Category Archives: Big Tech

Philadelphia residents no longer need to wear masks in most indoor settings, starting immediately, the citys health commissioner, Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, announced on Wednesday.

With Philadelphia reporting an average of 295 new coronavirus cases per day, down from almost 4,000 during the Omicron peak, city authorities say it is safe to stop enforcing the mandate.

The change in policy came as other U.S. cities and counties have rapidly relaxed their mask mandates, including Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles County, New York City and Boston.

Last month, Philadelphia announced a new tiered Covid response system, which ties restrictions to specific benchmarks for new daily cases, hospitalizations, test positivity rates and the rate at which cases are rising. The metrics have improved enough that Philadelphia can move to the all clear level, where vaccines and masks are no longer required in most indoor spaces, the Health Department said.

The mask mandate remains in place in health care settings and on public transit, and businesses and other institutions are allowed to require masks or proof of vaccination if they choose to do so.

Masks will no longer be required in Philadelphia schools starting March 9, if the situation continues to improve.

Philadelphia is unique in that we are the poorest big city in the country, making us more vulnerable to Covid-19 than many other places, Dr. Bettigole said. She added that Philadelphians had shown a commitment to each other during the pandemic, perhaps best demonstrated by our willingness to wear masks for the past six months to help decrease transmission to those that remain at risk.

Almost 70 percent of Philadelphians are fully vaccinated, according to a New York Times database, but the number of people receiving their first doses has stalled, as they have nationally.

Other places in the United States that announced changes to mask policies this week:

Maines state government said on Wednesday that it would lift its statewide mask requirement for schools on March 9, after which school districts will be responsible for setting mask policies.

Education officials in Chicago, one of the largest U.S. public school systems, say they might soon end the citys mandate in schools.

Los Angeles County is poised to lift its indoor mask requirement for unvaccinated residents on March 4.

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Covid News: U.S. to Offer Covid-Fighting Tech to Other Nations - The New York Times

On Friday morning, as Russia continued its unprovoked attacks on Ukraine, its government also launched an assault on Facebook, announcing that it would begin partially restricting access to the social media network in Russia, where there are an estimated 70 million users, because Facebook allegedly restricted pro-Russian news sites. Later that day, Facebook pushed back, writing that Russian authorities ordered us to stop the independent fact-checking and labeling of content and that the company would continue to support ordinary Russians using our app to express themselves and organize for action. On Saturday morning, Twitter also confirmed that its app is being restricted for some people in Russia.

Now Facebook and Twitter find themselves in a predicament thats become increasingly common for social media networks in certain countries: Theyre facing the demands of an authoritarian government thats pressuring them to censor content it doesnt like, and to allow propaganda to run unchecked. If they dont follow the Kremlins orders, they risk being booted off of the local internet entirely. In some cases, refusing could put some of their local employees at risk in the past, the Russian government has threatened to arrest tech employees based in the country when disputing with their employers. These situations threaten to fracture the way people communicate across the world.

Theres no simple solution to such a standoff. For the people living under these governments, losing access to major social media platforms can cut off a key way they communicate and resist their own government and its propaganda. In Russia, for example, residents who oppose the invasion of Ukraine have been using Facebook, Twitter, and other major social media platforms to distribute news about the attacks and to coordinate anti-war actions and protests.

I think were heading toward an inevitable break in the global internet, said Emerson Brooking, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank who studies social media.

Social media in the 2000s was developed under a vision of a shared, open, and global internet, which required major tech platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to largely follow the political speech rules of whatever countries they operated in. That meant that tech companies particularly in places outside the US and Europe sometimes took down politically controversial speech at the behest of government orders.

Last September, Apple and Google deleted a voting app created by supporters of Aleksei A. Navalny, the imprisoned Russian opposition leader, after the Russian government reportedly threatened to arrest the tech giants employees if the companies left the app up in their stores.

In every case, its an implicit negotiation between companies and an authoritarian government, Brooking told Recode.

But sometimes that implicit negotiation can break down, as it did last March when the Kremlin intentionally slowed down Twitter in Russia after warning social media platforms to take down content supporting Navalny after his arrest. Were seeing these breakdowns happen more often.

