Tag: Social media

The People Onscreen Are Fake. The Disinformation Is Real.

Chin@Strategy

Although the usage of deepfakes in the recently discovered pro-China disinformation campaign was ham handed, it opens a new chapter in information warfare. In recent weeks, another video using similar A.I. technology was uncovered online, showing fictitious people who described themselves as Americans, promoting support for the government of Burkina Faso, which faces scrutiny for links to Russia. A.I. software, which can easily be purchased online, can create “videos in a matter of minutes and subscriptions start at just a few dollars a month,” Mr. Stubbs said. “That makes it…

TikTok: how the west has turned on gen Z’s favourite app

Chin@Strategy

The FBI has called it a national security threat. The US government has passed a law forcing officials to delete it from their phones. Texas senator Ted Cruz has denounced it as “a Trojan horse the Chinese Communist party can use to influence what Americans see, hear, and ultimately think”. And in March its CEO will defend its existence before the US Congress. For those unaware of the debate broiling on the other side of the Atlantic, the target of this strong rhetoric might prove surprising: an app best known…

Senator Calls on Apple and Google to Ban TikTok in App Stores

Chin@Strategy

Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, called on Apple and Google Thursday to remove TikTok from their app stores because of national security concerns, as bipartisan pressure on the Chinese-owned company escalates. Mr. Bennet, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent the chief executives of Apple and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, a letter saying no company subject to “Chinese Communist Party dictates should have the power to accumulate such extensive data on the American people or curate content to nearly a third of our population.” TikTok, which is owned…

TechScape: Is ‘banning’ TikTok protecting users or censorship? It depends who you ask

Chin@Strategy

The US battle with TikTok over data privacy concerns and Chinese influence has been heating up for years, and recent measures have brought college campuses to the forefront – with a number of schools banning the app entirely on campus wifi. Students have responded, of course, on TikTok. Taking advantage of viral sounds, they have expressed outrage at their favourite app being blocked at universities like Auburn, Oklahoma and Texas A&M in the past few months. “Do they not realize people in college are actually adults?” one user wrote. “We…

As Deepfakes Flourish, Countries Struggle With Response

Chin@Strategy

Digital rights groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation are pushing legislators to relinquish deepfake policing to tech companies, or to use an existing legal framework that addresses issues such as fraud, copyright infringement, obscenity and defamation. “That’s the best remedy against harms, rather than the governmental interference, which in its implementation is almost always going to capture material that is not harmful, that chills people from legitimate, productive speech,” said David Greene, a civil liberties lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Several months ago, Google began prohibiting people from…

Auburn Banned TikTok, and Students Can’t Stop Talking About It

Chin@Strategy

One former sorority sister at Auburn, for example, “did a new TikTok dance every day promoting Auburn Zeta Tau Alpha so people would see how much fun she was having with her ‘zisters,’” Ms. Franco said, adding that it would be a “huge hit” to Greek life at Auburn if the university’s ban extended to sorority TikTok accounts and related hashtags. Ms. Franco said that she was not concerned about the security risks prompting the ban — a sentiment echoed by other students, including Ms. Hunt. “From what I’ve heard…

Online Anger Over China’s Covid Pivot Shows Widening Social Split

Chin@Strategy

Tao Siliang, a member of China’s Communist elite, recently criticized Sima Nan’s attacks for contradicting the party’s new direction. On Thursday, Weibo, a social media site, moved quickly to shut down or suspend more than 1,000 accounts, including that of a prominent nationalist, Kong Qingdong, for waging personal attacks against experts and scholars. “At this moment, what we need most is to abide by the 44-year-old parable: ‘Look forward in unity,’ do not challenge, tear apart, especially denounce or abuse,” the official newspaper of Zhejiang Province, in China’s east, wrote…

TikTok has been spying on reporters – exactly no one is surprised

Chin@Strategy

Hello and welcome to TechScape. Alex is now off on paternity leave, and in his place a rotating cast of writers will give their takes on the world of tech. Apologies to any readers who have begged Alex for fewer stories about Elon Musk and crypto, but in a post-Twitter takeover world there are no quiet weeks for tech reporters. In the last few weeks, Musk has handed over documents for the latest edition of the “Twitter Files” to controversial author Alex Berenson (with the not-so revelatory news that Twitter…

Tesla Had a Bad Year. Some Investors Are Blaming Elon Musk.

Chin@Strategy

In a down year for stocks, the 70 percent drop in Tesla’s share price stands out for the scale of wealth vaporized and the unorthodox behavior of its chief executive, Elon Musk. The collapse of Tesla’s stock price destroyed about $680 billion in market value. And Mr. Musk, once hailed as a genius who remade the car industry, appears increasingly distracted by his acquisition of Twitter and is using the social network to vent his frustrations. He insulted one of his critics this week by describing him as having “tiny…

ByteDance Inquiry Finds Employees Obtained User Data of 2 Journalists

Chin@Strategy

ByteDance, the China-based parent company of TikTok, said on Thursday that an internal investigation found that employees had inappropriately obtained the data of U.S. TikTok users, including two reporters. Over the summer, a few employees on a ByteDance team responsible for monitoring employee conduct tried to find the sources of suspected leaks of internal conversations and business documents to journalists. In doing so, the employees gained access the IP addresses and other data of two reporters and a small number of people connected to the reporters via their TikTok accounts.…