Главная » Новости Интернета » Все регионы
‘Dark web’ plot behind disturbing video
The company found evidence of a “co-ordinated attack” when it investigated why the video was suddenly appearing on the popular short video sharing app, a TikTok executive told a British parliamentary committee on Tuesday.
TikTok scrambled earlier this month to remove clips of his suicide, which parents said left their children “traumatised”.
The distressing incident raised concerns about the platform’s ability to stop harmful content from reaching its users, many of whom are teens.
RELATED: Trump approves TikTok sale to avoid ban
A TikTok executive has told a UK inquiry the Ronnie McNutt video was a co-ordinated attack that started on the dark web. Picture: Greg Baker/AFP
RELATED: Moment mum falls through ceiling
RELATED: Why TikTok suicide video is so hard to stop
TikTok’s European director of public policy Theo Bertram said there was a huge spike in the number of clips uploaded to TikTok about a week after the original video was livestreamed on Facebook.
“There’s evidence of a co-ordinated attack,” Mr Bertrand said.
“Through our investigations, we learned that groups operating on the dark web made plans to raid social media platforms including TikTok, in order to spread the video across the internet.
“What we saw was a group of users who were repeatedly attempting to upload the video to our platform.”
The dark web is a part of the internet accessible only through anonymity-providing software.
The users were “splicing it, editing it and cutting it in different ways” and then making new accounts to help spread it, he said.
Videos of Ronnie McNutt’s suicide, which he livestreamed on Facebook, were posted to TikTok a week later in what the company has said was a co-ordinated attack organised on the dark web.
RELATED: ‘Horrible experiment’ shows Twitter bias
TikTok users usually look through their own feed or use hashtags to find videos.
These users were clicking on account profiles, apparently anticipating that they would be posting the suicide clip, which is an unusual way to find videos, Mr Bertram said. He gave few other details.
On Monday, the company wrote to nine other tech platforms proposing that they warn each other about violent and graphic content on their own services.
Mr Bertram’s comments came as TikTok said in its latest transparency report that it took down 104.5 million videos for violating its guidelines or terms of service during the first six months of the year.
That’s less than 1 per cent of the total number of videos uploaded for that period.
Ronnie McNutt was remembered as a caring member of his local church. Picture: Facebook
“Caring” man Ronnie McNutt, 33, broadcast his tragic death from his home last month during a Facebook live-stream that was quickly taken down.
However, sick netizens continued to upload versions of the horrific clip to various apps and websites days after the August 31 stream.
Reports at the time suggested the video appeared on TikTok’s “For You” trending homepage.
That means it could have been viewed by millions of people.
In some cases, the most gruesome part of the video was hidden inside more innocuous looking TikToks.
Many horrified app users said they saw the footage unintentionally, and warned others to be wary.
Writing on Facebook, one said: “So horrible; fly high Ronnie.
“I wish I can unsee the video but I cannot unfortunately I can’t and unfortunately it’s permanently in me and my daughter’s minds she is so traumatised from the video she accidentally clicked on a link on TikTok.”
A Twitter user said: “My 15-year-old daughter was sent a video of Ronnie McNutt committing suicide on a Facebook livestream.
“I hate she watched it. My prayers go out to his family and friends. RIP Ronnie #SuicidePrevention.”
Another added: “My pre-teen son just showed me the Ronnie McNutt video on YouTube.
“Pls start banning any related content.”
TikTok scrambled to delete the videos as they struggled to stop the spread. Picture: Sean Gallup / Getty Images
TikTok took down versions of the clip as they were uploaded and began banning anyone who shared it.
Bosses at TikTok are banning anyone who re-uploads it.
A TikTok spokesperson said: “On Sunday night, clips of a suicide that had been livestreamed on Facebook circulated on other platforms, including TikTok.
“Our systems have been automatically detecting and flagging these clips for violating our policies against content that displays, praises, glorifies, or promotes suicide.
“We are banning accounts that repeatedly try to upload clips, and we appreciate our community members who’ve reported content and warned others against watching, engaging, or sharing such videos on any platform out of respect for the person and their family.
“If anyone in our community is struggling with thoughts of suicide or concerned about someone who is, we encourage them to seek support, and we provide access to hotlines directly from our app and in our Safety Centre.”
This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission
( подробнее )China blasts Trump’s ‘dirty’ deal
The comments appeared in an anonymous editorial published in government mouthpiece China Daily.
“What the United States has done to TikTok is almost the same as a gangster forcing an unreasonable and unfair business deal on a legitimate company,” the unnamed author wrote.
The US has threatened to ban Chinese apps like WeChat and TikTok. Picture: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
RELATED: ‘Dark web’ plot behind disturbing video
RELATED: TikTok’s new ‘trusted tech partner’
As time was running out for TikTok in the US – the biggest market it operates in – President Donald Trump gave his approval to a deal that would give cloud company Oracle and retailer Walmart a combined 20 per cent stake in a newly formed entity called TikTok Global.
The President previously ordered the app sold to a US company or it would be banned in his country.
That order was made in regards to “national security” concerns, which China says “has become the weapon of choice for Washington when it wants to curb the rise of any companies from foreign countries that are outperforming their US peers”.
In the past, China has banned American companies like Facebook and Google from operating there in accordance with the Communist Party’s censorship regime, though both companies have been seemingly desperate to return to China.
But Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has somewhat cooled on the country after several years of trying and failing to get the social media platform allowed into China.
US President Donald Trump has ben likened to a ‘gangster’. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP
RELATED: Why TikTok suicide video is so hard to stop
China Daily, which is owned by the Chinese Communist Party’s publicity department, said the country has “no reason to give the green light” to the deal, which it has previously tried to neuter by placing export restrictions on the piece of technology that makes TikTok so successful, but in a twist, China is also arguing the US deal has national security concerns for them.
