(The Verge) Facebook is cutting off ads in Russia. It’s pausing ads that target people in the country and is no longer letting advertisers in Russia “create or run ads anywhere in the world, including within Russia,” the company announced on Friday. The moves mark a big escalation of its actions against the country and could help prevent Russian misinformation tied to its invasion of Ukraine from appearing in Facebook ads.
Russia earlier on Friday began blocking Meta-owned Facebook entirely in the country, preventing many Russians from posting to social media amid the crisis. “As a result of the Russian government’s decision to block access to Facebook in the Russian Federation, soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information, deprived of their everyday ways of connecting with family and friends and silenced from speaking out,” Facebook said on its page cataloging its response to the invasion. The block could also prevent Russians who are protesting the war from posting on the social network.
Facebook's decision late Friday follows similar moves from Google, Twitter, and Snapchat, which have all paused ads in Russia.
In the propaganda wars now being waged through the internet, individuals on the ground such as Diana Totok (see below) may very well help to further tip the scales in favor of Ukraine.
This 19-year-old Ukrainian Refugee Filmed the ‘Horror’ so that Future Generations Can See What She Went Through
by Alex Henderson
March 11, 2022
(Alternet) Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, more than two million Ukrainians have left their country in order to escape Vladimir Putin’s bombs and bullets. One of them is 19-year-old Diana Totok, who is now in neighboring Romania — and Totok has been filming the events with her smartphone and posting them on TikTok so that future generations can see what she has lived through.
Totok told The Guardian, “It feels just like a horror movie, and I don’t know — filming is just one of the ways I can just put everything that’s going on in my mind, like, in order.”
The Guardian’s Matilda Boseley, in an article published on March 11, notes, “Two weeks earlier, the 19-year-old’s biggest worry had been making a good impression at her new internship.” But that was before Russian forces attacked Mykolaiv, Ukraine, where she lived with her mother, Svetlana Totok, her 17-year-old sister Darina Totok and her father, who is a pastor. The father is still in Ukraine, while Diana, Svetlana and Darina Totok are in Romania — and one of the videos Diana Totok has posted shows her parting company with her father at the Ukraine/Romania border.
Boseley explains, “The video cuts there. Totok saved the final goodbyes for the family alone. She and her sister, 17-year-old Darina, got on a train with their mother, travelling into the depths of Romania, praying that their father would live to see them again.”
Diana Totok is hoping that 20, 30 or 40 years from now, her videos will live on as a document of the hell that Ukrainians are going through in 2022. Although plenty of black-and-white footage from World War II remains, Totok notes that there were no smartphones back then.
(Axios) Tools to sidestep internet restrictions have surged in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine and the government's decision to block some social media services, including Facebook.
Why it matters: Finding ways around Russia's internet blockade could enable its citizens to stay connected to the rest of the world and gather information from sources beyond state-owned outlets.
Catch up quick: Virtual private networks, or VPNs, enable users to hide their locations to evade location-based restrictions and make browsing more private by encrypting internet traffic.
By the numbers: Demand for VPNs surged by 1,092% in Russia on March 5, the day after Russia blocked access to Facebook, according to Top10VPN.com.
Demand in Ukraine climbed 609% higher than before the invasion began, according to the site, which tracks search volume data.
Downloads of eight popular VPN apps in Russia grew from 12,848 on Feb. 15 to 415,547 on March 7, according to data from Apptopia.
I suppose it is rather predictable of me that I would be doing some research on Telegram. Below is an interesting article I have found in that regard. Infobae is not a familiar source to me, so I can't vouch for it.
Telegram and WhatsApp in Russia Feel the Pressure but Still Dodge the Ban
March 19, 2022
(Infobae) Messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram have avoided Russia's blockade unlike some of the biggest social networks in the world, in a subtle tolerance that experts warn could suddenly end.
Years of tension between Moscow and US companies Facebook and Twitter ended in confrontation following the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, with platforms targeting Russian media with state ties, prompting Russia to restrict them in response.
YouTube, which also globally removed media channels linked to the Kremlin, was also facing a direct threat of being blocked on Friday after Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor accused the site owned by the giant Google of “anti-Russian” behavior.
Messaging applications, in any case, until now remain undefeated in part because WhatsApp, owned by Meta, is less suitable for mass communication, while Telegram's ability to disseminate information to huge groups has been useful to both independent media and the Kremlin itself.
