CCP calls on private sector to break U.S. tech blockade | Twitter launches a forum to combat misinformation | India permanently bans TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps
CCP calls on private sector to break U.S. tech blockade | Twitter launches a forum to combat misinformation | India permanently bans TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps
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China must mobilize all its national resources, including private-sector research and development, to overcome key bottlenecks and become more self-reliant in the face of the U.S.-imposed technology blockade, a top Communist Party theoretician said. Caixin
Twitter unveiled a feature Monday meant to bolster its efforts to combat misinformation and disinformation by tapping users in a fashion similar to Wikipedia to flag potentially misleading tweets. The new system allows users to discuss and provide context to tweets they believe are misleading or false. NBC News
India's ministry of electronics and information technology has issued fresh notices to make permanent a ban imposed on video app TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps in June, Indian media reported late on Monday. Nikkei Asia
World
Capitol Riot Puts Spotlight on ‘Apocalyptically Minded’ Global Far Right
New York Times
@kbennhold @mschwirtz
Leaderless but united by racist ideology that has been supercharged by social media, extremists have built a web of real and online connections that worry officials.
Lone Wolves Connected Online: A History of Modern White Supremacy
New York Times
Forty years ago, Louis Beam had the idea of using the internet to drive a movement. Today, his vision is disturbingly prevalent.
Tech is having a reckoning. Tech investors? Not so much.
MIT Technology Review
@eileenguo
Twitter and Parler, which helped fuel the Capitol attack, wouldn’t exist without venture capital. Some investors say it's time to take responsibility.
Global chip shortage puts car supply chain under the microscope
Financial Times
As the might of the carmakers confronts the power of consumer electronic companies, the crisis is also putting the motor industry’s ever-increasing reliance on chips — and their complicated supply chains — under the microscope.
Australia
ASIC hit with cyber attack
The Sydney Morning Herald
@sdanck
The corporate watchdog says it has been hit with a cyber attack which allowed hackers to potentially access confidential documents filed by financial institutions.
China
Party Calls on Private Sector to Break U.S. Tech Blockade
Caixin
China must mobilize all its national resources, including private-sector research and development, to overcome key bottlenecks and become more self-reliant in the face of the U.S.-imposed technology blockade, a top Communist Party theoretician said. Jiang Jinquan (江金权), head of Communist Party’s top ideology think tank, the Central Policy Research Office (CPRO), made a five-point proposal for achieving technological independence from the United States in a commentary published on Monday by the Study Times (学习时报), the official newspaper of the elite Central Party School.
What’s Behind Huawei’s Deal?
The Wire China
@DavidBarboza2
Last November, with U.S. sanctions starting to bite, the Chinese telecom giant sold off its Honor smartphone brand — to the state. Why?
Twitter may have reduced the influence of China’s propaganda
The Economist
Labelling state media accounts helps readers understand where tweets are coming from.
China’s Leader Attacks His Greatest Threat
The Atlantic
@JEPomfret
Xi, now the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, has launched a broadside against private business in China. Along with tightening regulations governing firms—mandating that companies have Communist Party committees, which can have significant input in their direction, for example—he is also targeting entrepreneurs themselves, as a collective and as individuals.
ByteDance’s Revenue More Than Doubled in 2020
The Information
@JuroOsawa @Yunanzhang_
You might have thought TikTok’s owner ByteDance had a tough year in 2020, what with President Trump trying to ban TikTok and India actually taking that step. But none of that mattered to ByteDance’s actual business, which grew like gangbusters. ByteDance’s revenue last year more than doubled to about $37 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said.
USA
Trump Wants Back on Facebook. This Star-Studded Jury Might Let Him.
New York Times
@benyt
The board will seriously examine the Trump question, guided by Facebook’s own rules as well as international human rights law. If Facebook accepts its rulings, as it has pledged to do, as well as the board’s broader guidance, the company will endow this obscure panel with a new kind of legitimacy.
No decisions yet on any changes to TikTok or Huawei cases, White House says
CyberScoop
@snlyngaas
The Biden administration is still reviewing how it will approach any national security challenges posed by Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok and telecommunications provider Huawei, the White House said Monday.
TikTok Is Joe Biden's Problem Now
Bloomberg
@pingroma
The Chinese-owned app managed to wait out Trump’s presidency without selling control to U.S. investors.
Biden set his sights on China
Axios
@BethanyAllenEbr
Austin said the U.S. needs a stronger response to China's growing ascendance in AI and other emerging technologies, and Psaki said that "technology is at the center of the U.S.-China competition." Without offering specifics, Psaki suggested Biden might keep Huawei and several other Chinese companies on the export blacklist, or adopt similar measures: "We need to play a better defense, which must include holding China accountable and making sure that American technologies aren't facilitating China's military build-up."
Tech industry group urges Biden admin to review export controls on China
Reuters
A tech industry group on Monday called for a review of the Trump administration's export control policy, and urged the incoming U.S. Commerce Secretary to work with allies when curbing sales of U.S. technology to China for national security.
Former Google CEO and others call for U.S.-China tech "bifurcation"
Axios
@BethanyAllenEbr
A new set of proposals by a group of influential D.C. insiders and tech industry practitioners calling for a degree of "bifurcation" in the U.S. and Chinese tech sectors is circulating in the Biden administration. Axios has obtained a copy.
Chris DeRusha, who protected Biden campaign from hackers, says he is the Federal CISO
CyberScoop
@snlyngaas
The former top cybersecurity official on Joe Biden’s presidential campaign said late Monday that he is now in charge of helping protect the federal government’s sprawling bureaucracy from hackers.