“Although in theory ByteDance would still own the algorithm that runs TikTok and license it to the new US-based company, Oracle would have the authority to check the source code and any updates,” it said.
“Since TikTok and its Chinese version Douyin have the same source code, it means that the US would get to know the operation of Douyin.”
“ByteDance therefore stands to lose not only control of the company, but also its core technology that it has created and owns.
“That would be detrimental to the long-term development of the company.”
Viral video app TikTok has found itself in the middle of a geopolitical battle. Picture: Greg Baker / AFP
China Daily goes on to accuse the US administration of setting “traps from the very beginning” to force ByteDance to sell to a US company.
“It is not the first time the US has played such dirty tricks to bully foreign companies in order to either destroy them or take them over,” China Daily alleges, warning the US will continue to do the same to other foreign companies if it gets its way on TikTok.
( подробнее )Важные советы для трейдеров
Что нужно иметь, чтобы начать торговлю на финансовом рынке? Об этом можно спросить у опытных трейдеров, которые уже несколько лет занимаются торговыми операциями. Они скажут, что нужно быть ответственным, внимательным и осторожным. И важно все время учиться. Ведь рынок “Форекс” состоит из огромного количества важных моментов, о которых нужно знать.
Рейтинг брокеров "Форекс" 2020 г. : как найти надежного брокера
Сегодня есть очень много брокерских компаний, которые готовы помочь трейдерам узнать более подробно о валютном рынке Forex и начать осуществлять сделки. Но как узнать, кто из них будет надежным? Лучше всего выбирать опытную компанию, которая проработала больше 5 лет. Также стоит поискать информацию о репутации, изучить отзывы предыдущих клиентов, узнать о наличии лицензии и ее оформлении, размере комиссии и других важных моментах.
Подобной информацией располагают некоторые ресурсы, на которых вы можете найти рейтинг форекс-брокеров 2020 г. Изучив его, трейдер имеет возможность подобрать действительно хорошего посредника, который не просто поможет зарегистрировать и начать работу на Forex, но и предложит больше возможностей.
Брокерс ру: советы от экспертов
Они пригодятся не только новичкам, которые еще незнакомы с валютным рынком и его особенностями, но и искушенным трейдерам. Ведь всегда нужно учиться чему-то новому:
- ??контролируйте собственные эмоции. Во время торговли на Forex не нужно быть чересчур азартным человеком. Чтобы открыть счет, важно знать рыночную ситуацию и четко ее представлять, проанализировать. Начинающие трейдеры всегда вначале будут ощущать алчность, страх. Это их враги. И если они смогут их преодолеть, тогда их ждет стабильные заработки;
- ?всегда соблюдайте собственную стратегию. В интернете можно найти множество вариантов стратегий, которые применяются на валютном рынке. Ими тоже можно пользоваться, но лучше, когда трейдер выработает собственную. Ведь участник сам поймет и осознает, как ему лучше себя вести во время сделок, сколько времени нужно потратить на нее, с какой валютной парой лучше работать и др.;
- управляйте рисками. Эксперты всегда говорят, что не нужно отдавать все деньги на сделки. Если у вас появляется минус, прекращайте “играть”. Именно в этот момент нужно поставить ордер, чтобы сделка была принудительно закрыта;
- все время совершенствуйтесь, практикуйтесь, ходите на тренинги, лекции, семинары, изучайте литературу. Идеальным вариантом будет наличие опытного наставника.
Мнение Брокерс ру: чтобы добиться прибыли и главное, стабильности в работе на рынке, важно придерживаться таких простых, но важных рекомендаций.
Mystery of whether you’ll get faster internet
It means two million lucky Australian homes and businesses will be able to have more choice in what internet speeds they’re able to pay for by the end of 2023.
RELATED: ‘Mega backflip’: Kevin Rudd erupts over NBN
NBN Co CEO Stephen Rue. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian
RELATED: ‘Unusual’ space event that took down NBN
Where those two million people live is still a mystery: NBN Co CEO Stephen Rue told news.com.au the government-owned company still “need to operationalise this”.
“We will be looking at the best areas for us to choose to build out,” Mr Rue said.
“I would expect around half will be in regional areas, I also expect it to be across the whole country, every state essentially.”
He said the decisions would be made “based on a range of factors, for example where we would see high demand coming for higher speeds”.
“Areas where there are lots of business for example, areas where there is perhaps less capability today, and that would clearly go in the mix of a range of reasons why those areas will be selected.”
Funds raised through private debt markets will provide NBN Co with $3.5 billion it said will be spent on “network investments that will benefit homes and small businesses across the fibre-to-the-node (FTTN), fibre-to-the-curb (FTTC) and hybrid-fibre-coaxial (HFC) networks”.
Currently FTTN connections perform so poorly some telcos, (including the country’s biggest), won’t sell you anything faster than a 50mbps connection if you have to rely on an FTTN connection because it can rarely deliver it.
The goal is to have 75 per cent of premises connected to a fixed-line service that gives them “access to peak wholesale speed tiers of 500mbps to close to 1gbps”, which require fibre.
RELATED: NBN’s ‘waste of money and time’
Your friendly neighbourhood NBN node.
RELATED: Why you won’t get faster internet
Around six million customers connect to the NBN via fibre technology, whether through the old HFC network, or fibre to the curb or premises.
More Australians currently connect to the NBN via fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) connections than any other type, which rely on the old copper phone network to go from your house to a neighbourhood “node” that connects to the fibre network.
The new plan is to build smaller fibre networks from the node through the neighbourhood, and if you want to connect your home to the fibre network there will be a way for your telco to make it happen (which could and likely will cost you extra)
The most recent Measuring Broadband Australia report from May said that 10 per cent of NBN services “underperform”, and 95 per cent of them are FTTN connections.
