Montana says 1st-in-nation TikTok ban protects people. TikTok says it violates their rights

TikTok has been recruiting so-called influencers and small businesses who use the platform to push back on a ban. (AFP/File)
TikTok has been recruiting so-called influencers and small businesses who use the platform to push back on a ban. (AFP/File)
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Updated 18 May 2023
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Montana says 1st-in-nation TikTok ban protects people. TikTok says it violates their rights

Montana says 1st-in-nation TikTok ban protects people. TikTok says it violates their rights
  • Measure due to take effect on Jan. 1, 2024 is expected to be challenged in court
  • Governor also announced ban of all social media applications tied to foreign adversaries on state devices

HELENA: Montana became the first state in the US to enact a complete ban on TikTok on Wednesday when Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a measure that’s more sweeping than any other state’s attempts to curtail the social media app, which is owned by a Chinese tech company.
The measure, scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2024, is expected to be challenged legally and will serve as a testing ground for the TikTok-free America that many national lawmakers have envisioned. Cybersecurity experts say it could be difficult to enforce the ban.
“Today, Montana takes the most decisive action of any state to protect Montanans’ private data and sensitive personal information from being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party,” Gianforte said in a statement.
TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter argued that the law infringes on people’s First Amendment rights and is unlawful. She declined to say whether the company will file a lawsuit.
“We want to reassure Montanans that they can continue using TikTok to express themselves, earn a living, and find community as we continue working to defend the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana,” Oberwetter said in a statement.
The American Civil Liberties of Montana and NetChoice, a trade group that counts Google and TikTok as its members, also called the law unconstitutional. Keegan Medrano, policy director for the ACLU of Montana, said the Legislature “trampled on the free speech of hundreds of thousands of Montanans who use the app to express themselves, gather information and run their small business, in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment.”
Some lawmakers, the FBI and officials at other agencies are concerned the video-sharing app, owned by ByteDance, could be used to allow the Chinese government to access information on US citizens or push pro-Beijing misinformation that could influence the public. TikTok says none of this has ever happened.
A former executive at ByteDance alleges the tech giant has served as a “propaganda tool” for the Chinese government, a claim ByteDance says is baseless.
When Montana banned the app on government-owned devices in late December, Gianforte said TikTok posed a “significant risk” to sensitive state data. More than half of US states and the federal government have a similar ban.
On Wednesday, Gianforte also announced he was prohibiting the use of all social media applications tied to foreign adversaries on state equipment and for state businesses in Montana effective on June 1. Among the apps he listed are WeChat, whose parent company is headquartered in China; and Telegram Messenger, which was founded in Russia.
The legislation, drafted by the attorney general’s office, easily passed through Montana’s GOP-controlled Legislature.
Gianforte had wanted to expand the TikTok bill to include apps tied to foreign adversaries, but lawmakers did not send him the bill until after the session ended this month, preventing him from offering any amendments.
Montana’s new law prohibits downloads of TikTok in the state and would fine any “entity” — an app store or TikTok — $10,000 per day for each time someone “is offered the ability” to access the social media platform or download the app. The penalties would not apply to users.
Opponents say Montana residents could easily circumvent the ban by using a virtual private network, a service that shields Internet users by encrypting their data traffic, preventing others from observing their web browsing. Montana state officials say geofencing technology is used with online sports gambling apps, which are deactivated in states where online gambling is illegal.
Though many lawmakers in Montana have been enthusiastic about a ban, experts who followed the bill closely said the state will likely have to defend the legislation in court.
Officials are also bound to receive criticism from advocacy groups and TikTok users who don’t want their favorite app to be taken away. The app’s fun, goofy videos and ease of use has made it immensely popular, and US tech giants like Snapchat and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, see it as a competitive threat.
TikTok has been recruiting so-called influencers and small businesses who use the platform to push back on a ban. But others who haven’t been part of an official campaign coordinated by the company are also worried about what lawmakers are doing.
Adam Botkin, a former football player and recent graduate at the University of Montana, said it was a scary time for him as a content creator in Montana. The 22-year-old has nearly 170,000 followers on TikTok, where he mostly posts short videos of himself performing football kicks.
He says he sometimes makes “tens of thousands” of dollars per month from brands looking to market their products on his social media accounts, including Instagram, where he has roughly 44,000 followers.
Botkin says most of his income comes from Instagram, which is believed to be more lucrative for content creators. But he has to grow his following on that platform — and others — to have the same level of popularity that he does on TikTok. He says he’s trying to do that and won’t try to circumvent the TikTok ban by using a VPN.
“You got to adapt and evolve with how things move,” Botkin said. “So, if I have to adapt and move, I’ll adapt.”
Chatter about a TikTok ban has been around since 2020, when then-President Donald Trump attempted to bar the company from operating in the US through an executive order that was halted in federal courts. President Joe Biden’s administration initially shelved those plans, but more recently threatened to ban the app if the company’s Chinese owners don’t sell their stakes.
TikTok doesn’t want either option and has been clamoring to prove it’s free of any Chinese government interference. It’s also touting a data safety plan it calls “Project Texas” to assuage bipartisan concerns in Washington.
At the same time, some lawmakers have emerged as allies, arguing efforts to restrict data harvesting practices need to include all social media companies, not just one. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky blocked a bill in March that would ban TikTok nationally, saying such a move would violate the Constitution and anger the millions of voters who use the app.
Montana’s TikTok ban also comes amid a growing movement to limit social media use among kids and teens and, in some cases, impose bans. Several bills circulating in Congress aim to get at the issue, including one that would prohibit all children under the age of 13 from using social media and require permission from a guardian for users under 18 to create an account.
Some states, including Utah and Arkansas, have already enacted laws that would hinge social media use on parental consent. Similar bills are in the works in other states. Last year, California enacted a law requiring companies to beef up data protection practices for children and offer them the highest privacy settings.


