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Ohio bill would allow users to sue Facebook, Twitter over censorship – NBC4 WCMH-TV

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) One year after YouTube removed from its site a video in which an Ohio attorney touted lies about COVID-19, eight Republicans approved a bill to counter what they called Big Techs suppression of free speech.

In an 8-4 vote Thursday, the Civil Justice Committee approved House Bill 441 to prohibit social media platforms from censoring expression based on a users viewpoint not including speech thats already deemed illegal under federal law, like harassment or shouting fire in a crowded theater.

The bill joins an increasingly national discourse concerned with the uptick in social media sites deplatforming or restricting users ranging from the permanent suspension of former President Donald Trumps Twitter account due to incitement of violence to removing individual Facebook posts promoting Holocaust denial conspiracies.

By preventing Big Tech companies from continuing to engage in viewpoint discrimination, we hope to protect the free exchange of ideas and information in Ohio, Rep. Scott Wiggam (R-Wooster) said in his testimony before the Civil Justice Committee.

While the bill does not equip the state with the power to enforce the censorship ban, it does allow individual Ohioans to file a civil suit against social media companies with more than 50 million U.S. users that block, remove or restrict them from using their site.

Bill co-sponsors Wiggam and Rep. Al Cutrona (R-Canfield) did not respond to requests for comment.

Since January 2020, Twitter has challenged nearly 12 million accounts, suspended more than 8,000 and removed nearly 84,000 posts the social media giant said constituted potentially harmful and misleading information about the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Twitters Transparency Center.

A Fremont attorney who testified against Gov. Mike DeWines COVID-19 shutdown orders before a House committee in 2021 was also the victim of what Wiggam called a government-induced attempt to regulate speech.

A video recording of Thomas Renz was removed from YouTube after the platform determined his speech violated their terms of service by spreading COVID-19 misinformation including a debunked claim that no Ohioans under the age of 19 died from the virus, according to the Associated Press.

Big Tech companies have censored individuals in response to suggestions and pressures from government officials and so have censored Americans on behalf of the government, Wiggam said in his written testimony.

Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio who testified against HB 441, said its unlikely the legislation would survive a legal battle in court.

Unlike government agencies or public entities, social media platforms are private actors and thus arent required to abide by free speech protections under the First Amendment, he said.

These are private entities; they make the decisions whether they have a policy or not, Daniels said. They make these decisions ultimately as to what they want to host or entertain or have on their social media sites.

Ohio itself, Daniels said, could be found in violation of the First Amendment if HB 441 is enacted, as governments are prohibited from compelling speech in other words, forcing an individual or company like Facebook to support or broadcast certain expressions.

Mandating a social media platform to maintain certain content on its site, Daniels said, would be the similar to the government dictating what a newspaper can print or requiring an anti-abortion group to spread messaging supporting a persons right to an abortion.

The idea that the government can do this with private entities would essentially mean all bets are off government controls speech thats out there and will force you to say whatever the government thinks is appropriate, Daniels said.

HB 441 also doesnt clarify what type of action is deemed viewpoint discrimination by social media companies, Daniels said, creating a murky, ambiguous body of law that could open the door for the proliferation of frivolous lawsuits.

It doesnt have to be political speech. It can be for some reason, you know, Facebook wants to remove your cupcake recipe, he said. Everybody agrees they shouldnt be doing something like that thats unfair and not what the people need or want. But again, its their website. Its their social media company.

Cutrona, however, contended that social media platforms act as common carriers like the U.S. Postal Service, phone companies and public transportation that are responsible for the transmission of goods via services open to the general public.

Commons carriers are required to operate with neutrality, which Daniels said explains the fact that the post office cant refuse to deliver a National Rifle Association newsletter because it disagrees with the NRAs speech. And Amtrak, he said, generally does not concern itself with a passengers political views.

These services are affected with a public interest, are public accommodations, are central public forums for public debate, and have enjoyed governmental support in the U.S., Cutrona said in his written testimony. As such, Ohio is well within its rights to stop Big Tech from censoring users based on their viewpoint.

But Daniels said social media giants dont operate or advertise themselves as common carriers, as they obviously exercise control over speech, enforcing myriad speech-related rules within their terms of service.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a similar bill into law allowing residents to sue social media companies over speech violations only to be served with a preliminary injunction blocking its enforcement by a federal judge in June 2021.

The legislation now at issue was an effort to rein in social-media providers deemed too large and too liberal. Balancing the exchange of ideas among private speakers is not a legitimate governmental interest, the Florida judge wrote in his injunction order.

A Texas bill restricting a social media companys ability to regulate users speech was also hit with a preliminary injunction by a federal judge in December 2021.

The judge said the enacted legislation would radically upset the ways in which social media platforms operate by stifling their ability to maintain safe, useful, and enjoyable sites for users.

Content moderation and curation will benefit users and the public by reducing harmful content and providing a safe, useful service, the federal Texas judge wrote in his injunction order.