A truly open, global internet never existed in China, where all US social media companies are officially banned under its Great Firewall that controls what citizens can access online. It no longer fully exists in India, where Twitter and Facebook have taken down content at the demand of Prime Minister Narendra Modis government, which began censoring political dissenters with increasing vigor during the pandemic. And now, it may not exist much longer in Russia, at a critical moment in global history.

What happens next in Russia may continue to splinter the open internet.

Some politicians and online speech experts say its important for mainstream social media platforms to try to continue operating in Russia, while still moderating blatant misinformation and restricting propaganda pushed by Russian state media. Thats because social media platforms are giving Russians who disagree with the Kremlin a way to make their voices heard, and theyre offering Russians a way to get information that Russias state-run media organizations wont share.

Widely circulated tweets showed Russian protesters chanting against the war this week in Moscow. A popular St. Petersburg rapper canceled his concert and posted an anti-war message to his over 2 million Instagram followers on Thursday. And some children of Russian senior state officials and oligarchs have turned to Instagram to voice their opposition to the invasion.

Its always a balance to make sure that Russians who want the real story or at least the story as we see it still have access to social media platforms, European Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager told Recode on Friday. But propaganda shouldnt have a place.

In the next few days, its expected that Russias government will continue circulating false and misleading claims to support the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Twitter, Google, and Facebook have all said they are increasing their efforts to remove videos that violate their policies. Twitter has temporarily paused its ads and some recommendations in Russia and Ukraine to prevent misinformation from spreading. Facebook announced on Friday it was prohibiting Russian state media from running ads. And YouTube told Recode that its evaluating whether new economic sanctions on Russia may impact what content is allowed on the platform. The video platform has faced criticism for allowing advertisers to run ads against Russian-backed state media outlet RT as it livestreams bombings in Ukraine.

Its unclear if Russia will escalate its partial restrictions in response to Facebooks continued refusal to stop moderating Russian media, or what exactly it will do to Twitter and YouTube.

Some internet security experts, social media researchers, and activists have advocated for US-based social media companies to cut off Russian state-funded media or state-run accounts, since that could weaken the Russian governments ability to distribute propaganda.

During the Cold War, we would never let Pravda publish in the United States, said Jim Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Why are we letting the Russians do this?

But for all the previously mentioned reasons, if tech companies further limit Russian state media and official government accounts, that could risk further retaliation by the Russian government.

All of this underscores how social media is a key battleground for global powers. It should come as no surprise that the Kremlin which proved itself masterful at interfering with US politics using social media disinformation campaigns during the 2016 elections is once again trying to manipulate the online public conversation in its favor.

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Tech companies like Facebook and Twitter have a Russia problem - Vox.com

Kara Swisher is the co-host of Pivot from New York Magazine and the host of the New York Times podcast Sway. Shes also an editor-at-large at New York Magazine, the co-founder of Recode from Vox Media, a New York Times contributing opinion writer, and a regular contributor to NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC. She previously hosted the podcasts Recode Decode and Too Embarrassed to Ask at Vox. Swisher co-founded Recode, was producer and host of the Recode Decode podcast, and before that co-produced and co-hosted the Wall Street Journals D: All Things Digital conference series (now called the Code conference) with Walt Mossberg starting in 2003. It was, and still is, the countrys premier conference on tech and media, with interviewees such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, the Google leadership, Tim Cook, Jack Dorsey, and many other leading players. Swisher is also the author of aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads, and Made Millions in the War for the Web, published by Times Business Books in July 1998. The sequel, There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future, was published in the fall of 2003 by Crown Business Books.

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Bren with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway on Pivot, Reverence, and What's Behind Big Tech - Brene Brown

The world has changed, and the strongest tech founders dont need todays accelerators. They face new challenges and need new solutions. At Neo, were taking on the task of making the accelerator relevant to them again.

