Some of America’s best-known companies including Apple, Google, Ford, Harley-Davidson and Exxon Mobil rebuked and rejected Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, under steady pressure from investors and consumers decrying the violence. 

Late Tuesday, Apple said it had stopped sales of iPhones and other products in Russia, adding that it was making changes to its Maps app to protect civilians in Ukraine. 

Tech firms including Alphabet’s Google dropped Russian state publishers from their news, and Ford Motor, with three joint venture factories in Russia, told its Russian manufacturing partner it was suspending operations in the country. Motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson suspended shipments of its bikes. 

Exxon wants out of Russia

Exxon Mobil Corp said it would discontinue operations in Russia and was taking steps to exit the Sakhalin-1 venture, following in the steps of British energy giants Shell and BP, Russia’s biggest foreign investor. 

Many corporations have been unusually clear in their condemnation of Russia. 

“We are deeply concerned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and stand with all of the people who are suffering as a result of the violence,” Apple said in a statement. 

The steady drum beat of companies taking a stance increased later in the day as rockets struck major cities in Ukraine. 

“Ford is deeply concerned about the invasion of Ukraine and the resultant threats to peace and stability. The situation has compelled us to reassess our operations in Russia,” Ford said, adding to several days of announcements by global car companies. 

“We deplore Russia’s military action that violates the territorial integrity of Ukraine and endangers its people,” said Exxon, adding it will not invest in new developments in Russia. 

Boeing suspends support program

Boeing suspended parts, maintenance and technical support services for Russian airlines, a Politico reporter tweeted. The U.S. planemaker suspended major operations in Moscow and will also temporarily closed office in Kyiv, the tweet said. Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Restrictions from the West have hit the Russian economy hard, with the ruble falling as much as a third to a record low. Financial isolation is rising as shipping companies say they will not serve Russian ports. 

The U.S. government is expected to ban Russian flights from American airspace as soon as Wednesday, government and industry officials told Reuters. 

And a boom of investor interest in environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors is making it more difficult for those companies that sit on the sidelines. 

Russian companies are in particular peril with such Western investors, since they often are not open to talks to change their behavior, said TJ Kistner, vice president at Segal Marco Advisors, a large U.S. pension consultant. 

Investors continue to leave

Western investors may respond by pulling out. 

“The only course of action for many is simply divestment,” Kistner said. 

Moscow has responded by temporarily curbing foreign investors from selling Russian assets. 

Big Tech companies also are continuing efforts to stop Russian forces from taking advantage of their products. 

Apple said it had blocked app downloads of some state-backed news services outside of Russia. 

Microsoft earlier said it would remove Russian state-owned media outlet RT’s mobile apps from its Windows App store and ban ads on Russian state-sponsored media. Google barred RT and other Russian channels from receiving money for ads on websites, apps and YouTube videos, similar to a move by Facebook. 
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Avalanche forecasters use a slew of technology to predict avalanche risk and help lovers of backcountry winter sports to be prepared. From Boulder Colorado, Shelley Schlender reports. Video editors – Shelley Schlender, Luis Da Costa.
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As Russia’s war in Ukraine plays out for the world on social media, big tech platforms are moving to restrict Russian state media from using their platforms to spread propaganda and misinformation.

Google announced Tuesday that it’s blocking the YouTube channels of those outlets in Europe “effective immediately” but acknowledged “it’ll take time for our systems to fully ramp up.”

Other U.S.-owned tech companies have offered more modest changes so far: limiting the Kremlin’s reach, labeling more of this content so that people know it originated with the Russian government, and cutting Russian state organs off from whatever ad revenue they were previously making. 

The changes are a careful balancing act intended to slow the Kremlin from pumping propaganda into social media feeds without angering Russian officials to the point that they yank their citizens’ access to platforms during a crucial time of war, said Katie Harbath, a former public policy director for Facebook. 

“They’re trying to walk this very fine line; they’re doing this dance,” said Harbath, who now serves as director of technology and democracy at the International Republican Institute. “We want to stand up to Russia, but we also don’t want to get shut down in the country. How far can we push this?” 

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, announced Monday that it would restrict access to Russia’s RT and Sputnik services in Europe, following a statement by European Union President Ursula von der Leyen over the weekend that officials are working to bar the sites throughout the EU. 

Google followed Tuesday with a European ban of those two outlets on YouTube.

The U.S. has not taken similar action or applied sanctions to Russian state media, leaving the American-owned tech companies to wrestle with how to blunt the Kremlin’s reach on their own. 

The results have been mixed. 

RT and other Russian-state media accounts are still active on Facebook in the U.S. Twitter announced Monday that after seeing more than 45,000 tweets daily from users sharing Russian state-affiliated media links in recent days, it will add labels to content from the Kremlin’s websites. The company also said it would not recommend or direct users to Russian-affiliated websites in its search function.

Over the weekend, the Menlo Park, California-based company announced it was banning ads from Russian state media and had removed a network of 40 fake accounts, pages and groups that published pro-Russian talking points. The network used fictitious persons posing as journalists and experts, but didn’t have much of an audience.

Facebook began labeling state-controlled media outlets in 2020.

Meanwhile, Microsoft announced it wouldn’t display content or ads from RT and Sputnik, or include RT’s apps in its app store. And Google’s YouTube restricted Russian-state media from monetizing the site through ads, although the outlets are still uploading videos every few minutes on the site.

By comparison, the hands-off approach taken by TikTok, a Chinese platform popular in the U.S. for short, funny videos, has allowed pro-Russian propaganda to flourish on its site. The company did not respond to messages seeking comment.

