FB exec warns of more bad headlines | Counterintelligence head narrows focus to 5 technologies critical to U.S. dominance | FB rolls out campaign to fight misinformation before Australian election
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In a post to staffers Saturday obtained by Axios, Facebook VP of global affairs Nick Clegg warned the company that worse coverage could be on the way: “We need to steel ourselves for more bad headlines in the coming days, I’m afraid.” Axios
The U.S.’s top counterintelligence official said he is sharpening his team’s priorities in order to conduct an effective outreach campaign about the expansive efforts by China and Russia to collect cutting-edge research. The Wall Street Journal
Facebook and the Australian Associated Press newswire service will roll out “check the facts” videos over the next month as the social media giant prepares for a federal election campaign that could be filled with misinformation and disinformation. The Guardian
World
The Sheikh, the Businessman and a Hacking Mystery on 3 Continents
The New York Times
@BarryMeier @Karan_Singhs
A case that began with a feud in the United Arab Emirates, stretched from the U.S. to India and is now playing out in the British courts offers a rare glimpse into the anatomy of a hack-and-leak operation.
Non-English-speaking countries suffer most from YouTube’s lack of transparency
Rappler
@vtantuco
Fact-checkers demand more transparency and accountability from the video platform at the Global Fact 8 conference.
How to make the Quad truly quadrilateral
Nikkei Asia
@HsjChahal @ngor_luong
Japan, India and Australia must learn to share technology with each other.
Australia
Facebook rolls out campaign to fight misinformation before Australian election
The Guardian
@joshgnosis
Facebook and the Australian Associated Press newswire service will roll out “check the facts” videos over the next month as the social media giant prepares for a federal election campaign that could be filled with misinformation and disinformation.
Fake Covid vaccination certificate generator targets desperate anti-vaxxers
Herald Sun
@edbourke6 @suzandelibasic
A fake Covid vaccine certificate generator has emerged online as desperate anti-vaxxers continue to break the law in a bid to attend venues and return to work. Free of charge, people opposed to the vaccine mandate were ironically required to enter their personal health information on the unsecured site, leaving their details highly vulnerable to theft.
Privacy Act Review – Discussion paper Attorney-General's Department
Online Privacy Bill Exposure Draft Attorney-General's Department
China
U.S. Warns of Efforts by China to Collect Genetic Data
The New York Times
@julianbarnes
The National Counterintelligence and Security Center said American companies needed to better secure critical technologies as Beijing seeks to dominate the so-called bioeconomy.
China to create rare-earths giant by joining three state companies
Nikkei Asia
Shunsuke Tabeta
Beijing to tighten grip on market with SOE controlling 70% of domestic production.
Chinese Regulators Nudge Didi Toward Hong Kong Listing
The Wall Street Journal
@qizhai @lizalinwsj
China’s internet watchdog suggested ride-hailing giant Didi Global Inc. and two other U.S.-listed tech firms explore listings in Hong Kong.
Tencent Blames WeChat Access for Search Engines on Loophole
Bloomberg
@pingroma
Tencent Holdings Ltd. said loopholes created during a recent tech upgrade made some content on its enclosed WeChat ecosystem available on search engines.
The rapidly changing investor calculus on China’s tech giants
TechCrunch
@rkaranja
As wave after wave of regulatory crackdowns have dominated China tech news in 2021, one can be excused for losing track of what is being regulated, who is doing the regulating, and what exactly the regulations are.
Tencent says 'loophole' allowed WeChat searches on Google, Bing
Reuters
@yingzhi_yang @brendagoh
Tencent's WeChat has fixed a glitch that allowed some of its content to be searchable by external search engines, the owner of China's most popular messaging app said on Friday, raising questions over regulators' latest attempt to crackdown on the internet sector.
USA
Facebook’s Internal Chat Boards Show Politics Often at Center of Decision Making
The Wall Street Journal
@keachhagey @JeffHorwitz
Employees allege content rules aren’t enforced for Breitbart and other right-wing publishers for fear of public blowback, and management expresses wariness of appearing biased, according to internal documents. In response, Facebook says it enforces its rules equally and doesn’t consider politics in its decisions.
Internal Alarm, Public Shrugs: Facebook’s Employees Dissect Its Election Role The New York Times
How the 'Stop the Steal' movement outwitted Facebook ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection NPR
Inside Facebook, Jan. 6 violence fueled anger, regret over missed warning signs The Washington Post
New whistleblower claims Facebook allowed hate, illegal activity to go unchecked The Washington Post
Facebook Stopped Employees From Reading An Internal Report About Its Role In The Insurrection. You Can Read It Here. BuzzFeed News
'Carol's Journey': What Facebook knew about how it radicalized users NBC News
Will Maria Ressa’s Nobel Peace Prize Force Mark Zuckerberg to Wake Up? The New York Times
Counterintelligence Head Narrows Focus to Five Technologies Critical to U.S. Dominance
The Wall Street Journal
@Kate_OKeeffe
The U.S.’s top counterintelligence official said he is sharpening his team’s priorities in order to conduct an effective outreach campaign about the expansive efforts by China and Russia to collect cutting-edge research.
Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline
Reuters
@josephmenn @Bing_Chris
The ransomware group REvil was itself hacked and forced offline this week by a multi-country operation, according to three private sector cyber experts working with the United States and one former official.
A Rare Win in the Cat-and-Mouse Game of Ransomware
The New York Times
@nicoleperlroth
A team of private security sleuths, in their first public detailing of their efforts, discuss how they used cybercriminals’ mistakes to quietly help victims recover their data.
TikTok and Snapchat are testifying for the first time. Their peers are in the double-digits.
The Washington Post
@viaCristiano
Congress also wants Facebook to appear for what would be its 31st time.
U.S. Issued $100 Billion in Export Licenses to Suppliers of Huawei, SMIC
The Wall Street Journal
@Kate_OKeeffe
The U.S. Commerce Department issued more than $100 billion worth of export licenses for semiconductors and other products to suppliers of Huawei Technologies Co. and another blacklisted Chinese tech company, as a global chip shortage started to bite.
Google sought fellow tech giants' help in stalling kids' privacy protections, states allege
POLITICO
@leah_nylen
Unsealed court documents say the search giant sought help from Apple, Facebook and Microsoft to "find areas of alignment."
North-East Asia
450 million cyberattacks attempted on Japan Olympics infrastructure: NTT
ZDNet
@jgreigj
NTT said the number of attacks was 2.5x times the number of attacks seen during the 2012 London Summer Olympics.
South and Central Asia
How Facebook neglected the rest of the world, fueling hate speech and violence in India
The Washington Post
@Cat_Zakrzewski @GerritD @NihaMasih @shibanimahtani
A trove of internal documents show Facebook didn’t invest in key safety protocols in the company’s largest market.
Facebook Services Are Used to Spread Religious Hatred in India, Internal Documents Show The Wall Street Journal
UK
Liz Truss: Britain cannot be dependent on China
The Telegraph
@benrileysmith
Britain must not become “dependent” on China and critical national infrastructure, such as nuclear power plants, should be built only with “like-minded” partners, the Foreign Secretary has warned..Ms Truss also names cyber security, artificial intelligence, quantum technology and 5G technology as areas that involvement of Chinese companies should be treated with caution.
Tesco website hit by hackers, leaving thousands of customers frustrated
The Guardian
@JuliaKollewe
Consumers unable to book or amend deliveries after ‘attempt made to interfere with systems’.
Europe
Facebook sues Ukrainian who scraped the data of 178 million users
The Record by Recorded Future
@campuscodi
Facebook has filed a lawsuit on Friday against a Ukrainian national for allegedly scraping its website and selling the personal data of more than 178 million users on an underground cybercrime forum.
Russia
Russia Is Censoring the Internet, With Coercion and Black Boxes
The New York Times
@satariano @paulmozur
Quietly built over two years, the Kremlin’s censorship infrastructure gives it sweeping power to block sites. Many fear a new age of digital isolation.
Misc
Apple’s Privacy Change Is Hitting Tech and E-Commerce Companies. Here’s Why.
The Wall Street Journal
@patiencehaggin @VranicaWSJ
Apps in which many users have opted out of being tracked are getting less data on consumers’ habits and interests and can’t target ads at users as effectively.
License plate scanners were supposed to bring peace of mind. Instead they tore the neighborhood apart.
The Washington Post
@drewharwell
License plate readers are rapidly reshaping private security in American neighborhoods, bringing police surveillance tools to the masses with an automated watchdog that records 24 hours a day.
Five tactics used to spread vaccine misinformation in the wellness community, and why they work
The Washington Post
@_allysonchiu @raz_nak
The content shared in some online wellness spaces has powerful emotional and psychological foundations that can cause even science-minded people to question the public health consensus on the ability of vaccines to help curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Games Can Show Us How to Enact Justice in the Metaverse
WIRED
@lucyamsparrow
To build healthy communities in virtual reality, we must move beyond automated penalties toward proactive forms of governance.
Cyberattacks to critical infrastructure threaten our safety and well-being
The Conversation
@JasonJaskolka
What would happen if you could no longer use the technological systems that you rely on every day? I’m not talking about your smart phone or laptop computer, but all those systems many of us often take for granted and don’t think about.
Events
Join FP’s inaugural Tech Forum November 17
Foreign Policy
FP’s inaugural Tech Forum will examine technology’s impact on the world, its influence on society, geopolitics and global business, and the challenges and opportunities it brings about in international affairs.
Research
Breaking the News: New York Times Journalist Ben Hubbard Hacked with Pegasus after Reporting on Previous Hacking Attempts
The Citizen Lab
@billmarczak @jsrailton @sienaanstis @insyria @RonDeibert
Our forensic analysis of two iPhones belonging to Hubbard found evidence of Pegasus infections in July 2020 and June 2021. Notably, these infections occurred after Hubbard reported in January 2020 that we found that he was targeted in 2018 by the Saudi Arabia-linked Pegasus operator that we call KINGDOM.
I Was Hacked. The Spyware Used Against Me Makes Us All Vulnerable. The New York Times