Policy – Page 12

TikTok loses Supreme Court fight, prepares to shut down Sunday

bytedance, china, Donald Trump, First Amendment, free speech, national security, Online speech, Policy, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, tiktok, TikTok ban / Paul Patrick / January 17, 2025

TikTok has said it’s preparing to shut down Sunday.

A TikTok influencer holds a sign that reads “Keep TikTok” outside the US Supreme Court Building as the court hears oral arguments on whether to overturn or delay a law that could lead to a ban of TikTok in the U.S., on January 10, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Kayla Bartkowski / Stringer | Getty Images News

TikTok has lost its Supreme Court appeal in a 9–0 decision and will likely shut down on January 19, a day before Donald Trump’s inauguration, unless the app can be sold before the deadline, which TikTok has said is impossible.

During the trial last Friday, TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco warned SCOTUS that upholding the Biden administration’s divest-or-sell law would likely cause TikTok to “go dark—essentially the platform shuts down” and “essentially… stop operating.” On Wednesday, TikTok reportedly began preparing to shut down the app for all US users, anticipating the loss.

But TikTok’s claims that the divest-or-sell law violated Americans’ free speech rights did not supersede the government’s compelling national security interest in blocking a foreign adversary like China from potentially using the app to spy on or influence Americans, SCOTUS ruled.

“We conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights,” the SCOTUS opinion said, while acknowledging that “there is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community.”

Late last year, TikTok and its owner, the Chinese-owned company ByteDance, urgently pushed SCOTUS to intervene before the law’s January 19 enforcement date. Ahead of SCOTUS’ decision, TikTok warned it would have no choice but to abruptly shut down a thriving platform where many Americans get their news, express their views, and make a living.

The US had argued the law was necessary to protect national security interests as the US-China trade war intensifies, alleging that China could use the app to track and influence TikTok’s 170 million American users. A lower court had agreed that the US had a compelling national security interest and rejected arguments that the law violated the First Amendment, triggering TikTok’s appeal to SCOTUS. Today, the Supreme Court upheld that ruling.

According to SCOTUS, the divest-or-sell law is “content-neutral” and only triggers intermediate scrutiny. That requires that the law doesn’t burden “substantially more speech than necessary” to serve the government’s national security interests, rather than strict scrutiny which would force the government to protect those interests through the least restrictive means.

Further, the government was right to single TikTok out, SCOTUS wrote, due to its “scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects.”

“Preventing China from collecting vast amounts of sensitive data from 170 million US TikTok users” is a “decidedly content agnostic” rationale, justices wrote.

“The Government had good reason to single out TikTok for special treatment,” the opinion said.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew posted a statement on TikTok reacting to the ruling, thanking Trump for committing to “work with TikTok” to avoid a shut down and telling users to “rest assured, we will do everything in our power to ensure our platform thrives” in the US.

Momentum to ban TikTok has shifted

First Amendment advocates condemned the SCOTUS ruling. The American Civil Liberties Union called it a “major blow to freedom of expression online,” and the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s civil liberties director David Greene accused justices of sweeping “past the undisputed content-based justification for the law” to “rule only based on the shaky data privacy concerns.”

While the SCOTUS ruling was unanimous, justice Sonia Sotomayor said that “precedent leaves no doubt” that the law implicated the First Amendment and “plainly” imposed a burden on any US company that distributes TikTok’s speech and any content creator who preferred TikTok as a publisher of their speech.

Similarly concerned was justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote in his concurring opinion that he harbors “serious reservations about whether the law before us is ‘content neutral’ and thus escapes ‘strict scrutiny.'” Gorsuch also said he didn’t know “whether this law will succeed in achieving its ends.”

“But the question we face today is not the law’s wisdom, only its constitutionality,” Gorsuch wrote. “Given just a handful of days after oral argument to issue an opinion, I cannot profess the kind of certainty I would like to have about the arguments and record before us. All I can say is that, at this time and under these constraints, the problem appears real and the response to it not unconstitutional.”

For TikTok and content creators defending the app, the stakes were incredibly high. TikTok repeatedly denied there was any evidence of spying and warned that enforcing the law would allow the government to unlawfully impose “a massive and unprecedented speech restriction.”