One recent video posted to RT’s TikTok channel features a clip of Steve Bannon, a former top adviser to ex-President Donald Trump who now hosts a podcast with a penchant for misinformation and conspiracy theories. 

“Ukraine isn’t even a country. It’s kind of a concept,” Bannon said in the clip, echoing a claim by Russian President Vladimir Putin. “So when we talk about sovereignty and self-determination it’s just a corrupt area where the Clintons have turned into a colony where they can steal money.”

Already, Facebook’s efforts to limit Russian state media’s reach have drawn ire from Russian officials. Last week, Meta officials said they had rebuffed Russia’s request to stop fact-checking or labeling posts made by Russian state media. Kremlin officials responded by restricting access to Facebook.

The company has also denied requests from Ukrainian officials who have asked Meta to remove access to its platforms in Russia. The move would prevent everyday Russians from using the platforms to learn about the war, voice their views or organize protests, according to Nick Clegg, recently named the company’s vice president of global affairs.

“We believe turning off our services would silence important expression at a crucial time,” Clegg wrote on Twitter Sunday.

More aggressive labeling of state media and moves to de-emphasize their content online might help reduce the spread of harmful material without cutting off a key information source, said Alexandra Givens, CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based non-profit. 

“These platforms are a way for dissidents to organize and push back,” Givens said. “The clearest indication of that is the regime has been trying to shut down access to Facebook and Twitter.”

Russia has spent years creating its sprawling propaganda apparatus, which boasts dozens of sites that target millions of people in different languages. That preparation is making it hard for any tech company to mount a rapid response, said Graham Shellenberger at Miburo Solutions, a firm that tracks misinformation and influence campaigns. 

“This is a system that has been built over 10 years, especially when it comes to Ukraine,” Shellenberger said. “They’ve created the channels, they’ve created the messengers. And all the sudden now, we’re starting to take action against it.”

Redfish, a Facebook page that is labeled as Russian-state controlled media, has built up a mostly U.S. and liberal-leaning audience of more than 800,000 followers over the years. 

The page has in recent days posted anti-U.S. sentiment and sought to down play Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, calling it a “military operation” and dedicating multiple posts to highlighting anti-war protests across Russia. 

One Facebook post also used a picture of a map to highlight airstrikes in other parts of the world. 

“Don’t let the mainstream media’s Eurocentrism dictate your moral support for victims of war,” the post read. 

Last week, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia sent letters to Google, Meta, Reddit, Telegram, TikTok and Twitter urging them to curb such Russian influence campaigns on their websites. 

“In addition to Russia’s established use of influence operations as a tool of strategic influence, information warfare constitutes an integral part of Russian military doctrine,” Warner wrote.
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Twitter announced Monday that it will start labeling and making it harder for users to see tweets about the invasion of Ukraine that contain information from Russian state media outlets like RT and Sputnik.

“For years we’ve provided more context about state-affiliated media while not accepting ad $ or amplifying accounts,” Twitter said in a tweet. “With many looking for credible info due to the conflict in Ukraine, we’re now adding labels on Tweets linking to state media & reducing the content’s visibility.”

 

Twitter said it had seen over 45,000 tweets a day from people sharing links to Russian state media, much more than coming from state-sponsored accounts.

Twitter began to de-amplify Russian state media accounts in 2020 and had earlier banned Russian state media from advertising.

The announcement Monday will impact individuals sharing links from those entities.

The move is the latest spat between U.S. social media companies and Russia.

Twitter has been slowed down in Russia several times, most recently on Saturday, and last week, Russia said it would limit Russians’ access to some features of Facebook, saying the company was involved in censorship.

Google and Facebook have also banned Russian state media from monetizing their accounts.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters.
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YouTube on Saturday barred Russian state-owned media outlet RT and other Russian channels from receiving money for advertisements that run with their videos, similar to a move by Facebook, after the invasion of Ukraine.

Citing “extraordinary circumstances,” YouTube said in a statement that it was “pausing a number of channels’ ability to monetize on YouTube, including several Russian channels affiliated with recent sanctions.” Ad placement is largely controlled by YouTube.

Videos from the affected channels also will come up less often in recommendations, YouTube spokesperson Farshad Shadloo said. He added that RT and several other channels would no longer be accessible in Ukraine due to “a government request.”

Ukraine Digital Minister Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted earlier on Saturday that he contacted YouTube “to block the propagandist Russian channels such as Russia 24, TASS, RIA Novosti.”

RT did not immediately respond to a request for comment. YouTube did not name the other channels it had restricted.

For years, lawmakers and some users have called on YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google, to take greater action against channels with ties to the Russian government out of concern that they spread misinformation and should not profit from that.

Russia received an estimated $7 million to $32 million over the two-year period ended December 2018 from ads across 26 YouTube channels it backed, digital researcher Omelas told Reuters at the time.

YouTube previously has said that it does not treat state-funded media channels that comply with its rules any differently than other channels when it comes to sharing ad revenue.

Meta Platforms Inc, owner of Facebook, on Friday barred Russian state media from running ads or generating revenue from ads on its services anywhere in the world.
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The Biden administration announced on Tuesday actions taken by the federal government and private industry that it says will bolster the supply chain of rare earths and other critical minerals used in technologies from household appliances and electronics to defense systems. They say these steps will reduce the nation’s dependence on China, a major producer of these elements. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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The United States and its Western allies are bracing for the possibility that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would have a ripple effect in cyberspace, even if Western entities are not initially the intended target.