A service underperforms if it routinely gets closer to the speed offered by the speed tier below the one the customer is actually on (for example if you’re paying for a 50mbps plan but your speed is more frequently below 37.5mbps than above it, your service is underperforming).
If you’re on one of those plans then there might be relief on the way at least, if you’re lucky enough to be selected in the roughly two million new premises.
RELATED: Why 20,000 moved to worse NBN
New fibre connections should provide more options to some NBN customers.
Already, 16 per cent of Australians are dissatisfied with their current home internet speed, according to the Consumer Sentiment Tracker conducted by comparison site Finder.
Finder editor-in-chief Angus Kidman told news.com.au the announcement that two million more homes and businesses would get access to fibre is an “interesting” one but “there’s so much we don’t know yet”.
“We’ve been given what sounds like a very ambitious timeline and I think it’s worth remembering that at every stage of the NBN, the timelines were optimistic and the costings were optimistic.
“The one thing I can confidently say is that this won’t be finished by 2023 and it will cost more than they say it’ll cost now, that’s just the nature of these large projects.”
A former NBN contractor echoed the sentiment on Twitter.
It would be pretty hilarious if someone had to rip out and replace the kilometers of HFC I hauled in 2019— klaus kimchi (@maximum_sincere) September 22, 2020
related, and redundant: this is going to go so far over budget— klaus kimchi (@maximum_sincere) September 23, 2020
Mr Rue said, at least from an NBN perspective, there will be no additional cost to consumers from the cost of expanding the fibre network, or from the company’s newly announced “line speed uplift program” aimed at resolving in-home cabling issues for premises on the FTTN network.
“What is apparent is that there are challenges in some people’s homes regarding the in-home wiring they have where the signal disperses, there’s interference effectively and you can get lower speeds and sometimes lower reliability.”
Mr Rue stressed this is outside the NBN network and is a problem with the customer’s home.
“What we’ll do is have technicians who either, on connection or selected visits or a normal instance where they’d go into a home to remediate an issue, will also look at home wiring to see if we can resolve some issues they may have in either speed or reliability.
“We know there are homes that can receive higher speeds than they’re getting purely due to their home situation,” Mr Rue said.
More neighbourhoods will get their own fibre networks to connect to the local node.
If you’re told you have cabling issues however it’s likely it will be your responsibility to fix (or the landlord who owns the house you rent).
Mr Rue said the expansion of the fibre network “enables more consumers who may wish to order higher speeds to order those higher speeds from their chosen retailer”.
“All we’re doing is enabling more choice across a wider footprint to basically have the ability to order speeds, those products will be sold by the retailers and they may bundle up other things, our pricing mechanism to retailers is not changing at this time.”
Mr Kidman said that was where consumers could potentially see prices go up.
“The fundamental economics of the NBN has always been ‘if you want more speed you’ll have to pay more for it’ and there’s no reason to assume that will be any different as new speeds come out.”
Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) CEO Teresa Corbin said the announcement was great news “for Australians who need superfast speeds, such as those who run data heavy businesses from home or at the office”.
She also predicted those who wanted faster internet will have to pay extra.
“It’s important that consumers remember that faster NBN plans will inevitably come with higher costs.
“Current 1Gbps plans can cost around $150 per month, so consumers should carefully consider if these plans will be right for them.
“For most households that use the internet to stream TV shows and movies, read the news and browse social media, an NBN 50mbps plan may be a more cost effective choice.”
( подробнее )‘Horrible experiment’ reveals Twitter bias
The social media platform introduced a new algorithm to automatically detect what it thinks will be the most interesting part of a picture in order to display that part of the image in preview thumbnails.
Funnily enough, a Twitter user who sought to draw attention to the poor facial recognition of a different company highlighted the issue last week.
any guesses? pic.twitter.com/9aIZY4rSCX— Colin Madland (@colinmadland) September 19, 2020
Colin Madland shared an image of videoconferencing app Zoom editing out the head of his black colleague because it didn’t recognise his face as a face.
When he sought to show Zoom’s bias, he also revealed Twitter’s, noting how the image preview defaulted to his white face when cropping the image preview.
This led several other users to test it out themselves, including in one “horrible experiment” involving two US politicians and the issue of who will become the next Supreme Court judge.
A 2009 photo of Ruth Bader Ginsburg greeting then-President Barack Obama. Picture: Saul Loeb / AFP
RELATED: Trump approves TikTok sale to avoid ban
RELATED: Kim K dumps Facebook for ‘spreading of hate’
The “experiment” involved US Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who became the subject of controversy following the death of US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week.
In 2016, after the death of justice Antonin Scalia at the start of 2016, Mr McConnell prevented then-President Barack Obama’s nomination for successor being voted on until Mr Obama had left office, where the Donald Trump-nominated Neil Gorsuch was appointed.
Ms Bader Ginsburg died much closer to the election than Mr Scalia, but that hasn’t stopped Mr McConnell vowing to have her replaced before the election is held.
This has led to accusations of hypocrisy and protests outside Mr McConnell’s house.
Programmer Tony Arcieri decided to use Mr McConnell and former President Obama for his experiment to test Twitter’s algorithm, placing photos of the pair at opposite ends of an otherwise blank image to see which one Twitter’s algorithm picked.
RELATED: Reason Facebook staffer turned down $87k
Trying a horrible experiment...Which will the Twitter algorithm pick: Mitch McConnell or Barack Obama? pic.twitter.com/bR1GRyCkia— Tony “Abolish (Pol)ICE” Arcieri
( подробнее )По всем параметрам украинцам подходит интернет казино Кинг
В мировой сети разработаны специальные сайты, где в большом количестве представлен азартный контент, но нет уверенности в его качестве. Проверенное аудиторами и получившее признание украинских игроков, казино Кинг заслужило первое место в своем секторе. Казино радует всех гостей и постояльцев, как хорошим ассортиментом игр, так и разнообразными презентами. Обновляется на постоянной основе игровой арсенал, а подборка по жанрам придется по вкусу даже скептикам. Играть в казино полностью законно, так как его правомерность подтверждена лицензией от игорного правительства Curacao. Известные и ходовые платежные терминалы обеспечат бесперебойный вывод призов и быстрое наполнение баланса. Все непонятные и спорные ситуации помогает решать техническая помощь, как в онлайн режиме, так и посредством переписки.
