Meta Accuses Russia of Creating Fake Media Accounts to Support War

Russia set up a sprawling and sophisticated network of websites impersonating mainstream media outlets, which it used to spread anti-Ukrainian messaging that was amplified via fake social media accounts, Meta has found. In a new report, Meta called it Russia’s “largest and most complex” influence operation since the war in Ukraine began.

Oracle Settles Charges of Violating Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

Oracle has settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission after it was charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for a second time, the SEC announced. The SEC said Oracle violated provisions of the act between 2016 and 2019 when its subsidiaries in India, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates created slush funds used to bribe foreign officials.

  • Read the article: CNBC

TikTok Becomes Target of Multiple U.S. Investigations Over Chinese Ties

TikTok, the massively popular video app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance Ltd., is facing broad hostility in Washington, D.C. The White House; the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), an interagency panel reviewing foreign investments with national security implications; and Congress are all considering actions that could significantly alter the way it operates in its biggest market. In addition to their general concerns about all social media companies, U.S. officials worry about TikTok’s data collection polices and its relationship to the Chinese government.

SEC Fines Wall Street Firms for Use of 'Off-Channel' Messaging Apps

U.S. securities regulators have imposed close to $2 billion in fines on more than a dozen financial firms, including eight major Wall Street banks, for failing to police employees who routinely used messaging apps and other “off channel” services on their personal phones to communicate with one another. The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the charges after a monthslong investigation found that Wall Street firms did not monitor how employees were communicating on work-related matters or keep records of those messages, as federal law requires.

Meteorologist Fired After Disclosure of Nude Photos Prompts Employment Debate

A well-known New York City meteorologist finds himself at the center of a debate over whether employers should be policing their workers’ legal off-the-clock activities online — particularly at a time when many people’s sex lives are increasingly led on the internet, and as Americans have become more open-minded about sex in general. An unknown sender delivered emails and packages containing nude pictures of the meteorologist performing sex acts nude on an adult webcam site to the television station where he did the morning weather report.

Iran Limits Access to Instagram, WhatsApp Amid Protests

Iran curbed access to Meta Platforms' Instagram and WhatsApp, two of the last remaining social networks in the country, amid protests over the death of a woman in police custody, residents and internet watchdog NetBlocks said. The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by morality police in Tehran for "unsuitable attire", has unleashed anger over issues including freedom in the Islamic Republic and an economy reeling from sanctions.

Microsoft Says It Won't Label Apparently False Social Media Posts

Microsoft Corp. won’t label social media posts that appear to be false in order to avoid the appearance that the company is trying to censor speech online, President Brad Smith said in an interview with Bloomberg News, hinting that the company is taking a different approach than other technology firms in dealing with disinformation. “I don’t think that people want governments to tell them what’s true or false,” Smith said when asked about Microsoft’s role in defining disinformation. “And I don’t think they’re really interested in having tech companies tell them either.”

TikTok to Require Verification of Government Accounts, Ban Fundraising

TikTok will begin requiring accounts belonging to U.S. government departments, politicians and political parties to be verified and will ban videos aimed at campaign fundraising, the short-form video app said. The move comes as TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance, and other social media platforms are working to clamp down on political misinformation ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in November, after years of being criticized for allowing such content to flourish on their services.

Florida Asks Supreme Court to Rule on State Regulation of Social Media

Florida’s attorney general asked the Supreme Court to decide whether states have the right to regulate how social media companies moderate content on their services. At stake is the constitutionality of state laws in Florida and Texas that would bar social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube from blocking or limiting certain types of political speech.

Pentagon to Review Efforts to Spread Pro-American Messages on Social Media

White House officials told the military that they were concerned about its efforts to spread pro-American messaging on social media, prompting the Pentagon to order a review of secretive operations to influence populations overseas, U.S. officials said. The review follows a decision by Twitter and Facebook over the summer to shut down misleading accounts that they determined were sending messages about U.S. foreign policy interests abroad.

46 States Ask Appeals Court to Reinstate Antitrust Suit Against Meta

A big group of U.S. states, led by New York, argued to an appeals court that it should reinstate an antitrust lawsuit against Meta's Facebook because of ongoing harm from the company's actions and because the states had not waited too long to file their complaint. Barbara Underwood, solicitor general of New York which led the group that consists of 46 states, Guam and District of Columbia, said that it was wrong to treat states like a class action and put a limit on when they can sue.

Passwords Hacked from Kiwi Farms, Internet Forum Used to Organize Harassment

The head of Kiwi Farms, the Internet forum best known for organizing harassment campaigns against trans and non-binary people, said the site experienced a breach that allowed hackers to access his administrator account and possibly the accounts of all other users. Creator Joshua Moons aid that the unknown individual or individuals behind the hack gained access to his admin account by using a technique known as session hijacking, in which an attacker obtains the authentication cookies a site sets after an account holder enters valid credentials and successfully completes any two-factor authentication requirements.

Appeals Court Upholds Texas Law Limiting Social Media Content Policies

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld a controversial Texas social media law that bars companies from removing posts based on a person’s political ideology, overturning a lower court’s decision to block the law and likely setting up a Supreme Court showdown over the future of online speech. The ruling could have wide-ranging effects on the future of tech regulation, giving fresh ammunition to conservative politicians who have alleged that major tech companies are silencing their political speech.

Uber Investigating Hack That Seems to Compromise Internal Systems

Uber discovered its computer network had been breached, leading the company to take several of its internal communications and engineering systems offline as it investigated the extent of the hack. The breach appeared to have compromised many of Uber’s internal systems, and a person claiming responsibility for the hack sent images of email, cloud storage and code repositories to cybersecurity researchers and The New York Times.

Justice Department Indicts Three Iranians for Hacking, Extortion

The Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed an indictment of three Iranian nationals alleged to have hacked hundreds of computer systems of organizations in the U.S. and around the world. U.S. officials accused the defendants of exfiltrating data from the organizations’ computer systems and attempting to extort money from them by either threatening to release the stolen data or keeping the data encrypted unless the hackers were paid.

Senators Question TikTok's COO About Company's Data-Sharing with China

Senators grilled a top TikTok executive about whether the viral video app could leak data to the Chinese government, the first time a leader at the company has had to answer to lawmakers in public about recent reports on its ties to Beijing. Members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee repeatedly asked TikTok’s chief operating officer, Vanessa Pappas, about whether the company would ever provide data about Americans to Chinese officials or delete content at their request. TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, is based in China.

Calif. Governor Signs Law Requiring Disclosures from Social Media Companies

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a controversial bill into law that aims to force greater transparency of social media companies, setting up a potential battle over whether such measures violate free-speech protections. The law, known as A.B. 587, requires tech companies to file semiannual reports with the state’s attorney general that publicly disclose their content moderation policies regarding hate speech, disinformation and extremism.

EU Judges Uphold Most of Record $4.3 Billion Google Fine in Antitrust Case

Google lost most of the first round of its battle to topple a record 4.3 billion-euro ($4.3 billion) European Union antitrust fine that struck at the heart of the U.S. tech giant’s power over the Android mobile-phone ecosystem. In a boost for EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, judges upheld the vast majority of the European Commission’s arguments, but cut the penalty to 4.1 billion euros after finding faults in some of the regulator’s analysis and that Google’s right to a fair hearing had partly been infringed.

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.