of the ads charged fees for registering people to vote, while others sucked up people’s personal information for marketing purposes. The ads were discovered by the nonprofit tech watchdog Tech Transparency […]

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Microsoft pauses Facebook, Instagram advertising spending

Microsoft has paused global advertising spending on Facebook and Instagram because of concerns about ads appearing next to inappropriate content, according to a person familiar with the matter. The software giant spent an estimated $116 million in Facebook advertising in 2019, and was the company’s third-largest advertiser last year, according to data from Pathmatics. Microsoft […]

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WarnerMedia puts ‘for sale’ sign on CNN Center in Atlanta

NEW YORK (AP) — WarnerMedia said Monday it will sell the iconic CNN Center in downtown Atlanta, but that it doesn’t mean the network will abandon the city. The network will consolidate its Atlanta workforce in a series of offices across town, the same office campus where CNN was first located upon its founding by […]

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Twitch suspends Trump’s channel for ‘hateful conduct’

Twitch, the livestreaming platform, said Monday it was suspending President Donald Trump’s channel for “hateful conduct,” in what appeared to be the first deliberate suspension of one of Trump’s social media accounts. The site, which is owned by Amazon, said two recent streams on Trump’s channel violated its rules. One stream was of a rebroadcasted […]

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Reddit, acting against hate speech, bans ‘The_Donald’ subreddit

The influential pro-Trump community broke the rules on harassment and targeting, said the social networking site, which also banned other groups.

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Reddit bans pro-Trump forum in hate-speech crackdown

Reddit, an online comment forum that is one of the internet’s most popular websites, on Monday banned a pro-Donald Trump forum as part of a crackdown on hate speech. The Trump forum was banned because it too often hosted content that broke Reddit’s rules, including encouraging violence, and “antagonized” the company. It had previously tried […]

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India bans dozens of Chinese apps, citing security reasons

NEW DELHI (AP) — India on Monday banned 59 apps with Chinese links, saying their activities endanger the country’s sovereignty, defense and security. India’s decision comes as its troops are involved in a tense standoff with Chinese soldiers in eastern Ladakh in the Himalayas that started last month. India lost 20 soldiers in a June […]

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WHO: Countries complaining about contact tracing are ‘lame’

LONDON (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization on Monday dismissed complaints from countries complaining that contact tracing is too difficult to implement as a control strategy for the coronavirus pandemic as “lame.” The U.N. health agency has repeatedly advised countries that shutting down their COVID-19 outbreaks requires having a strong contact tracing […]

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Amazon will pay one-time bonuses of $500 to logistics workers

Amazon in early June rolled back the $2-an-hour hazard pay, even as the virus continued to spread in the U.S. That has been a sore spot for Amazon logistics workers.

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How do I use my PC as a Wi-Fi hot spot?

Patrick Marshall answers your tech questions. This week's topics cover Wi-Fi hot spots, closing ports and getting rid of a user account?

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Dutch government begins auction of 5G frequencies

AMSTERDAM (AP) — The Dutch government started an auction Monday of new 5G wireless frequencies, with telecom companies bidding so they can provide customers with the faster mobile communication networks. The government says the online auction of 700, 1,400 and 2,100 megahertz frequencies could last days or longer and will raise a minimum of 900 […]

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Microsoft stores never really made sense anyway | Commentary

Microsoft was never going to rival Apple in retail, or gain much from it. The coronavirus pandemic provided a good opportunity to face that fact and throw in the towel. On Friday, the software giant announced it will permanently close all of its Microsoft Store brick-and-mortar locations. The company’s stores, which were primarily based inside malls, were […]

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U.S. FAA Confirms Boeing 737 Max Test Flights Set to Begin

(Bloomberg) — U.S. aviation regulators have approved a critical set of test flights on the Boeing Co. 737 Max to begin as soon as Monday after reviewing the manufacturer’s safety assessment of the multiple fixes devised for the plane. The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the start of the multiday program in an email to Congressional […]

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When tech companies want to fix their race problem, the work often falls on unpaid employee groups

SAN FRANCISCO — A reporter and producer at Yahoo News, Marquise Francis usually devotes six to 10 hours a week to his voluntary role leading a group for Black employees at the site’s parent company, Verizon. But as Black Lives Matter protests spread and corporations faced pressure to address systemic racism, Francis has seen his […]

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Facial-recognition backlash brews after fury over police conduct