Отдых в окружении игр казино Кинг принесет удовольствие
Разнообразие игровой зоны казино порадует фанатов видеослотов и любителей традиционных игр. Именитые компании, названия которых уже гарантируют качество, в казино представляют игровые автоматы и среди наиболее известных: Новоматик, НетЕнт, Игрософт, Tom Horn и прочие. По поставщикам отсортированы игровые автоматы в казино, так что можно сразу отдать предпочтение играм любимого вендора. Номатик и его игровые слоты занимают лидирующие позиции, и известные Гаминатор чаще всего фигурируют в автоматах, где можно реализовать бонусные фри спины. Slotokingua.com сразу предлагает превью самых топовых игровых автоматов, играть в которые можно как за гривны, так и за фантики.
Свобода выбора в денежных операциях Кинг
Не ограничивает казино пользователей в вариантах выбора каким способом внести депозит или обналичить выигрыши. Для каждого платежного метода предусмотрены свои сроки и требования, что указано на сайте. С мобильного счета удобно вносить депозиты, как и использовать карты банков для перевода. Электронные кошельки используются также часто, как и возможно пополнять баланс через специальные терминалы. При заполнении анкеты указывается валюта и нельзя её менять, как и платежную систему, при обналичивании вознаграждений.
( подробнее )‘Never touch another man’s balls’
We’ve all been there. It’s been a tough day at work, you hit the pub, order a beer and settle in for an evening of pool and questionable conversation.
You psych yourself up for a big break to get your game off to a flyer, but then imagine somebody moves your cue ball at the last moment.
Well, that’s exactly what happened to a short-tempered man in a mystery UK pub on Tuesday, and the CCTV of what happened has now taken the internet by storm.
Easy, tiger.
The clip, posted alongside the caption “Never touch another mans (sic) Balls” has been viewed over half a million times.
It shows two men can be seen leaning over a pool table to pick up their cues as half a dozen other patrons sit at tables around the room.
One of the men in a black Nike sweatshirt, stands at the head of the table as he prepares to take his shot.
He appears to ask a third man, who is wearing a black T-shirt, to move out of the way after he started a conversation with his opponent.
Never touch another mans Balls
( подробнее )Reason Facebook staffer turned down $87k
In a 6600 word memo obtained by Buzzfeed News, data scientist Sophie Zhang said she has “blood on her hands” from her time working at the tech giant, which she alleges has turned a blind eye to its platform being exploited as a political weapon.
Ms Zhang’s job at the company was on the “fake engagement team”, where she dealt with “bots influencing elections and the like” according to her LinkedIn profile.
“In the three years I’ve spent at Facebook, I’ve found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, and caused international news on multiple occasions,” wrote Ms Zhang in the leaked internal memo.
“I have personally made decisions that affected national presidents without oversight, and taken action to enforce against so many prominent politicians globally that I’ve lost count,” she wrote.
“I know that I have blood on my hands by now,” Ms Zhang added, going on to say she struggled to sleep at night when civil unrest erupted in countries, including Ecuador and Bolivia, where she hadn’t prioritised investigations or action against inauthentic behaviour.
RELATED: Zuckerberg admits Facebook’s ‘mistake’
Leaks about Facebook have continued as employees lose trust in the company.
RELATED: Why TikTok suicide video is so hard to stop
Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois told Buzzfeed News the company had dedicated resources to stopping “inauthentic behaviour”.
“We’ve built specialised teams, working with leading experts, to stop bad actors from abusing our systems, resulting in the removal of more than 100 networks for co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour,” she said.
“It’s highly involved work that these teams do as their full-time remit,” she added.
But Ms Zhang claimed the work was left up to her as an under-resourced junior employee, to decide which cases to pursue.
She said a senior manager had been trying to compliment her when he referred to her as “the part-time dictator” of “the world outside the West”, a statement that instead “illustrated the immense pressures” on Ms Zhang to try and police the platform.
Ms Zhang added that the failures at Facebook were, in her view, due to a lack of resources devoted to fixing the problems, and its prioritisation towards combating issues that posed a PR problem for the company ahead of those that presented actual electoral or civil harm.
“The reality is that many of our actions are slapdash and haphazard accidents,” she wrote.
Six months into the job Ms Zhang said she found evidence bots and fake accounts were boosting engagement and spread for content benefiting Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, which was quickly traced back to coming from the President’s camp.
A student of the Autonomous National University of Honduras (UNAH) throws a Molotov cocktail at riot police during a protest demanding the resignation of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez in January 2019. Picture: Orlando Sierra / AFP
RELATED: Sinister formula behind your Facebook feed
RELATED: ‘Misconceived’: Facebook’s threat slammed
It took months for the threat intelligence and policy review teams to act following her discovery.
“Despite the blatantly violating nature of this activity, it took me almost a year to take down his operation,” Ms Zhang said, adding the operation returned in similar numbers two weeks later.
Her memo reportedly mentioned other operations which she accuses Facebook of delaying investigating or acting on.
In Azerbaijan, Ms Zhang discovered the ruling political party “used thousands of inauthentic assets... to harass the opposition en masse”, which took a year from her reporting it to being investigated, she said.
Ahead of elections in Delhi in February, Ms Zhang “worked through sickness to take down a politically-sophisticated network of more than a thousand actors working to influence the election.”
