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Twitter to Grant “Amnesty” to Suspended Accounts

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Twitter to Grant "Amnesty" to Suspended Accounts

Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced Thursday that he is granting “amnesty” to suspended accounts, which alleged experts predict will increase harassment, hate speech, and misinformation.

The billionaire announced after asking for votes on the reinstatement of accounts that have not “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam” in a poll posted to his timeline. The yes vote received 72% of the vote.

“The populace has spoken. The amnesty period begins next week. “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk wrote on Twitter, referring to the Latin phrase that means “the voice of the people, the voice of God.”

Musk used the same Latin phrase after posting a similar poll last weekend before reinstating former President Donald Trump’s account, which Twitter had banned for encouraging the Capitol insurgency on January 6, 2021. Trump has stated that he will no longer use Twitter but has not deleted his account.

Such online polls are far from scientific and are easily manipulated by bots.

Racist, anti-Semitic, and other toxic speech has been on the rise on the world’s de facto public square in the month since Musk took over Twitter, according to groups that monitor the platform. This has included increased racist abuse directed at World Cup soccer players, which Twitter allegedly fails to address.

The increase in harmful content is largely due to the chaos after Musk decided to lay off half of the company’s 7,500-person workforce, fire top executives, and then issue a series of ultimatums that prompted hundreds more to resign.

A slew of contractors in charge of content moderation was also let go. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, was among those who resigned due to a lack of trust in Musk’s willingness to keep Twitter from devolving into chaos of uncontrolled speech.

Some advertisers have also withdrawn from Twitter.

Musk tweeted on Oct. 28, the day after assuming control, that no suspended accounts would be reinstated until Twitter formed a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints to consider the cases.

On Tuesday, he said he was breaking that promise because he agreed to it at the request of “a large coalition of political-social activist groups,” who later “broke the deal” by urging advertisers to at least temporarily stop doing business with Twitter.

A day earlier, Twitter reinstated far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s account, which was suspended in January for violating the platform’s COVID misinformation policies.

Meanwhile, Musk has become increasingly friendly with right-wing figures on Twitter. He urged “independent-minded” Americans to vote Republican ahead of this month’s midterm elections in the United States.

According to a European Union report released Thursday, Twitter took longer to review hateful content this year and removed less of it than in 2021.

The report was based on data collected in the spring — prior to Musk’s acquisition of Twitter — as part of an annual assessment of online platforms’ adherence to the EU’s code of conduct on disinformation. It discovered that Twitter assessed just over half of the illegal hate speech notifications it received within 24 hours, down from 82% in 2021.

Source: AP, VOR News

Stop Toxic Twitter Attacks Advertisers Over Trump

Stop Toxic Twitter Attacks Advertisers Over Trump

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Apple IPhones Sales Fall 24% In China Amid Competition And Headwinds

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According to a new report, iPhone sales fell 24% in the first six weeks of 2024, posing substantial challenges for Apple and other Western technology businesses in a critical market.

According to Counterpoint Research, the overall mobile market in China declined by 7%, with businesses such as Apple, Oppo, and Vivo seeing decreases.

However, the difficulty for Apple has been ongoing for a year; as China’s economy has weakened, trade tensions and nationalism have risen. Counterpoint reported that customers who may have previously considered now opt for national brands, namely Huawei.

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Apple IPhones Sales Fall 24% In China Amid Competition And Headwinds

“Primarily, faced stiff competition at the high end from a resurgent Huawei while getting squeezed in the middle by aggressive pricing from the likes of Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi,” Mengmeng Zhang, a Counterpoint senior analyst, stated in a press statement. “Although the iPhone 15 is a great device, it has no significant upgrades from the previous version, so consumers feel fine holding on to the older-generation iPhones for now.”

Apple shares fell 2.8% on Tuesday. The stock has lost 11.6% this year due to concerns about slowing sales, notably in China.

The corporation did not respond to a request for comment.

The research comes amid a faltering Chinese economy, a challenging housing market, increasing unemployment among younger workers, and increased rivalry among higher-end vendors in China, particularly from Chinese device giant Huawei.