Despite Daniels certainty that HB 441 will witness a similar fate in court, hes convinced the bills sponsors are using the legislation as a bully pulpitto garner the publics attention toward the issue.

Even the threat of introducing a law, the threat of having a bill out there and passing it into law those types of things they hope, essentially, will cause social media companies to change what they are doing.

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Ohio bill would allow users to sue Facebook, Twitter over censorship - NBC4 WCMH-TV

Biden ‘Disinformation’ Panel Gives Ammo to Case on Big Tech Censorship – Daily Signal

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The Biden administrations formation of a disinformation board has sparked momentum for two states to sue the U.S. government, alleging pressure and collusion with Big Tech corporations to censor political content that challenges the government line.

If we wouldve tried to bring this lawsuit two or three months ago, I think they wouldve laughed us out of court, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry told The Daily Signal in a phone interview about the new Disinformation Governance Board inside the Department of Homeland Security.

People are really starting to raise their eyebrows and its mostly because of this disinformation branch, Landry said. In other words, the government and Big Tech have become basically brazen in the face of the American people, saying, We are going to give you the information that we deem you need.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt joined Louisianas Landry last week in filing a federal lawsuit that alleges top-ranking government officials worked with social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to censor free speech and truthful information regarding COVID-19, election reforms, and other matters.

The two states lawsuit names President Joe Biden, White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Nina Jankowicz, director of the Disinformation Governance Board, among other administration officials.

When the government strong-arms, or basically forces, a company to do something that it would be unconstitutional for them to do, then basically what happens is that those companies then become an arm of the government, Landry told The Daily Signal.

Among the points in the 86-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, are:

Fauci is both the chief medical adviser to the president and the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The lawsuit by Louisiana and Missouri names as defendants Biden, Jankowicz, Psaki, Murthy, and Fauci as well as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra; and Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

As alleged further herein, Defendants have coerced, threatened, and pressured social-media platforms to censor disfavored speakers and viewpoints by using threats of adverse government action, the two states lawsuit says, adding:

As alleged further herein, as a result of such threats, defendants are now directly colluding with social-media platforms to censor disfavored speakers and viewpoints, including by pressuring them to censor certain content and speakers, and flagging disfavored content and speakers for censorship. These actions violate the First Amendment.

In addition, the lawsuit alleges action in excess of statutory authority and violations of the Administrative Procedure Act by both HHS and DHS officials.

Landry said the lawsuit would focus on both public information but also explore nonpublic information.

Whats amazing is theyve been pretty brazen. What Psaki has done, Jen has gone out there and said it, basically, that theyve worked with some of the Big Tech companies in order to censor the information, Landry said, adding:

Were going to use the public statements in order to go after the discovery of exactly what youre looking at. I cant wait. I cannot wait to lift the hood of that vehicle and see whats underneath it. I can tell you, itll be extremely interesting. And again, the interesting part is that all of the information and the communication between the government and Big Tech is certainly a matter of, it should be a matter of, public record.

Americans regularly use social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, now ubiquitous in society, to discuss topics such as public health, Missouris Schmitt said in a formal statement.

In direct contravention to the First Amendment and freedom of speech, Schmitt said, the Biden administration has been engaged in a pernicious campaign to both pressure social media giants to censor and suppress speech and work directly with those platforms to achieve that censorship in a misguided and Orwellian campaign against misinformation.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please emailletters@DailySignal.com, and well consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular We Hear You feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

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Biden 'Disinformation' Panel Gives Ammo to Case on Big Tech Censorship - Daily Signal

Was Censorship the Greatest COVID Threat to Freedom? – Reason

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The Infodemic: How Censorship and Lies Made the World Sicker and Less Free, by Joel Simon and Robert Mahoney, Columbia Global Reports, 192 pages, $16

"We're not just fighting an epidemic," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, declared at the Munich Security Conference on February 15, 2020. "We're fighting an infodemic. Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus and is just as dangerous."

Joel Simon and Robert Mahoney expand on that concept inThe Infodemic: How Censorship and Lies Made the World Sicker and Less Free. Since Simon is a former executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, where Mahoney currently serves as executive director, it is not surprising that they see state efforts to suppress inconvenient information as part of the problem that Tedros described.

That makes sense, since authoritarian governments in countries such as China and Russia contributed to the "infodemic" by censoring, discrediting, and intimidating journalists and other observers who tried to tell the truth about COVID-19. Meanwhile, these governments promoted their own version of reality, in which the pandemic's impact was less serious and the political response to it was more effective.

But folding censorship into the "infodemic" creates an inescapable tension, since democrats as well as autocrats were frequently tempted to address "fake news" about the pandemic through state pressure, if not outright coercion. The Biden administration, for instance, demanded that social media platforms suppress COVID-19 "misinformation," which it defined to include statements that it deemed "misleading" even if they were arguably or verifiably true.