But the Supreme Court declined to order a preliminary injunction to block the law until Trump took office, instead deciding to rush through oral arguments and reach a decision prior to the law’s enforcement deadline. Now TikTok has little recourse if it wishes to maintain US operations, as justices suggested during the trial that even if a president chose to not enforce the law, providing access to TikTok or enabling updates could be viewed as too risky for app stores or other distributors.

The law at the center of the case—the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act—had strong bipartisan support under the Biden administration.

But President-elect Donald Trump said he opposed a TikTok ban, despite agreeing that US national security interests in preventing TikTok spying on or manipulating Americans were compelling. And this week, Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced a bill to extend the deadline ahead of a potential TikTok ban, and a top Trump adviser, Congressman Mike Waltz, has said that Trump plans to stop the ban and “keep TikTok from going dark,” the BBC reported. Even the Biden administration, whose justice department just finished arguing why the US needed to enforce the law to SCOTUS, “is considering ways to keep TikTok available,” sources told NBC News.

“What might happen next to TikTok remains unclear,” Gorsuch noted in the opinion.

Will Trump save TikTok?

It will likely soon be clear whether Trump will intervene. Trump filed a brief in December, requesting that the Supreme Court stay enforcement of the law until after he takes office because allegedly only he could make a deal to save TikTok. He criticized SCOTUS for rushing the decision and suggested that Congress’ passage of the law may have been “legislative encroachment” that potentially “binds his hands” as president.

“As the incoming Chief Executive, President Trump has a particularly powerful interest in and responsibility for those national-security and foreign-policy questions, and he is the right constitutional actor to resolve the dispute through political means,” Trump’s brief said.

TikTok’s CEO Chew signaled to users that Trump is expected to step in.

“On behalf of everyone at TikTok and all our users across the country, I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States,” Chew’s statement said.

Chew also reminded Trump that he has 60 billion views of his content on TikTok and perhaps stands to lose a major platform through the ban.

“We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform, one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives,” Chew said.

Trump seemingly has limited options to save TikTok, Forbes suggested. At trial, justices disagreed on whether Trump could legally decide to simply not enforce the law. And efforts to pause enforcement or claim compliance without evidence that ByteDance is working on selling off TikTok could be blocked by the court, analysts said. And while ByteDance has repeatedly said it’s unwilling to sell TikTok US, it’s possible, one analyst suggested to Forbes, that ByteDance might be more willing to divest “in exchange for Trump backing off his threat of high tariffs on Chinese imports.”

On Tuesday, a Bloomberg report suggested that China was considering whether selling TikTok to Elon Musk might be a good bargaining chip to de-escalate Trump’s attacks in the US-China trade war.

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

TikTok loses Supreme Court fight, prepares to shut down Sunday Read More »

Girl strangled by her own wheelchair as bus monitor texted, checked Instagram

distracted driving, New Jersey, Policy, texting / Tim Belzer / January 16, 2025

Cell phones are magnets for our attention, but you can, of course, face significant legal jeopardy for giving them that attention. Just ask the “safety driver” of an Uber self-driving vehicle, which hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona in 2018. According to authorities, the driver was watching The Voice on Hulu just before the crash—and was then charged with negligent homicide.

These kinds of cases are always tragic because they feel so easily avoidable, but they also happen with enough regularity that it’s easy to tune them out. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 3,308 people were killed by distracted drivers in 2022 alone—and “texting is the most alarming distraction.”

That’s why states continue to crack down on cell phone use while driving. A Colorado law that went into effect on January 1, for instance, bans a driver from using any mobile electronic device unless it is hands-free. Thirty US states now have such bans in place.

But a trial that wrapped up in New Jersey this week caught my attention, because it is one of the sadder and stranger examples of cell phone-mediated distraction while in a vehicle. A young girl died, and a 28-year-old woman is probably going to jail, but this is not your typical tale of texting while driving. Texting was involved—34 times, in fact—but driving had nothing to do with what happened.