When the American Civil Liberties Union ran a test of Amazon.com’s facial-recognition technology, the software falsely matched 28 members of Congress, many of them minorities, with mug shots of arrested people from police files. Now, some of those lawmakers are drafting new legislation to curtail the use of facial-recognition by police departments and government agencies. […]

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Young novice protest leaders help drive US wave of dissent

Before George Floyd stopped pleading for air beneath a police officer’s knee, 19-year-old Weidmayer Pierre was planning to work at Wal-Mart during his summer break from Palm Beach State College. Now his days look completely different. Pierre has quit his retail job to focus on organizing Black Lives Matter protests every few days in Florida, […]

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How to dig up family history online

Long before the internet made it easy to share the nuances of daily life, local newspapers and other regional publications reported the business, society and civic news of the people in the community. For budding genealogists, finding an ancestor in an old microfilmed newspaper and reading contemporaneous accounts of her turn in the school play […]

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Man convicted of stealing high tech trade secrets for China

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A federal judge has convicted a Chinese national of economic espionage, stealing trade secrets and engaging in a conspiracy for the benefit of his country’s government. U.S. District Judge Edward Davila found Hao Zhang, 41, guilty of the three counts Friday after a four-day trial. The decision comes five years […]

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Heading outdoors for a socially distant getaway? Try these apps

Planning to escape to the great outdoors for a socially distant summer? There are a few apps you may want to download before you go. After all, the tools below won’t just help you travel from here to there, they’ll help you get off the beaten paths in national parks, learn about road and trail […]

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Facebook will label violating posts from public figures going forward

SAN FRANCISCO — Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said Friday that Facebook will remove posts that incite violence or attempt to suppress voting — even from political leaders — and that the company will affix labels on posts that violate its other policies as well. The moves amount to major reversals amid rising public pressure, employee […]

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Maker of Ben&Jerry’s, Dove pulling US Facebook, Twitter ads

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The company behind Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Dove soap and a host of other consumer products said Friday it will stop advertising on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in the U.S. through at least the end of the year because of the amount of hate speech online. Unilever said that the […]

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Detroit says ‘shoddy’ work led to arrest tied to technology

DETROIT (AP) — A Black man who was wrongly arrested after the use of facial recognition technology by Detroit police will have his DNA, fingerprints and mugshot removed from law enforcement files, officials said Friday. Robert Williams was the victim of “shoddy investigative work,” police Chief James Craig said. Williams, 42, was arrested in January […]

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EU regulators to look into German handling of Wirecard case

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — A top economic official at the European Union’s executive commission says it has asked for the EU’s securities regulator to investigate what went wrong with supervision of payments company Wirecard in Germany. Valdis Dombrovskis, the commission’s executive vice-president for the economy, tweeted Friday that securities regulator ESMA would look into the […]

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Microsoft closing its retail stores

The company's physical retail stores closed in March due to the COVID-19 epidemic.

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Amazon buys driverless startup Zoox, cites ride-hailing prowess

Some analysts have suggested that Zoox could provide the technology for autonomous delivery vehicles and help Amazon slash shipping costs.

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Verizon joins ad boycott of Facebook over hateful content

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Verizon is joining an escalating movement to siphon advertising away from Facebook in an effort to pressure the company into doing more to prevent racist and violent information from being shared on its social networking service. The decision announced Thursday by one of the world’s biggest telecommunications companies is part of […]

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Senate may rein in Microsoft’s billion-dollar Army program using HoloLens

The system would enable commanders to project information onto a visor in front of a soldier's face, and would include other features such as night vision.

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Tesla gave workers permission to stay home rather than risk getting COVID-19. Then it sent termination notices.

Some Tesla workers complain that that Tesla is failing to follow social distancing guidelines,lax about enforcing rules, and providing little transparency about new cases of infection.

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Expansion of California privacy law qualifies for ballot

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California voters will decide a ballot measure in November that would give them more power over how companies use their data, an extension of a landmark privacy law passed in 2018. Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced Wednesday a measure to amend the law will be on the Nov. 3 general […]

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Official: US might help others buy non-Huawei telecom gear

BEIJING (AP) — The United States is willing to help other countries finance purchases of next-generation telecom technology from Western providers so they can avoid Chinese tech giant Huawei, which Washington sees as a security threat, an American official said Thursday. Washington is lobbying European and other allies to exclude Huawei Technologies Ltd. as they […]

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US Cybercom virtual war game girds against increased threats

