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Tag: big tech
May 11, 2024
TECH
World

Digital ID Regulations Start THIS MONTH, Mandatory by 2026.

The Digital Identity Regulation (eIDAS 2.0), the European Union’s latest set of digital ID rules, will take effect on May 20. Big Tech firms and EU member nations must now comply in supporting the EU Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet, though work on the project remains ongoing, with pilot programs scheduled for 2025.

According to recently published standards by the European Council, the EUDI Wallet must be fully implemented across the continent by 2026. Initial usage will encompass scenarios such as accessing government services and age verification.

Although the EUDI Wallet must be fully functional by 2026, usage will not be mandatory for EU citizens, and non-discrimination will be assured for those who abstain. While obtaining, using, or revoking the digital wallet will be free of charge, member nations may withhold specific information with “reasonable justification.”

The new regulation will preserve website authentication certificate standards but clarify their scope. Different European governments are expressing varying degrees of enthusiasm for the changes, with Spain’s Catalonia region lauding the new rules as advancing standardization and allegedly granting Europeans “greater autonomy over their personal data.”

Proponents have welcomed the regulation regarding age verification, but there is apprehension that EUDI Wallet may not be the perfect solution due to the inherent complexities of disclosing age attributes to each website separately. Additional alternatives are being requested for young children not yet eligible for a digital wallet tied to their identity.

Digital IDs also pose potential risks, including the threat of hacking and identity theft, misuse of extensive data collection, and social or political coercion. Critics worry the regulation could be abused to force political compliance with other EU government policies.

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The Digital Identity Regulation (eIDAS 2.0), the European Union’s latest set of digital ID rules, will take effect on May 20. Big Tech firms and EU member nations must now comply in supporting the EU Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet, though work on the project remains ongoing, with pilot programs scheduled for 2025. show more
May 9, 2024
William Upton
Politics
TECH

Top DeSantis Advisor Lands Gig Lobbying for Zuckerberg’s Meta.

The policy director and senior advisor on Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL)’s unsuccessful Republican presidential primary campaign has landed a new gig. Dustin Carmack, who has worked in policy positions with DeSantis, the Heritage Foundation, and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, is now a director of public policy at Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

In his new role, likely courtesy of the revolving door between many Big Tech companies and establishment Republican staffers, Carmack will push Meta‘s policy agenda across the Southern and South Eastern United States — presumably including Florida, where his previous boss is still governor.

Prior to joining Meta, Carmack had been a critic of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. In a 2022 interview with Fox Business, Carmack accused Facebook of using its oversight council to “punt decision-making.” The council has often been used to shield Facebook and Meta executives from criticism by both Republican and Democrat lawmakers over some of the tech giant’s more controversial decisions. 

While it is unusual for a Big Tech company to hire a Republican critic, it isn’t unheard of. There is a revolving door among Congressional and think-tank staffers in Washington, D.C., and Big Tech. After several years on Capitol Hill building relationships with committee staff and lawmakers, these policy staffers will leave for more lucrative jobs with the left-leaning tech companies.

In the case of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg has come under fire on numerous occasions for blatantly meddling in American democracy. He has used his vast wealth to train left-wing poll workers and hijack local elections. Additionally, Facebook has admitted to censoring truthful information — including the Hunter Biden laptop story — effectively spreading disinformation as voters head to the polls.

WATCH:

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The policy director and senior advisor on Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL)'s unsuccessful Republican presidential primary campaign has landed a new gig. Dustin Carmack, who has worked in policy positions with DeSantis, the Heritage Foundation, and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, is now a director of public policy at Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. show more
May 9, 2024
TECH
World

Ireland to Tech Giants: Censor Social Media or Face ‘Consequences.’

Ireland‘s Electoral Commission Chief Executive Art O’Leary is demanding that Big Tech companies censor social media platforms or face “reputational consequences.” O’Leary wants tech giants to squash so-called “disinformation” that can damage “democracy.”

