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Thursday, June 11, 2020
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Twitter is trying to stop people from sharing articles they have not read, in an experiment the company hopes will "promote informed discussion" on social media.

In the test, pushed to some users on Android devices, the company is introducing a prompt asking people if they really want to retweet a link that they have not tapped on."Sharing an article can spark conversation, so you may want to read it before you tweet it," Twitter said in a statement. "To help promote informed discussion, we're testing a new prompt on Android – when you retweet an article that you haven't opened on Twitter, we may ask if you'd like to open it first."The problem of users sharing links without reading them is not new. A 2016 study from computer scientists at Columbia University and Microsoft found that 59% of links posted on Twitter are never clicked. Less academically sound, but more telling, was another article posted that same year with the headline "Study: 70% of Facebook users only read the headline of science stories before commenting" – the fake news website the Science Post has racked up a healthy 127,000 shares for the article which is almost entirely lorem ipsum filler text.Twitter's solution is not to ban such retweets, but to inject "friction" into the process, in order to try to nudge some users into rethinking their actions on the social network. It is an approach the company has been taking more frequently recently, in an attempt to improve "platform health" without facing accusations of censorship.In May, the company began experimenting with asking users to "revise" their replies if they were about to send tweets with "harmful language" to other people. "When things get heated, you may say things you don't mean," the company explained. "To let you rethink a reply, we're running a limited experiment on iOS with a prompt that gives you the option to revise your reply before it's published if it uses language that could be harmful."That move has proved less effective, with the company's filter picking up as much harmless – if foul-mouthed – conversation between friends as it does genuinely hateful speech targeting others."We're trying to encourage people to rethink their behaviour and rethink their language before posting because they often are in the heat of the moment and they might say something they regret," Twitter's global head of site policy for trust and safety said at the time.

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Twitter is trying to stop people from sharing articles they have not read, in an experiment the company hopes will "promote informed d...

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Don't believe everything you hear about working from home.

The pandemic has closed offices around the world. The video-conferencing service Zoom has seen its corporate subscriber numbers grow more than 350%. Cloud companies are falling over themselves to tell people "see, we told you so! The cloud works!" Well, up to a point.OK, the cloud does work. The technology is fast and (mostly) secure. For too many years small business owners – a great number of them my own clients – ignored these powerful technologies that would have allowed their employees more flexibility. Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, we've learned that, assuming a relatively new computer and a relatively decent broadband connection, most office workers can get much of their jobs done from their home offices. And, depending on the person, potentially be more productive.So does this mean the end of the office? A "new normal"? Everyone just goes home and phones it in? Of course not. Sure, big companies like Square and Twitter are now giving their employees the ability to work from home "permanently". And, no surprise here, surveys like this one are now saying that people prefer to work from home where they can hang out with their dogs and wear their fuzzy slippers instead of getting dressed to sit in a corporate center cubicle for eight hours. Some analyses insist that working from home increases productivity. Other reports are saying that – because of this phenomenon – offices will become empty, rents will plummet, company cultures will forever change and the face-to-face workplace will fade into history. Don't believe it. The demand for real estate may dip, but it'll return. Don't burn your cubicles or destroy your beautiful new open office plan. This trend, like a pendulum, will ultimately swing back in another direction. Why do I say this?It's because what value does a small business have when its employees are allowed to roam free, loosely connected via Office or G Suite, and because of the unavoidable lack of supervisory controls are allowed to do, say and think things that may not be consistent with a company's mission or messaging? Not very valuable at all. Case in point: my company.Because my company has been virtual for more than 10 years. Every one of my 10 people works from home. Sure, the overhead is low. But you know what? I miss an office. My company suffers from not having one. We have no culture. We rarely see each other as a group. We are not really a team, and lack bonding or social connections. We miss out on extemporaneously sharing ideas. Our innovation suffers. As a result, the value of my business suffers. I know I'm not alone in this.Over the past decade big companies reversed their work-from-home policies to get people back into the office and talking face to faceSatya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, recently told the New York Times not to "over-celebrate" any perceived productivity gains from remote work. "What I miss is when you walk into a physical meeting, you are talking to the person that is next to you, you're able to connect with them for the two minutes before and after," he says. "One of the things I feel is, hey, maybe we are burning some of the social capital we built up in this phase where we are all working remote. What's the measure for that?"The remote work craze isn't new. The internet has been around for a while. And over the past decade big companies like Yahoo, IBM, Aetna, Best Buy and many others reversed their work-from-home policies to get people back into the office and talking face to face. They realized the cost of keeping these workers away from each other far exceeded the savings they were reaping on rent and utilities. They realized that people need human contact to get things done. Real, live, face-to-face human contact.The work from home craze is not hyped. It's just overhyped. Every business needs to have a work-from-home policy and if you didn't learn that from the pandemic then you are definitely missing the boat. Giving employees some flexibility to do their jobs remotely not only improves their job satisfaction but creates a great recruiting tool for those younger employees who have been demanding this benefit for years. Clearly the technology works and, depending on the person, your productivity should not suffer.But work-from-home policies need balance. I've seen from many successful clients that a good policy requires a certain number of days every week in the office. There has to be physical presence. You need to see that worker and that worker needs to see you and his or her colleagues. You can't create a team when everyone's completely virtual. Something is missing. Human contact is missing. Technology just can't replace that. Don't worry, your dog will be fine.