Meanwhile local executives reportedly told Indian staffers not to apply hate speech policies to ruling party politicians who posted anti-Muslim hate speech, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Ms Zhang also took on tasks that should have gone to more senior investigators regarding activity in Ukraine, Turkey, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, “and many many more”, which Ms Zhang said she did “in her spare time”.
She went on to say Facebook had its priorities wrong, focusing most intently on putting out “PR fires”, while saying 99 per cent of the issues she dealt with were essentially spam.
Speaking for Facebook, Ms Bourgeois said co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour was the “priority” but the platform is also “addressing the problems of spam and fake engagement”.
“We investigate each issue carefully, including those that Ms. Zhang raises, before we take action or go out and make claims publicly as a company,” she added.
Ms Zhang said the problems at Facebook were too big for one person to fix, such as founder and boss Mark Zuckerberg. Picture: Mandel Ngan / AFP)
Ms Zhang said when she tried to get Facebook to address the issues and their civic and electoral impacts she was told the company, which made $25.4 billion in profit last year, didn’t have the resources.
She was then ordered to stop focusing on the civic impact of inauthentic behaviour or “Facebook would no longer have further need for my services”.
She was reportedly fired this month.
On her way out she posted the internal memo to her former co-workers, encouraging them to continue working to fix Facebook from the inside, adding that it was “too big a project for any one person to fix”.
She expressed that the problems could be meaningfully addressed if Facebook committed the resources to do it, adding that the inauthentic behaviour that continues to occur on the platform wasn’t remaining on the platform because campaign architects were particularly skilled.
“Perhaps they thought they were clever; the truth was, we simply didn’t care enough to stop them.”
( подробнее )TikTok’s new ‘trusted tech partner’
An executive order TikTok has vowed to challenge called for the viral video app to be sold to an American company if it wanted to continue operating there due to data security fears and wider political conflict between the US and China.
According to “a person familiar with the matter” who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, the new partnership is not the same as a direct sale.
RELATED: Why TikTok suicide video is so hard to stop
The US is TikTok’s biggest potential market because the app is banned in India and doesn’t operate in China. Picture: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP
RELATED: PM unleashes on TikTok in furious video
Instead it’s understood Oracle will handle the cloud operations and data storage for TikTok.
Microsoft has announced it received word on Sunday from ByteDance that its offer was knocked back.
“We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests,” Microsoft said in a statement.
“To do this, we would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combating disinformation, and we made these principles clear in our August statement.
“We look forward to seeing how the service evolves in these important areas,” the company added.
RELATED: Why country banned viral app
US President Donald Trump issued an executive order over the sale of TikTok. Picture: Olivier Douliery/AFP
RELATED: TikTok pulls out of key market
It appears Microsoft believed changes were necessary but whether Oracle is of the same opinion, and will make such changes, is yet to be announced.
The White House declined to comment to the Journal about the deal, which will have to be approved by it and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US.
While the US ordered TikTok sold, China issued new export restrictions that could prevent it happening, or at least take away its most attractive feature: the recommendation algorithm it uses to keep you hooked on viral content.
Australian Vanessa Pappas recently took over as the new CEO of TikTok. Picture: Supplied
What the reported Oracle partnership means for Australian users of the app remains unclear: our user data is currently held on servers in Singapore.
TikTok maintains it has never been asked to provide data to the Chinese government and wouldn’t do it if it were asked.
According to a report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) analyst Samantha Hoffman, the government might not actually have to make such a request in order to access data.
Many ASPI sponsors are from overseas and one (Facebook, a “bronze sponsor”) is even a direct competitor to TikTok, part of the reason why TikTok has disputed the Institute’s credibility on other comments relating to it.
( подробнее )Why Kim K is off Instagram
Ms Kardashian announced the boycott on Twitter.
– only to take steps after people are killed. Misinformation shared on social media has a serious impact on our elections and undermines our democracy. Please join me tomorrow when I will be “freezing” my Instagram and FB account to tell Facebook to #StopHateForProfit.— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) September 15, 2020
RELATED: Why TikTok suicide video is so hard to stop
The move is part of the Stop Hate For Profit campaign, which previously convinced more than 1,000 brands to withhold advertising from Facebook and the Instagram platform it owns for the month of July to try and get the company to act.
The organisers met with founder and boss Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and reported being disappointed by the meeting and the pair’s seeming unwillingness to fix its platform.
In leaked details after the meeting, Mr Zuckerberg told staff the advertising boycott would have no impact on its policies.
“We’re not going to change our policies or approach on anything because of a threat to a small per cent of our revenue, or to any per cent of our revenue,” Mr Zuckerberg reportedly said at a meeting in late June.
It’s unlikely a few accounts, even ones as big as Kim Kardashian who has more than 188 million Instagram followers, not posting for a day will do much either.
Financial news publication Bloomberg has nevertheless highlighted that Facebook’s stock fell sharply on the news of Ms Kardashian’s action.
2:51 p.m. ET: Kim Kardashian says she's freezing her Facebook and Instagram accounts tomorrow, and asks others to join her.Facebook shares: https://t.co/JmWwMqguEQ pic.twitter.com/yvMzBPErmp— Bloomberg (@business) September 15, 2020
RELATED: Facebook deny dying man’s wish
RELATED: What Facebook doesn’t want you to know
Ms Kardashian highlighted the platform’s exploited use as a platform for misinformation and propaganda “created by groups to sow division and split America apart”.
As a former Facebook staffer alleged in a leaked internal memo, these misinformation campaigns (which Facebook refers to as “co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour”) aren’t just being used to sow division and deceit in America.
Using Facebook in this way is against the company’s policies, but Facebook frequently fails to actually enforce its own policies, that are often introduced in response to an incident.
Mark Zuckerberg recently blamed an “operational mistake” for the fact that a militia group that hundreds of users reported for inciting violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin wasn’t removed until after violence unfolded and a 17-year-old teen allegedly murdered two people with an assault rifle.
