Facebook Blocks Accounts Ahead of Midterms
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| Facebook Blocks Accounts Ahead of Midterms | |
| Number | 667 |
| Broadcast Date | NOVEMBER 6, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 3:47 |
| Hosts | Sarah Lane |
Russia passes law to identify messenger app users, Bird launches e-scooter business in London, Barnes & Noble announces new Nook tablet.
Headlines
- In a decree signed by prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian government says all users of messaging apps must be identifiable, with new rules to take effect in six months. Once implemented, the operator of a messaging service will need to verify registration data through a user's mobile operator. The mobile operator then has 20 minutes to respond and record data.
- Facebook said Monday it had blocked 115 accounts that may have been engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” related to the U.S. midterm elections.The company said it worked with law enforcement to monitor accounts’ online activity, and identified accounts that “may be linked to foreign entities.” Facebook blocked 85 accounts on Instagram and 30 accounts on Facebook. The Instagram accounts were in English but the Facebook accounts were in French and Russian, according to Facebook.
- Electric scooter company Bird is launching a pilot service in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. for folks traveling to and from Bird’s London office. E-scooters are illegal on British roads and sidewalks, but Olympic Park is private land and and if riders go off course, the GPS will power the scooter down.
- Barnes & Noble announced a new Nook tablet. The 10.1” screen with an IPS display at 1920 x 1200 pixels with 224 ppi goes on sale on November 14th for $129.99. In addition to the undercutting on tablet price, Barnes & Noble will ship devices with the Play Store, which Amazon doesn't do.
- Tencent Holdings will expand its age-verification system for its top 10 titles in its game library, checking against police databases by 2019, which expands a technique created during the popular Honour of Kings rush. Eventually Tencent wants to expand the feature to its entire library.
- FCC chairman Ajit Pai is calling for the adoption of an authentication system to curb caller ID spoofing and says carriers need to implement the technology no later than 2019. Pai sent personal letters to the CEOS of providers asking them to adopt the SHAKEN/STIR framework, which would validate calls before they hit recipients. Earlier this year, the FCC fined a Miami resident responsible for over 96 million robocalls for $120 million, the biggest fine the FCC has ever imposed.
- Microsoft internally announced the departure by year-end of Corporate Vice President of Cortana Javier Soltero, sources tell ZDNet. In 2014 Microsoft acquired Soltero's startup Acompli. Soltero was Head of Strategy on Outlook Mobile before he became head of Cortana in March 2018.
- At AMD's New Horizon Event, Amazon Web Services, one of world's largest cloud service providers, announced as of today it will offer EPYC-powered cloud instances. The R5a, M5a and T3a instances are said to offer a 10% discount over AWS's other cloud instances.
Links
| Preceded by: "Verizon Renames Oath" |
Facebook Blocks Accounts Ahead of Midterms |
Followed by: "Identification by the Way You Walk" |