“I think it is unlikely that Russia will ban Telegram because there are few platforms where they can operate,” said Sergey Sanovich, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, who recalls that in 2020 authorities aborted efforts to block the service.
(TechCrunch) Spotify will discontinue access to its streaming services in Russia in light of the country’s dramatic new restrictions on free speech.
In early March, the Russian parliament enacted a new law that criminalizes sharing what the government deems to be “false information” about Russia’s operations in Ukraine. The new restrictions also punish any speech that undermines the military, including describing the war in Ukraine using the word “war.”
Western news outlets including CNN, ABC and the BBC pulled their broadcasts and operations within Russia in response to the law, which can carry up to a 15-year prison sentence. While Spotify is primarily a music streaming platform, the company is increasingly investing in podcasts that incorporate politics and current events — a direction that’s already entangled it in a number of controversies.
“Spotify has continued to believe that it’s critically important to try and keep our service operational in Russia to provide trusted, independent news and information in the region,” a Spotify spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Unfortunately, recently enacted legislation further restricting access to information, eliminating free expression and criminalizing certain types of news puts the safety of Spotify’s employees and possibly even our listeners at risk.”
After considering different paths, Spotify opted to “fully suspend” its service in Russia, a process that will be complete by early April after the company wraps up logistics related to the move.
(Politico) any aspects of Russia’s war against Ukraine have surprised analysts in the West, from the fact that the Russian offensive ran aground to the lack of a cyberwar to the fact that the invasion happened at all. But Molly McKew isn’t one of those people — she’s been arguing for years that Russia was at war with the West and that the primary battlefield was the information space and cyberspace.
Since those warnings now seem prescient, I went back to her this week to ask what has surprised her about this conflict. One of those things is good news — that the West, led by the United States, has learned some important new tricks to counter the Russians, from dismantling their cyber networks to undermining disinformation with real information.
“I think the reason we haven’t seen as much happening in the cyber domain as was anticipated is that a lot of work has been done to be sure that that was not going to happen,” she told me.
McKew writes on Russian influence and information warfare for the website greatpower.us. She is a former adviser to the Georgian government and to former Moldovan prime minister Vladimir Filat, and in 2016-17 she was the strategic director of a British government-funded project to strengthen independent Russian language news and media in the Baltic states. She just returned from a reporting trip to Lithuania and Estonia and has traveled extensively in Ukraine to research security cooperation and patterns of Russian hybrid activity.
McKew argues that the U.S. and the rest of the West now need to apply the lessons they’ve learned about winning in the cyberspace to the other fronts of the confrontation with Russia. If tactics that have succeeded in cyberwar and information war are adopted more broadly, she says, the tide of the war can turn.
(ProPublica) The chairman of a congressional subcommittee has asked Apple and Google to help stop fraud against U.S. taxpayers on Telegram, a fast-growing messaging service distributed via their smartphone app stores. The request from the head of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis came after ProPublica reports last July and in January revealed how cybercriminals were using Telegram to sell and trade stolen identities and methods for filing fake unemployment insurance claims.
Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., who chairs the subcommittee (which is part of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform), cited ProPublica’s reporting in March 23 letters to the CEOs of Apple and Alphabet, Google’s parent company. The letters pointed out that enabling fraud against American taxpayers is inconsistent with Apple’s and Google’s policies for their respective app stores, which forbid apps that facilitate or promote illegal activities.
“There is substantial evidence that Telegram has not complied with these requirements by allowing its application to be used as a central platform for the facilitation of fraud against vital pandemic relief programs,” Clyburn wrote. He asked whether Apple and Alphabet “may be able to play a constructive role in combating this Telegram-facilitated fraud against the American public.”
Clyburn also requested that Apple and Google provide “all communications” between the companies and Telegram “related to fraud or other unlawful conduct on the Telegram platform, including fraud against pandemic relief programs” as well as what “policies and practices” the companies have implemented to monitor whether applications disseminated through their app stores are being used to “facilitate fraud” and “disseminate coronavirus misinformation.” He gave the companies until April 7 to provide the records.
Apple, which runs the iOS app store for its iPhones, did not reply to a request for comment. Google, which runs the Google Play app store for its Android devices, also did not respond.