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Don't believe everything you hear about working from home. The pandemic has closed offices around the world. The video-conferencing se...

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Three prominent human rights activists have accused Zoom of disrupting or shutting down their accounts because they were linked to events to mark the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre or were to discuss China's measures to exert control over Hong Kong.

Lee Cheuk Yan, a veteran activist with the Hong Kong Alliance, which organises the city's annual Tiananmen Square vigil, said his account was shut down in May before he was to host a Zoom event on an extradition bill that caused mass anti-government protests in Hong Kong last year. Lee said he purchased a subscription to the platform in an effort to get access, but his account remained blocked."I demanded an answer from Zoom but so far they haven't given me an answer," Lee told the Guardian. "It's very unusual that a consumer can't reopen their account. So the only explanation is that it's politically motivated."Unlike several other western platforms, Zoom is not blocked in China, which is partly why China-focused activists have hosted events on it."I was warned about using Zoom before, because it can be accessed in China, but that's why they chose it. We want people to be able to see it in China," said Lee. He said he had been able to told two other events on the conferencing app earlier in May.Zhou Fengsuo, a former protest leader at Tiananmen demonstrations, said his account was shut down in early June after he hosted an online memorial on 31 May for the anniversary of the 4 June 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protests in the square in central Beijing."A significant proportion of attendees were from China. Our conference provided many the opportunity to connect with activists abroad for the first time," said Zhou's group Humanitarian China, adding that 250 people joined the event through Zoom while 4,000 watched it live through social media.The organisation said that after it was locked out of the account on 7 June, repeated attempts to log in failed and queries to Zoom went unanswered. Zhou's account has now been reinstated."It seems possible Zoom acted on pressure from the CCP to shut down our account. If so, Zoom is complicit in erasing the memories of the Tiananmen massacre in collaboration with an authoritarian government," the group said.Wang Dan, a former student protest leader at Tiananmen, said a Zoom event he held on 3 June to commemorate the anniversary was shut down twice.Zoom said in a statement that it "must comply with laws in the countries where we operate". It said: "We regret that a few recent meetings with participants both inside and outside of China were negatively impacted and important conversations were disrupted." Zoom added that it was not in the company's power "to change the laws of governments opposed to free speech". It said it was "committed to modifying its processes to further protect its users from those who wish to stifle their communications".Wang and Lee's events were hosted outside of mainland China, and Zhou is based in the US.Zoom, which has surged in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic, has come under scrutiny owing to security concerns. Chen Yunfei, an activist based in Sichuan who participated in the 1989 protests as a student, spoke at the online Tiananmen memorial hosted by Zhou's group. Chen was detained later that day and released on 5 June.PEN America denounced Zoom for bowing to the Chinese government. The group's CEO, Suzanne Nossel, said in a statement: "Zoom portends to be the platform of choice for companies, school systems and a wide range of organisations that need a virtual way to communicate, especially amid global lockdown. But it can't serve that role and act as the long arm of the Chinese government. You don't get to have it both ways."Frances Eve, a deputy director of research at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said: "Zoom must stop enabling government suppression of free expression rights." She said the company must "clarify its internal processes that allowed the Chinese government to quickly have it censor activists".