Child endangerment

The trial was about an incident in Franklin Township, New Jersey, on July 17, 2023, when a 6-year-old girl named Fajr Williams got on a bus to attend a summer program. Williams had disabilities and was confined to her wheelchair. The bus had a spot for anchoring wheelchairs to the ground, and it had a ride-along bus monitor named Amanda Davila, 28, who was supposed to watch and assist kids like Williams.

According to state prosecutors, Williams was properly strapped into her wheelchair and had been taken down to the bus by her older sister. Williams was then loaded onto the bus, but her chair was not allegedly attached to the floor correctly, nor were the proper seatbelts used. As a result, while the bus drove its route to school that morning, Williams began to slide down the seat of her wheelchair. (She could not control her trunk movements normally, and so she was unable to sit back up.) At some point in the ride, she slid low enough that her chair’s own four-point harness, which was meant to keep her upright, began to choke her. By the time the bus arrived at school, William had been strangled to death.

Girl strangled by her own wheelchair as bus monitor texted, checked Instagram Read More »

FCC chair makes one last stand against Trump’s call to punish news stations

brendan carr, Donald Trump, FCC, jessica rosenworcel, Policy / Paul Patrick / January 16, 2025

FCC not the president’s speech police (yet)

Chair: Complaints “seek to weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC.”

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel testifies during a House hearing on Thursday, May 16, 2024. Credit: Getty Images | Tom Williams

Taking action in the final days of the Biden administration, the Federal Communications Commission dismissed three complaints and a petition filed against broadcast television stations. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the action is important because “the incoming President has called on the Federal Communications Commission to revoke licenses for broadcast television stations because he disagrees with their content and coverage.”

“Today, I have directed the FCC to take a stand on behalf of the First Amendment,” she said. “We draw a bright line at a moment when clarity about government interference with the free press is needed more than ever. The action we take makes clear two things. First, the FCC should not be the president’s speech police. Second, the FCC should not be journalism’s censor-in-chief.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s chosen replacement for Rosenworcel, Commissioner Brendan Carr, wants the FCC to punish news broadcasters that he perceives as being unfair to Trump or Republicans in general. Backing Trump’s various complaints about news stations, Carr has threatened to revoke licenses by wielding the FCC’s authority to ensure that broadcasters using public airwaves operate in the public interest.

Rosenworcel said the complaints and petition she is dismissing “come from all corners—right and left—but what they have in common is they ask the FCC to penalize broadcast television stations because they dislike station behavior, content, or coverage.” After Trump criticized CBS in October, Rosenworcel said the agency “does not and will not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage.”

Chair: Complaints aim to “weaponize” FCC authority

The Center for American Rights filed complaints supporting Trump’s claims of bias regarding ABC’s fact-checking during a presidential debate, the editing of a CBS 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, and NBC putting Harris on a Saturday Night Live episode. Separately, the Media and Democracy Project filed a petition to deny a license renewal for WTXF-TV in Philadelphia, a station owned and operated by Fox, alleging that Fox willfully distorted news with false reports of fraud in the 2020 election that Trump lost.

Rejecting all four, Rosenworcel said “the facts and legal circumstances in each of these cases are different. But what they share is that they seek to weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment. To do so would set a dangerous precedent. That is why we reject it here.”

Dismissing complaints isn’t likely to end the cases, said Jeffrey Westling, a lawyer at the conservative American Action Forum who has urged Congress to “limit or revoke the FCC’s authority to impose content-based restrictions on broadcast television.”

Westling said he agrees “substantively” with Rosenworcel, but added that “the DC Circuit Court has made clear that the FCC has to consider news distortion complaints (see Serafyn vs FCC) and not just dismiss them outright. If I am the complainants, I challenge these dismissals in court, win, and get more attention.”

When contacted by Ars today, the Center for American Rights provided a statement criticizing Rosenworcel’s decision as “political and self-serving.”

“We fundamentally believe that several actions taken by the three major networks were partisan, dishonest and designed to support Vice President Harris in her bid to become President,” the group said. “We will continue to pursue avenues to ensure the American public is protected from media manipulation of our Republic. The First Amendment does not protect intentional misrepresentation or fraud.”

The group previously touted the fact that Republican FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington urged FCC leadership to take its complaints seriously.

Fox ruling will be challenged

The Media and Democracy Project criticized Rosenworcel’s decision to dismiss its complaint against the Fox station in Philadelphia.

