Long-time Slashdot readers 93 Escort Wagon and schwit1 both shared the news that U.S. President Trump is “considering” a pardon for Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who “leaked a trove of secret files in 2013 to news organizations that revealed vast domestic and international surveillance operations” carried out by the agency, according to Reuters: U.S. authorities for years…
Tag: U.S. President
Could Twitter Outbid Microsoft for TikTok?
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters:
Twitter has approached TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance to express interest in acquiring the U.S. operations of the video-sharing app, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters, as experts raised doubts over Twitter’s ability to put together financing for a potential deal. It is far from certain that Twitter would be able to outbid Microsoft and complete…
Is the US about to Split the Internet?
The BBC reports:
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he wants a “clean” internet. What he means by that is he wants to remove Chinese influence, and Chinese companies, from the internet in the U.S. But critics believe this will bolster a worrying movement towards the breaking up of the global internet. The so called “splinternet” is generally used when talking…
Trump Blew Up More Than Just TikTok and WeChat
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to ban dealings with ByteDance, owner of video-sharing sensation TikTok, appears to codify what his administration has already been warning. A second edict targeting messaging app WeChat and its parent, Tencent, seems weirdly overdue. The executive orders issued by the White House go beyond stopping average Americans from…
Huawei CFO Asks For Extradition Case To Be Stayed, Says US Misled Canada
hackingbear writes: Lawyers for Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, have applied to a Canadian court seeking stays in the proceedings for her extradition to the United States, documents released on Thursday showed. The applications are based in part on what Meng’s lawyers allege was a destruction of the integrity of the judicial process by United States President…
Many New Details Emerge About Twitter’s Breach
The New York Times claims to have traced the origins of a Twitter security breach to “a teasing message between two hackers late Tuesday on the online messaging platform Discord.” [The Times’ article was also republished here by the Bangkok Post.] “yoo bro,” wrote a user named “Kirk,” according to a screenshot of the conversation shared with The New York Times….
Facebook Considers Political-Ad Blackout Ahead of US Election
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Facebook is considering imposing a ban on political ads on its social network in the days leading up to the U.S. election in November, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. The potential ban is still only being discussed and hasn’t yet been finalized, said the people, who asked not to be…
WHO Sees First Results From COVID Drug Trials Within Two Weeks
The World Health Organization (WHO) should soon get results from clinical trials it is conducting of drugs that might be effective in treating COVID-19 patients, its Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday. From a report: “Nearly 5,500 patients in 39 countries have so far been recruited into the Solidarity trial,” he told a news briefing, referring to clinical studies…
UK Halts Hydroxychloroquine Trial, Calling It ‘Useless’ for Covid-19 Patients
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters: British scientists halted a major drug trial on Friday after it found that the anti-malarial hydroxychloroquine, touted by U.S. President Donald Trump as a potential “game changer” in the pandemic, was “useless” at treating COVID-19 patients. “This is not a treatment for COVID-19. It doesn’t work,” Martin Landray, an Oxford University professor who is co-leading the…
Facebook Employees Publicly Criticize Zuckerberg’s Inaction Over Trump
Senior Facebook employees took to Twitter over the weekend to express their dismay at Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s decision not to take action on incendiary comments posted to the social network by U.S. President Donald Trump. From a report: After the president tweeted a message with the words “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” in response to protests over…