“I am absolutely concerned,” U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told the virtual Munich Cyber Security Conference on Thursday when asked about the chances of catastrophic spillover from a cyberattack on Ukraine.

“It’s not hypothetical,” Monaco said, pointing to the June 2017 “NotPetya” virus, engineered by Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU.

The virus initially targeted a Ukrainian accounting website but went on to hobble companies around the world, including Danish shipping giant Maersk and U.S.-based FedEx.

“Companies of any size and of all sizes would be foolish not to be preparing right now,” Monaco said. “They need to be shields-up and really be on the most heightened level of alert.”

Monaco is not the first high-ranking U.S. official to warn that potential Russian actions in cyberspace might reverberate in unexpected ways.

“We’ve seen this play before,” U.S. National Cyber Director Chris Inglis warned a virtual audience earlier this month. Like Monaco, he alluded to the NotPetya attack: “It got out of its reservoir, so to speak, and it then eviscerated broad swaths of infrastructure across Europe and across the United States.”

U.S. Homeland Security Department officials said that for the moment, there were no specific or credible threats indicating an attack like NotPetya is about to be unleashed against the United States. But they said they were not taking any chances and were closely collaborating with Ukraine and other allies, just in case.

Russia’s record

“We are all hands on deck,” Homeland Security Undersecretary Robert Silvers told the Munich Cyber Security Conference on Thursday.

“It’s no secret that Russia has proven itself willing to use cyber means to achieve its broader geopolitical objectives,” Silvers added, pointing to Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s energy grid in 2015.

Some officials remained concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin would give the order to target countries beyond Ukraine as part of any military action against Ukraine.

“I don’t think Ukraine is his goal,” said Jaak Tarien, the director of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence in Estonia.

“Putin said in 2007 at the Munich Security Conference that he is sick and tired of the existing security architecture and he wants to change that, and he’s still at it,” Tarien told Thursday’s cybersecurity conference. His goal is “to get U.S. allies to fight amongst each other and disrupt our unity. So cyber is a really, really good way to do that.”

U.S. agencies are likewise worried that as tensions escalate, Russia may be tempted to ramp up cyber operations.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI and the National Security Agency issued a joint advisory warning that Kremlin-linked actors might use a variety of techniques to target U.S. defense contractors. 

Not all cyber experts are convinced Russia will resort to cyberattacks to hurt the West, even if the U.S. and its allies make good on promises to hit Moscow with severe economic sanctions.

“I don’t think that cyber [attacks] from state actors is going to be the first or the preferred mechanism for response,” Dmitri Alperovitch, the co-founder of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, told the Munich Cyber Security Conference.

“Russia has enormous leverage in the economic sphere, even outside of cyber, to respond through export control measures, for example, on critical materials like aluminum and uranium and titanium and palladium and many other things that will do a lot to hurt the U.S. economy and the global economy,” he said.

Alperovitch also cautioned that Russia might be willing to let cybercriminals do the work instead, perhaps releasing a number of ransomware actors it has arrested in recent weeks.

“That would send an unmistakable, even unspoken message to the Russian cybercrime ecosystem that it’s open season on Western organizations,” he said.
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U.S. auto safety regulators have launched another investigation of Tesla, this time tied to complaints that its cars can come to a stop for no apparent reason.  

The government says it has 354 complaints from owners during the past nine months about “phantom braking” in Tesla Models 3 and Y. The probe covers an estimated 416,000 vehicles from the 2021 and 2022 model years.  

No crashes or injuries were reported. 

The vehicles are equipped with partially automated driver-assist features, such as adaptive cruise control and “Autopilot,” which allow them to automatically brake and steer within their lanes. 

Documents posted Thursday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration say the vehicles can unexpectedly brake at highway speeds.  

“Complainants report that the rapid deceleration can occur without warning, and often repeatedly during a single drive cycle,” the agency said. 

Many owners in the complaints say they feared a rear-end crash on a freeway. 

The probe is another enforcement effort by the agency that include Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” software. Despite their names, neither feature can legally drive the vehicles without people supervising. 

Messages were left Thursday seeking comment from Tesla. 

It’s the fourth formal investigation of the Texas automaker in the past three years, and NHTSA is supervising 15 Tesla recalls since January 2021. In addition, the agency has sent investigators to at least 33 crashes involving Teslas using driver-assist systems since 2016 in which 11 people were killed. 

In one of the complaints, a Tesla owner from Austin, Texas, reported that a Model Y on Autopilot brakes repeatedly for no reason on two-lane roads and freeways. 

“The phantom braking varies from a minor throttle response to decrease speed to full emergency braking that drastically reduces the speed at a rapid pace, resulting in unsafe driving conditions for occupants of my vehicle as well as those who might be following behind me,” the owner wrote in a complaint filed February 2. People who file complaints are not identified in NHTSA’s public database.  

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been fighting with U.S. and California government agencies for years, sparring with NHTSA and the Securities and Exchange Commission.  

Last week, NHTSA made Tesla recall nearly 579,000 vehicles in the U.S. because a “Boombox” function can play sounds over an external speaker and obscure audible warnings for pedestrians of an approaching vehicle. Musk, when asked on Twitter why the company agreed to the recall, responded: “The fun police made us do it (sigh).” 

Michael Brooks, acting executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said it’s encouraging to see NHTSA’s enforcement actions “after years of turning the other way,” with Tesla. But he said the company keeps releasing software onto U.S. roads that isn’t tested to make sure it’s safe. 