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Three prominent human rights activists have accused Zoom of disrupting or shutting down their accounts because they were linked to events t...

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Amazon is implementing a one-year moratorium on police use of its artificial intelligence software Rekognition amid a growing backlash over the tech company's ties to law enforcement.

The company has recently stated its support for the Black Lives Matter movement, which advocates for police reform – using Twitter to call for an end to "the inequitable and brutal treatment of black people" in the US and has putting a "Black lives matter" banner at the top of its home page. But the company has been criticized as hypocritical because it sells its facial recognition software to police forces.Amazon has not said how many police forces use the technology, or how it is used, but marketing materials have promoted Rekognition being used in conjunction with police body cameras in real time.When it was first released, Amazon's Rekognition software was criticized by human rights groups as "a powerful surveillance system" that is available to "violate rights and target communities of color". Advocacy groups also said the technology could have a disproportionately negative effect on non-white people. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez echoed this complaint in a tweet on Wednesday, saying the technology "shouldn't be anywhere near law enforcement"."Facial recognition is a horrifying, inaccurate tool that fuels racial profiling and mass surveillance," she said. "It regularly falsely [identifies] Black and Brown people as criminal".An experiment run by the ACLU in 2018 showed Rekognition incorrectly matched 28 members of Congress to photos of people arrested for a crime. It overwhelmingly misidentified Congress members who are not white. Facial recognition software, like many forms of artificial intelligence, has a long history of racial bias. The field of artificial intelligence, which is overwhelmingly white and male, is frequently criticized for its lack of diversity.In a statement on its blog Wednesday, Amazon said it will pull the use of its technology from police forces until there is stronger regulation around it. The move follows IBM putting a permanent end to its development of facial recognition technology."We've advocated that governments should put in place stronger regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology, and in recent days, Congress appears ready to take on this challenge," Amazon said. "We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested."While some privacy advocates say the move represents a step in the right direction, Evan Greer, of digital rights group Fight for the Future, said this is "nothing more than a public relations stunt from Amazon".She said Amazon could spend the year moratorium improving the technology and lobbying Congress to make industry-friendly regulation so the technology can be implemented in the future. Amazon spent $16.8m on lobbying in 2019."The reality is that facial recognition technology is too dangerous to be used at all," Greer said. "Like nuclear or biological weapons, it poses such a profound threat to the future of humanity that it should be banned outright."Nicole Ozer, the technology and civil liberties director with the American Civil Liberties Union of northern California, also called on Amazon to make more meaningful commitments. "This surveillance technology's threat to our civil rights and civil liberties will not disappear in a year," Ozer said. "Amazon must fully commit to a blanket moratorium on law enforcement use of face recognition until the dangers can be fully addressed, and it must press Congress and legislatures across the country to do the same. They should also commit to stop selling surveillance systems like Ring that fuel the over-policing of communities of color. The Washington county sheriff's office in Oregon, the first law enforcement agency in the country to contract with Amazon to use the technology, confirmed on Wednesday it would suspend its use of the product in light of the announcement.Suspension of this particular program does not mean all partnerships with law enforcement will be halted. Amazon noted in its announcement that the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as well as technology companies Thorn and Marinus Analytics, will still have access to Rekognition for human trafficking cases.Amazon also has not made changes to Ring, its camera-connected smart doorbell company, which has also been criticized for increasing the policing of non-white Americans. A report from Motherboard in 2019 revealed black and brown people are more likely to be surveilled by the Neighbors app, where Ring users can post videos and photos of "suspicious" people caught on camera.The doorbell app now partners with more than 1,300 police forces across the US – a 300% increase from just 400 police forces in August 2019. The ACLU has called on Amazon to "stop selling surveillance systems like Ring that fuel the over-policing of communities of color". It also called on other companies that power facial recognition, including Microsoft, to halt the technology."Face recognition technology gives governments the unprecedented power to spy on us wherever we go," said Ozer. "It fuels police abuse. This surveillance technology must be stopped."