“We look forward to presenting on appeal the multiple court decisions that raise serious questions about the Murdochs’ and Fox’s character qualifications to remain broadcast licensees,” the Media and Democracy Project said in a statement provided to Ars. “As renowned First Amendment scholar Floyd Abrams stated in his filing with the Commission, the First Amendment is no bar to Commission action given the facts of this case. Our petition is clearly distinct from the other politically motivated complaints.”

The group’s petition pointed to a court ruling that found Fox News aired false statements about Dominion Voting Systems. Fox later agreed to pay Dominion $788 million to settle a defamation lawsuit.

“Our Petition to Deny is based on judicial findings that Fox made repeated false statements that undermined the electoral process and resulted in property damage, injury, and death; that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch engaged in a ‘carefully crafted scheme’ in ‘bad faith’ to deprive Lachlan’s siblings of the control to which they are entitled under an irrevocable trust; and that ‘Murdoch knowingly caused the corporation to violate the law,'” the Media and Democracy Project said today.

The FCC order denying the petition also granted the station’s application for a license renewal. The order said the allegations regarding “material carried on a cable network under common control with the Licensee that a state court found to be false” aren’t grounds to deny the individual station’s license renewal. While some “non-FCC-related misconduct” can be considered by the FCC in an evaluation of a licensee’s character, the finding in the defamation suit doesn’t qualify, the order said.

Former FCC official objects

Gigi Sohn, a longtime advocate whose nomination to the FCC was rejected by the Senate, also criticized the FCC today. Sohn, who also served as counselor for FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler during the Obama administration, called the dismissal of the Fox petition a “failure to lead.”

“As [Rosenworcel] herself points out, the facts of these petitions are very different,” Sohn wrote. “The [Media and Democracy Project] petition seeks a hearing on Fox Philadelphia licenses because they allege that Fox lacks the character to hold them because it lied to the American people about the 2020 election. The conservative complaints are all based on disagreements with editorial judgments of the various broadcast networks.”

“The decision to lump these filings together and overturn years of FCC precedent that broadcasters’ character is central to holding a license is contrary to the Communications Act’s mandate that licenses be granted in ‘the public interest, convenience and necessity,'” Sohn also wrote. The FCC rationale would mean that “anything and everything a broadcast licensee does or says would be a First Amendment issue that warrants automatic license renewal,” she added.

Media advocacy group Free Press agreed with the FCC’s decision. “We have an incoming administration quite literally threatening to jail journalists for doing their jobs, and an incoming FCC chairman talking about revoking broadcast licenses any time he disagrees with their political coverage,” the group said.

Free Press sided with the FCC despite noting that the Fox case involved “false information [that] had devastating consequences in the January 6 attack on the peaceful transition of power four years ago.”

“Lies knowingly aired by Fox News Channel and some Murdoch-owned Fox affiliates present a significantly different challenge to regulators than merely fact-checking, editing or scheduling equal time for candidates in ways that displease the president-elect,” Free Press said. “Yet we agree with the urgent need to prevent the weaponization of the government against journalists and media companies on the eve of the inauguration, and in light of the dire threats the new administration poses.”

Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.

FCC chair makes one last stand against Trump’s call to punish news stations Read More »

RedNote may wall off “TikTok refugees” to prevent US influence on Chinese users

censorship, china, Policy, rednote, social media censorship, tiktok, TikTok ban, Xiaohongshu / Rejus Almole / January 16, 2025

Whether TikTok will be banned in the US in three days is still up in the air. The Supreme Court has yet to announce its verdict on the constitutionality of a law requiring TikTok to either sell its US operations or shut down in the US. It’s possible that the Supreme Court could ask for more time to deliberate, potentially delaying enforcement of the law as TikTok has requested until after Donald Trump takes office.

While the divest-or-sell law had bipartisan support when it passed last year, momentum has seemingly shifted this week. Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced a bill to extend the deadline ahead of a potential TikTok ban, and a top Trump adviser, Congressman Mike Waltz, has said that Trump plans to stop the ban and “keep TikTok from going dark,” the BBC reported. Even the Biden administration, whose justice department just finished arguing why the US needed to enforce the law to SCOTUS, “is considering ways to keep TikTok available,” sources told NBC News.

