Facebook Oversight Board Announces First Six Cases

Facebook’s oversight board has announced the first cases it’s going to examine to determine if it will overturn the social media giant’s decisions to delete content. Created in October, the board’s apparent role will be to assess cases of Facebook and Instagram users who say their content was wrongly removed. “As the …

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Solomon Islands Plans to Ban Facebook to Preserve ‘National Unity’

The government of the Solomon Islands has defended its plans to ban Facebook, insisting the move would preserve “national unity.” Ministers say the world’s largest social media platform has been “grossly abused.” But critics insist a ban is an attempt to shut down criticism of the government’s economic policies.Facebook helps …

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Solomon Islands Moves to Ban Facebook Over ‘National Unity’ Fears

The government of the Solomon Islands has defended its plans to ban Facebook, insisting the move would preserve “national unity.” Ministers say the world’s largest social media platform has been “grossly abused.” But critics insist a ban is an attempt to shut down criticism of the government’s economic policies.Facebook helps …

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China Launches Lunar Probe  

China successfully launched an unmanned spacecraft to the moon Monday to land, gather soil and rock samples, and return them to Earth.  If successful, it will be the first mission by any nation to retrieve samples from the lunar surface since the 1970s, and the third nation, after the United States …

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China Set to Launch Lunar Probe

China is scheduled to launch an unmanned spacecraft to the moon Monday to land, gather soil and rock samples, and return them to Earth.     If successful, it will be the first mission by any nation to retrieve samples from the lunar surface since the 1970s, and the third …

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Millennial Life: Eat, Sleep, Work, Screens

Would you give up nearly a decade of your life looking at your cellphone?Calculated by today’s usage, the average person spends a little over 76,500 hours – or 8.74 years – on a smartphone over a lifetime, according to a FILE – Marilu Rodriguez checks a news website on her …

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Twitter Launches Disappearing Tweets That Vanish in a Day

Twitter is launching tweets that disappear in 24 hours called “Fleets” globally, echoing social media sites like Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram that already have disappearing posts.The company says the ephemeral tweets, which it calls “fleets” because of their fleeting nature, are designed to allay the concerns of new users who …

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New App Identifies Mosquitoes by Buzzing Sound

The high-pitched whine of a mosquito is annoying, but scientists have developed an app that uses that sound to detect dangerous mosquitoes.Mosquitoes kill hundreds of thousands of people each year by spreading microbes that cause diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever. But researcher Haripriya Vaidehi Narayanan says …

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Bytedance Gets 15-day Extension on US Order to Divest TikTok

The Trump administration granted ByteDance a 15-day extension of a divestiture order that had directed the Chinese company to sell its TikTok short video-sharing app by Thursday.TikTok first disclosed the extension earlier in a court filing, saying it now has until Nov. 27 to reach an agreement. Under pressure from …

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Under Biden, Europe Hopes for Compromise in US Digital Tax Debate

For years, the European Union has been leading the fight to impose a global tax on technology multinationals. After years of resistance by the Trump administration, the Europeans now hope the incoming Biden administration will be willing to compromise – or face a possible digital tax.Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple: …

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TikTok Faces Deadline for Divesting US Operations

The U.S. Treasury Department and China-based ByteDance say they are focused on resolving a battle over U.S. security concerns that prompted President Donald Trump to order the company to divest its popular TikTok app by Thursday.Trump signed an Aug. 14 order setting a 90-day deadline as he alleged that if …

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Facebook Extends Ban on US Political Ads for Another Month

As election misinformation raged online, Facebook Inc. said on Wednesday its post-election ban on political ads would likely last another month, raising concerns from campaigns and groups eager to reach voters for key Georgia Senate races in January.   The ban, one of Facebook’s measures to combat misinformation and other …

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ByteDance Challenges Trump’s TikTok Divestiture Order

ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of video-sharing app TikTok, filed a petition late Tuesday with a U.S. Appeals Court challenging a Trump administration order set to take effect Thursday requiring it to divest TikTok. President Donald Trump in an Aug. 14 order directed ByteDance to divest the app within 90 days, …

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EU Files Antitrust Charges Against Amazon Over Use of Data

European Union regulators have filed antitrust charges against Amazon, accusing the e-commerce giant of using data to gain an unfair advantage over merchants using its platform. The EU’s executive commission, the bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, said Tuesday that the charges have been sent to the company. The commission said it …

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