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Amazon is implementing a one-year moratorium on police use of its artificial intelligence software Rekognition amid a growing backlash over...

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European food delivery service Just Eat Takeaway has agreed to buy the US-based app Grubhub for $7.

3bn (£5.8bn) in a deal that would create the world's largest food delivery service outside China. Confirmation of the all-stock takeover deals a blow to Uber, which has its own food delivery business and was reportedly in discussions with Grubhub. The tie-up will give the Netherlands-based Just Eat Takeaway access to the lucrative food delivery market in the US, with the combined business able to serve customers in 25 countries. Along with the US, these include some of the world's most profitable food delivery markets – the UK, Netherlands and Belgium. Under the terms of the deal, which will need approval from both sets of shareholders, Grubhub's shareholders would own 30% of the combined group. There has been a surge in demand in the food delivery market during the pandemic, as government shutdowns prevented restaurants from serving diners at their premises. The deal comes less than six months after Takeaway.com won a fierce £6.3bn bidding battle to buy Just Eat, fighting off its rival Prosus, the Amsterdam-listed offshoot of the South African technology group Naspers. Jitse Groen, the chief executive and founder of Just Eat Takeway described himself and the Grubhub boss, Matt Maloney, as "the two remaining food delivery veterans in the sector", adding that they started their businesses on different continents at the turn of the century. "Both of us have a firm belief that only businesses with high-quality and profitable growth will sustain in our sector," Groen said. Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk When Grubhub was founded, the online takeaway industry did not exist in the US, Maloney said. "Combining the companies that started it all will mean that two trailblazing start-ups have become a clear global leader. We share a focus on a hybrid model that places extra value on volume at independent restaurants, driving profitable growth," he added. Just Eat Takeaway and Grubhub together processed 593m orders in 2019 and have more than 70 million active customers globally. The takeaway delivery market expanded by almost 20% in 2019 in the UK, excluding Northern Ireland, according to the analysis firm Kantar. Topics Mergers and acquisitions Couriers/delivery industry Food & drink industry Apps Mergers, acquisitions and funding news Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on WhatsApp Share on Messenger Reuse this content

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European food delivery service Just Eat Takeaway has agreed to buy the US-based app Grubhub for $7. 3bn (£5.8bn) in a deal that would cre...

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A global hack-for-hire group extensively targeted American activists campaigning against ExxonMobil for withholding information about the climate crisis, according to a new report.