The problem of defining misinformation is evident from the debate about face masks as a safeguard against COVID-19. After initially dismissing the value of general masking, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) decided it was "the most important, powerful public health tool we have." More recently, the CDC has acknowledged that commonly used cloth masks provide little protection, largely agreeing with critics whose statements on the subject had previously triggered banishment from platforms such as YouTube.

Simon and Mahoney make it clear that they do not favor state speech controls. But their concerns about the ways governments used the pandemic as an excuse to expand their powers are curiously limited. While they view censorship as beyond the pale, they are inclined to see other restrictions on freedomeven sweeping impositions such as stay-at-home orders and mass business closuresas justified by the public health emergency.

The authors try to reconcile this apparent contradiction by invoking Isaiah Berlin's distinction between "negative" liberty (freedom from government restraint) and "positive" liberty (self-realization or self-determination). Simon and Mahoney define positive liberty as "the ability to shape the destiny of [one's] own society and live by its laws," which is simultaneously narrower than Berlin's concept, more explicitly collectivist, and more clearly at odds with negative liberty. As they see it, your "ability" to obey democratically enacted laws advances positive liberty even when you view those laws as oppressive.

"The legitimacy of a government's efforts to restrict negative liberty is derived from the existence of positive liberty, as expressed through the consent of the governed," Simon and Mahoney say. "The right to speak, to listen, to express and exchange ideas, to communicate closely held beliefs, to criticize authorities, to demand accountability: these are the broad range of activities enabled by positive liberty."

That's a confusing way to describe freedom of expression, which at bottom is a kind of negative liberty: freedom from prior restraint and from punishment for reporting information or expressing opinions that the government views as dangerous. For example, Simon and Mahoney describe the experience of the independent Chinese journalist Chen Qiushi, who was arrested because of his reporting from Wuhana classic violation of negative liberty.

Restrictions on negative liberty, "even severe ones such as lockdowns, are legitimized through the existence of positive liberty," Simon and Mahoney write, because "the people impacted are able to express their views" and "ultimately if they so wish to compel the government to change course." In other words, as long as citizens have an opportunity to choose, criticize, and change their leaders, it is not inherently problematic to force them to follow public health edicts they view as unnecessary, unscientific, or draconian.

If you oppose censorship as a violation of negative liberty, by contrast, you do not value freedom of expression merely because it is useful around election time or when people are trying to decide what safeguards make sense in response to an airborne virus. And while you probably will agree that such a situation can justify government intervention, since disease carriers pose a potentially deadly threat to others, you may still object to specific policies on the grounds that they unjustifiably restrict other rights, such as freedom of movement, freedom of religion, or freedom to earn a living.

Simon and Mahoney suggest that such rights can be vindicated through the democratic process. But that solution is plainly inadequate, since a majority may support policies that oppress a minority. In any case, COVID-19 control measures in democratic countries were not necessarily supported by popular majorities. For the most part, they were not even imposed by legislative majorities; they were instead the work of executive-branch officials such as governors, presidents, and prime ministers.

Voters might eventually have a chance to express their displeasure at such decrees. In New Jersey, for example, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy was dismayed by his surprisingly narrow reelection victory last fall, which motivated him to relax his pandemic-related restrictions. Republican Glenn Youngkin's upset victory in Virginia's gubernatorial election likewise was seen partly as an expression of frustration with COVID-19 policiesin particular, a statewide mandate forcing students in K12 schools to wear masks.

But between elections, citizens outraged by such edicts have little recourse unless they can persuade legislators to assert control, as happened in states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, or obtain relief from the courts, as happened with pandemic-inspired restrictions on abortion and religious gatherings. Those interventions acknowledged the threat that government officials pose to civil liberties when they claim the authority to exercise extraordinary powers in response to open-ended emergencies they themselves declare.

Simon and Mahoney seem mostly blind to that danger, except when it comes to censorship and especially invasive kinds of COVID-related surveillance. They note the "untold hardship" caused by India's lockdown, which left migrant workers stranded without any means to support themselves or their families. But they think the main problem was that the policy was implemented too suddenly, not that it went too far.

"The nationwide lockdown was an unprecedented restriction on the liberty that Indian citizens enjoy in a democracy," Simon and Mahoney concede. "But it had a public health rationale, and many citizens, including health experts, believed it was warranted."

While they give Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a pass on his most dramatic and consequential response to the pandemic, Simon and Mahoney fault him for his "harsh reprisals" against journalists who questioned his policies. In addition to direct intimidation, Modi "relied on an army of online trolls who amplified his criticism of individual journalists, attacking them in the most personal and vile ways." In that respect, Simon and Mahoney say, Modi resembled Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and U.S. President Donald Trump, "democratic populists" who minimized the seriousness of the pandemic, promoted misinformation, and viewed criticism as an intolerable affront.