“A piecemeal investigative approach to each problem that raises its head does not address the larger issue in Tesla’s safety culture — the company’s continued willingness to beta test its technology on the American public while misrepresenting the capabilities of its vehicles,” Brooks wrote in an email Thursday. 

Other recent recalls by Tesla were for “Full Self-Driving” equipped vehicles that were programmed to run stop signs at slow speeds, heating systems that don’t clear windshields quickly enough, seat belt chimes that don’t sound to warn drivers who aren’t buckled up, and to fix a feature that allows movies to play on touch screens while cars are being driven. Those issues were to be fixed with online software updates. 

In August, NHTSA announced a probe of Teslas on Autopilot failing to stop for emergency vehicles parked on roadways. That investigation covers a dozen crashes that killed one person and injured 17 others.  

Thursday’s investigation comes after Tesla recalled nearly 12,000 vehicles in October for a similar phantom braking problem. The company sent out an online software update to fix a glitch with its more sophisticated “Full Self-Driving” software. 

Tesla did a software update in late September that was intended to improve detection of emergency vehicle lights in low-light conditions. 

Selected Tesla drivers have been beta testing the “Full Self-Driving” software on public roads. NHTSA also has asked the company for information about the testing, including a Tesla requirement that testers not disclose information. 

 
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Google said Wednesday it plans to limit tracking and data sharing for users of its Android operating system, which is used by over 2.5 billion people around the world.

The change, which won’t take effect for at least two years, comes in response to growing pressure on tech companies to increase privacy by limiting tracking.

Google, which dominates the online advertising market, currently assigns IDs to each Android device and then collects highly valuable data on users that allows advertisers to target them with ads based on their interests and activities.

Google said it would test alternatives to those IDs or get rid of them entirely.

“These solutions will limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID,” the company said in a blog post. “We’re also exploring technologies that reduce the potential for covert data collection.”

“Our goal … is to develop effective and privacy-enhancing advertising solutions, where users know their information is protected, and developers and businesses have the tools to succeed on mobile,” Google added.

Google’s move follows Apple’s announcement last year that it would allow users to decide if they wanted to be tracked or not.

Google made $61 billion in advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to The Washington Post.
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A Nigerian rights group has filed a lawsuit to force authorities to publish an agreement reached with Twitter in January to lift a block on the social media company. The rights group says the failure by Nigerian authorities to publish all the details of the agreement raises concerns about citizens’ rights and censorship.

A Nigerian rights group, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), said this week that authorities ignored its request last month to publish the agreement.

The lawsuit seeks a court order compelling authorities to publish details of the agreement reached with Twitter before the company restored access to the site in Nigeria.

Nigeria suspended Twitter last June for deleting a tweet from President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened regional separatists and referred to the 1960s war in the Biafra region.

Nigerian authorities lifted the ban in January, boasting that its new engagement with the company will create jobs and generate revenue for the country.

But rights groups are concerned the terms of agreement may include clauses that violate the rights of citizens, says Kolawole Oluwadare, a deputy director at SERAP.

“If this agreement has the tendency to impact on the rights of Nigerians to freedom of expression, it’s important that Nigerians have access to the agreement, scrutinize the terms and critique it if necessary, because of the effect it will have on our ability to use Twitter freely,” said Oluwadare. “How are we sure that those terms do not necessarily affect even the rights to privacy? I’m talking about the access of Nigerian government to the data of Nigerians.”

Nigerian authorities are often accused of trying to stifle free speech.

In 2019, lawmakers considered a bill that sought to punish statements on social media deemed to diminish public confidence in the president or government officials. The bill never passed.

This week, Nigerian Information Minister Lai Mohammed criticized Twitter and the Canadian government as having double standards citing the truckers protest against COVID-19 mandates in Canada.

“Twitter actively supported the EndSARS protesters and even raised funds,” said Mohammed. “These are the same entities that are now rushing to distance themselves from the protest in Canada and even denying them the use of their platforms.”

But Amnesty International spokesperson Seun Bakare has this to say: “International human rights laws are clear on standards that even platforms like Twitter and Facebook must uphold,” said Bakare. “They must uphold the fundamental tenets of freedom of expression, and access to information and they must not bend their rules just to please any government at all.”

Under its agreement with Twitter, Nigeria said the company agreed to be legally registered in the country, run a local office, appoint country representatives to interface with authorities, pay taxes and enroll officials in its partner support portals.

It remains unclear if Nigerian officials have the ability to monitor and block prohibited content.

An ECOWAS court of justice is scheduled to rule on SERAP’s lawsuit this week.
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The technology industry has long employed mostly men in technical roles. But a nonprofit group in Seattle, Washington is trying to change that. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya reports.
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Several senior members of President Joe Biden’s administration led the charge Thursday for a significant practical expansion of the nationwide use of electric vehicles.

The federal government is “teaming up with states and the private sector to build a nationwide network of EV chargers by 2030 to help create jobs, fight the climate change crisis, and ensure that this game-changing technology is affordable and accessible for every American,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg outside the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

In the largest investment of its kind, the Biden administration is to distribute $5 billion to begin building up to a half million roadside rapid charging stations across the country for electric cars and trucks.

To rid EV drivers of “range anxiety,” there will be a “seamless network” of charging stations along the nation’s highways, said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

“Most of them will have more than one [charging] port associated with them,” Granholm added.

“The future is electric, and this administration is moving toward it at lightning speed,” she said.

“Soon we’ll be rolling out an additional two and a half billion [dollars] for a new grant program with even more funding for chargers at the community level across the country,” Buttigieg announced.