“They [social media companies] are very conscious that their platforms are a place where quite serious damage can be done to democracy,” O’Leary said. “The implications for social media companies [if they fail to act on disinformation] aren’t good. To be accused after the event of having impacted on the outcome of an election is huge,” O’Leary continued.

The kind of “disinformation” from which O’Leary wants to protect “democracy” appears to be anything that could help right-wing parties in the upcoming Irish and European elections. Reports the Irish Examiner: “Garda Security & Intelligence and broadcasting regulator Coimisiún na Meán, which is charged with dealing with disinformation and online harm more generally, are increasing their level of cooperation to investigate disinformation from the far-right, which is expected to ramp up in the next few weeks.”

Ireland has been rocked by widespread popular protests against the government’s mass migration policies, with another major organized protest planned in Dublin on Saturday. A recent poll found that half of the Irish population now wants checkpoints at the Northern Irish border to keep out waves of asylum seekers. Such border checkpoints at the border were once seen as symbols of British oppression.

As in much of the European Union (EU), right-wing populist candidates in Ireland are expected to see a significant surge of support in the upcoming European elections. The EU, equally concerned about right-wing electoral success, has begun mobilizing a mass online censorship plan.

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Ireland's Electoral Commission Chief Executive Art O'Leary is demanding that Big Tech companies censor social media platforms or face "reputational consequences." O'Leary wants tech giants to squash so-called "disinformation" that can damage "democracy." show more
April 23, 2024
Election 2024
Media

Facebook Has Interfered In U.S. Elections 39 Times Since 2008 – Report.

A study by the Media Research Center (MRC) revealed that Facebook has allegedly interfered in U.S. elections at least 39 times since 2008, while Google has reportedly done so 41 times over the past 16 years. Despite CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s professed commitment to free speech, Facebook’s actions seemingly belie this stance.

“Like Google, Facebook has an extensive history of interfering in U.S. elections. But it’s not completely fair to compare the two companies. I believe some part of Mark Zuckerberg believes in free speech. Google management clearly does not,” Brent Bozell, founder and president of the MRC, said in a recent interview. He continued: “But regardless of what Mr. Zuckerberg believes, his company’s policies and practices have resulted in a great deal of censorship that always seems to target the same side of the political spectrum, and it needs to stop.”

Researchers Dan Schneider and Gabriela Pariseau conducted the MRC’s study, demonstrating what they consider a complex interplay between Zuckerberg’s public support of free speech and the alleged censorship practices within Facebook. Examples offered include censorship of 2024 presidential candidates, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and a reported shutdown of political advertising a week before the 2020 election. The researchers also cite instances wherein conservative perspectives were alleged to be blacklisted or suppressed in the platform’s Trending News section.

Schneider and Pariseau believe that Zuckerberg’s repeated public endorsements of free speech contrast with Facebook’s subsequent actions, particularly after so-called ‘civil rights’ audits, which they suggest led to more stringent censorship practices.

The National Pulse has previously reported on the Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) and its activities to undermine U.S. elections by using private grants awarded to state election officials. In April of this year, Wisconsin voters barred groups like CTCL from funding election workers.

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A study by the Media Research Center (MRC) revealed that Facebook has allegedly interfered in U.S. elections at least 39 times since 2008, while Google has reportedly done so 41 times over the past 16 years. Despite CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s professed commitment to free speech, Facebook's actions seemingly belie this stance. show more
April 10, 2024
Jack Montgomery
TECH
War
World

Ukraine Now Buying Chinese Drones, American Ones Keep Breaking.

The war in Ukraine has exposed significant deficiencies in the American drone industry, with glitchy, expensive drones made in the U.S. failing to meet expectations and being supplanted by off-the-shelf Chinese products.

Silicon Valley firm Skydio is among the U.S. firms whose drones have fallen flat on the Ukrainian battlefield, with the Wall Street Journal reporting “hundreds of its best drones… flew off course and were lost” after running into Russian jammers.

“The general reputation for every class of U.S. drone in Ukraine is that they don’t work as well as other systems,” admitted Skydio chief executive Adam Bry, confessing his product was “not a very successful platform on the front lines.”