 The hackers, dubbed "Dark Basin", went after thousands of individuals and hundreds of institutions on six continents, including advocacy organizations, journalists, elected officials and businesses, said the Citizen Lab, a Toronto-based digital espionage research group. The Citizen Lab links the hacking efforts to BellTroX InfoTech Services, an Indian company which has denied any wrongdoing. The research report said: "The extensive targeting of American nonprofits exercising their first amendment rights is exceptionally troubling." "Everyone is familiar with getting phishing and spam emails in their mailbox all the time," said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab. "The difference is that in this case the people behind them are not just faceless cyber-criminals looking to steal your Gmail account and use it to spam your friends about time shares and penis pills. This is people who have been sent after you with specific objectives to get information that is going to be used to harm you." Scott-Railton said the hack-for-hire industry was growing and becoming more accessible for adversaries to use against each other in disputes, whether they are between companies and governments, or between companies, or are targeting non-profits and reporters.US federal prosecutors are investigating and have charged one Israeli man in connection with the case, according to the New York Times.The Citizen Lab said it did not have strong evidence pointing to a client for the hackers and did not accuse Exxon of wrongdoing.An Exxon spokesman said the company has no knowledge of or involvement in the hacking activities outlined and charged that the Citizen Lab receives financial support from "anti-fossil fuel groups". The organizations that consented to be named in the report include the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Climate Investigations Center, Greenpeace, the Center for International Environmental Law, Oil Change International, Public Citizen, the Conservation Law Foundation, the Union of Concerned Scientists and 350.org. The attacks spanned from 2016 through 2017. In January 2016, environmental organizations and funders met to discuss the #ExxonKnew campaign. A private email inviting attendees was then leaked from an unknown source to reporters. The targeting was well-informed, according to the Citizen Lab. Some phishing emails were made to look like Google News alerts with stories about Exxon. Others appeared to be colleagues sharing Dropbox documents about the campaign. Kert Davies, founder of the Climate Investigations Center, said he received one phishing attempt that looked like an email from a Washington-based reporter. "We don't know who paid for it, the most important thing, who was contracting with the Indian company to gather this intelligence," Davies said. He added: "It is nothing new. Any time I've done work in the past 25 years doing this stuff that starts to have an impact on a company, there is blowback." 

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A global hack-for-hire group extensively targeted American activists campaigning against ExxonMobil for withholding information about the c...

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Young Egyptian TikTok stars have become the latest target of state authorities, who accuse them of spreading "immorality" in society.

Since President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi came to power in 2014, hundreds of journalists, activists, lawyers and intellectuals have been arrested and many websites blocked in the name of state security.But in recent months a popular group of female social media influencers has also drawn the ire of the government, and several have been arrested.University student Haneen Hossam was accused of promoting prostitution and arrested in April after she posted a clip telling her more than 1.3 million followers that girls could make money on TikTok.Mowada al-Adham, who rose to fame posting satirical clips on TikTok and Instagram, was arrested in May. The prosecutor general said both women were charged with "attacking the family values of Egyptian society" through their posts.A court ordered Hossam's release on bail this week, but a statement by the prosecutor general on Thursday said she had been re-arrested "after new evidence was brought against her".The young women drew a storm of sexist and hateful comments online."This is excellent," wrote one user about the arrests, arguing that Egyptian justice must safeguard "the morals of the Egyptian street and society ... It needs to do it with an iron fist."An even more shocking case followed later in May. A sobbing 17-year old girl, her face battered and bruised, posted a TikTok video in which she said she had been gang-raped by a group of young men.The authorities' response was swift: she was arrested, along with her six alleged attackers, and all were charged with "promoting debauchery"."She committed crimes, she admitted to some of them," the prosecutor general said in a statement. "She deserves to be punished."The non-government Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights called for her immediate release, the dropping of all charges and for the teenage girl to be "treated as a rape victim and survivor".Only this Tuesday did prosecutors announce that she had been transferred from custody to a rehabilitation centre for female victims of abuse and violence.Human rights lawyer Tarek al-Awadi said the recent arrests showed how a deeply conservative and religious society was wrestling with the rapid rise of modern communications technology."There is a technological revolution happening and legislators need to take into account a constantly changing environment," Awadi said.The latest arrests fitted into a wider pattern of the state targeting dissent online, said Joey Shea, a non-resident fellow researching cybersecurity at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy."This is yet another attempt to increase and legitimise surveillance of digital platforms," she said, pointing to laws criminalising "fake news" that are used to restrict freedom of expression.The feminist Ghadeer Ahmed argued the latest crackdown was also about class and status."Young women used the internet to create different opportunities for themselves that are ordinarily unavailable because of their class," she said on Facebook.In the eyes of many Egyptians, she said, this "is contrary to the behaviour expected of women hailing from poor classes".

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Young Egyptian TikTok stars have become the latest target of state authorities, who accuse them of spreading "immorality" in soci...

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