Most EVs are hampered from driving long distances by the gap between charging stations and the time it takes to recharge their batteries, which have limited range. Most new electric cars can travel about 500 kilometers or less between charging stops, although some models with ranges beyond 800 kilometers are set to come on the market in the next several years.

The federal money being distributed will “help states create a network of EV charging stations along designated Alternative Fuel Corridors, particularly along the Interstate Highway System,” according to the Transportation Department.

It is estimated that nearly $40 billion will need to be spent to build public charging stations to reach the goal of 100% EV sales in the United States by 2035.

Some analysts see a bumpy road toward Biden’s clean energy destination.

“EVs do not necessarily generate lower carbon emissions than gasoline-powered vehicles,” said Jeff Miron, vice president of research at the Cato Institute, a public policy think tank. “The energy needed to charge batteries comes from somewhere, and in some parts of the country, that source tends to be coal, which generates even more carbon than gasoline,” he told VOA.

“Building charging stations will lower the cost of using EVs, which might encourage more driving,” added Miron, who is also a senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University. “More generally, unless an anti-carbon policy raises the price of using carbon-based fuels, it is unlikely to be the most efficient way to reduce carbon emissions.”

To tap the funds, the 50 states must submit an EV Infrastructure Deployment Plan by August 1, with approvals from the federal government to come by the end of the following month.

The federal guidance requests that states explain how they will deliver projects with at least 40% of the benefits going to disadvantaged communities.

The Biden White House has an initiative named “Justice40,” which calls for a minimum of 40% of the federal funds for climate mitigation and clean energy to go to disadvantaged areas.

The initial $5 billion in funds for the public charging stations comes from the $1 trillion infrastructure law. The investment is seen as a significant contribution toward the president’s stated goal of cutting carbon emissions caused by transportation and ensuring half of new cars are electric by 2030.

“We will have to expand both the transmission grid as well as the sources of clean energy that we add to it in order to get to the president’s goal,” acknowledged Granholm.
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As if we didn’t have enough to worry about: Some scientists are warning about the inevitable catastrophic effects on modern life from a super-sized solar storm. 

These outbursts from the sun, which eject energy in the form of magnetic fields and billions of tons of plasma gas known as “flares,” are unpredictable and difficult to anticipate. 

The Earth suffers a devastating direct hit every century or two, according to recent analysis of scientific data and historic accounts. In the past, these were mainly celestial events with spectacular aurora light shows but scant impact on humanity. Modern technology, however, is vulnerable to the shocks from extreme solar storms.  

“It’s not as rare as an asteroid or a comet hitting the Earth, but it’s something that really needs to be dealt with by policymakers,” said Daniel Baker, distinguished professor of planetary and space physics at the University of Colorado. “Certainly, in the longer term, it’s not a question of if but when.”  

Astrophysicists estimate the likelihood of a solar storm capable of causing catastrophe to be as high as 12% in a decade.  

“It’s just a matter of time,” according to professor Raimund Muscheler, chair of quaternary sciences in the geology department of Lund University in Sweden. “One has to be aware of it and one has to calculate the risks and be prepared as much as possible.” 

A new study of ancient ice samples conducted by the Swedish scientist concludes that a previously unknown, huge solar storm about 9,200 years ago would have crippled communications if it had hit Earth in modern times. 

“A failure in one kind of sector can propagate through the system and affect a lot of other things, and I think that’s probably the thing that worries me most about storms is that they can be widespread and can have consequences in all kinds of systems that that we might not otherwise think about,” Baker said.   

A relatively minor solar storm, that caused a disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field, is blamed for the loss of as many as 40 of the 49 Starlink internet-access satellites launched February 3 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  

Phases of disturbance

When the sun shoots out energy, it affects Earth in phases. The first occurs here eight minutes after the solar event 150 million kilometers away, the time it takes light to travel from the sun. 

The initial trouble occurs on the daylight side of the planet from the early arriving X-rays, which dramatically disrupt the ionosphere — where the Earth’s atmosphere meets space — and radio communications. They also create additional drag on some satellites, degrading their orbits, which is what happened to the Starlink satellites. 

In subsequent minutes and hours, highly charged particles unleash a radioactive storm, posing a danger to astronauts in orbit.  

The third phase, known as the coronal mass ejection — gas and magnetic field explosions on the surface of the sun — disturbs the planet’s magnetosphere, lighting up the sky and inducing electrical currents on the surface, which can overload power grids and speed corrosion of pipelines. 

“The geomagnetic storm can actually cause transformers to burn through if they are not adequately protected,” said Muscheler of Lund University.  

The power industry in North America has taken steps in recent years to harden its infrastructure to protect from the dangerous surges. U.S. government agencies have a program to deploy emergency transformers to replace those that would fail. 

“Although the U.S. government has estimated the cost of a severe space weather event to be in the billions, this worst-case scenario is typically not considered by most policy planners,” said Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, assistant professor in the computer science department at the University of California, Irvine. “In short, the risk is well-known, but not always considered during design and planning in most cases.” 

Long-distance fiber-optic and submarine telecommunications cables at higher latitudes, where the Earth is more exposed, can also suffer serious damage.   

“The U.S. is highly susceptible to disconnection from Europe,” Jyothi wrote in a recent research paper. “Europe is in a vulnerable location but is more resilient due to the presence of a larger number of shorter cables. Asia has relatively high resilience with Singapore acting as a hub with connections to several countries.”