China is an important market for the company, as it is the second largest after the United States. Apple previously achieved significant gains during its launch period last year. The company continues to give discounts to assist in alleviating some of the downturn.

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Apple IPhones Sales Fall 24% In China Amid Competition And Headwinds

Last year, Huawei’s Mate 60 made headlines when the US authorities requested further information on the Pro variant, which included a sophisticated CPU. Its appearance astounded industry observers, who questioned how the company could produce such a device in the wake of the United States’ extensive attempts to limit China’s access to foreign semiconductor technology due to alleged national security concerns.

Some Chinese buyers believe US government sanctions have victimized them and are gravitating toward Huawei’s Mate 60 smartphone, which is approaching Apple sales.

According to Jeff Fieldhack, a research director at Counterpoint, one issue is that Apple had a strong January last year owing to part shortages but did not have any shortages this year.

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Apple IPhones Sales Fall 24% In China Amid Competition And Headwinds

“This isn’t a major deal for Apple in the long term,” he added. “It is still a successful iPhone launch and there is more discounting and marketing they can do this year in China to help alleviate the competition from Huawei.”

In January, Huawei held 17% of the mobile market in China, compared to the iPhone’s 16%. Huawei’s demand exceeds its supply, implying that it might sell more, according to Fieldhack.

“Apple, to its credit, ended the year at number one, which was extraordinary despite headwinds from China,” added the analyst.

SOURCE – (CNN)

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Microsoft Says It Hasn’t Been Able To Shake Russian State Hackers

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BOSTON — Microsoft said Friday that it is still working to evict the elite Russian government hackers who broke into senior business officials’ email accounts in November and are attempting to enter consumer networks using stolen access data.

According to the software giant’s blog and regulatory filing, the hackers from Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service used data gained during the intrusion, which was exposed in mid-January, to compromise some source-code repositories and internal systems.

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Microsoft Says It Hasn’t Been Able To Shake Russian State Hackers

A corporate official declined to specify the source code and capabilities the hackers gained to further attack customers and systems. Microsoft claimed Friday that hackers obtained “secrets” from email contacts between the business and certain customers, including cryptographic secrets like passwords, certificates, and authentication keys, and that it was contacting them “to assist in mitigating measures.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a cloud computing business, revealed on January 24 that it was also an SVR hacking victim and had been notified of the breach — by whom it would not say — two weeks earlier, coinciding with the revelation that it had been compromised.

“The threat actor’s ongoing attack is characterized by a sustained, significant commitment of the threat actor’s resources, coordination, and focus,” the company said Friday, adding that it may be utilizing acquired data “to accumulate a picture of areas to attack and enhance its ability to do so.” According to cybersecurity experts, Microsoft’s admission that the SVR hack had not been contained highlights the risks of government and business relying heavily on the Redmond, Washington-based company’s software monoculture — and the fact that so many of its customers are linked via its global cloud network.

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Microsoft Says It Hasn’t Been Able To Shake Russian State Hackers

“This has tremendous national security implications,” said Tom Kellermann of the cybersecurity firm Contrast Security. “The Russians can now leverage supply chain attacks against Microsoft’s customers.”

Tenable’s CEO, Amit Yoran, also published a statement expressing shock and dismay. He is among security pros who believe Microsoft is extremely secretive about its vulnerabilities and how it handles intrusions.

“We should all be furious that this keeps happening,” he continued. “These breaches aren’t isolated from each other and Microsoft’s shady security practices and misleading statements purposely obfuscate the whole truth.”

Microsoft said it has yet to establish if the incident will have a material impact on its profitability. It also stated that the intrusion’s persistence “reflects what has become a more broadly unprecedented global threat landscape, especially in terms of sophisticated nation-state attacks.”

The hackers, known as Cozy Bear, are the same ones responsible for the SolarWinds breach.

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Microsoft Says It Hasn’t Been Able To Shake Russian State Hackers

When Microsoft first reported the intrusion, it stated that the SVR unit got into its corporate email system and accessed the accounts of certain senior executives and staff from its cybersecurity and legal departments. It did not specify how many accounts were compromised.

