Global Domain Name and Internet Policy News
Facebook removed a network of fake accounts and pages created by Russian operatives who had recruited U.S. journalists to write articles critical of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala D. Harris, in an apparent bid to undermine their support among liberal voters.
On most days, companies like ByteDance, Microsoft, Walmart and Oracle are considered kings within their fields. But over the weekend, it became increasingly clear that they can also be something else: a set of pawns.
The tech giant, once an example of how not to operate in the nation’s capital, now has a successful influence operation there.
Joe Biden’s campaign has snapped up the .com domain name that makes up President Donald Trump’s re-election slogan, “Keep America Great”. Biden’s team has used the domain name for a site that’s now filled with “Promises Made, Promises Broken” by the Tangerine Toddler, along with his “Failures”, of which there are many. The Washington Post Fact Checker lists over 20,000 false or misleading statements by the Toddler.
When Microsoft began talking this summer with the popular video app TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, no one had any intentions of pursuing a blockbuster deal.
TikTok is taking its fight against the Trump administration to the courts, filing a legal challenge Monday against the government’s order to ban the video app effective mid-September.
TikTok plans to sue the United States government, the company confirmed on Saturday, arguing that President Trump’s moves to block the app had deprived it of due process and claiming it had been unfairly and incorrectly treated as a security threat.
When Kamala Harris, then San Francisco’s district attorney, was running to become California’s attorney general in 2010, she did not hide her excitement about speaking at Google’s Silicon Valley campus.
As the economy contracts and many companies struggle to survive, the biggest tech companies are amassing wealth and influence in ways unseen in decades.
The Trump administration has done enormous damage to the free and open internet worldwide. Here’s what would need to happen to reboot it.