The sun frequently hurls big flares at Earth, but most are not large enough to wreak havoc or don’t strike the planet directly. But, as SpaceX experienced this week, even some of the less severe flares can neutralize satellites.   

“The timing is unfortunate for SpaceX,” said Bill Murtagh, program coordinator for the Space Weather Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He added that the 1,500 SpaceX satellites already in orbit were not affected.  

Any major solar storm poses a threat to Global Positioning System satellites, which provide accurate time signals and precise navigation, technology critical in modern life from agriculture to aviation.  

A big storm can also trigger ozone depletion, meaning there are possible effects on the terrestrial climate, according to atmospheric scientists.  

Previous disruptions

The societal reactions to the solar outbursts of past centuries now seem quaint, although they were sensational events at the time.  

When an intense geomagnetic storm hit the Earth in September 1859, known as the Carrington Event, telegraph systems across North America and Europe failed and some operators reported receiving electrical shocks.  

A solar storm in March 1989 caused power failures in Quebec, Canada.

The Halloween Storms of 2003 affected more than half of the orbiting satellites, and disrupted aviation for more than a day because planes could not be accurately tracked. Electrical service was also knocked out in parts of Europe for several hours, and transformers in South Africa were permanently damaged.  

Since the Carrington Event, state-of-the-art communication has gone from the telegraph to the internet.  

“Are we ready for a Carrington class event? No, we still have work to do,” Murtagh of NOAA told VOA.  

“While the frequency of climate disasters is increasing gradually, we will be caught by surprise by an extreme solar event that causes significant disruptions. Most people alive today have never experienced an extreme space weather event that has a global impact during our lifetime,” Jyothi of University of California-Irvine told VOA.  

She also warned that solar superstorms could cause large-scale internet outages covering the entire globe and lasting several months. 

The geomagnetic storms tend to happen more frequently when there are more sunspots (each such freckle on the sun being about the size of Earth). The sun is heading into a new cycle, meaning there is an increasing likelihood of disruptive events as this cycle ramps up to its predicted peak in July 2025. 

“We’re going to see more sunspots, more solar flares, more eruptions and consequently more effects on technology here on Earth,” Murtagh said.  

Intensity levels

One bit of good news: Solar scientists predict this cycle will be less intense than the most active cycles of past centuries. 

Society in the 21st century, however, seems unprepared for the consequences of cascading inter-connected technological failings likely to be caused by future major storms.  

“The sun is the giver of life, but it can be cruel too — especially on the technology we rely on for so much of what we do today,” Murtagh said.  

Congress passed a bill in 2020 directing the National Security Foundation, NASA and the Defense Department to continue supporting basic research related to space weather.  

Some other governments seem less focused on the issue.  

Baker recalls a letter he received from a concerned woman in France who contacted officials there for advice on how to prepare for a major geo-magnetic storm.   

“We suggest you buy a chocolate cake, eat it and wait for the end of the world,” she was told, according to Baker.       

 
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Media giant News Corp is investigating a cyberattack that has accessed the email and documents of some of its employees and journalists.

On Friday, New York-based News Corp, whose entities include The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, sent an internal email to staff, stating that it had been the target of “persistent nation-state attack activity.”

“On January 20th, News Corp discovered attack activity on a system used by several of our business units,” David Kline, News Corp chief technology officer, wrote in the email.

News Corp said that as soon as it discovered the attack, it notified law enforcement and launched an investigation with the help of Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm.

The cyberattack affected a “limited number of business email accounts and documents” from News Corp headquarters as well as its News Technology Services, Dow Jones, News UK and New York Post businesses.

“Our preliminary analysis indicates that foreign government involvement may be associated with this activity, and that some data was taken,” Kline wrote. “We will not tolerate attacks on our journalism, nor will we be deterred from our reporting.”

“Mandiant assesses that those behind this activity have a China nexus, and we believe they are likely involved in espionage activities to collect intelligence to benefit China’s interests,” Dave Wong, Mandiant vice president and incident responder, said in an email to VOA.

Wong’s suspicion echoed that of human rights groups, which have also faced an increase in cyberattacks thought to originate from a “foreign government” they also believe is China.

Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the U.S., told VOA in an email Friday that rather than making allegations based on speculations, he hoped there could be “a professional, responsible and evidence-based approach” to identifying cyberattacks.

“China is a staunch defender of cybersecurity and has long been a main victim of cyberthefts and attacks,” Liu said. “China firmly opposes and combats cyberattacks and cybertheft in all forms.”

Rights groups targeted

Cyberattacks might be used to intimidate those who are critical of the Chinese government, according to Peter Irwin, senior program officer for advocacy and communications at Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) in Washington.

“They might want journalists to think twice before they continue to do critical work uncovering issues in the country,” Irwin told VOA, adding that his organization had also seen a major spike in cyberattacks believed to be from China in recent weeks, targeting its website and staff email.

Uyghur rights groups such as UHRP have been calling for a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics on social media, using the hashtag #GenocideGames and citing allegations of human rights abuses of Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic groups in Xinjiang, where China has been accused of arbitrarily detaining more than 1 million people in internment camps.

On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that pro-China accounts had flooded Twitter messages with the #GenocideGames hashtag. Hashtag flooding is the act of hijacking a hashtag on social media platforms to dilute or change its meaning.

In early December, the U.S. announced a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, citing China’s “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.”

Beijing denies accusations of mass detention and says that all ethnic groups in Xinjiang “live in together in harmony” and experience “healthy and balanced development.”