Mr Zuckerberg said Facebook’s investigation didn’t find a link between the alleged shooter and the militia group Kenosha Guard.
Mark Zuckerberg remains under pressure to fix the website. Picture: Mandel Ngan/ AFP
Earlier this year, Facebook also had to announce it would take action against the QAnon conspiracy movement that crossed over from internet oddity to mainstream phenomenon thanks in part to the platform.
The company is now hoping to avoid a repeat of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and prevent its platform being used to derail the US election in November.
The company’s plan includes not accepting political ads in the week before the election, removing posts trying to use COVID-19 to discourage people from voting, and attaching labels to content that “seeks to delegitimise the outcome of the election or discuss the legitimacy of voting methods for example, by claiming that lawful methods of voting will lead to fraud”.
It’s also sworn to add a label to posts from any candidate or campaign that tries to declare victory before the final results are in.
( подробнее )‘Looks familiar’: Author says character is not Daniel Andrews after claims go viral
The children’s book, which shoppers spotted at Coles, is from the Inspector Bubblewraps DO’S and DON’TS series by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton.
Artist and photographer Alexia Sinclair shared a photo of the book last week saying “My heart goes out to @DanielAndrewsMP,” with a broken heart emoji.
“Now Coles have published a book about him titled ‘Inspector Bubblewrapper’s DOs and DON’Ts’.”
One of the authors, Griffiths responded, insisting the likeness was accidental.
RELATED: Follow live coronavirus updates
RELATED: ‘Boot Dan out’: Victoria’s doorstep protest
'This bloke setting a list of things we can and can't do looks a little familiar, no?' someone wrote in a Reddit post. Picture: Bignbadchris
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews at his daily coronavirus briefing. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sarah Matray
RELATED: Daniel Andrews denies lockdown ‘captain’s calls’
“Well, any resemblance is purely coincidental but if the safety helmet fits … (our thanks to @DanielAndrewsMP and gratitude for his extraordinary and tireless efforts during this extraordinary time),” Griffiths wrote on Twitter.
Well, any resemblance is purely coincidental but if the safety helmet fits... (our thanks to @DanielAndrewsMP and gratitude for his extraordinary and tireless efforts during this extraordinary time). https://t.co/cFdFWV70jw— Andy Griffiths (@AndyGbooks) August 31, 2020
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Thursday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sarah Matray
Another person shared a photo of the same book on Reddit Wednesday, noting the resemblance.
“This bloke setting a list of things we can and can’t do looks a little familiar, no,” the Reddit user wrote.
“Hey that’s Andrew Daniels,” one commenter joked.
“The red straps are covering up the North Face logo,” one commenter said referencing the brand of jacket Mr Andrews is known for wearing.
The Premier of Victoria has faced increased scrutiny over his handling of Victoria’s harsh Stage four lockdowns. The opposition leader accused Mr Andrews of making “captains calls” over changes in the lockdown.
Victoria reported 51 new cases of coronavirus and seven deaths on Thursday.
( подробнее )Why TikTok suicide video horror will happen again
Media law expert and practice director of Perth law firm Cove Legal, Roger Blow, told news.com.au governments around the world are “probably 10 years too late” to give social media regulation the importance they should have.
“As a result they’re now so far behind the eight ball it’s hard for them to try and reverse that trend,” he said.
“Their job is so much harder because they’ve left it so late.”
This week parents were warned to keep their children off of TikTok after a horrifying video of a man taking his own life, that originally appeared on Facebok Live in August, was repeatedly uploaded to the viral video app.
The videos of Missisippi man Ronnie McNutt reportedly started trending while the platform struggled to find and delete them.
Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant addressing the National Press Club in Canberra.
RELATED: Parents could sue over shock video
The Office of the eSafety Commissioner doesn’t have the power to lay charges, but if the content meets a criminal threshold, the Australian Federal Police can.
It’s understood the Commissioner hasn’t referred the Ronnie McNutt video to the AFP, and it’s unlikely it would meet that threshold anyway, as the laws at the AFP’s disposal primarily target things like child exploitation material and terrorist propaganda.
If a television station were to air such content they could have a case to answer to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), but “social media platforms such as TikTok currently sit outside of the ACMA’s regulatory remit,” an ACMA spokesperson told news.com.au.
Viewers who saw the footage reported being traumatised by the video, which was also insidiously cut into popular viral videos or cute cat videos in order to trick people into watching it.
TikTok’s powerful recommendation algorithm meant more people saw the confronting video before they realised what they were watching. Picture: Lionel Bonaventure / AFP
TikTok said it has been automatically deleting the videos when detected and banning accounts that continue to upload them.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a joint statement with Christine Morgan, the National Suicide Prevention Adviser to the Prime Minister, that her office has “been working closely with TikTok and other social media services to help limit the spread of the video”.
“This is yet another example of social media platforms struggling to incorporate safety protections at the core of their product offerings,” she said.
The video of Mr McNutt is the second suicide streamed live on Facebook in the past two months.
A Facebook spokesperson told news.com.au the company already made changes to its live platform a year ago.
Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said the company would “explore its options” after the Christchurch massacre was streamed live on its platform. Picture: Joe Raedle / Getty Images / AFP
Those changes came after Australian terrorist Brenton Tarrant livestreamed himself murdering 51 people while they prayed at mosques in Christchurch in March 2019.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday echoed the calls for social media platforms to do a better job protecting their users.
“Those who run these organisations have a responsibility to those who are watching it, and particularly when it comes to children,” Mr Morrison said.
“The rules in the real world, how you behave in the real world … have to be the same in the social media world.
“You need to be accountable. You need to be responsible. My government will be doing everything to make sure we hold you to account for that.”
Prime Minister Scott Morrison made a public address about social media and the live suicide incident on Facebook and TikTok on Wednesday. Picture: PMO / NCA NewsWire
While the Prime Minister has promised to hold TikTok and other social media platforms to account, Mr Blow thinks the government will have a difficult time doing so.
