News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

Trump Breaks Silence With First Facebook Post Since 2-Year Ban
Trump's YouTube Channel is Back as well

Former President Donald Trump formally announced his return to Facebook on Friday, posting on the tech platform for the first time since his personal account was suspended more than two years ago.

“I’M BACK!” Trump wrote on his official page, more than a month after Facebook parent company Meta restored his access to Facebook and Instagram in February. However, Trump had not posted anything up until now.

Trump’s post included a short video of his remarks after winning the 2016 presidential election. The clip then fades to a “Trump Make America Great Again 2024” screen.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Complicated business,” the former commander-in-chief said in the 12-second clip.

Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube, meanwhile, restored Trump’s channel this week after two years of restrictions, a spokesperson confirmed to The Epoch Times on March 17.
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The 76-year-old Republican—who is running for president again—posted the same 12-second clip on his official YouTube channel on Friday, the same day the streaming service welcomed him back.
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Meta said in a statement in late January that Trump’s personal pages would be reinstated in February, but it stressed that it would institute heightened penalties of a suspension between one month and two years if the former president violates the firm’s rules.

Elon Musk to Reveal Algorithms Twitter Uses to Recommend Content

Twitter owner Elon Musk announced that he will publicly share the algorithms that Twitter uses to recommend content in the coming weeks.

“Twitter will open source all code used to recommend tweets on March 31st,” Musk said in a March 17 tweet.

Social media algorithms can connect users with people they may know, groups, artists, events, or posts that may be interesting, and other personalized relevant content. But critics warn these algorithms can also be used to promote certain ideologies or viewpoints to the detriment of others.

Musk’s move to release the algorithms is unprecedented, as such algorithms are usually closely guarded trade secrets among their creators.
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Musk’s move to release Twitter’s recommendation algorithm comes in the wake of a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee probe into the issue led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

In a letter on the issue to four major tech executives, Cruz warned of the ways that recommendation algorithms can affect political outcomes and beliefs.

UK Bans TikTok From Government Phones

The UK on March 16 became the latest to ban the Chinese social media app TikTok on government devices, following similar moves by Belgium, the European Union, Canada, and the United States.

It also comes after TikTok stated that it’s facing a total ban in the United States unless the company’s Beijing-based parent ByteDance sells its stake.

Announcing the ban in parliament, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Oliver Dowden said the decision is based on an official review which concluded that “it is clear that there could be a risk around how sensitive government data is accessed and used by certain platforms.”

“Social media apps collect and store huge amounts of user data, including contacts, user content, and geolocation data. On government devices, that data can be sensitive,” he said.

The TikTok ban applies to government corporate devices within ministerial and nonministerial departments but not personal devices.

New Zealand Bans TikTok From Parliamentary Devices, Citing ‘Unacceptable’ Risks

New Zealand has moved to ban the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok from all parliamentary devices, citing the “unacceptable” level of risks posed by the popular video app.

Parliamentary Service Chief Executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero said on Friday that TikTok—owned by Beijing-based firm ByteDance—would be removed from “all devices with access to the parliamentary network.”

However, he said that “those who require the app to perform their democratic duties” may be granted an exemption from the ban, according to a statement released by the New Zealand Parliament.

“This decision has been made based on our own experts’ analysis and following discussion with our colleagues across government and internationally,” Gonzalez-Montero stated.

“Based on this information, the [Parliamentary Service] has determined that the risks are not acceptable in the current New Zealand Parliamentary environment,” he added, without elaborating on the app’s risks.

FCC Cracks Down on Scam Text Messages for the First Time

Under the new FCC rules announced Thursday, mobile service providers are required to block certain robotext messages that are considered “highly likely to be illegal.” These likely-illegal text messengers come from invalid, unallocated, or unused numbers, numbers individuals mark as never sending text messages, and numbers that government agencies and other well-known entities identify as not used for texting.

An additional FCC rule requires mobile wireless providers to “establish a point of contact for text senders, or have providers require their aggregator partners or blocking contractors to establish such a point of contact, which senders can use to inquire about blocked texts.”

The FCC is further proposing requirements for mobile service providers to block texts from entities the FCC has already cited as illegal robotexters. One idea the FCC is considering would apply the “Do Not Call Registry” to text messages, blocking messengers from using either method of communication to contact people on that restricted list.

The FCC has another proposal to close down what it called the “lead generator loophole,” which allows multiple marketing firms to deliver robocalls and text messages based on a single instance of a consumer’s consent to receive marketing messages. The regulatory agency said this “lead generator loophole” allows companies to “use a single consumer consent to deliver robocalls and text messages from multiple—perhaps thousands—of marketers on subjects that may not be what the consumer had in mind.”
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According to the FCC, there has been a more than 500 percent increase in robotext complaints in recent years. Such complaints reportedly rose from about 3,300 in 2015 to about 18,900 in 2022.

According to Robokiller, a firm that provides scam-blocking services, there were more than 225 billion robotexts received in the United States in 2022.