Amazon steps up AI race with $4 bn Anthropic investment

Amazon steps up AI race with $4 bn Anthropic investment
Updated 26 September 2023
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Amazon steps up AI race with $4 bn Anthropic investment

Amazon steps up AI race with $4 bn Anthropic investment
  • Amazon is to leverage Anthropic’s technology to power its cloud, other services

PARIS: Amazon said on Monday it would invest up to $4 billion in AI firm Anthropic, as the online retail giant steps into an AI race dominated by Microsoft, Google and OpenAI.
The success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a chatbot released last year that is able to generate poems, essays and other works with just a short prompt, has led to billions being invested in the field.
Amazon had already announced it aimed to soup up its Alexa voice assistant with generative AI, which the firm said would allow users to have smoother conversations.
San Francisco-based Anthropic is seen as a leader in the field and has its own chatbot, Claude, a competitor to ChatGPT.
“We have tremendous respect for Anthropic’s team and foundation models, and believe we can help improve many customer experiences, short and long-term, through our deeper collaboration,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
The giant firms and wealthy investors of Silicon Valley have poured money into artificial intelligence as they seek to find a killer application to justify the interest.
ChatGPT’s instant success threw much of the focus onto chatbots and sparked imitators and rivals, not least from Google with its Bard chatbot.
Chinese titans Tencent and Baidu have also launched bots they claim can rival ChatGPT.


As part of Monday’s deal, Anthropic will use Amazon’s chips to develop its next models.
The AI firm will also use Amazon’s cloud services — the data centers that store and process data on a vast scale — for “mission critical workloads.”
Amazon said it would take a “minority ownership position” in the AI firm, which has already raised more than $1 billion since it was set up in 2021.
The statement announcing the deal focuses on the benefits to clients of Amazon’s cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services (AWS).
It promises that “Claude,” which is the name of the Anthropic’s chatbot and its model, will “help customers of all sizes to develop new generative AI-powered applications to transform their organizations.”
The deal intensifies competition between Amazon and Google, which had earlier opened its cloud services to Anthropic and invested $300 million to acquire 10 percent of the company.
AI models require huge computing power so AI firms rely on data centers provided by the likes of AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.
As tech giants push their own AI ambitions, they have been increasingly looking at tie-ins with smaller AI firms — Microsoft leading the way with a multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI.