Elon Musk buys $2.9bn stake in Twitter
Source: The Guardian
Elon Musk has built up a 9.2% stake in Twitter, according to filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday.
Twitter shares jumped 26% in pre-market trading on the back of the news that the world’s richest person holds shares worth almost $3bn in the micro-blogging platform.
Musk, the maverick boss of Tesla and SpaceX who has an estimated $273bn (£208bn) fortune, owned 73,486,938 Twitter shares on 14 March according to the filing. Those shares were worth just under $2.9bn based on Friday’s closing price, but will now be worth about $3.6bn.
(Axios) New investments flooding partisan media platforms are starting to restructure America's internet business around the nation's deepening political divide.
Why it matters: For years internet theorists have warned of the "splinternet," a breakup of the global internet into regions governed by different rules and laws. Something like that is now starting to happen within the U.S., splitting the online world into red and blue sectors.
Driving the news: The Daily Wire, a conservative digital media company, is planning to invest "a minimum of $100 million" over the next three years in kids entertainment as a direct response to Disney's opposition to Florida's recently-passed "Don't Say Gay" bill….
• On the right, Donald Trump's new social network, which is struggling to launch, has reportedly raised $1 billion for its blank check IPO. Conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel is backing a conservative rival to Facebook called Rumble and a conservative rival to Tinder called The Right Stuff. Conservative billionaire Rebekah Mercer co-founded and funded conservative Twitter alternative Parler.
• On the left, billionaires Reid Hoffman, George Soros, and others are backing a new public benefit corporation that aims to tackle disinformation by funding left-leaning local news sites. Other billionaires, like Jeff Bezos, Marc Benioff and Laurene Powell Jobs, have bought up venerable media properties.
One of the greatest innovators of our time has joined the board!!!
Twitter adds Elon Musk to its board of directors.
Source: NYT
Elon Musk is joining the board of Twitter.
The company disclosed the news in a securities filing on Tuesday, one day after Mr. Musk said he had a 9.2 percent stake in the social media giant, a purchase that appeared to make him its largest shareholder. The news sent Twitter’s shares skyrocketing more than 20 percent.
Mr. Musk had been mum on his intentions. He registered with a securities document called a 13G filing, indicating that he planned for the investment to be passive and that he did not intend to pursue a larger role in the company. It was not immediately clear how he obtained the Twitter board seat and whether doing so was a matter of pursuing control.
Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder, stepped down as its chief executive in November and plans to leave the company’s board when his term ends this year.
(The Verge) Ahahahahahaha fine. Longtime shitposter Elon Musk, who has a side gig as the CEO of Tesla, is on the board of Twitter, a newly minted meme stonk, after filing the wrong form with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Tremendous content.
A different style of billionaire might elect to buy a national newspaper with a storied past and re-invest in it, just like he might secretly test his dick-shaped rocket for many years before publicly taking a ride on it. But despite owning Amazon, Jeff Bezos is somehow less internet-poisoned than the meme lord of Dogecoin. The true platform for brain worms isn’t The Washington Post, despite its op-ed writers’ best efforts. It’s Twitter.
Now, obviously, Musk has a long and storied history with Twitter, from SEC violations to defamation lawsuits to threatening journalists to stealing memes. Do you think Twitter is ever gonna successfully moderate its largest shareholder and board member? Like, sure, Twitter spokesperson Adrian Zamora says they’re “committed to impartiality in the development and enforcement of its policies and rules” and that “our day to day operations and decisions are made by Twitter management and employees.” As a practical matter, we’ll find out if our friend Adrian is telling the truth, won’t we?
Because here’s the thing: I notice Musk is already doing some light trolling about Twitter products, with a handy assist from Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal! Specifically, Musk is polling to ask if Twitter should add an edit button, and Agrawal has said the poll will have important consequences. I mean, that’s not tweeting disinformation or anyone’s home address or anything that’s an obvious ToS violation — but it does suggest that some operations and decisions, um, may be made by Musk, actually. The platform’s top shitposter already has the keys to the castle, and he’s gotten them in a way that’s specifically a thumb in the eye of the SEC. We love to have fun on Twitter dot com!
