Suit Says Facebook Content Moderator Suffered Psychological Harm

A former Facebook content moderator is suing the company on the grounds that reviewing disturbing material on a daily basis caused her psychological and physical harm, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in a California superior court. The suit by former moderator Selena Scola, who worked at Facebook from June 2017 until March, alleges that she witnessed thousands of acts of extreme and graphic violence “from her cubicle in Facebook’s Silicon Valley offices,” where Scola was charged with enforcing the social network’s extensive rules prohibiting certain types of content on its systems.

Zoho 'Blocked' by Registrar After Reports of Phishing Complaints

Zoho.com was pulled offline after the company’s domain registrar received phishing complaints, the company’s chief executive said. The web-based office suite company, which also provides customer relationship and invoicing services to small businesses, tweeted that the site was “blocked” earlier in the day by TierraNet, which administers its domain name.

PayPal Terminates Relationship with Alex Jones, Infowars

PayPal is terminating its relationship with Alex Jones and his website, Infowars, the online payment service said. After an extensive review of Infowars and its related sites, PayPal said in a statement, the company “found instances that promoted hate or discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions, which run counter to our core value of inclusion.”

FCC Chairman Increases Defense to Repeal Net Neutrality

With a federal appeals court preparing to consider the Trump administration’s reversal of Obama-era U.S. net neutrality regulations, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is ramping up his defense of the decision. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has this month also criticized California’s legislature for approving a state measure to guarantee open internet access and said “bad behavior” on the part of Internet service providers (ISPs) could be prevented by the FCC’s new transparency requirements.

Latvian Man Gets 14 Years in Prison for Creating Malware Tool

Ruslan Bondars, a 37-year-old man from Latvia was sentenced to a whopping 14 years in prison for facilitating cybercrime by creating and running a service named Scan4You that allowed malware authors to check the detection rates of their malicious code. In the infosec industry, Scan4You is what security researchers and malware authors refer to as a "counter-anti-virus" or a "no-distribute-scanner."

Google CEO Contradicts Report of Effort on Political Bias

Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a company-wide email, which Axios obtained, denying any effort to politically bias the company's search results and emphasizing that Google needs to remain politically neutral. Why it matters: The Wall Street Journal reported that Google staffers had looked for ways to adjust search results in the wake of President Trump's first travel ban in 2017 — reinforcing conservatives' ire over what they have charged is censorship by Google-owned YouTube and anti-conservative bias in search results.

White House Disputes Executive Order on Social Media Bias Probes

The White House sought to distance it­self from reports that President Trump is considering an executive order that would subject tech giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter to federal investigations into alleged political bias. Their worst suspicions seemed to come true with the emergence of a draft executive order that called for nearly every federal agency to study how companies like Facebook police their platforms and refer instances of “bias” to the Justice Department for further study.

White House OKs 'Offensive Cyber Operations' Against U.S. Adversaries

The White House has “authorized offensive cyber operations” against U.S. adversaries, in line with a new policy that eases the rules on the use of digital weapons to protect the nation, National Security Adviser John Bolton said. Bolton did not elaborate on the nature of the offensive operations, how significant they were, or what specific malign behavior they were intended to counter.

EU Commissioner Pushes Facebook to Disclose More on Data Usage

The European Union is ramping up pressure on Facebook Inc. to better spell out to consumers how their data is being used or face sanctions in several countries. Věra Jourová, the European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, warned the U.S. tech firm that if it doesn’t change its “misleading terms of service” by the end of the year, that she will call on consumer-protection authorities in EU countries to impose sanctions.

Lawmakers Question YouTube's Compliance with Children's Privacy

Two House members sent a letter to Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, expressing concern that the collection practices of YouTube, a Google subsidiary, may not comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, known as Coppa. The letter — from David Cicilline, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Jeff Fortenberry, Republican of Nebraska — followed up on a complaint filed in April by more than 20 advocacy groups.

Foreign Government Hackers Target Senators' Personal Accounts

The personal Gmail accounts of an unspecified number of U.S. senators and Senate staff have been targeted by foreign government hackers, a Google spokesperson confirmed to CNN. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, wrote in a letter to Senate leadership that his office had learned that "at least one major technology company has informed a number of Senators and Senate staff members that their personal email accounts were targeted by foreign government hackers."

  • Read the article: CNN

Facebook Working with Non-Profits to Slow Misinformation Online

Facebook Inc. said it would team with two U.S. non-profits to slow the global spread of misinformation that could influence elections, acknowledging that fake news sites were still read by millions. The largest social network, under intense pressure to combat propaganda, said it would work abroad with the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, created in the 1980s and funded by the U.S. government to promote democratic processes.

Facebook Could Face Sanctions for Non-Compliance with EU Consumer Rules

Facebook may face sanctions because it has yet to comply with EU consumer rules while Airbnb has made the necessary changes in response to regulatory demands, EU sources said. Online platforms are under pressure in Europe because of their dominance and anti-competitive business practices, which have resulted in hefty fines handed down to some companies.

State Election Officials Assure Voters About Cyberattacks

Hoping to quell fears about foreign hackers and repel potential threats, many states and counties are beefing up their plans to deal with cyberattacks. They’re shoring up systems to protect their voter databases and hiring security experts to assess the strength of their defenses. They’re coordinating with social-media organizations to stamp out deliberately fraudulent messages that could mislead voters about how to cast a ballot.

Hackers Got Credit Card Data from Newegg's Payment Page

Hackers injected 15 lines of card skimming code on Newegg’s payments page which remained for more than a month between August 14 and September 18, Yonathan Klijnsma, a threat researcher at RiskIQ, told TechCrunch. The code siphoned off credit card data from unsuspecting customers to a server controlled by the hackers with a similar domain name — likely to avoid detection.

Cryptocurrency Exchanges Lack Customer Protection, N.Y. Att'y General Says

Several cryptocurrency exchanges are plagued by poor market surveillance, pervasive conflicts of interest and lack sufficient customer protections, the New York Attorney General’s office said in a report. The study found that online platforms where virtual currencies such as bitcoin can be bought and sold by individuals operate with lower safeguards than traditional financial markets, are vulnerable to market manipulation and put customer funds at risk.

Facebook's Ads Let Employers Discriminate Against Women, Suit Says

Facebook’s advertising platform is being used by prospective employers to discriminate against women, according to a lawsuit. The American Civil Liberties Union, joined by a labor union and a law firm that specializes in representing employees, has filed a written charge against Facebook with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws in the workplace.

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The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.