Lawmaker Questions Facebook on Broken Election-Related Promise
The Markup
@alfredwkng @LeonYin
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is demanding answers from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg after The Markup published evidence last week that Facebook failed in its promise to stop recommending political groups to users during the presidential election and transfer of power.
How This Pro-Trump Bus Tour Led To The Capitol Coup Attempt
BuzzFeed News
@CraigSilverman @JaneLytv @PranavDixit
The Women for America First cross-country tour spent the weeks before its Jan. 6 event spreading election lies and, on occasion, calling for violence.
Why Is Big Tech Policing Free Speech? Because the Government Isn’t
New York Times
@emilybazelon
Social media sites effectively function as the public square where people debate the issues of the day. But the platforms are actually more like privately owned malls: They make and enforce rules to keep their spaces tolerable, and unlike the government, they’re not obligated to provide all the freedom of speech offered by the First Amendment.
YouTube extends Trump's suspension for a second time
CNet
@richardjnieva
YouTube on Tuesday said it's again extending its suspension of former President Donald Trump, who's been banned from posting videos to his channel since Jan. 12. Comments on Trump's videos will also remain disabled indefinitely.
North-East Asia
New campaign targeting security researchers
Google
Details on an ongoing campaign, which we attribute to a government-backed entity based in North Korea, targeting security researchers working on vulnerability research and development.
The world is dangerously dependent on Taiwan for semiconductors
The Japan Times
As China pushes the world to avoid official dealings with Taiwan, leaders across the globe are realizing just how dependent they’ve become on the island democracy. Taiwan, which China regards as a province, is being courted for its capacity to make leading-edge computer chips.
South-East Asia
Brunei and China pledge to deepen, upgrade cooperation in all sectors
The Star
Both sides should also sustain the development momentum in bilateral economic, trade and investment cooperation, cultivate new growth points in the sectors including 5G, digital economy, artificial intelligence (AI) and big data application.
South and Central Asia
India permanently bans TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps
Nikkei Asia
India's ministry of electronics and information technology has issued fresh notices to make permanent a ban imposed on video app TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps in June, Indian media reported late on Monday.
China starts smear campaign against India’s vaccine diplomacy
Times of India
As India’s vaccine diplomacy puts China on the back foot in South Asia, Chinese government mouthpiece Global Times has sought to mount a smear campaign to try and discredit the Indian initiative.
UK
Facebook’s secret settlement on Cambridge Analytica gags UK data watchdog
TechCrunch
@riptari
Remember the app audit Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg promised to carry out a little under three years ago at the height of the Cambridge Analytica scandal? Actually the tech giant is very keen that you don’t.
Europe
After Huawei, Europe’s telcos want ‘open’ 5G networks
Politico
@laurenscerulus
As Europe cuts back on using Huawei equipment in its 5G networks, mobile operators are looking far and wide for companies to replace it. The Continent's "big four" telcos Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone and Orange on Wednesday published a joint "memorandum of understanding" pledging to prioritize the development of "Open RAN" technology, a concept that would benefit smaller equipment and software makers.
Hull proposed for Europe’s first rare earths processing plant
Financial Times
Pensana seeks approval for facility to produce oxides vital for offshore wind sector.
Russia
Telling Half-Truths is Also Lying
EU vs DISINFORMATION
While the world is fighting back on the pandemic and launching one of the largest campaigns for vaccination, Russian media engage in campaigning against the Pfizer vaccine.
Misc
Twitter launches 'Birdwatch,' a forum to combat misinformation — with your help
NBC News
@oneunderscore__ @BrandyZadrozny
Twitter unveiled a feature Monday meant to bolster its efforts to combat misinformation and disinformation by tapping users in a fashion similar to Wikipedia to flag potentially misleading tweets. The new system allows users to discuss and provide context to tweets they believe are misleading or false. The project, titled Birdwatch, is a standalone section of Twitter that will at first only be available to a small set of users, largely on a first-come, first-served basis. Priority will not be provided to high-profile people or traditional fact-checkers, but users will have to use an account tied to a real phone number and email address.
Twitter is opening up its full tweet archive to academic researchers for free
The Verge
@nickstatt
Twitter on Tuesday announced a significant shift in the type of data it makes available for free to third-party academic researchers interested in studying user behaviors and trends related to online discourse.
The battle inside Signal
Platformer
@CaseyNewton
The fast-growing encrypted messaging app is developing features that would make it more vulnerable to abuse. Current and former employees are sounding the alarm.
Inauthentic Editing: Changing Wikipedia to Win Elections and Influence People
Stanford Internet Observatory
Wikipedia celebrates its 20th anniversary this month. This is the first of two blog posts exploring the use, misuse, and ultimate resilience of this open, community-edited platform.
Invite-Only Social App Clubhouse Is Slowly Getting Pried Open
Bloomberg
@ellenhuet
Once a playground for early adopters, the private chat app is attracting tech leaders, celebrities and politicians—and the media attention that comes with them.
The Story of How TSMC Came to Dominate the World
Bloomberg
In every conversation about computer chips, it always comes back to the dominant player: TSMC. Founded in the 1980s, it's far and away the biggest and most advanced manufacturer.
How Tracy Chou is battling trolls (both hers, and yours)
Protocol
@anna_c_kramer
Her new app, Block Party, aims to give people control over harassing content.
TikTok fixes flaws allowing theft of private user information
Bleeping Computer
@serghei
ByteDance, the tech firm behind TikTok, has addressed a security vulnerability in the video-sharing social networking service which could have allowed attackers to steal users' private personal information.
Research
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