schwit1 writes: President Trump announced the removal of Tennessee Valley Authority’s chair James Thompson and board member Richard Howoth and called for the removal of their CEO Bill Johnson. This was in response to the company laying off employees and hiring H1-B visa holders. [TVA announced it would outsource 20% of its technology jobs to companies based in foreign countries, which…
Tag: executive order
Microsoft Confirms It’s in Talks To Buy TikTok from ByteDance, Says Trump is On Board
Microsoft has confirmed that it is in talks to purchase TikTok from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, and may make moves before summer is out. From a report: The decision, according to Microsoft, follows a conversation between its CEO and President Trump, who just days ago threatened to use an executive order to ban the app from the United States. In…
Trump’s Plan To Regulate Social Media
Esther Schindler writes: A 55-page proposal to make the FCC rewrite a law through administrative rulemaking would threaten small social sites and generate vast amounts of new business for trial lawyers. Expect some of the people who denounced net-neutrality regulations to cheer it on. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) would have the FCC rewrite Section 230 of the Communications…
Trump Blasts ‘Trending’ Section On Twitter: ‘Really Ridiculous, Illegal, and, of Course, Very Unfair!’
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: President Trump blasted Twitter’s “trending” section in a Monday tweet, calling it “really ridiculous, illegal, and, of course, very unfair!” “So disgusting to watch Twitter’s so-called ‘Trending’, where sooo many trends are about me, and never a good one,” Trump posted. “They look for anything they can find, make it as bad…
US Announces Visa Restrictions For Employees of Huawei and Other Chinese Tech Companies
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday announced visa restrictions on employees of Chinese technology companies, including Huawei, in the latest Trump administration move against Beijing. From a report: The US “will impose visa restrictions on certain employees … of Chinese technology companies like Huawei that provide material support to regimes engaging in human rights violations and abuses globally,” Pompeo told…
Justice Dept. Urges Rolling Back Legal Shield for Tech Companies
The Justice Department released recommendations on Wednesday to pare back the legal shield for online platforms that has been crucial to their growth since the earliest days of the internet, taking a direct shot at companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that have come into the cross hairs of the Trump administration. From a report: In a 25-page recommendation, the agency…
Amazon, Pushing Fashion, Opened Photo Studio As a ‘Warehouse’ Exemption
The New York Times reports that Amazon was playing fast and loose with the rules by opening up a fashion photo studio, claiming it could open under state rules that allowed warehouses and fulfillment operations to operate as essential businesses. From the report: A few days after The Times asked the state about the open studio, Amazon closed it. A manager…
FCC Republican Voices Doubts About Trump’s Executive Order
Republican Federal Communications Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said he’s unsure whether his agency has the authority to carry out President Trump’s executive order targeting tech firms’ legal protections. From a report: Trump’s order seeks to have the FCC craft regulations limiting the scope of legal immunity that online platforms have under federal law. All three commission Republicans would need to support such…
Lawsuit Says Trump’s Social Media Crackdown Violates Free Speech
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: President Trump’s crackdown on social media companies faced a new legal challenge on Tuesday, as a technology policy organization claimed in a lawsuit that he violated the companies’ right to free speech with his executive order aimed at curtailing their legal protections. The nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology says…
Joe Biden Doesn’t Like Trump’s Twitter Order, But Still Wants To Revoke Section 230
Former Vice President Joe Biden still wants to repeal the pivotal internet law that provides social media companies like Facebook and Twitter with broad legal immunity over content posted by their users, a campaign spokesperson told The Verge. Still, the campaign emphasized key disagreements with the executive order signed by the president earlier this week. From a report: Earlier this year,…