With the recent news regarding Twitter, Mother Jones made a recent reference to a dated article it now refers to as the greatest hits of Musk’s trouble-making tweets. Here is a link:https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... k-twitter/
(Mother Jones) When Donald Trump announced he planned to launch his own social media platform—and eventually his own streaming and web-hosting MAGA-verse—his allies speculated it could launch him into another stratosphere of messaging power and wealth. The idea was to wed the former president’s new venture to a so-called “SPAC” (a Special Purpose Acquisition Company)—a publicly-traded empty shell of a corporation that would allow Trump to turn his digital empire into a virtual money machine.
It hasn’t worked out that way.
Since its launch in February, TruthSocial has seemed far more like vaporware than a serious competitor to Twitter or Facebook. Hundreds of thousands of users apparently remain on the waiting list to get in—despite the fact that last week it was reported that new downloads of the platform had fallen 93 percent from its launch, to just 60,000 per week. Hardly anyone wants to get on TruthSocial, and many of those who do want to apparently can’t. When they do get on, there’s very little content. Trump himself has “truthed” just once, back in February, in a short message promising he’d be there more often.
Over the weekend, Reuters reported the platform’s woes extend beyond its users and content—two top executives, who the news service reported were largely responsible for the technical underpinnings of the platform, have quit. And as anemic as the downloads are said to be, a version of TruthSocial isn’t even available yet for Android phones, which account for as many as 72 percent of smart phones worldwide, and 40 percent of smart phones in America.
Former congressman Devin Nunes—a Trump ally who was extraordinarily sensitive about people saying things he didn’t like on social media, to the point where he sued an anonymous Twitter user pretending to be a cow—promised the hiccups of the original rollout would be solved by March 31. But that didn’t happen.
(TechCrunch) Technology news was entertaining this week, if nothing else. The fact that we started the week learning that Elon Musk had bought a material percentage of Twitter’s stock, spent the mid-week period learning that he had joined the board, and by the end of Friday were busy reading about how employees were digesting the matter, it’s been busy.
But better busy than not, and the saga has given us a lot to think about. I want to touch on the matter one more time today through the lens of voting rights.
Something that we have seen the last few years are multi-class shares at startups. In simple terms, multi-class shares exist when investors and founders create a class of equity that affords them more votes per unit of stock than what is provided by other, lesser types of company stock. This does a few things, including concentrating power in fewer hands. In extreme cases, multi-class share setups can ensure that a founder has complete control of a company, forever.
Facebook is one such company. Twitter is not.
The difference between the two companies isn’t idle. Facebook is struggling to reinvent itself under the guidance of the same leader that brought it to early success while, in contrast, Twitter is now run by a non-founder, and just added a controversial power-user to
CINCINNATI (Courthouse News) — A Parma, Ohio, resident arrested after he created a Facebook page parodying the city’s police department urged an appeals court to reinstate his First Amendment retaliation claims against the city and several police officers that were previously granted immunity by a federal judge.
Anthony Novak created a short-lived parody Facebook page at a bus stop in 2016, and used it to post several satirical “news stories” under the guise of the Parma Police Department.
Among the items posted by Novak was a statement announcing a “temporary law” that forbid residents from giving food to homeless individuals as a means of keeping them out of the city.
The page was active for just over 12 hours, but Police Chief Thomas Connor sent numerous takedown requests to Facebook and eventually obtained over 3,000 pages of records, including Novak’s identity.
A warrant was issued for Novak’s arrest on the felony charge of disruption of public services, although a jury eventually acquitted him.
caltrek's comment: In my mind, the only obligation Facebook had in the matter was to clearly label Mr. Novak's page as being satirical in nature and in no way reflecting the actual policies and pronouncements of the police department in question (except as an outsider's satirical view of the matter). Anything beyond that was overreach both by Facebook and by the Parma police department. That is my personal opinion and may not reflect the actual laws governing such matters.
(CBS News) It turns out that Elon Musk won't be joining Twitter's board of directors after all.
Late Sunday, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said Musk "has decided not to join our board," sharing a message he sent the company regarding the change.
(See linked article for announcement)
Musk was set to officially become a board member on Saturday, according to the note, and opted out the same day. Agrawal did not explain Musk's decision to reverse course, saying only that it is "for the best."
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives suggested one possible stumbling block — Musk's frequent tweeting. "In our opinion, the Twitter board and Musk could not come to an agreement around Musk's communications with the public (various polls) over Twitter as he likely needed to take a more back seat/quiet stance as part of joining the board," he said in a report.