In 2008, Airbnb applied to Y Combinator as a lifeline: they needed the cash. If the Airbnb co-founders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nate Blecharczyk were starting today, they could get funding within days just by changing their Twitter bios to working on something new. They wouldnt need a three-month program with a demo day to raise money. Capital is more abundant than ever, and Zoom has made it easier to raise. Meanwhile, tech talent is scarcer than ever. Start-ups desperately need help recruiting engineers, which is what Neo does. Since 2017, weve built an awesome talent pipeline and convinced hundreds of star engineers to join start-ups.

Building on this track record, weve reimagined Neo Accelerators demo day to be more like a career fair. Instead of pitching investors, imagine pitching an audience of exceptional engineers and scoring meetings with candidates interested in joining you. Thats something every tech founder would want. Starting a company is a lonely experience, especially for people early in their careers, and Covid lockdowns have left us all craving human contact. Unlike any other accelerator, Neo kicks off with a monthlong all-inclusive retreat in Oregon, which were calling Neo Campus. Imagine living under the same roof and bonding with mentors and other founders over meals, hikes, and other activities.

What do you consider innovative now? Talk about specific areas that are under-hyped and overhyped.

Whenever I make predictions, Im usually wrong. I prefer to bet on people smarter than myself and trust them to figure out what to build. With that caveat, there are two areas Im very bullish on in the post-Covid world.

The first is any technology that supports the redistribution of work and wealth from a few concentrated cities to the rest of the world. For the first time in history, prosperity has been decoupled from physical location knowledge workers can be productive from anywhere. This means workers can relocate and work from wherever they want; and employers can hire new workers from all over the world. This is a seismic shift; it may take decades to realize its full scale.

Second, Im bullish on anybody building a new social network. During the pandemic, we saw amazing tech solutions rise to meet our needs. Physical meetings became impossible, so Zoom filled the void. Office conversations became impossible, so Slack filled the void. Making new friends and socializing at parties became impossible yet nothing filled the void. While Zoom and Slacks traffic skyrocketed, Facebook and Instagrams did not. Facebook is the new Myspace. Meanwhile theres an enormous human need that isnt being met, and a trillion-dollar opportunity for whoever reimagines social networking.

At Neo Accelerator, you are stressing diversity and also youth? Are you essentially going back to the old way and with hindsight 2022?

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Opinion | Tech Offers a Silver Lining in Ukraine - The New York Times

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s Russia continues to be hit with economic sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine, the worlds top tech firms are doing their bit to try and end the conflict.

Apple has blocked its contactless payment system in Russia, Google has disabled its map traffic data in Ukraine to protect citizens, and Facebook owner Meta has set up a brand new team to tackle misinformation on social media.

But what impact will these actions have? And how much responsibility falls on tech firms to act during international conflicts?

Senior tech reporter at Insider Isobel Hamilton discusses the actions being taken, what else tech firms can do, and what might happen next.

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You can find us on Apple, Spotify Daily Drive or wherever you stream your podcasts.

Donate here: Please give what you can to the Evening Standard Ukraine appeal

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The Leader podcast: Big techs role in the Ukraine conflict - Evening Standard

A TIKTOK tech guru has lifted the lid on a piece of little-known Netflix trivia.

In a recent video, user Adam Grasso explained a "secret cinematic trick" that the US streaming service uses to make its original content look better on your telly.

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The quirk is the reason that black bars appear at the top and bottom of the screen over some shows and movies available on the platform.

"You're probably familiar with seeing black bars on your TV screen," Adam, who posts under the username @heyadamgrasso, said.

"The ones that Netflix use are actually a bit smaller in size."

He added that this is because Netflix films in an unusual 2:1 aspect ratio meaning images are twice as wide as they are tall.

The result is a taller image than those filmed in 16:9 or 2:35:1, the most popular aspect ratios for TV shows and feature films respectively.

Adam explained: "Two-to-one, also known as Univisium, is preferred by many Netflix shows."

He added that because 2:1 images are both tall and wide, they are excellent at conveying scale horizontally and vertically.

"Shows like The Witcher can show off epic wide landscapes and the weird creatures in Stranger Things have enough headroom to convey a believable scale to viewers," Adam said.

The 2:1 aspect ratio was invented by visionary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro.

He's an Academy Award-winner who has worked on many classic films including "The Conformist" and "Apocalypse Now".