Ukraine’s drone supplier of choice is Chinese firm SZ DJI Technology — which, officially, does not even want its products to be used in war zones, saying it “absolutely deplores and condemns the use of its products to cause harm anywhere in the world.”

Embarrassingly for the U.S. government, DJI has been banned by the U.S. military, and Congress is weighing whether to ban it altogether – yet the firm is being bolstered by Ukrainian purchases funded at least in part of U.S. aid.

Ukraine’s burgeoning domestic drone industry also relies on Chinese parts.

The problems with U.S. drones are not only a national security weakness but also a loss for the U.S. economy, with Ukraine using up around 10,000 drones a month that might have come mainly from U.S. firms had they been more reliable.

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The war in Ukraine has exposed significant deficiencies in the American drone industry, with glitchy, expensive drones made in the U.S. failing to meet expectations and being supplanted by off-the-shelf Chinese products. show more
March 22, 2024
Jack Montgomery
News
Politics
TECH

KASSAM: ‘Here’s What Could Kill The TikTok Bill in the Senate. Even for Me.’

Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, believes a House bill forcing Chinese Communist Party-controlled ByteDance to divest from TikTok could be tighter, warning against Senate changes broadening its scope.

Kassam, who has previously debunked some of the myths around the TikTok bill targeting the likes of Elon Musk’s X, warned that there are some issues with “loose language” in the bill in comments to Puck News.

“Folks are rightfully concerned that these bills contain loose language that could be used to target other platforms or individuals,” he said.

“It’s unnecessarily muddying the waters on what could otherwise be a clean hit against the Chinese Communist Party and its propaganda interests, just because Biden and the [Department of Justice] said so,” he added.

Kassam expressed concern that “[i]f the Senate bill is any worse or broader than the House bill, there will be even wider-spread disquiet.”

The National Pulse chief does not agree with objections to the House bill raised by the likes of Senator Rand Paul — bankrolled by ByteDance investor Jeffrey Yass — that the CCP has no control over TikTok or that it amounts to nothing more significant than “a few dance videos.”

Concerns around provisions in the bill targeting companies “indirectly” held by a foreign adversary state may have more substance to them, however, with some fearing they could be used to target platforms such as Rumble and Telegram that have been less keen to censor conservatives than Silicon Valley.

[voting_poll post_id=”89963″] 

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Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, believes a House bill forcing Chinese Communist Party-controlled ByteDance to divest from TikTok could be tighter, warning against Senate changes broadening its scope. show more
March 18, 2024
Jack Montgomery
TECH
UK

Apple, Google Block Access to Tommy Robinson’s Telegram Channel.

Anti-grooming gangs activist turned citizen journalist Tommy Robinson reports his Telegram channel can no longer be accessed via Apple and Android phones because Apple and Google have taken steps to block users’ access to it. The National Pulse has independently confirmed his complaints.

“If you’re trying to access my Telegram channel and you can’t, it’s because the censorship continues,” he said in a post on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter).

“Apple… and also Google Play, Android, whatever,” have blocked access to the channel, Robinson continued, explaining: “Telegram haven’t banned me, but the mobile phone companies and providers have.”

“We’re obviously doing something right,” Robinson suggested, adding, “if it wasn’t for  Elon Musk we’d be totally erased again now.”

He urged the South African tech entrepreneur to “bring out his own mobile phone, so we can get away from iPhones, so we can get away from their censorship, Google, all of them.”

Musk does partly censor Robinson, however. It is impossible to embed Robinson’s posts on outside sites — including The National Pulse.

Robinson said people who want to view his Telegram channel can still do so by downloading the Telegram desktop app directly from Telegram.

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Anti-grooming gangs activist turned citizen journalist Tommy Robinson reports his Telegram channel can no longer be accessed via Apple and Android phones because Apple and Google have taken steps to block users’ access to it. The National Pulse has independently confirmed his complaints. show more
March 15, 2024
Jack Montgomery
Culture
News
TECH

Adobe AI Erases White People, Including America’s Founders.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) image generator Adobe Firefly is producing the same perverse results as Gemini, the suspended Google image generator that regularly refused to depict white people and inserted minorities into historically inappropriate contexts.