British media organizations condemn Meta’s decision to ditch Facebook News

British media organizations condemn Meta’s decision to ditch Facebook News
Updated 26 September 2023
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British media organizations condemn Meta’s decision to ditch Facebook News

British media organizations condemn Meta’s decision to ditch Facebook News
  • In a letter to the company’s global affairs president they also slammed Meta for dumping a scheme through which it funds local journalism in the UK
  • They said: ‘Particularly as we near a general election, these deliberate actions pose an urgent threat to democracy by choking trusted news’

DUBAI: British media organizations have condemned a decision by Meta to phase out Facebook News, a dedicated tab in the bookmarks section of Facebook that spotlights news, in some countries. They also slammed the company’s plans to end a scheme through which it funds local journalism in the UK.

Reach, one of the UK’s largest newspaper publishers, and the News Media Association sent Meta’s global affairs president, Nick Clegg, a letter criticizing moves they described as “financially damaging” and “deeply concerning for democracy and society.”

They added: “Particularly as we near a general election, these deliberate actions pose an urgent threat to democracy by choking trusted news — both financially for the media industry and practically, for audiences accustomed to trusting your platform for information.”

In addition to Clegg, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats who served as the UK’s deputy prime minister in his party’s coalition government with the Conservatives from 2010 to 2015, the recipients of the letter reportedly included Lucy Frazer, the UK’s culture secretary, and Michelle Donelan, the technology minister.

Meta announced this month that it plans to “deprecate” Facebook News in early December in the UK, France and Germany, as part of an “ongoing effort to better align our investments to our products and services people value the most.”

The company, which has increasingly been shifting its focus to short-form video and other new-tech services, said people do not come to Facebook for news and political content.

“News makes up less than three percent of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed, so news discovery is a small part of the Facebook experience for the vast majority of people,” Meta said.

However, the organizations that sent the letter of protest argued that “platforms such as Facebook continue to be key discovery routes for news for millions of people, and indeed voters, as Ofcom’s News Consumption in the UK 2022/23 report showed earlier this year.”

Reach, which owns national and local newspapers, including the Daily Mirror, Daily Express and Daily Star, previously attributed a financial decline to Facebook.

In its half-year earnings, the publisher revealed a revenue drop of 6.1 percent year-on-year, and overall its titles experienced a 16 percent decline in website page views. The company said at the time that had Facebook not made a change that deprioritized news, it would have expected page views to decline by only 2 percent.

The letter also admonished Meta for its decision to cancel funding for its Community News Project, introduced in 2018, through which Meta pledged £4.5 million ($5.5 million) to help fund 80 new community journalists in the UK.

“We recognize the important role Facebook plays in how people get their news today and we want to do more to support local publishers,” Meta said at the time of launch.

The letter’s signatories reminded the company of its commitment, saying: “If Meta truly believes, as it stated only 18 months ago, that ‘local newspapers are the lifeblood of communities,’ then it is crucial that the company acts to support, rather than undermine, the sustainability of journalism in the UK by continuing these valuable and successful initiatives.”

The News Media Association and Reach called for a meeting with representatives of Meta to discuss how it can support news publishers and the distribution of trustworthy reports and information.


Cadillac Arabia launches gaming-focused campaign for Saudi National Day

Cadillac Arabia launches gaming-focused campaign for Saudi National Day
Updated 25 September 2023
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Cadillac Arabia launches gaming-focused campaign for Saudi National Day

Cadillac Arabia launches gaming-focused campaign for Saudi National Day
  • Game parade will feature cars decorated in KSA flags or colors 

DUBAI: Cadillac Arabia invited Saudi gamers to “Maseerat Cadillac,” the brand’s first game parade on the video game Forza Horizon 5, to celebrate Saudi National Day on Sept. 23 at 7 p.m.

The campaign draws inspiration from Saudis’ passion for gaming and combines it with the tradition of decorating cars with KSA flags or colors to take part in parades across the country, Cadillac said.

The brand has partnered with local influencer Powr Rakan, who livestreamed the parade on his Twitch channel.

Embed post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CxVsH1VvIJB/?hl=en

Gamers were invited to join the parade on Forza Horizon 5 by designing their Cadillac cars around the Saudi National Day theme. They could also submit their designs through Discord for a chance to win prizes by Rakan.

The first-prize winner will receive an Xbox Series X bundle with Forza Horizon 5, and the second and third-prize winners will take home an Xbox Series S and Xbox Elite Series II Controller, respectively.