In the late 1990s, Storaro noticed that the rise of widescreen TVs, which use a 16:9 aspect ratio, were the future of movie watching.

However, most films were not shot in that aspect ratio, meaning people watching at home would not be seeing the director's original vision.

You've probably noticed this dissonance when watching a film at home. To fit a wider cinematic image onto your telly, thick black bars fill the gaps above and below the film's imagery.

Storaro cooked up the 2:1 aspect ratio as a compromise that would ensure his movies looked good on both home TVs and on much wider cinema screens.

Netflix has adopted it as a filming standard to ensure its content works across TVs, smartphones and at theatres.

Adam said: "Until we're all rich enough to afford huge cinema screens in our homes, this is probably the best middle ground we're gonna get to enjoy cinematic content on our 16:9 screens."

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In other news, the mystery surrounding why prehistoric Brits built Stonehenge has finally been solved after research confirmed that the monument served as anancient solar calendar.

In other news, the iPhone's virtual assistant, Siri, is getting a new,"gender-neutral" voice.

A British woman hastold of her horrorafter scammers used photos of a "silver fox" politician to trick her out of 80,000.

And, Norfolk County Councilis suing Appleover what it says was misleading information about iPhone sales.

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk

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Every Netflix original TV show and movie has BIG tech secret have you spotted it?... - The Sun

Four years in the making, the Governments long-awaited Bill to rein in the tech companies looks set to do precisely the opposite. The Bill, due within weeks, will create new rules for online speech in the image of Silicon Valley, and in doing so, rewrite the rules for free speech in Britain.

Earlier this week, several respected Conservative ex-ministers Lord Frost, Sir John Hayes, David Davis and Steve Baker all urged caution about the Online Safety Bill, signalling a growing revolt. Their concerns are echoed by human rights and civil liberties groups. As Lord Frost put it, aspects of the Bill present a real risk to freedom of expression in this country and the Government should pause, have further discussion, and get things right.

More discussion is indeed needed. But more discussion is precisely what well have much less of under this Bill.

Calls for online regulation have been driven by genuine internet-based harms that concern all of us. Paedophilia, sex crimes, digital stalking, racist abuse, violent threats, and fraud are all rife on the internet and there is a clear need for criminal offences offline to be more effectively dealt with online.

However, the long promise of the Bill has opened an opportunity for it to become the dustbin for unpopular speech. Discussions on anything from self harm and mental health to pandemic policies and vaccines are set to be strictly limited under the Bill, backed by state regulators. Faced with growing zealotry for censorship over recent years, including from the Labour benches and (strangely) from within our free press, ministers have relied on the prospects of online regulation to banish speech from the internet dangled before them in interviews that are too uncomfortable to defend.

The social media companies have been doing this for years. PR and branding concerns have overtaken free speech values at high speed, and we are fast exchanging our long-fought-for right to free expression for Americanised terms and conditions dreamt up by techbros in Silicon Valley.

There are few clearer examples of PR-driven censorship than the gender debates. In my own research of social media censorship for Big Brother Watchs report, The State of Free Speech Online, I found scores of feminist campaigners, journalists and lawyers suspended and banned from sites like Twitter for posting statements as unremarkable as men arent women, and scores of trans people censored for using terms like cis to describe gender-critical feminists who dont like the term. Peoples careers have been stunted and reputations damaged by this Big Tech silencing, and the debate on sex and gender rights was not cleansed but rather toxified by the added aggravation of foreign companies constant censorship which seemed to be wielded for whichever side of the argument was perceived to have more power at any given time.

And yet, whilst Twitter was censoring and punishing people for their views on sex and gender-based rights, I easily found extreme porn videos depicting rape and kidnap fantasies with women gagged, bound, and drenched in fake blood on the social media platform.

This was not a case of Twitter failing to act on its own policies it is a correct implementation of Twitters policies, which are liberal about extreme porn and illiberal about womens rights.

The Online Safety Bill would, absurdly, make Ofcom responsible for ensuring tech companies uphold the policies in their terms and conditions. But these are rules that are totally out of step with British law and free speech principles.