Tahir Imin, a Uyghur activist and founder of the Washington-based Uyghur Times, says his news organization has long been the target of cyberattacks he believes are coming from China.

Volexity, a Washington-based cybersecurity firm, stated in a September 2019 blog post that “cyberspace has become a battleground for the Uyghur people. The level of surveillance occurring in China against Uyghurs extends well beyond their borders and has fully entered the digital realm.”

“Recently, especially starting from January 10, 2022, we have seen more cyberattacks by unknown hackers aimed at the main index of English and Chinese websites of Uyghur Times,” Imin told VOA, adding that his organization’s email server had also been the target of similar attacks.

 

FBI assessment

In a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that in the U.S., Beijing had unleashed “a massive, sophisticated hacking program that is bigger than those of every other major nation combined.”

“They’re not just hacking on a huge scale but causing indiscriminate damage to get to what they want,” Wray said. “Like in the recent Microsoft Exchange hack, which compromised the networks of more than 10,000 American companies in a single campaign alone.”

According to Salih Hudayar, president and founder of the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement, a Washington-based Uyghur independence advocacy group, his group’s website has seen a “severe increase” in cyberattacks in recent weeks, especially since the beginning of the Beijing Winter Games.

“It seems, on average, in the past 24 hours (per hour), we had over 15 million attacks against our website,” Hudayar told VOA, adding that most of the attacks were originating from Singapore.

He said he believed Singapore was being used “to mask the true location” of the origin of the attacks. “We definitely think China is behind this attack,” Hudayar said.
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At the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, China is using technology to keep athletes and visitors safe as part of its pandemic precautions. But for visitors, the use of technology can come with security and privacy concerns. Michelle Quinn reports. Carolyn Presutti contributed.
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More than a decade ago, technology giant Apple began telling its smartphone customers that if something was worth doing, “There’s an app for that.”

Starting now, the same can be said of fighting terrorism.

The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Monday launched its aCTknowledge mobile app, ready for download from the Apple app store and from the NCTC website.

“The app is a one stop shop to get unclassified counterterrorism information,” a NCTC official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the center’s foray into mobile apps.

Officials said a version should also be available in the coming months from Google Play, and that the information will also be available in a desktop version. 

But while the app is public, access to the full suite of features is limited to counterterrorism professionals.

NCTC officials say the initial rollout is limited to officials with the U.S. federal government and in the U.S. military.  State and local counterterrorism officials will also be getting access in the near future.

“This is a tremendous evolution of our information sharing efforts,” a NCTC expert who helped develop the aCTknowledge app told reporters.

“We’re moving from a weekly, regularized information sharing effort (via email) to a daily, near real time effort,” the expert said. “Our ability to send push notifications to partners using the app is really going to change the community, in general, because we’ll be able to immediately level-set everyone’s understanding of a counterterrorism event as it occurs.”

Like other apps, NCTC’s aCTknowledge will enable users to get notifications, search for information and follow for updates on specific terms or topics.

NCTC says the nature of the new mobile app will also allow it to see what type of information its various government partners are looking for, and make sure that data or training is made available.

Although the information being shared on the app is unclassified, officials are taking precautions to protect the systems from hackers and others who might try to misuse it.

“You’re required to use your official government email address to register,” a second NCTC expert said, speaking like the other on the condition of anonymity. “And then we have an established vetting criteria to make sure that applicants have a validated need to know.”

Officials say many of the app’s features were designed with the help of state and local first responders, including police and fire departments from across the United States.

“With the release of aCTknowledge, NCTC is delivering on our mission to innovate how we share intelligence products with our partners,” NCTC Director Christy Abizaid said in a statement late Monday. “The app empowers its users with the information they need to protect their communities from potential threats.” 
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News Corp disclosed on Friday it was the target of a cyberattack that accessed data of some employees, with its internet security adviser saying the hack was likely aimed at gathering “intelligence to benefit China’s interests.”

The publisher of the Wall Street Journal said the breach, discovered in late January, accessed emails and documents of a limited number of employees, including journalists, but added that cybersecurity firm Mandiant had contained the attack.

“Mandiant assesses that those behind this activity have a China nexus, and we believe they are likely involved in espionage activities to collect intelligence to benefit China’s interests,” David Wong, vice president of consulting at Mandiant, told Reuters.

The Chinese Embassy in the United States did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Although we are in the early stages of our investigation, we believe the activity affected a limited number of business email accounts and documents from News Corp headquarters, News Technology Services, Dow Jones, News UK, and New York Post,” company executives wrote in a letter to employees, seen by Reuters.

“Our preliminary analysis indicates that foreign government involvement may be associated with this activity, and that some data was taken.”

The company added that its other business units, including HarperCollins Publishers, Move, News Corp Australia, Foxtel, REA, and Storyful, were not targeted in the attack.

The Wall Street Journal, which reported the news first, competes with Reuters, the news division of Thomson Reuters Corp , in supplying news to media outlets.

 
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The same technology companies that helped drag the U.S. stock market back from the depths of the pandemic recession in 2021 led the market into a sharp plunge on Thursday after Meta Platforms, the company that owns Facebook, revealed that user growth on its marquee product has hit a plateau, and revenue from advertising has fallen off sharply.

Meta was not the only U.S. tech company to suffer on Thursday. Snap Inc., the owner of Snapchat; Pinterest, Twitter, PayPal, Spotify and Amazon all suffered sharp sell-offs during trading.

U.S. tech stocks are facing a variety of major challenges right now, including a possible economic slowdown, changes to privacy rules, increased regulatory pressure and competitive challenges that have pushed users — especially young people — to new platforms such as TikTok.