Many US RedNote users quickly banned

For RedNote and China, the app’s sudden popularity as the US alternative to TikTok seems to have come as a surprise. A Beijing-based independent industry analyst, Liu Xingliang, told Reuters that RedNote was “caught unprepared” by the influx of users.

To keep restricted content off the app, RedNote allegedly has since been “scrambling to find ways to moderate English-language content and build English-Chinese translation tools,” two sources familiar with the company told Reuters. Time’s reporting echoed that, noting that “Red Note is urgently recruiting English content moderators [Chinese]” became a trending topic Wednesday on the Chinese social media app Weibo.

Many analysts have suggested that Americans’ fascination with RedNote will be short-lived. Liu told Reuters that “American netizens are in a dissatisfied mood, and wanting to find another Chinese app to use is a catharsis of short-term emotions and a rebellious gesture.” But unfortunately, “the experience on it is not very good for foreigners.”

On RedNote, Chinese users have warned Americans that China censors way more content than they’re used to on TikTok. Analysts told The Washington Post that RedNote’s “focus on shopping and entertainment means it is often even more active in blocking content seen as too serious for the app’s target audience.” Chinese users warned Americans not to post about “politics, religion, and drugs” or risk “account bans or legal repercussions, including jail time,” Rest of World reported. Meanwhile, on Reddit, Americans received additional warnings about common RedNote scams and reasons accounts could be banned. But Rest of World noted that many so-called “TikTok refugees” migrating to RedNote do not “seem to know, or care, about platform rules.”

RedNote may wall off “TikTok refugees” to prevent US influence on Chinese users Read More »

AT&T kills home Internet service in NY over law requiring $15 or $20 plans

AT&T, New York Affordable Broadband Act, Policy / Rejus Almole / January 16, 2025

AT&T has stopped offering its 5G home Internet service in New York instead of complying with a new state law that requires ISPs to offer $15 or $20 plans to people with low incomes.

The decision was reported yesterday by CNET and confirmed by AT&T in a statement provided to Ars today. “While we are committed to providing reliable and affordable Internet service to customers across the country, New York’s broadband law imposes harmful rate regulations that make it uneconomical for AT&T to invest in and expand our broadband infrastructure in the state,” AT&T said. “As a result, effective January 15, 2025, we will no longer be able to offer AT&T Internet Air, our fixed-wireless Internet service, to New York customers.”

New York started enforcing its Affordable Broadband Act yesterday after a legal battle of nearly four years. Broadband lobby groups convinced a federal judge to block the law in 2021, but a US appeals court reversed the ruling in April 2024, and the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case last month.

The law requires ISPs with over 20,000 customers in New York to offer $15 broadband plans with download speeds of at least 25Mbps, or $20-per-month service with 200Mbps speeds. The plans only have to be offered to households that meet income eligibility requirements, such as qualifying for the National School Lunch Program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or Medicaid.

AT&T’s Internet Air was launched in some areas in 2023 and is now available in nearly every US state. The standard price for Internet Air is $60 a month plus taxes and fees, or $47 when bundled with an eligible mobile service. Nationwide, AT&T said it added 135,000 Internet Air customers in the most recent quarter.

AT&T kills home Internet service in NY over law requiring $15 or $20 plans Read More »

Texas defends requiring ID for porn to SCOTUS: “We’ve done this forever”

age verification law, age-gating, First Amendment, free speech rights, Policy, pornography, privacy online, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, texas / Paul Patrick / January 15, 2025

“You can use VPNs, the click of a button, to make it seem like you’re not in Texas,” Shaffer argued. “You can go through the search engines, you can go through social media, you can access the same content in the ways that kids are likeliest to do.”

Texas attorney Aaron Nielson argued that the problem of kids accessing porn online has only gotten “worse” in the decades since Texas has been attempting less restrictive and allegedly less effective means like content filtering. Now, age verification is Texas’ preferred solution, and strict scrutiny shouldn’t apply to a law that just asks someone to show ID to see adult content, Nielson argued.