Participants could also win prizes by joining the Twitch stream and commenting on the livestream.

Saudi Arabia is home to a growing gaming community, and the Kingdom has made significant efforts to bolster the local gaming industry.

In February, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund became the biggest outside investor in Nintendo, and earlier this year, the Kingdom hosted a major gaming tournament, Gamers8.


Iran International TV returns to air from high-security studio

Iran International TV returns to air from high-security studio
Updated 25 September 2023
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Iran International TV returns to air from high-security studio

Iran International TV returns to air from high-security studio
  • London-based broadcaster suspended operations in February over threats to staff
  • UK authorities claimed Iranian government behind threats, Tehran denied involvement

LONDON: Iran International returned to air on Monday from a new high-security studio in London.

The Farsi-language news broadcaster closed in February following alleged threats from the Iranian government.

But the TV channel’s head of news, Aliasghar Ramezanpoor, told The Sunday Times: “We are saying, ‘you are back — you are finding your voice again.’ As a journalist, I feel it is my moral obligation. People are putting their trust in us.”

British authorities claimed broadcast staff, particular those born in Iran, had been the target of “multiple threats,” adding that due to the studio’s former location in Chiswick Business Park police could not guarantee workers’ safety.

The station’s offices have been relocated to a new, high-security site in north London with steel barriers and armed patrols.

Following the decision to shut down the station in mid-February based on recommendations from Scotland Yard, the channel and parts of its staff were relocated to Washington as a temporary solution.

Ramezanpoor, who has reportedly received three credible death threats since last year, said that the suspension of the London operation had been a major blow to the broadcaster and expressed hope that the channel and its journalists would be able to reconnect with viewers.

Iran International, which is owned by private investors, including a British Saudi businessman, claimed to have 30 million viewers in Iran and among the Iranian diaspora.

The broadcaster, which provided round-the-clock updates during the protests that erupted in the country following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody last year, said it relied heavily on amateur footage sent in by citizens in Iran.

Saeid Habil, a senior television and radio journalist at Iran International, said that the channel’s coverage of the events prompted the government to try and shut down its operations.

The Iranian government has denied any involvement in threats against Iran International staff. However, Iran’s intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, recently described the station as a “terrorist network” and said the regime would take “offensive security measures … whenever and wherever we deem appropriate.”

The channel’s return to air comes at a time of heightened tensions between Iran and the West.

Tehran has been accused of providing drones to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine, and it is also facing international pressure over its nuclear program.

And an Iranian government official was recently accused by Iran International of attacking one its journalists covering President Ebrahim Raisi’s stay in New York.


Indonesia may issue regulations on social media e-commerce this week

Indonesia may issue regulations on social media e-commerce this week
Updated 25 September 2023
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Indonesia may issue regulations on social media e-commerce this week

Indonesia may issue regulations on social media e-commerce this week
  • Trade Ministry likely to impose strict regulations
  • Social media platforms are threatening offline markets, ministry said

JAKARTA: Indonesia may issue on Tuesday a regulation on the use of social media to sell goods in the country, President Joko Widodo said, a move intended to quell threats to offline markets in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.
Ministers have repeatedly said that e-commerce sellers using predatory pricing on social media platforms are threatening offline markets in Indonesia, with some officials specifically citing the video platform TikTok as an example.
“We just...decided on the use of social media for e-commerce. Tomorrow it will perhaps come out,” Widodo, who is commonly known as Jokowi, said in a streamed video address on Monday.
“What the people are expecting is that the advancement of technology can create new economic potential, not kill existing economies.”
Jokowi did not mention any specific companies or offer further details on the regulation, which is being formulated by the trade ministry.
Current trade regulations do not specifically cover direct transactions on social media.
Deputy Trade Minister Jerry Sambuaga said earlier this month that “social media and social commerce cannot be combined,” vowing to ban the mix of the two and citing TikTok’s “live” features which allow people to sell goods.
A TikTok Indonesia spokesperson declined to comment. TikTok is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance.
The company said that its app had 325 million Southeast Asian users that were active every month, of whom 125 million were in Indonesia. The company has said that there were 2 million small businesses on TikTok Shop in Indonesia.