Facebook's Content Oversight Board Receives 9,000 Comments on Trump

Facebook's content oversight board has received at least 9,000 comments about the social network's decision to indefinitely bar Donald Trump from posting to his account because of concerns the now-former president could incite violence like the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill. "There are all sorts of actors and ordinary folks from around the world who have said this is something that I care about," Dex Hunter-Torricke, the board's head of communications, said during a discussion hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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Vaccine Schemes Flood Internet, Selling Fake Appointments, Cards

Similar to earlier in the pandemic, when fraudsters flooded the internet with ads for sketchy “cures,” bogus Covid-19 tests, and scarce personal protective equipment, online schemers are now selling fake vaccine appointments and knockoff vaccine cards. The target audience for fake vaccine cards is people who think the cards might help them move around and travel more quickly — or avoid getting vaccinated.

Clubhouse Reviewing Data Protection Practices After Security Flaw Report

U.S. audio app Clubhouse said it is reviewing its data protection practices, after a report by the Stanford Internet Observatory said it contained security flaws that left users’ data vulnerable to access by the Chinese government. The app said in a response to the study, published by the research group at Stanford University, that while it had opted not to make the app available in China, some people had found a workaround to download the app which meant the conversations they were a part of could be transmitted via Chinese servers.

Biden Administration Asks Court to Delay Attempted Ban on WeChat

The Biden administration asked a federal appeals court to place a hold on proceedings surrounding the Trump administration’s attempted ban of the Chinese social media app WeChat, a day after it asked a different court for a similar delay involving a TikTok case. In both cases, the administration said it needed time to review the Trump administration’s proposed bans, which are now the subject of appeals hearings.

White House Picks NSA Official to Lead Probe of SolarWinds Hack

The White House said it had selected a top National Security Agency official to lead the Biden administration’s response to the sprawling SolarWinds hack, a decision disclosed after growing pressure from lawmakers for more information about the breach. Anne Neuberger, a senior official at the White House National Security Council, has been in the position since President Biden took office, but administration officials just made her appointment public.

Microsoft President Says U.S. Should Consider Rule Requiring News Payments

Microsoft President Brad Smith told Axios in an interview that the U.S. and other countries should consider adopting media rules like those Australia is poised to soon enact to force tech companies to pay publishers for content. Both Facebook and Google have said they can't run their businesses as usual with the code in effect and warn that if Australia passes it as expected, they'll pull some of their services from the country.

Instagram Removes RFK Jr.'s Account for Sharing 'Debunked' Coronavirus Info

Instagram removed the account of prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the highest-profile steps in parent company Facebook Inc.’s intensifying effort to combat false and misleading information about Covid-19. An Instagram spokeswoman said that the company permanently removed the account “for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines.”

Facebook, YouTube, Others Remove Clips for 'Planet Lockdown' Film

While thousands of families grieved the loss of loved ones and the United States’ coronavirus death toll surpassed 350,000 in early January and continued to rise, a film parroting false claims about the pandemic, “Planet Lockdown,” began to spread to millions of social media users. Now, tech giants including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok began scrubbing promotional clips of the film from their platforms for violating rules against misinformation.

Biden Administration Shelves Plan to Force Sale of TikTok to Oracle, Walmart

A U.S. plan to force the sale of TikTok’s American operations to a group including Oracle Corp. and Walmart Inc. has been shelved indefinitely, people familiar with the situation said, as President Biden undertakes a broad review of his predecessor’s efforts to address potential security risks from Chinese tech companies. The TikTok deal — which had been driven by then-President Donald Trump — has languished since last fall in the midst of successful legal challenges to the U.S. government’s effort by TikTok’s owner, China’s ByteDance Ltd.

Facebook Exploring Ways to Reduce Political Content in News Feeds

Facebook is exploring ways to play down political content on users’ feeds as it continues to reckon with the role its site played in boosting interest in the Jan. 6 rally that ended with a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, the social media titan announced. Starting this week, Facebook will temporarily reduce political content in news feeds for a small slice of users in Brazil, Canada and Indonesia.

Justice Department Drops Lawsuit Over California's Net Neutrality Rules

The U.S. Department of Justice under President Joe Biden has dropped a department lawsuit filed under former President Donald Trump that challenged California's net neutrality rules. California's law, considered more strict than federal rules adopted during the Obama administration, could set the baseline for future federal rules. Interim Federal Communications Commission chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat who supported the original Obama-era rules and opposed the Republican repeal, said she was "pleased that the Department of Justice" had withdrawn the lawsuit.

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Huawei Asks Court to Overturn U.S. Designation as National Security Threat

Huawei is asking for the Federal Communications Commission’s designation of the Chinese telecommunications giant as a national security threat to be overturned by a U.S. court. In a case filed with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the company argued that the agency overstepped its authority by finalizing a ban on U.S. companies from using the FCC’s Universal Service Fund to purchase Huawei equipment in December.

Senators Criticize Federal Response to Hacking at SolarWinds

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) criticized the “disorganized” federal response to the recently uncovered Russian hack of IT group SolarWinds, calling for agencies to designate a leader. The senators expressed these concerns in a letter sent to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and the leaders of the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Advocacy Groups Ask Facebook to Remove Pages for Marjorie Taylor Greene

A coalition of civil rights, gun control and other advocacy groups is calling on Facebook to permanently remove the campaign and congressional pages of Marjorie Taylor Greene. Facebook allowed Greene “to exploit their platform to spread dangerous lies and grow her own popularity for years without taking action,” the organizations wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg in a letter.

Hackers Access Internal Network of Company Behind Cyberpunk

The company behind “Cyberpunk 2077” said its internal systems were breached in a cyberattack and the purported hacker threatened to release the software code underpinning the blockbuster videogame and other works in progress, a disclosure that sent its stock tumbling and presented a fresh challenge for the embattled developer. CD Projekt SA said an unidentified hacker accessed its internal network and collected corporate data in what the company described as a targeted attack.

Journalist Sues Facebook in England Over Gathering Users' Data

Facebook is facing a second London High Court class action over allegations it failed to protect the personal details of about one million people in England and Wales, in the latest lawsuit to spring from a scandal over data harvesting. Journalist and writer Peter Jukes said he had filed a lawsuit for unspecified but “substantial” damages three years after the social media giant was fined in Britain over how third-party app “This Is Your Digital Life” gathered Facebook users’ data without consent between 2013 and 2015.

Company Agrees to Change Shape of Pear Logo After Apple's Opposition

Last August, the routine story of a trademark opposition captured the world’s imagination, when Apple declared that Super Healthy Kids (yes, that’s the real name of a company) shouldn’t be allowed to trademark its pear logo because it might “cause dilution of the distinctiveness” of Apple’s own famous fruit-shaped intellectual property. Six months later, the case is now settled, and it seems Apple didn’t actually have a pear-shaped problem after all — because Super Healthy Kids has agreed to change the shape of the leaf atop that pear, and Apple has agreed that’s good enough to let the trademark go forward.

Europe's Antitrust Chief Warns Apple About Privacy Notices on Its Own Apps

Europe’s antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, has warned Apple Inc. to give equal treatment to all apps on its platform amid the iPhone maker’s privacy changes that have drawn charges of anti-competitive practices from rival Facebook Inc. Apple will in the spring ask iPhone users for consent to track their data for personalized ads in what it says is a move to protect users’ privacy but which will limit apps’ ability to gather data from people’s phones that can be used for targeted advertising.

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.