“In our history we have always said kids can’t come and look at this stuff,” Nielson argued. “So it seems not correct to me as a historical matter to say, well actually it’s always been presumptively unconstitutional. … But we’ve done it forever. Strict scrutiny somehow has always been satisfied.”

Like groups suing, Texas also asked the Supreme Court to be very clear when writing guidance for the 5th Circuit should the court vacate and remand the case. But Texas wants justices to reiterate that just because the case was remanded, that doesn’t mean the 5th Circuit can’t reinstitute the stay on the preliminary injunction that was ordered following the 5th Circuit’s prior review.

On rebuttal, Shaffer told SCOTUS that out of “about 20 other laws that by some views may look a lot like Texas'” law, “this is the worst of them.” He described Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as a “hostile regulator who’s saying to adults, you should not be here.”

“I strongly urge this court to stick with strict scrutiny as the applicable standard of review when we’re talking about content-based burdens on speakers,” Shaffer said.

In a press release, Vera Eidelman, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said that “efforts to childproof the Internet not only hurt everyone’s ability to access information, but often give the government far too much leeway to go after speech it doesn’t like—all while failing to actually protect children.”

Texas defends requiring ID for porn to SCOTUS: “We’ve done this forever” Read More »

SEC sues Elon Musk, says he cheated Twitter investors out of $150 million

elon musk, Policy, sec elon musk / Rejus Almole / January 15, 2025

The lawsuit was filed in the waning days of the Biden administration, and the next administration is less likely to aggressively pursue a charge against Musk. President-elect Donald Trump picked Musk to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE,” as part of a plan to eliminate regulations and restructure federal agencies.

New SEC leadership

SEC Chair Gary Gensler will be leaving the agency, and Trump’s pick to replace him, Paul Atkins, testified to Congress in 2019 that the SEC should reduce its disclosure requirements. With Gensler and one other Democrat leaving, Republicans will have a 2-1 majority on the SEC while the Senate considers Trump’s nominee, a Wall Street Journal article said.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the lawsuit will be dismissed right away, according to the Journal. The disclosure rule is “routinely enforced,” the article said.

“The new claims against Musk might be hard for a friendlier administration to immediately dismiss,” the WSJ wrote. “That is because the measure Musk allegedly violated is what regulators call a strict-liability rule. Just as police officers don’t have to prove drivers intended to speed to issue a ticket, regulators don’t have to show an investor meant to violate [Rule] 13D to bring an enforcement action.”

The SEC has said it obtained thousands of documents as part of its investigation and that it was probing more than just the late disclosure. The SEC told a court in October 2023 that its investigation “pertains to considerably more than the timing and substance of a particular SEC filing; it also relates to all of Musk’s purchases of Twitter stock in 2022 and his 2022 statements and SEC filings.”

Musk’s lawyer said last month that the SEC threatened to bring “charges on numerous counts” if Musk didn’t agree to settle. But the lawsuit filed yesterday includes only the late-disclosure charge. Demanding a jury trial, the SEC seeks a civil penalty and disgorgement of Musk’s unjust enrichment, plus interest.

SEC sues Elon Musk, says he cheated Twitter investors out of $150 million Read More »

FBI forces Chinese malware to delete itself from thousands of US computers

chinese malware, plugx, Policy, Security / Paul Patrick / January 14, 2025

The FBI said today that it removed Chinese malware from 4,258 US-based computers and networks by sending commands that forced the malware to use its “self-delete” function.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) government paid the Mustang Panda group to develop a version of PlugX malware used to infect, control, and steal information from victim computers, the FBI said. “Since at least 2014, Mustang Panda hackers then infiltrated thousands of computer systems in campaigns targeting US victims, as well as European and Asian governments and businesses, and Chinese dissident groups,” the FBI said.

The malware has been known for years but many Windows computers were still infected while their owners were unaware. The FBI learned of a method to remotely remove the malware from a French law enforcement agency, which had gained access to a command-and-control server that could send commands to infected computers.

“When a computer infected with this variant of PlugX malware is connected to the Internet, the PlugX malware can send a request to communicate with a command-and-control (‘C2’) server, whose IP address is hard-coded in the malware. In reply, the C2 server can send several possible commands to the PlugX malware on the victim computer,” stated an FBI affidavit that was made on December 20 and unsealed today.