In Trump's case, portraying "online trolls" as minions taking their orders from him is misleading, since he often seemed to take his cues from them instead. Trump's reluctance to promote vaccination while he was in office can be explained by his fear that it would anger his supportersa realistic worry, given the hostile reaction he later received when he bragged about the vaccines his administration had expedited. And Trump initially supported lockdowns before declaring, presumably based on his reading of his base, that it was time to lift them.

If we imagine a polity where anti-vaxxers are in the majority, the already problematic idea that pandemic responses are validated by the democratic process becomes even harder to defend. And if the "infodemic" is mostly a spontaneous phenomenon, demands that governments do more to address it invite repressive responses similar to the ones that Simon and Mahoney rightly decry. The alternativecorrecting misinformation by citing the evidence that contradicts itis hardly a magic bullet. But at least it offers an opportunity to persuade people, which is how arguments are supposed to be resolved in a free society.

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Was Censorship the Greatest COVID Threat to Freedom? - Reason

On Censorship and Disinformation – LA Progressive

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The best way to combat disinformation is with more and better information. Censorship isnt the answer.

The Biden administration has reached a different conclusion, creating a Disinformation Governance Board under the Department of Homeland Security. This board is headed by Nina Jankowicz, an unelected official and an apparent partisan hack. One example: she dismissed the infamous Hunter Biden laptop story as a fairy tale involving a laptop repair shop; its now been confirmed that Hunters laptop was real, and so too was that repair shop.

Democrats, of course, dont have exclusive rights to censorship. Republicans always seem to be calling for books to be banned or education to be policed. But the real problem is much larger than partisan hackery and bickering. Efforts at censorship are all around us, couched as a way of protecting us from harmful lies and other forms of disinformation. Yet, as the comedian Jimmy Dore points out, the government isnt that concerned about protecting you from lies; it is, however, deeply concerned with denying you access to certain truths, truths that undermine governmental authority and the dominant narrative.

As a retired U.S. military officer and as a historian, the most insidious lies and disinformation Ive encountered have come from the government. Consider the lies revealed by Daniel Ellsberg and his leak of the Pentagon Papers. Consider the war crimes revealed by Chelsea Manning, aided by Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Consider the lies revealed in the recent Afghan War Papers. Consider the lies about the presence of WMD in Iraq, lies that were used to justify the disastrous Iraq War. The government, in short, is a center of lies and disinformation, which is precisely why we need an adversarial media, one that is willing to ferret out truth. Instead, were being offered a governmental Ministry of Truth in the form of a Disinformation Governance Board.

All things being equal, a democratic society thrives best when speech is as free as possible, trusting in the people to sort fact from fiction, and sound theories from blatant propaganda. And theres the rub: trusting in the people. Because the government doesnt trust us (remember Hillary Clintons comment about all those irredeemable deplorables), even as the government is often at pains to mislead and misinform us. As maverick journalist I.F. Izzy Stone said, all governments lie. Its truly nonsensical, then, to allow the government to police what is true and what is disinformation.

But dont we need some censorship in the name of safety or security or mental health or whatever? Sorry: censorship is rarely about safety, and it most certainly doesnt serve the needs of the vulnerable. Instead, it serves the needs of the powerful, those who already possess the loudest megaphones in the public square.

But doesnt someone like Donald Trump deserve to be censored because he spreads disinformation? Which is the bigger problem: Trump or censorship? I happen to think Trump is a divisive con man, but it was a bad precedent for Twitter to have banned him from tweeting. The bigger problem wasnt Trumps tweets but the medias obsessive coverage of them in pursuit of ratings. The way to combat a blowhard like Trump is to ignore him, and to correct him when needed. To combat his lies with the truth. We dont need a governmental Ministry of Truth to police the tweets of a former president. Not when the government is often the biggest liar.

The solution isnt censorship but an active, engaged, and informed citizenry, assisted by a fourth estate, the press, that is truly independent and adversarial to power. But the weakening of education in America, combined with a fourth estate that is deeply compromised by the powerful and often in bed with the government, means that these democratic checks on power are less and less effective. Hence calls for quick yet dangerous solutions like censorship, where the censors (governmental boards, private corporations) are opaque and almost completely unaccountable to the people.

Unless your goal is to give the already powerful a monopoly on speech, censorship is not the answer.

CrossPosted from Bracing Views.

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On Censorship and Disinformation - LA Progressive

Open-Source Code a Marginal Problem, Managing It the Key Challenge: Report – TechNewsWorld

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Businesses using open-source code which is embedded in a large majority of enterprise-grade software need a full-scale inventory of its existence. That is missing in many corporate IT records.

Without a detailed accounting of open-source code running within their software, companies have no way to monitor software policies, licenses, vulnerabilities, and versions. That means IT departments are clueless about the overall health of the open-source components they use.

At issue is that many enterprises are sure they do not use open source, so they do not have to worry about keeping security patches and code upgrades current. That misconception usually results in network breaches leading to malware and ransomware attacks.