“The second anyone tries to regulate them they go on the offensive, and they’re incredibly powerful, they would naturally have some of the most expensive and powerful lawyers, they would have some of the most expensive and experienced PR people, so when you go up against Google and Facebook … whenever you’re up against someone that well resourced it’s a big fight.”
Mr Blow said he feared we are “still a very long way from any significant changes in how our children are exposed” to content they shouldn’t be.
He said while the laws stay the same, similar incidents will “for sure” happen again.
“The big companies will resist any attempt to regulate that space, they’ll keep referring to policies, and procedures, community guidelines, the ability to contact people — to be honest it’s all relatively ineffective when you’re actually dealing with a crisis like this.”
He said Facebook’s policy changes, such as a one-strike policy that would ban people from livestreaming if they violate the community guidelines was like sticking a “small plaster over a gaping wound”, adding “they’re never going to have much impact”.
“All you can do is stop people livestreaming full stop.”
Cybersecurity expert and child safety advocate Susan McLean told news.com.au on Tuesday that the people who continue to upload the abhorrent material are “99 per cent of the problem”, and the law seems to agree.
In the eyes of the law that treats social media sites as platforms rather than publishers, “it’s down to the individual user as to what they watch and it’s down to the individual author to what they put online”, Mr Blow said.
“It’s a free-for-all to a degree, and from a criminal point of view, if a piece of content is just offensive, the criminal law doesn’t really step into that space.”
If a piece of content is reported to Facebook it takes time to get deleted.
“The reports Facebook receives are largely dealt with by effectively call centre type operations, where Facebook subcontracted staff have to deal with a ridiculously high number per hour of reports they have to address,” Mr Blow said.
“The idea that there’s genuine scrutiny of even the stuff that’s reported — forget the stuff that isn’t — the level of scrutiny is not good: It’s far too quick, because there’s so much of it, Facebook is literally dealing with millions of millions of reports, and it tries to do it as quickly and cheaply as possible.”Facebook contracts around 15,000 content moderators, one for every 166,000 of its more than 2.5 billion users.
Last year the company made a profit of $25.4 billion.
( подробнее )Controversy as Insta account sold for $116m
Warner paid a reported $US85 million ($A116 million) for IMGN Media, which operates several brands across social media, e-sports and entertainment.
Its most well-known property is the meme-sharing Instagram account Daquan, which has 15.5 million followers.
The profile picture for Daquan's Instagram.
RELATED: 25 seconds that turned singer into online star
Daquan’s profile picture appears to be a stock image of a young black man being told off by his mother (a mask was recently added).
But when reports of the sale started hitting the internet, some people were a little miffed to see a picture of Barak Shragai, who along with Dor Mizrahi, runs IMGN media.
$85M off digital blackface. https://t.co/liF0TZEMHe— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) September 5, 2020
Meet Daquan. pic.twitter.com/uqGS9hqvsy— key. (@keywilliamss) September 3, 2020
OWNER RESPONDS TO ‘DIGITAL BLACKFACE’ ACCUSATIONS
If you’ve watched enough Australian television over the years you’re probably familiar with blackface as a concept and the racist connotations it tries to exploit for cheap laughs, but now there’s emerging criticism of a new concept – “digital blackface”.
Instagram and Facebook banned actual blackface last month, but its digital equivalent has been the topic of discussion online for a number of years, recently gaining further prominence after a Wired cover story about its proliferation on TikTok.
The magazine’s culture writer Jason Parham described a “disturbing and ongoing form of content production that suggests a twisted love of black culture through caricature”.
One TikTok user quoted in the piece describes it as “low-key racism” when white creators on an app with an accused and unfortunate history of censoring black creators go viral taking and “remixing” content from black ones.
Mr Parham wrote that on Facebook and Twitter, “instances of digital blackface are either text-based (abusing black vernacular) or image-based (trotting out memes or GIFs of black celebrities)”.
By contrast, on TikTok “creators embody blackness with an auteur-driven virtuosity – taking on black rhythms, gestures, affect, slang,” he wrote.
Some thought that was the case with Daquan’s Instagram account: which frequently uses the N-word and other “black” slang, as well as the darker skinned emojis available on Android and iOS.
In 2018, the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney wrote on the phenomenon, similarly giving the example of “black reaction GIFs” you might have seen posted in comment threads on Facebook or Twitter.
Popular examples include a GIF of Michael Jackson eating popcorn from the Thriller video, and actor Kayode Ewumi slyly tapping his temple in character as Roll Safe from BBC mockumentary #HoodDocumentary.
RELATED: TikTok star’s power cut off after huge virus party
Roll Safe in the BBC Three mockumentary #HoodDocumentary
RELATED: ‘You shot me’: Star accuses rapper
While some were quick to accuse IMGN of profiting (very handsomely) from digital blackface, the actual owner of the Daquan Instagram account, while still remaining anonymous, was forced to defend himself.
“I wanted to come on here to address some false claims I’ve been seeing online,” he said in a statement on the Instagram account’s Story.
“Daquan is run by me, a 23-year-old Ethiopian from Canada. There’s a picture of my business partner floating around that articles are falsely claiming is me. There’s only one person behind this account and that’s me – the same person who started this in 2014,” he said.
He then linked to two articles from Observer and The Atlantic dating back to 2017 and 2018 respectively, where a reporter who spoke with him via FaceTime describes him as a young black man.
HOW IS AN INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT WORTH MILLIONS?
With the alleged digital blackface scandal aside, you might be wondering how an Instagram account could make tens of millions of dollars.
According to Mr Shragai, it’s because it provides a way to effectively reach the people most sought after by marketeers (particularly in music): teens.
