Headlines
A group of US users of the Chinese messaging app Wechat are suing the Trump administration over its executive order banning financial transactions with the app’s parent company Tencent.
The group, who are not affiliated with Tencent, argue the ban would be unconstitutional and that Wechat is the app most Chinese speakers in the US use to communicate.
The order was signed at the same time as another banning all transactions with Tiktok parent company Bytedance. I recently took a look at what makes TikTok potentially so valuable.
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Facebook has banned approximately 900 pages and groups and 1,500 ads link to the conspiracy theory QAnon. Wednesday’s move come’s after Tik Tok and Twitter made similar bans last month.
The conspiracy theory, which centres on the notion that Donald Trump is saving the world from Satanists, has a huge following online. Groups promoting the conspiracy have been linked to kidnappings, and a murder.
Even after the ban, the term is trending on Facebook and Instagram. However, the platform will now rank QAnon, militia and anarchist protest groups lower on News Feeds and in Facebook and Instagram's search engines.
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The company also left 6,500 gallons of drilling fluid under the ocean floor in Oregon after a botched attempt to construct a landing point for a new telecommunications cable.
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in a Federal Trade Commission hearing this week. The FTC is conducting an anti-trust probe into Facebook, its acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp in particular.
Last month Zuckerberg testified to the Congressional Anti-Trust Committee along with Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and Jeff Bezos.
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Elsewhere, Reddit has reported an 18% reduction in hateful and discriminatory content since banning 7000 subreddits in June after introducing a rigorous hate speech policy.
Members of the large far right sub reddit The Donald had already created their own website prior to the ban.
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Google’s advertising platform AdExchange is blocking articles about racism. The issue came to light after Slate found 10 articles, on topics including White Supremacy and the end of slavery, had been demonetised.
As part of a “dangerous or derogatory content”policy Google does not allow monetisation of content which disparages people on the basis of a characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination.
However, the algorithm behind the policy had flagged content within the articles, rather than comments. Flagging of racist comments has led to pages like far right blog Zero Hedge being removed from the advertising platform in the past.
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Google is also lobbying Australian users against a new government regulation which would require it to pay media outlets for news. The platform published an open letter as a pop-up on it’s Australian homepage warning ‘the way Aussies use Google is at risk.’
The Australian consumer watchdog has responded, saying the letter contains misinformation.
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Following the announcement of Kamala Harris as his running mate, Joe Biden has out spent Donald Trump’s campaign on Facebook advertising for the second week running
Between 15th and 23rd August, Joe Biden’s page spent $5.63 million on Facebook ads compared to $2.94 million by Donald Trump. However, Donald Trump’s page has almost ten times as many followers as Biden’s.
Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins spent $31 on Facebook ads this week, solely in Minnesota.
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Amazon is currently subject to anti-trust investigations in Germany and Canada. The investigations centre on whether Amazon influences the prices set by third party sellers on the site, and other alleged practices which harm small businesses.
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Musicians can now use TikTok to build a following, outside of the traditional record label model, after the platform agreed it first music distribution deal with United Artists.