At the time, Microsoft stated that it could terminate the hackers’ access to the compromised accounts on or around January 13. But by then, they had certainly established a footing.

It said they gained access via compromising credentials on a “legacy” test account but did not elaborate.

Microsoft’s newest disclosure comes three months after a new Securities and Exchange Commission rule went into effect, requiring publicly traded corporations to disclose breaches that potentially harm their businesses.

SOURCE – (AP)

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Dodge Muscle Cars Live On With New Versions Of The Charger Powered By Electricity Or Gasoline

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DETROIT — America’s muscle car culture will endure while the country shifts to electric vehicles, but the gas-powered performance automobile will be there for at least a few more years.

On Tuesday, Dodge debuted two battery-powered Charger muscle cars that still roar like a large V8 engine but emit no pollution from the tailpipe.

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New iterations of the Charger that run on gasoline or electricity continue to be Dodge muscle cars.

However, the Stellantis brand, which has carved out a market niche for high-performance vehicles, will continue selling a gas-powered Charger without the large Hemi V8.

Both will be based on Stellantis’ worldwide large vehicle platform, and the Windsor, Ontario, factory that will produce them will be able to switch between gasoline and electric power depending on market demand. Stellantis’ flexibility will allow it to hedge its bets on whether electric vehicle sales take off or slow.

Last year, Stellantis discontinued production of the gas-powered Chargers and Challengers, and many believed it would be the end of the thundering sedans.

However, Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis hinted that a gasoline version would continue to exist. “It was always there.” It was always in the plans. “It was always coming,” he explained.

dodge

Dodge Muscle Cars Live On With New Versions Of The Charger Powered By Electricity Or Gasoline

However, the business downplayed the gas version in favour of two- and four-door electric variants that resemble Chargers from the 1960s, with aerodynamic lines and hatchbacks rather than trunks.

The electric versions, branded Charger Daytona after the NASCAR raceway in Florida, will have two powertrains, one with up to 670 horsepower and the ability to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h) in 3.3 seconds. The other is no slouch, with 496 horsepower and a zero to 60 time of 4.7 seconds.

Dodge boasts that its high-performance electric version is the world’s fastest and most powerful muscle car. Next year, an even higher-performing version will be released.

The 496-horsepower Daytona is predicted to have a range of 317 miles (510 kilometres) per charge, while the high-performance version can travel 260 miles (418 kilometres).

Both will include the company’s Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust, which routes air through a chamber to replicate the roar of a V8.

Both are hefty because of their large batteries, with gross vehicle weights of more than three tons.

The new gas-powered Charger Sixpack will have a similar design to the electric variants and be powered by a new 3-litre six-cylinder engine with two turbochargers. Standard variants will generate 420 horsepower, while high-output engines will produce 550.

According to the firm, the new engine will produce more horsepower and torque than the previous 5.7- and 6.4-liter Hemi V8s. According to company executives, fuel efficiency tests on the Charger’s new engine still need to be finished.

dodge

Dodge Muscle Cars Live On With New Versions Of The Charger Powered By Electricity Or Gasoline

All variants have all-wheel drive, although they can be converted to rear-wheel drive, so owners may still experience burnout and drift. There will be alternatives to prepare the automobiles for the racecourse.

The two-door coupe Daytona models are anticipated to go into production this summer, while the electric four-door and gas-powered versions will begin early next year.

Kuniskis said he is still determining which kind will sell better, electric or gas. With federal tax breaks on electric vehicles, leasing payments are anticipated to be quite appealing, which could convince some consumers, he added.

Environmentalists will almost definitely attack the firm for releasing EVs that prioritize performance efficiency while maintaining the gas-powered muscle car. However, Kuniskis stated that in typical circumstances, approximately 17 million new vehicles are sold annually in the United States.

“It’s a 17 million unit industry,” he said. “And you know what? People require options,” he added, adding that the corporation could face criticism if it did not produce electrified versions.

SOURCE – (AP)

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