“Gen Z are the hardest audience to reach and engage with, and that’s what IMGN does best,” Mr Shragai told Brand Storytelling last year.
This is also the reason the modern music industry is obsessed with TikTok, mainly populated by teens and particularly potent at making unknown artists into hit makers.
Mr Shragai said the new partnership with Warner “not only offers us greater investment and support, but an entrepreneurial environment to continue growing our business, with the people running our accounts having editorial independence,” telling the Calgary Herald the company was “excited to partner with them as we take our company into the future”.
If you’re interested in trying to replicate Daquan’s success, his advice is to focus on content first.
Mr Shragai said this, and his anonymity, was Daquan’s competitive advantage over other accounts.
“He made sure from day one that it’s a brand, not a personality,” Mr Shragai told The Atlantic. “The fact that there’s no face, it allows it to become an editorial brand.”
( подробнее )Melbourne residents react with shock and fury to lockdown extension
From midnight on Sunday next week, the 8pm curfew will be pushed back an hour to 9pm (it will still cease at 5am) and the allowable outdoor exercise period will be doubled to two hours.
There will also be the introduction of a “single person bubble”, which will allow one nominated visitor if a person is living alone or a single parent with all children under 18.
On social media people have reacted to the news, with some maintaining it’s necessary if unfortunate, while others are furious and want the lockdown lifted immediately (many of them expressing themselves in ways that can’t be reproduced on a news website).
Would rather stamp out this virus than prematurely open. Glad Dan Andrews + team are making these difficult and unpopular decisions - otherwise we'd be going back into lockdowns and all this time locked down would be for nothing. #COVID19Victoria #melbournelockdown— Sam Wright (@samywamy10) September 6, 2020
Melbourne lockdown extended for another two weeks. I so wanna cry
( подробнее )Facebook boss reveals ‘operational mistake’
Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, has been charged with homicide after allegedly opening fire on people protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake, who was shot seven times in the back in front of his children by officer Rusten Sheskey.
Mr Blake has survived but will likely spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
Two people allegedly shot by Rittenhouse at a protest died and a third was injured.
The protests are part of the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement, which less than year ago Mr Zuckerberg said “just wouldn’t have been possible” without the platform he built to rank women by attractiveness.
RELATED: How ’freedom walk’ protests are spreading
Mark Zuckerberg said the shooting of protesters while police did nothing was “deeply disturbing”.
RELATED: Australia’s lockdown obsessions revealed
RELATED: ‘You shot me’: Star accuses rapper
A Facebook page called Kenosha Guard was brought to the company’s attention prior to the shootings after hundreds of people reported an event it created that they thought was inciting or could lead to violence like the type that ultimately eventuated.
At least 455 reports were filed, accounting for 66 per cent of all event reports from the day, and Facebook moderators cleared it four times according to Buzzfeed News.
But those moderators weren’t adequately trained to realise the group violated company policies, according to the man in charge of both.
In a video sent to Facebook staff and later posted on his own Facebook page, founder Mark Zuckerberg said an “operational mistake” was behind the lack of action taken about Kenosha Guard, which violated the company’s policies by being a militia group like the type recently banned.
Anthony Huber pushed his girlfriend aside and ran towards the alleged gunman before he was killed.
Joseph Rosenbaum is the other alleged victim, while a third man was injured.
Mr Zuckerberg said it wasn’t until the more qualified investigators took over — after two people died — that the page was found to violate Facebook’s policies.
“The team that enforces our policy against dangerous organisations is a specialised team that is trained to look for symbolism and innuendo and different things that require a significant amount of training in some of these cases to understand the details or the nuances of how certain militias or certain conspiracy networks and other dangerous networks operate,” Mr Zuckerberg said.
“The contractors and the reviewers who the initial complaints were funnelled to basically didn’t pick this up.
“On second review, the team that’s responsible for dangerous organisations recognised that this violated the policies and we took it down,” Mr Zuckerberg said.
Mr Zuckerberg said that Rittenhouse’ page and posts praising his alleged actions were being removed as the event had been deemed a mass shooting, but the decision to take down Kenosha Guard was purely for the policy breach and not because any link had been found between the two.
Mark Zuckerberg displays several emotions throughout the seven minute video.
“A lot of people are concerned there might have been connections between this guy and the Facebook page and event for the Kenosha Guard, a Wisconsin based militia organisation,” Mr Zuckerberg said in the video.
“At this point we haven’t found any evidence the [alleged] shooter was connected to the event or invited to the event in any way so it doesn’t really seem like there is any direct connection between this militia organisation and the [alleged] shooter,” Mr Zuckerberg said.
“But separate from the shooting, this page and the militia violated this new policy we put in place a couple weeks ago that included QAnon and other militia groups that we were worried could be trying to organise violence: Now in this volatile period, especially as we get closer to the election, and after the election when I think there is a significant risk of civil unrest as well.
“The page violated our policies.”
Mr Zuckerberg said the incident was “deeply troubling” and “the juxtaposition of seeing Jacob Blake facing away from the police and being shot, next to these images of this white kid with a long gun strapped to his body walking by the police with nothing happening … symbolises what we all feel is wrong and unjust and just how much progress still needs to be made”.
It’s also a potentially fitting metaphor for Mr Zuckerberg’s leadership at Facebook, a company under siege from people urging it to do something to stop the spread of hatred and misinformation, and now real world violence.
Employees are turning against the company, increasingly leaking information to the press after growing frustrated with a lack of action.
Buzzfeed News reporter Ryan Mac was recently leaked information about the leaks themselves after a Facebook communications worker begged other employees to stop making their job so hard.
I just got a leak about the leaks. A Facebook spokesperson just wrote this on an internal message board. Employees who send reporters information do so largely because they believe they are not being heard or that change is not possible via internal mechanisms. pic.twitter.com/iQxPD0iQoH— Ryan Mac
( подробнее )