The 2022 Synopsys Open Source Security and Risk Analysis (OSSRA) Report released last month showed an all-time high in open source code running in software. The problem of using open source has been growing consistently year after year.

Open-source code is prevalent in software packages from business applications to network and server processes. Unless enterprises make a concerted effort to catalog and monitor how their organizations use open-source snippets, even known vulnerabilities go unattended.

Fixing the problems the report highlights is a question of ownership, according to Tim Mackey, principal security strategist at Synopsys SIG.

The results suggest a tacit realization that the software powering businesses might not be under their managers control. It also signals that the open-source code in commercial products may not meet the standards to which they hold their own teams accountable.

Given the OSSRA source data comes from technical due-diligence efforts related to mergers and acquisitions activity, and not a survey, the OSSRA report is a reflection of the current state of software usage and not the opinion of what it might be, Mackey told LinuxInsider.

The 2022 OSSRA report audited anonymized findings from over 2,400 commercial codebases across 17 industries. The summary results in this graphic are a wake-up call to corporate IT overseers.

Source: 2022 Open Source Security and Risk Analysis Report (Credit: Synopsys)

The report serves as a crisis warning, especially in light of the ongoing impact of the Log4J vulnerability that appeared late last year.

Of the 2,400 commercial codebases across 17 industries, 2,097 contained security and operational risk assessments. The growth in the number of codebases Synopsys audited is 64 percent larger than last years. Much of that increase resulted from mergers and acquisitions throughout 2021.

The security threats resulting from Log4j were a significant reason President Biden late last year pushed his Executive Order on Cybersecurity, noted Mackey.

It was also key for the OSSRA report to motivate corporate chief information security officers, vice presidents of engineering, and chief technical officers to analyze their open-source software usage and see how well the OSSRA data maps to their own processes and governance.

The OSSRA report has consistently highlighted that the problem with open source is not within the open-source code itself, but in how people use it, he added. Freely downloadable code is wonderful for the pocketbook, but that does not mean it can be managed using the same processes as you might find for commercial software.

A key tenet of the OSSRA report is that risks can stem from unmanaged use of open source. The difference is significant between a lack of open-source management and the fact that open source itself is not the problem, the report concludes.

Open source now is the foundation of commercial software, noted researchers. It is found in 97 percent of commercial software. Despite its universal use, the misperception that open source is somehow inherently dangerous persists.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Unlike Microsoft and Apple products, where software vendors can proactively push updates and patches to known users, open-source has no such vendor to handle risk management issues, observed Mackey.

Existing patch management solutions are often geared toward an update model, he added. Software that is freely downloadable means the software producer does not know who its customers are or even if they are using the software they downloaded.

The patching process and its assumptions get lost when people focus on topics like Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) being a silver bullet for open-source management, according to Mackey. Fixing the problem requires going beyond SBOM.

SBOM is simply a tool to improve processes that were designed for a different type of software consumption, he said. In addition, industries need to focus on identifying and monitoring open-source components in the commercial software they use. That is what has to happen to correct what the OSSRA report indicates are problems, said Mackey.

Using obsolete open-source components requires companies to adopt a process for monitoring when their components become out-of-date. But it is not just explicitly declaring dependencies or selecting approved suppliers. Mackey sees the problem as more deeply rooted in the supply chain.

The Log4Shell experience is a perfect example of a foundational component that few knew existed. But once Log4j became front of mind due to the impact of the Log4Shell vulnerability, [it] forced teams to rush and figure out how to best manage it, he pointed out.

That is the solution enterprise users of commercial software must do. Inventory the existence of open-source components. Then establish and execute monitoring and patching and updating.

Whatever processes those teams used to successfully manage their Log4j experience at scale should be applied to other components. In other words, use the Log4j experience to build a more scalable solution for your organization, urged Mackey.

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Open-Source Code a Marginal Problem, Managing It the Key Challenge: Report - TechNewsWorld

GM Partners With Red Hat on Open-Source Linux Operating System – CNET

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Most current vehicle operating systems -- the software your car or truck's systems run on -- are based on relatively closed-off, proprietary software packages from businesses such as Research In Motion (the company behind BlackBerry), Tier 1 supplier Continental and Google. GM is looking to change that through a partnership with software firm Red Hat.

GM confirmed Tuesday that Red Hat, an IBM subsidiary, will lead the development of a new, open-source Linux-based operating system that will underpin the Ultifi initiative, a cloud-based customer service platform GM announced in 2021. GM's Ultifi platform will oversee everything from future infotainment operations and battery management to the way the company's cars communicate with other vehicles, smart infrastructure and even homes.