Foreign hackers are taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to undermine institutions and threaten critical infrastructure, a top U.S. military cyber official said Thursday. The comments from Coast Guard Rear Adm. John Mauger of U.S. Cyber Command came a day after Defense Department officials briefed reporters on virtual war games that digital combatants from U.S. […]

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Pandemic forces some patients to phone in doctor visits

Video telemedicine took off earlier this year as the coronavirus paused in-person doctor visits. Earl Egner missed that trend. The 84-year-old diabetic and cancer survivor has no computer or cellphone. Instead, he relies on a form of communication older than himself — the telephone — to talk to doctors as he stays hunkered down in […]

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Google to start paying some news publishers for content

LONDON (AP) — Google says it will start paying some publishers for their news content, in a move that could pave the way for reduced tensions between the internet search giant and the beleagured news industry. The company said Thursday that it plans to launch this year a licensing program to pay publishers for “high-quality […]

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Wirecard files for insolvency after accounting scandal

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — German financial technology company Wirecard said Thursday it is filing for insolvency amid an accounting scandal that led earlier this week to the arrest of its former CEO. The company said it would make the filing at a district court in Munich “due to impending insolvency and over-indebtedness.” It added in […]

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Wrongfully accused by an algorithm

Note: In response to this article, the Wayne County prosecutor’s office said that Robert Julian-Borchak Williams could have the case and his fingerprint data expunged. “We apologize,” the prosecutor, Kym Worthy, said in a statement, adding, “This does not in any way make up for the hours that Mr. Williams spent in jail.” On a […]

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Wirecard scandal puts spotlight on German company regulation

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — An accounting scandal at one of Germany’s fastest-growing blue-chip companies has raised doubts about the national financial watchdog and, coming on top of other high-profile cases of fraud, led to questions about the country’s ability to oversee its corporate titans. Some 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) vanished from payment systems provider […]

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Twitter bans pro-Trump meme maker for copyright violations

A conservative social media user whose far-right memes have been praised and reposted by President Donald Trump has been kicked off Twitter for repeated copyright violations. Logan Cook, a Kansas man who posts under the name Carpe Donktum, was permanently banned from the platform Tuesday night, days after he posted a video criticizing CNN that […]

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Google tweaks privacy settings to keep less user data

Google is tweaking its privacy settings to keep less data on new users by default. The search giant said that starting Wednesday, it will automatically and continuously delete web and app activity and location history for new users after 18 months. Settings for existing users won’t be affected but the company will send reminders about […]

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UK watchdog gives Amazon-Deliveroo deal tentative approval

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s competition watchdog has provisionally approved Amazon’s plan to buy a stake in food delivery company Deliveroo, saying it would not have a negative impact on customers by reducing choice or raising prices. The Competition and Markets authority approved a deal that will see Amazon take a 16% stake in the delivery […]

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Detroit police challenged over face recognition flaws, bias

A Black man who says he was unjustly arrested because facial recognition technology mistakenly identified him as a suspected shoplifter is calling for a public apology from Detroit police. And for the department to abandon its use of the controversial technology. The complaint by Robert Williams is a rare challenge from someone who not only […]

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TaskRabbit CEO to step down, a blow for Big Tech diversity

Stacy Brown-Philpot is stepping down after four years running TaskRabbit, the San Francisco-based marketplace for gig workers. She serves on the boards of HP Inc. and Nordstrom.

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Ad boycott of Facebook keeps growing

Facebook put on an upbeat presentation to advertisers on Tuesday, the same day the clothing chain Eddie Bauer, film distributor Magnolia Pictures and the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream brand announced that they would stop advertising on the platform through July. Those companies joined Patagonia, the North Face, REI and others in a growing boycott […]

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Segway, popular with police but not the public, hits brakes

The Segway PT, popular with tourists and police officers but perhaps better known for its high-profile crashes, will be retired on July 15, the company said.

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Microsoft vows to add $150 million on diversity, double Black leaders

Microsoft and other large technology companies have come under fire for poor workforce diversity and hiring and promoting few Black executives and managers despite several years of public data reporting and pledges to improve.

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Mercedes, NVIDIA to develop new automated driving system

DETROIT (AP) — Four days after shelving an autonomous vehicle agreement with BMW, Mercedes has announced a deal to work with chip and software maker NVIDIA. The companies said Tuesday that the two will create a computing and artificial intelligence system for automated driving. It will be rolled out starting in 2024 in the next […]

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