As it turns out, the “PlugX malware variant’s native functionality includes a command from a C2 server to ‘self-delete.'” This deletes the application, files created by the malware, and registry keys used to automatically run the PlugX application when the victim computer is started.

FBI forces Chinese malware to delete itself from thousands of US computers Read More »

Meta to cut 5% of employees deemed unfit for Zuckerberg’s AI-fueled future

AI, augmented reality, facebook, Instagram, layoffs, mark zuckerberg, Meta, Policy, smart glasses / Kris Guyer / January 14, 2025

Anticipating that 2025 will be an “intense year” requiring rapid innovation, Mark Zuckerberg reportedly announced that Meta would be cutting 5 percent of its workforce—targeting “lowest performers.”

Bloomberg reviewed the internal memo explaining the cuts, which was posted to Meta’s internal Workplace forum Tuesday. In it, Zuckerberg confirmed that Meta was shifting its strategy to “move out low performers faster” so that Meta can hire new talent to fill those vacancies this year.

“I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management,” Zuckerberg said. “We typically manage out people who aren’t meeting expectations over the course of a year, but now we’re going to do more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle.”

Cuts will likely impact more than 3,600 employees, as Meta’s most recent headcount in September totaled about 72,000 employees. It may not be as straightforward as letting go anyone with an unsatisfactory performance review, as Zuckerberg said that any employee not currently meeting expectations could be spared if Meta is “optimistic about their future performance,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Any employees affected will be notified by February 10 and receive “generous severance,” Zuckerberg’s memo promised.

This is the biggest round of cuts at Meta since 2023, when Meta laid off 10,000 employees during what Zuckerberg dubbed the “year of efficiency.” Those layoffs followed a prior round where 11,000 lost their jobs and Zuckerberg realized that “leaner is better.” He told employees in 2023 that a “surprising result” from reducing the workforce was “that many things have gone faster.”

“A leaner org will execute its highest priorities faster,” Zuckerberg wrote in 2023. “People will be more productive, and their work will be more fun and fulfilling. We will become an even greater magnet for the most talented people. That’s why in our Year of Efficiency, we are focused on canceling projects that are duplicative or lower priority and making every organization as lean as possible.”

Meta to cut 5% of employees deemed unfit for Zuckerberg’s AI-fueled future Read More »

Buyers of Razer’s bogus “N95” Zephyr masks get over $1 million in refunds

Policy, razer n95 mask, razer zephyr / Kris Guyer / January 14, 2025

“The Razer Zephyr was conceived to offer a different and innovative face covering option for the community,” the company said at the time. “The FTC’s claims against Razer concerned limited portions of some of the statements relating to the Zephyr. More than two years ago, Razer proactively notified customers that the Zephyr was not a N95 mask, stopped sales, and refunded customers.”

FTC: Only 6 percent of US purchases were refunded

The FTC lawsuit casts doubt on the earlier availability of refunds, saying that Razer “allegedly implemented” a refund policy. Razer provided refunds for less than 6 percent of Zephyr purchases in the US, the FTC said.

“While Defendants purport to have instituted a policy of fully refunding consumers concerned about the filters on January 9, 2022, Defendants did not promote that policy in its January emails to consumers or on its website,” the FTC said.

That’s a reference to a Razer email sent to mask buyers acknowledging that the mask “is not a medical device nor certified as an N95 mask.” The FTC said the Razer email to consumers “did not invite or otherwise indicate that consumers who believed they were purchasing an N95 mask when they purchased the Zephyr could request a refund from Razer.”

Razer customers who sought refunds ran into several kinds of problems, the FTC said. Some “were told that they could not receive a refund because they were outside of Razer’s standard 14-day return policy,” while others “were told that they could not receive a full refund because they had used the disposable filters provided with the Zephyr when they bought the Zephyr in October 2022 or because the Zephyr was no longer sealed and unused,” the lawsuit said.

“Numerous customers were deterred from, or confused regarding their ability to, obtain full refunds because of statements by Defendants’ customer service representatives that they were ineligible for full refunds,” the lawsuit said.

We contacted Razer today and will update this article if it provides further comment.