What makes Red Hat's software special compared to the alternatives on the market? Well, a few things, but chiefly, Red Hat'scontinuous functional safety certification system. An automotive software developer has to go through a number of safety certification processes to ensure that not only is its software reliable and robust, it's also appropriately resistant to cyber attacks and similar threats. Safety certification is expensive, time-consuming and it's carried out repeatedly for every major change or update. Red Hat's system streamlines that process through another partnership with a company called Exida, which handles the certification.

"General Motors is now a platform company and working with Red Hat is a critical element in advancing our Ultifi software development," said Scott Miller, GM vice president of software-defined vehicle and operating system, in a statement. "Incorporating the company's expertise in open source solutions and enterprise networks will pay dividends as we aim to provide the most developer-friendly software platform in the industry. With Red Hat's operating system as a core enabler of Ultifi's capabilities, the opportunity for innovation becomes limitless."

What does this mean for someone who buys an Ultifi-equipped GM vehicle such as the 2023 Cadillac Lyriq electric SUV in the future? It means much more frequent over-the-air software updates, which can enable new features or address bugs on a more timely basis. It also means the variety of apps and features could expand greatly thanks to a more developer-friendly platform, especially since GM plans to open up its software to "authorized third-party developers who meet strict security, safety and privacy standards." In short, the new platform sounds pretty cool.

Now playing: Watch this: GM introduces its new customer service platform, Ultifi

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GM Partners With Red Hat on Open-Source Linux Operating System - CNET

It’s not easy getting an open-source company off the ground, Appwrite wants to help – ZDNet

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Launching an open-source company isn't easy. Even the biggest pure-play open-source company, Red Hat, got its humble start in founding CEO Bob Young's wife's sewing closet. More recently, when Appwrite, a Backend as a Service (BaaS) business, CEO and founder Eldad Fux literally had "his back to the wall." Luckily for him, Fux obtained seed funding at the last minute.

By April 2022, Appwrite has gotten $27 million in funding. Looking ahead, the open-source Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform for web, mobile, and flutterdevelopers with its integrated REST APIs future looks bright. With 27 full-time Appwriters and a community of over 150,000 developers, Appwrite may become a major developer success story.

That's great, but there was a lot of terror along the way. So, Fux has decided that he needs to give back to the open-source community.

The company is doing this with the "Appwrite OSS Fund." The idea behind the fund is to support open-source developers and their projects.

Here's how it works:

Now, this is not millions. You won't be launching a company with this funding. And, it certainly doesn't address the fundamental problem of early-stage open-source project funding. But, if you have an idea and you need just enough cash to get your show on the road, this may be exactly what you need.

See also

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It's not easy getting an open-source company off the ground, Appwrite wants to help - ZDNet

Kubernetes taps Sigstore to thwart open-source software supply chain attacks – ZDNet

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Container orchestrator Kubernetes will now include cryptographically signed certificates, using the Sigstore project created last year by the Linux Foundation, Google, Red Hat and Purdue University, in a bid to protect against supply chain attacks.

The Sigstore certificates are being used in the just-released Kubernetes version 1.24 and all future releases.

According to founding Sigstore developer Dan Lorenc, a former member of Google's open-source security team, the use of Sigstore certificates allows Kubernetes users to verify the authenticity and integrity of the distribution they're using by "giving users the ability to verify signatures and have greater confidence in the origin of each and every deployed Kubernetes binary, source code bundle and container image."

It's one step forward for open-source software development in the battle against software supply chain attacks.

SEE: The Emotet botnet is back, and it has some new tricks to spread malware

The Linux Foundation announced the Sigstore project in March 2021. The new Alpha-Omega open-source supply chain security project, which is backed by Google and Microsoft, also uses Sigstore certificates. Google's open-source security team announced the Sigstore-related project Cosign in May 2021 to simplify signing and verifying container images, as well as the Rekor 'tamper resistant' ledger, which lets software maintainers build systems to record signed metadata to an "immutable record".

According to Lorenc, the Kubernetes release team's adoption of Sigstore is part of its work on Supply Chain Levels for Software Artifacts, or SLSA a framework developed by Google for internally protecting its software supply chain that's now a three-level specification being shaped by Google, Intel, the Linux Foundation and others. Kubernetes 1.23 achieved SLSA Level 1 compliance in version 1.23.

"Sigstore was a key project in achieving SLSA level 2 status and getting a headstart towards achieving SLSA level 3 compliance, which the Kubernetes community expects to reach this August," says Lorenc.

Lorenc tells ZDNet that Kubernetes' adoption of Sigstore is a major step forward for the project because it has about 5.6 million users. The Sigstore project is also approaching Python developers with a new tool for signing Python packages, as well as major package repositories such as Maven Central and RubyGems.

Kubernetes serves as critical focal points to help draw attention, take a large amount of work, and has an outsized impact on the entire supply chain, he says.

These efforts coincide with new projects like the new Package Analysis Project, an initiative by Google and the the Linux Foundation's Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) to identify malicious packages for popular languages such as Python and JavaScript.

