News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

Judge Delivers Major Blow to Biden Admin in Social Media Censorship Case

A federal judge has made a historic ruling by partially granting an injunction that blocks various Biden administration officials and government agencies such as the Justice Department and the FBI from working with big tech firms to censor posts on social media.

The injunction came in response to a censorship-by-proxy lawsuit brought by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who have accused Biden administration officials and various government agencies of pressuring social media companies to suspend accounts or take down posts.

Judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana wrote in the July 4 ruling (pdf) that various government agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. State Department, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are prohibited from taking a range of actions regarding social media companies.

Specifically, the agencies and their staff members are prohibited from meeting or contacting by phone, email, or text message or “engaging in any communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech,” per the injunction.

The agencies are also barred from flagging content on posts on social media platforms and forwarding them to the companies with requests for action such as removing or otherwise suppressing their reach.

Encouraging or otherwise egging on social media companies to change their guidelines for the removal, suppression, or reduction of content that contains protected free speech by the government also isn’t allowed.
...
Doughty, a Trump appointee, wrote in the decision that the Republican attorneys general who sued the Biden administration “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.”

While the judge’s ruling isn’t final, the preliminary injunction is a victory for the Republican attorneys general, who have accused the Biden administration of pressuring big tech companies to engage in a censorship-by-proxy scheme.

Zuckerberg Launching Twitter Rival Called ‘Threads’

Called “Threads,” the Meta-backed microblogging platform is billed as “Instagram’s text-based conversation app,” according to a listing on Apple’s App Store.

The listing indicates that Threads will released on Thursday, July 6.

“Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow,” the app description reads.
...
Before it became clear that Thread would be the name of Meta’s challenger to Twitter, there were reports in early June that the Zuckerberg-led company was working on a Twitter competitor code named Project 92 or P92.

Twitter Says Users Must Be Verified to Access TweetDeck

Twitter users will soon need to be verified in order to use TweetDeck, the social media company said in a tweet on Monday.

The change will take effect in 30 days, the company said.

Twitter made the announcement in a tweet detailing an improved version of TweetDeck with new features. It was unclear if Twitter will charge users for both the new and old version of TweetDeck. Twitter did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Charging for TweetDeck, which was previously free and is widely used by businesses and news organizations to easily monitor content, could bring a revenue boost to Twitter.

Australian Firm Sues Twitter for $665,000 for Not Paying Bills

An Australian project management firm has filed a lawsuit against Twitter Inc. in a U.S. court seeking cumulative payments of about A$1 million ($665,000) over alleged non-payment of bills for work done in four countries, court filings showed.

Sydney-based private company Facilitate Corp. on June 29 filed the suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District Of California claiming breach of contract over Twitter’s failure to pay its invoices.

The Australian firm’s lawsuit is the latest alleging non-payment of bills and rent against Twitter since Elon Musk bought the social media platform for $44 billion last year.

Facilitate said from 2022 through early 2023, it installed sensors in Twitter’s offices in London and Dublin, completed an office fit-out in Singapore, and cleared an office in Sydney.

For those works, Twitter owed the company about 203,000 pounds, S$546,600, and A$61,300, respectively, Facilitate said.

Twitter, also known as X Corp., no longer has a media relations office.

Facilitate said it was seeking compensatory damages in an amount to be determined at trial, legal costs, and interest at the maximum legal rate.

In May, a former public relations firm filed a suit in a New York court saying Twitter had not paid its bills, while early this year U.S.–based advisory firm Innisfree M&A Inc. sued it, seeking about $1.9 million for what it said were unpaid bills after it advised Twitter on its acquisition by Musk.

Britain’s Crown Estate, an independent commercial business that manages the property portfolio belonging to the monarchy, in January began court proceedings over alleged unpaid rent on Twitter’s London headquarters.