Buyers of Razer’s bogus “N95” Zephyr masks get over $1 million in refunds Read More »

Mastodon’s founder cedes control, refuses to become next Musk or Zuckerberg

decentralized social media, elon musk, European Union, facebook, Instagram, mark zuckerberg, mastodon, Meta, Policy, social networks / Rejus Almole / January 13, 2025

And perhaps in a nod to Meta’s recent changes, Mastodon also vowed to “invest deeply in trust and safety” and ensure “everyone, especially marginalized communities,” feels “safe” on the platform.

To become a more user-focused paradise of “resilient, governable, open and safe digital spaces,” Mastodon is going to need a lot more funding. The blog called for donations to help fund an annual operating budget of $5.1 million (5 million euros) in 2025. That’s a massive leap from the $152,476 (149,400 euros) total operating expenses Mastodon reported in 2023.

Other social networks wary of EU regulations

Mastodon has decided to continue basing its operations in Europe, while still maintaining a separate US-based nonprofit entity as a “fundraising hub,” the blog said.

It will take time, Mastodon said, to “select the appropriate jurisdiction and structure in Europe” before Mastodon can then “determine which other (subsidiary) legal structures are needed to support operations and sustainability.”

While Mastodon is carefully getting re-settled as a nonprofit in Europe, Zuckerberg this week went on Joe Rogan’s podcast to call on Donald Trump to help US tech companies fight European Union fines, Politico reported.

Some critics suggest the recent policy changes on Meta platforms were intended to win Trump’s favor, partly to get Trump on Meta’s side in the fight against the EU’s strict digital laws. According to France24, Musk’s recent combativeness with EU officials suggests Musk might team up with Zuckerberg in that fight (unlike that cage fight pitting the wealthy tech titans against each other that never happened).

Experts told France24 that EU officials may “perhaps wrongly” already be fearful about ruffling Trump’s feathers by targeting his tech allies and would likely need to use the “full legal arsenal” of EU digital laws to “stand up to Big Tech” once Trump’s next term starts.

As Big Tech prepares to continue battling EU regulators, Mastodon appears to be taking a different route, laying roots in Europe and “establishing the appropriate governance and leadership frameworks that reflect the nature and purpose of Mastodon as a whole” and “responsibly serve the community,” its blog said.

“Our core mission remains the same: to create the tools and digital spaces where people can build authentic, constructive online communities free from ads, data exploitation, manipulative algorithms, or corporate monopolies,” Mastodon’s blog said.

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New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill

New York Affordable Broadband Act, Policy / Paul Patrick / January 13, 2025

1.7 million New York households lost FCC discount

The order said quick implementation of the law is important because of “developments at the federal level impacting the affordability of broadband service.” About 1.7 million New York households, and 23 million nationwide, used to receive a monthly discount through an FCC program that expired in mid-2024 after Congress failed to provide more funding.

“For this reason, consumer benefit programs assisting low-income households—such as the ABA—are even more critical to ensure that the digital divide for low-income New Yorkers is being addressed,” the New York order said.

New York ISPs can obtain an exemption from the low-cost broadband law if they “provide service to no more than 20,000 households and the Commission determines that compliance with such requirements would result in ‘unreasonable or unsustainable financial impact on the broadband service provider,'” the order said.

Over 40 small ISPs filed for exemptions in 2021 before the law was blocked by a judge. Those ISPs and potentially others will be given one-month exemptions if they file paperwork by Wednesday stating that they meet the subscriber threshold. ISPs must submit detailed financial information by February 15 to obtain longer-term exemptions.

“All other ISPs (i.e., those with more than 20,000 subscribers) must comply with the ABA by January 15, 2025,” the order said. Failure to comply can be punished with civil penalties of up to $1,000 per violation. The law applies to wireline, fixed wireless, and satellite providers.

Charter Spectrum currently advertises a $25-per-month plan with 50Mbps speeds for low-income households. Comcast and Optimum have $15 plans. Verizon has a low-income program reducing the cost of some home Internet plans to as low as $20 a month.

Disclosure: The Advance/Newhouse Partnership, which owns 12.3 percent of Charter, is part of Advance Publications, which also owns Ars Technica parent Condé Nast.

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