State, Federal Investigators May File Antitrust Suit Against Facebook Soon

State and federal investigators are expected to file antitrust charges against Facebook as soon as November, according to four people familiar with the matter, embarking on a massive legal challenge against the tech giant and its perceived ironclad grip over social media. The timing reflects a frenzy of recent activity on the part of the Federal Trade Commission, which met privately to discuss the probe, and state attorneys general, who under the leadership of New York’s Letitia James have been scrutinizing Facebook for potential threats to competition, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a law-enforcement matter.

Judge Refuses to Reverse Decision Allowing WeChat on Apple, Google Stores

A U.S. judge in San Francisco rejected a Justice Department request to reverse a decision that allowed Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google to continue to offer Chinese-owned WeChat for download in U.S. app stores. U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler said the government’s new evidence did not change her opinion about the Tencent app.

Facebook Oversight Board Starts Accepting Cases from Some Users

Facebook’s much-anticipated independent decision-making body, the Facebook oversight board, announced it will start allowing people to submit cases for review. That means that if you post something on Facebook or Instagram and it’s taken down for violating any of Facebook’s ever-changing rules on things like hate speech, nudity, misinformation, or violence — you will soon have the ability to appeal that decision to someone besides Facebook.

Republicans OK Subpoenas for Twitter, Facebook CEOs Over Hunter Biden Story

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to authorize subpoenas to compel the testimony of the CEOs of Twitter and Facebook amid controversy over the social media companies' handling of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden. The Post published alleged contents of a computer hard drive purporting to document the Ukrainian and Chinese business activities of Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Intelligence Officials Say Russian Hackers Accessed State, Local Computers

While senior Trump administration officials said that Iran has been actively interfering in the presidential election, many intelligence officials said they remained far more concerned about Russia, which in recent days has hacked into state and local computer networks in breaches that could allow Moscow broader access to American voting infrastructure. The discovery of the hacks came as American intelligence agencies, infiltrating Russian networks themselves, have pieced together details of what they believe are Russia’s plans to interfere in the presidential race in its final days or immediately after the election on Nov. 3.

U.S. Intelligence Officials Blame Iran for Threatening Voter Emails

The nation’s top intelligence official accused Iran of orchestrating a spoofed email campaign threatening Democratic voters who did not vote for Trump. The disclosure by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe marked the first known effort by a foreign adversary this election cycle to reach specific voters in a bid to undermine democratic confidence.

FBI Investigating Threatening Emails Sent to Democratic Voters

The FBI was investigating threatening emails sent to Democratic voters that claimed to be from the Proud Boys, a far-right group supportive of President Trump, but appeared instead to be a deceptive campaign making use of a vulnerability in the organization’s online network. First identified by local law enforcement and elections officials in Florida and Alaska, the emails were soon turned over to federal authorities, according to U.S. officials speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

TikTok Broadens Effort Against White Nationalism Content

TikTok is pushing back harder against hate content, specifically targeting white nationalism and white genocide theory, which it called "neighboring ideologies" to the neo-Nazism and white supremacy it's already been working to remove. "As part of our efforts to prevent hateful ideologies from taking root, we will stem the spread of coded language and symbols that can normalize hateful speech and behavior," TikTok said in a blog post.

  • Read the article: CNET

Former Google CEO Says Antitrust Suit 'Largely Driven by Republicans'

Former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt offered a full-throated defense of the search company, criticizing the government’s day-old antitrust suit as misguided, unduly influenced by politics and a distraction from more serious issues facing the technology industry and the country. Mr. Schmidt, a board member of Google parent Alphabet Inc. until last year and a longtime liberal political donor, described the suit as “largely driven by Republicans, at the end of a term of a president whose polling indicates that he’s unlikely to be re-elected.”

U.S. Law Enforcement Agencies Have Phone Decryption Tools, Report Says

At least 2,000 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states now have tools to get into locked, encrypted phones and extract their data, according to years of public records collected in a report by Upturn, a Washington nonprofit that investigates how the police use technology. At least 49 of the 50 largest U.S. police departments have the tools, according to the records, as do the police and sheriffs in small towns and counties across the country.

Fraudsters Posting on Facebook About Election to Build Audience, Clicks

Fraudsters from Albania to Vietnam are posting about U.S. politics and the upcoming presidential election to build fake audiences, maximize clicks and make money online, Facebook Inc said. In a new report about so-called “inauthentic behavior” on its platform, Facebook said the Nov. 3 election had become a common lure to trick users into visiting online stores or websites laden with pay-per-view advertisements.

Microsoft Says It Disabled 90% of Machines Used in Trickbot Network

Microsoft Corp said it had disabled more than 90% of the machines used by a gang of Russian-speaking cyber criminals to control a massive network of computers with a potential to disrupt the U.S. election. Aided by a series of U.S. court orders and relationships with technology providers in other countries, Microsoft said it its weeklong campaign against the gang running the Trickbot network was heading off a possible source of disruption to the Nov. 3 U.S. vote.

NSA Warns Chinese Government Hackers Targeting National Defense

The National Security Agency warned that Chinese government hackers were taking aim at U.S. computer networks involved in national defense, characterizing the threat posed by Beijing as a critical priority in need of urgent attention. The vulnerabilities described in NSA’s new alert were already publicly known, but the nation’s premier electronic spy agency for the first time linked them to Chinese state-sponsored hacking activity.

Justice Department Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google

The Justice Department accused Google of maintaining an illegal monopoly over search and search advertising in a lawsuit, the government’s most significant legal challenge to a tech company’s market power in a generation. In its suit, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., the agency accused Google, a unit of Alphabet, of illegally maintaining its monopoly over search through several exclusive business contracts and agreements that lock out competition.

U.S. Charges Six Russian Military Officers in Hacking Scheme

Six Russian military officers have been charged in what the Justice Department says was a hacking scheme to attack several major foreign powers, former Soviet republics and subvert investigations into nefarious activities by the Kremlin. The alleged cyberattackers hacked into software using destructive malware to black out thousands of computers and cause nearly $1 billion in losses, and were intended to support Russian government efforts to undermine, retaliate against, or otherwise destabilize worldwide computer networks, the Justice Department said.

  • Read the article: CNN

Japan to Join US, EU in Antitrust Cases Against Large Tech Companies

Japan will join forces with the United States and Europe to take on any market abuses by the four Big Tech companies, the new head of its antitrust watchdog said, a sign Tokyo will join global efforts to regulate digital platform operators. Kazuyuki Furuya, chairman of Japan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC), also said Tokyo could open a probe into any merger or business tie-up involving fitness tracker maker Fitbit if the size of such deals are big enough.

Pakistan Reverses Decision to Ban TikTok After Getting Assurances

Just 10 days after introducing a ban on TikTok, the Pakistani authorities said that they were reversing the decision after receiving assurance from the Chinese-owned social media platform that it would moderate content according to local laws. “TikTok is being unlocked after assurance from management that they will block all accounts repeatedly involved in spreading obscenity and immorality,” the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the national regulator, said in a statement.

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