An investigation by Semafor found Adobe Firefly produced some of the same inaccurate results as Gemini, rendering Vikings and even “German soldiers in 1945” as black, for example.

The National Pulse found similar issues, with a prompt for “America’s Founding Fathers” resulting in an image of a black woman and a black man, and a prompt for “European People in the Middle Ages” resulting in an image of eight black people in medieval dress. A prompt for “German soldiers in 1945” generated an image as equally historically dubious as the one found by Semafor.

While Semafor suggested that such results result from “technical shortcomings,” the images produced by the now-shuttered Gemini program resulted from deliberate programming.

Requests to create images of white families would be refused, while images to create images of black families were accepted. Similarly, only images of historically white groups, such as Vikings and medieval kings, were rendered as ethnically diverse. Historically black groups, such as Zulu warriors, were rendered accurately.

In Adobe’s case, the company defended Firefly as a tool that “isn’t meant for generating photorealistic depictions of real or historical events,” standing by their “commitment to responsible innovation” and decision to “[train] our AI models on diverse datasets to ensure we’re producing commercially safe results that don’t perpetuate harmful stereotypes.”

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) image generator Adobe Firefly is producing the same perverse results as Gemini, the suspended Google image generator that regularly refused to depict white people and inserted minorities into historically inappropriate contexts. show more
March 13, 2024
NatSec
TECH

WATCH: Kassam Walks Through the TikTok Ban Legislation (No, It Can’t Censor Elon’s ‘X’).

The National Pulse’s Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam has produced a brief explainer on the TikTok ban legislation, walking you through the specifics amidst the cash-fuelled Chinese propaganda being touted on Capitol Hill.

The legislation, Kassam explains, cannot be used to target U.S. companies nor individuals, and it is very specific about that.

WATCH: 

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The National Pulse's Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam has produced a brief explainer on the TikTok ban legislation, walking you through the specifics amidst the cash-fuelled Chinese propaganda being touted on Capitol Hill. show more
March 4, 2024
William Upton
Election 2024
TECH

Anti-Misinformation AI Flagging Factual Stories As False.

Artificial intelligence hired by the Washington Secretary of State’s Office to monitor potential election ‘misinformation’ has flagged multiple factual stories from The Center Square regarding evidence of noncitizens illegally voting. Logically — a UK-based AI company — was contracted by the Washington Secretary of State last year to scan for “false content” on various social platforms, including X (formerly Twitter).

The state contract with Logically tasks them with using their AI tools to identify “harmful narratives” concerning Washington’s elections and generate reports for the Secretary of State’s review. Last summer, Logically generated several reports, which included stories published by The Center Square regarding Washington state’s election laws and an incident in which a foreign national avoided prosecution after illegally voting 28 times.

According to the Logically reports – which don’t address the factual claims made by the news outlet – these stories were flagged as ‘misinformation’ because of how social media users interpreted them. The UK-based AI company flagged the first story because some social media users who read it concluded “…no government agency in Washington State has the mandate or authority to verify citizenship of registered voters, and some users claimed it represents intentional negligence by Washington authorities to enable voter fraud. Users claimed that this leads to foreign nationals regularly voting in Washington’s elections.”

The second story from The Center Square – regarding a foreign national who voted illegally 28 times – was flagged because it may “…motivate individuals to call for stricter voter registration laws and more oversight of the process.”

Derrick Nunnally, a spokesman for the Washington Secretary of State, said neither Logically nor the Secretary of State has used the reports to push for censorship of news stories. Nunnally also insisted the reports have not been used to push for labeling any social media users as having spread ‘misinformation’ either.

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Artificial intelligence hired by the Washington Secretary of State’s Office to monitor potential election ‘misinformation’ has flagged multiple factual stories from The Center Square regarding evidence of noncitizens illegally voting. Logically — a UK-based AI company — was contracted by the Washington Secretary of State last year to scan for “false content” on various social platforms, including X (formerly Twitter). show more