Malicious packages are regularly uploaded to popular repositories despite best efforts, with sometimes devastating consequences for users, according to Google.

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Kubernetes taps Sigstore to thwart open-source software supply chain attacks - ZDNet

Red Hats Paul Cormier on RHEL 9, the edge and open source innovation – VentureBeat

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We are excited to bring Transform 2022 back in-person July 19 and virtually July 20 - 28. Join AI and data leaders for insightful talks and exciting networking opportunities. Register today!

This is the IT new normal.

At least, its in the process of being defined.

We all need to adjust, said Paul Cormier, president and CEO of Red Hat, told VentureBeat. What that means is still in the formative stages.

The pandemic pushed the wheel of the new normal forward, and open-source and hybrid cloud are driving it further along, Cormier said today at Red Hat Summit 2022.

Open source, particularly, has gone far past the purview of hobbyists, he emphasized. CIOs that have used it and the pandemic as a way to pivot instead of just focusing on surviving have not only weathered well but have positioned their businesses for future flexibility and growth.

[ Related: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 offers new solution to verify the integrity of OSs ]

Its really the innovation engine thats driving this new normal, Cormier said. Where we thought things might be five years from now, have moved up to now.

Red Hat will make several announcements at its two-day summit this week. Notably, the company introduced Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9, the newest version of its flagship product. The platform will be generally available in coming weeks.

RHEL is a commercial open-source distribution platform for Linux. RHEL 9 is the first production release built from CentOS Stream, the free open-source community-supported Linux distribution platform downstream from RHEL.

The release is timely and strategic, Cormier said, as IDC predicts that by 2023, 40% of Global 2000 companies will base cloud selection processes on business outcomes rather than IT requirements. RHEL 9 provides a standardized platform allowing organizations to deploy new initiatives without having to abandon existing workloads or systems, he explained. It was built to support hybrid/multi-cloud deployments ranging from physical to on-premises to public cloud to edge.

We really designed RHEL 9 as a template for a technology world thats distributed, hybrid, automated, Cormier said.

With the significant growth in edge computing, the new version is designed to help address evolving IT needs at the edge, he said. It incorporates comprehensive edge management to oversee and scale remote deployments with zero-touch provisioning, system health visibility and responsive vulnerability migrations. It also has an automatic container roll-back as well as a new image builder service.

New security features are also built into RHEL 9, including those that address hardware-level security vulnerabilities such as Spectre and Meltdown. The platform introduces integrity measurement architecture (IMA) digital hashes and signatures, which allow users to verify operating system integrity and detect rogue infrastructure modifications.

As Cormier noted, new capabilities help IT organizations embrace automation across the hybrid cloud, cut complexity and enhance manageability. For instance, expanded sets of system roles and support of kernel live patching from the RHEL web console enable critical tasks at scale.

The hybrid world brings a lot of value, a lot of functionality, Cormier said. But it also brings a lot of complexity. We need automation to help manage that complexity.

Enterprise interest in edge computing continues to grow exponentially: IDC predicts the market to reach more than a quarter trillion dollars by 2025.

We hear a lot about the edge, and I dont think edge is a thing by itself, Cormier said. Edge is a piece of the architecture in a truly hybrid architecture.

With that, CIOs are no longer just responsible for the pieces that run within the four walls of their data center.

Now they also have to be concerned with apps that run into multiple clouds and out onto the edge whether that edge be a cell tower, a retail store or a factory floor.

Thats all now part of the CIOs world, Cormier said. The CIO has to develop for the edge, just as they do for the data center in the cloud. They have to operate the edge, monitor, update, and they have to secure the edge as part of that overall architecture.

Red Hat has released several new cross-portfolio edge capabilities to help organizations better adapt to edge computing. These include new functionalities across OpenShift (Red Hats family of containerization software products), new edge management feature sets, Podman roll-back to increase edge device uptime, and validated patterns allowing IT teams to quickly build edge stacks.

These are intended to simplify the process, speed deployment, enhance security and increase confidence on the part of administrators, Cormier explained.

For example, Red Hat has long been strong in the telco space, he said, and 4G technologies are built on proprietary, very vertically aligned stacks from hardware to firmware to the operating system to middleware all the way to the application. 5G, by contrast, is built from software, and containers enable alignment of applications. In the case of telco, the edge is all the way out to the cell tower.

It has to run as one common system from the cell tower to the intermediary data centers, to the main data centers, Cormier said. The edge now really completes that hybrid architecture.

He added that We really dont have time to move that data way back to the data center. You need to get the compute closer to the data. Thats where edge comes in.

Open source is critically important to this new era of innovation, Cormier emphasized. Not too long ago, open source was still in the domain of the hobbyist; now, developers versed in it are some of the most lucrative and sought after.

Cormier pointed out that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) were working in open source and investing in it even when there was no real business coming from it; independent software vendors (ISVs) were certifying themselves on the Red Hat platform when open source was still a fringe concept; and CIOs, notably in the banking space, were early adopters of Linux and open source in production environments.