The British public want the law upheld online not the rules of Silicon Valley speech police. We want freedom of expression preserved, not subdued for the brand-driven politics of foreign companies. Thats why Lord Frost is quite right that this Bill must be reviewed. As a starting point, powers which target so-called legal but harmful speech, formerly known to you and me as lawful or free speech, must be removed from the Bill.

Harm has no serious definition in the Bill and we must recognise the harm of censorship, too. As competing world powers grow ever more draconian, we must walk the walk when it comes to democracy. Now is not the time for a Censors' Charter, but the time to redouble our commitment to the liberal values British democracy is built on.

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We were supposed to rein in Big Tech now we're making them Britain's woke police - The Telegraph

The Canadian Press Published Friday, March 4, 2022 12:34PM EST Last Updated Friday, March 4, 2022 3:43PM EST

The Public Policy Forum says "urgent" action is needed from the Canadian government to level the playing field between news media and tech giants such as Meta and Google amid broad revenue declines in the media industry.

In a new report titled "The Shattered Mirror: 5 Years On," the organization emphasizes the need to support public-interest, fact-based journalism, which it calls an essential part of democracy.

It cites News Media Canada data on the decline of advertising revenue for community newspapers, where almost 300 local Canadian papers either shuttered or merged with other publications in the decade from 2011 to 2020.

"We can no longer ignore how vulnerable our local and regional news outlets are to Google and Meta," Katie Davey, editor of PPF Media and policy lead at the Public Policy Forum said in a news release.

The report recommends implementing the model used in Australia, where the government passed laws that would make digital giants help cover the costs of journalism.

Other recommendations include enhancing the Local Journalism Initiative, Canada's $50 million program launched by the federal government in 2019 aimed at helping news outlets hire reporters to cover underserved communities.

This report comes five years after the Public Policy Forum's original "Shattered Mirror" report, which delved into the key issues facing Canada's journalism industry.

That initial report had 12 recommendations.

There has been movement on at least six of those recommendations in some way, including the suggestion to establish a fund to support local journalism similar to what the BBC has been doing across the pond and the application of GST/HST to foreign digital services.

While the authors of the report are encouraged by greater innovation in policy solutions and are optimistic about a fresh generation of news entrepreneurs, they say support for Canadian news and media is ultimately still not where it needs to be.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 4, 2022.

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The Canadian Press has a contract with News Media Canada to provide editorial oversight and distribution of the LJI content, but CP does not assign or edit the stories.

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Report calls on feds to help level the playing field between Canadian media and big tech - CP24 Toronto's Breaking News

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The rise of big tech may just be starting - Standard Speaker

Efforts by Democrats, like Klobuchar, to win support from key Republicans, he says, have resulted in bills full of ticking time bombs that could explode on Democrats and their allies the next time Republicans regain control of the White House.

For instance, Szka argues, the same bill that would prevent tech titans from discriminating against competitors might also prevent them from removing companies from their app stores that have violated content rules, like Parler, a social media platform that has become a safe harbor for right-wing conspiracy theorists.

"It's going to be easy for these sites that cater to extremists to sue, to harass mainstream services, to rifle through emails, to depose executives,"said Szka.

Similar concerns have been expressed by many in California's congressionaldelegation, suggesting that Democrats could balk at supporting some of the bills.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla are among a large group of California Democrats who have criticized elements of the bills, mirroring some of the arguments made by tech-funded think tanks. Reps. Lou Correa, D-East LA; Ted Lieu, D-Torrance; Eric Swalwell, D-Castro Valley; Ro Khanna, D-Fremont; and Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose also have raised concerns.

"I think they spent more time on the hearing than they did in writing the proposed legislation. Because its not well crafted and it was done in a hurry," Lofgren recently lamented about the American Choice and Innovation Online Act.

In an interview last month with Julia Angwin of The Markup, Rep. Khanna said breakups are certainly justified in some instances. "On Facebook, for example, where they've acquired Instagram and WhatsApp, you should have an unraveling of that company. I think you want to have a ban on mergers that are acquiring competitors."

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Do Federal Lawmakers Have the Stomach to Rein in Big Tech? - KQED