A lot of people have a lot of skill and a lot of passion for open source, Cormier said. And a lot of people took a lot of risks to even get into open source. We took risks as a company. But the point is, we didnt take them alone. Developers took risks, customers took risks, partners took risks. But thats what was needed to drive innovation today.

VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Learn more about membership.

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Red Hats Paul Cormier on RHEL 9, the edge and open source innovation - VentureBeat

Top 12 Front End Development Tools in 2022 | by ISHIR | May, 2022 – Medium

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Front-end development is an important part of having an online presence. Without front-end development, websites are pointless, and users cannot have a great experience.

However, front-end developers are always needed to keep up with the evolving needs of users. As a result, they have a variety of tools and resources to help them keep up to date.

1. Atom

Atom is a free GitHub tool that allows developers to work with open-source text and source codes. It is written in JavaScript and is embedded in GitControl. Its compatible with Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, & Linux.

Atom has a variety of themes, features, flexible plugins, and languages to choose from. The Atom has a lot of important characteristics. It includes features such as Git and GitHub version management, a built-in package manager, and a smart auto-completion tool. You can also edit between platforms and use the software in several panes.

2. Sublime Text

Sublime Text is a cross platform source code editor & shareware. It supports a variety of programming & markup languages and can be enhanced with community-built plugins.

The software helps you manage text editing processes for markups, codes, and prose on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It also has built-in capabilities that allow you to manipulate various syntax definitions and highlighters.

3. Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is a source-code editor for Windows, macOS, & Linux developed by Microsoft. Many programming languages, including Go, Node.js, JavaScript, C++, & Python, are supported by VS Code.

Most programming languages have fundamental features in VS Code, such as code folding, bracket matching, customizable snippets, and syntax highlighting. The editor component in VS Code is the same as in Azure DevOps.

4. npm

Node Package Manager is abbreviated as npm (npm is correctly written in lowercase). It is the worlds most crucial software registry. It has over 800,000 code packages and is used by open-source developers to distribute software.

5. Codepen

CodePen is used by front-end developers to create online environments. They can use it to test and display CSS, HTML, and JavaScript scripts or code snippets.

The fact that you can view the results in real time appeals to programmers. It speeds up the debugging process.

A developer can use CodePen to create and design a website, test it, and learn more about it. Furthermore, CodePen has a large community of programmers who are active in sharing their work and learning from one another.

6. Meteor

Meteor is a JavaScript platform for developing online and mobile applications. It includes a build tool, as well as a carefully built set of packages from the Node.js and JavaScript communities for creating user-friendly applications.

Meteor has a bundled npm that allows you to use the command without having to install it.

7. Zurb Foundation

The Zurb Foundation is a freely available front-end framework. Its free and comes with a responsive grid, as well as HTML and CSS UI components and templates. It is a volunteer-supported open-source project since 2019 that was previously maintained by ZURB.

To prototype a responsive site, the responsive framework leverages Sass/SCSS and provides the most frequent patterns. You can also use Sass mixins to effortlessly design and enhance Foundation components.

8. Git Extensions

Git Extensions is a control system of a distributed version. It allows users to manage source file collections and make various changes to them.

Users can make changes through a central repository, and the history displays what changes have been made. The principal repository, also known as the remote repository, uses a GUI to maintain the version control system using GIT commands.

9. Sass

Sass is one of the most widely used CSS preprocessors among developers. It converts style sheets to CSS and allows you to use CSS-compatible mixins, rules, variables, & functions.

Sass can organize large stylesheets, making it easier to share designs between projects. It also has two syntaxes, one of which can load on the other (SCSS & Sass).

10. LESS

LESS (Leaner Style Sheets) is a CSS language extension that is backwards compatible. If youre already familiar with CSS, understanding LESS will be a breeze.

The software added various features to CSS, such as loops and variables, to make CSS work easier. As a result, LESS makes websites more manageable and reusable. Furthermore, it is dynamic and supports CSS extensions.

11. BootStrap

While creating a website, a front-end framework is also crucial. A front-end framework is a collection of files and assets that are essential to web design.

BootStrap is one of the most popular front-end frameworks available. Developers can use it to make responsive CSS, HTML, or JavaScript webpages.

12. React JS

React JS is an open-source JavaScript front-end library. ReactJS allows programmers to create user interfaces based on UI components. Meta maintains it and it is free to access.

React can be used to create single-page mobile apps or applications that are rendered on servers. React, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with state management and the effects it has on the Document Object Model (DOM). As a result, React based apps requires more libraries for routing.

For programmers, front-end development tools are vital. These technologies must also keep up with the demands of developers who want to focus on producing more creative websites.

The Original Publication can be read at: Top 15 Front End Development Tools in 2022

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Top 12 Front End Development Tools in 2022 | by ISHIR | May, 2022 - Medium


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