Every major U.S. stock index was down significantly on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling by 1.45%, the S&P 500 down 2.44%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq down 3.74%.

Meta’s Facebook struggles

Although the pain was spread broadly across the tech sector Thursday, it was the travails of Facebook that captured much of the public’s attention. The company’s shares, which were trading at $323 when the markets closed Wednesday, opened on Thursday at $242.48 and never recovered, closing at $237.76.

The 27% decline in the company’s share value translated into a loss of more than $230 billion in market value, an utterly unprecedented one-day loss for a single firm.

The share price began its tumble after the company announced for the first time ever that its total number of monthly users had not risen in the fourth quarter of 2021. Additionally, in its key North American market, Facebook saw monthly users decline slightly.

The stagnant user figures raised concerns about the company’s ability to grow even as more bad news poured in from its advertising business, which generates the overwhelming majority of the company’s profits.

Last year, Apple changed the privacy setting on its iPhones and other devices, requiring apps, including Facebook, to get each user’s explicit permission to track their activity on the internet. Prior to that change, Facebook had made extensive use of tracking software to deliver targeted advertising to its users — something its advertising clients were willing to pay a significant premium for.

Since Apple instituted the change, the majority of users have declined to allow Facebook to track their browsing, greatly diminishing the company’s ability to target advertisements. On Thursday, Meta Chief Financial Officer David Wehner told investors the company expects the changes to cost it $10 billion in advertising revenue in 2022.

Trouble with young users

Facebook has long struggled to attract younger users to its platform, and on Thursday, company officials admitted that the firm is finding it difficult to compete with TikTok, an app created by the Chinese firm ByteDance, which allows users to share brief videos.

In a call with investors, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company’s answer to TikTok, a service called Reels, is still being developed.

“Over time, we think that there is potential for a tremendous amount of overall engagement growth” he said. “We think it’s definitely the right thing to lean into this and push as hard to grow Reels as quickly as possible and not hold on the brakes at all, even though it may create some near-term slower growth than we would have wanted.”

Zuckerberg, who holds 55% of the voting shares of Meta, giving him de facto control of the company, saw his personal wealth fall by an estimated $24 billion as a result of Thursday’s market rout.

Economic headwinds

Over the past year, investors have consistently pushed the share prices of U.S. tech firms higher. Now, though, with the Federal Reserve preparing a series of interest rate increases meant to cool the U.S. economy and slow price inflation, investors appear to be reconsidering the prices they are willing to pay.

Investors typically judge the value of a stock based on its price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, which is determined by dividing the share price by the fraction of the company’s earnings represented by an individual share of stock.

When a company’s shares trade at a high P/E ratio that is usually because investors expect the underlying business to continue growing. However, that growth can be hampered by a slowdown in the broader economy, something many investors expect to see in the coming m

Political challenges

In addition to concerns about economic headwinds, the tech sector is facing a distinctly unfriendly regulatory environment in the U.S. Lawmakers in both parties have expressed their concern that big technology companies enjoy too much influence over areas like popular culture and political discourse but face too little accountability.

Facebook and its subsidiary, Instagram, were subjected to hostile congressional hearings last year, after a whistleblower revealed internal documents that showed the companies understood that their products could be harmful to some users but took little action to address the issue.

During the hearings, high-profile lawmakers, including Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, called for Facebook to be broken up into multiple, smaller companies.

 
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For teachers at a middle school in New Mexico’s largest city, the first inkling of a widespread tech problem came during an early morning staff call.

On the video, there were shout-outs for a new custodian for his hard work, and the typical announcements from administrators and the union rep. But in the chat, there were hints of a looming crisis. Nobody could open attendance records, and everyone was locked out of class rosters and grades.

Albuquerque administrators later confirmed the outage that blocked access to the district’s student database — which also includes emergency contacts and lists of which adults are authorized to pick up which children — was due to a ransomware attack.

“I didn’t realize how important it was until I couldn’t use it,” said Sarah Hager, a Cleveland Middle School art teacher.

Cyberattacks like the one that canceled classes for two days in Albuquerque’s biggest school district have become a growing threat to U.S. schools, with several high-profile incidents reported since last year. And the coronavirus pandemic has compounded their effects: More money has been demanded, and more schools have had to shut down as they scramble to recover data or even manually wipe all laptops.

“Pretty much any way that you cut it, incidents have both been growing more frequent and more significant,” said Doug Levin, director of the K12 Security Information Exchange, a Virginia-based nonprofit that helps schools defend against cybersecurity risk.

Precise data is hard to come by since most schools are not required to publicly report cyberattacks. But experts say public school systems — which often have limited budgets for cybersecurity expertise — have become an inviting target for ransomware gangs.

The pandemic also has forced schools to turn increasingly toward virtual learning, making them more dependent on technology and more vulnerable to cyber-extortion. School systems that have had instruction disrupted include those in Baltimore County and Miami-Dade County, along with districts in New Jersey, Wisconsin and elsewhere.

Levin’s group has tracked well over 1,200 cyber security incidents since 2016 at public school districts across the country. They included 209 ransomware attacks, when hackers lock data up and charge to unlock it; 53 “denial of service” attacks, where attackers sabotage or slow a network by faking server requests; 156 “Zoombombing” incidents, where an unauthorized person intrudes on a video call; and more than 110 phishing attacks, where a deceptive message tricks a user to let a hacker into their network.

Recent attacks also come as schools grapple with multiple other challenges related to the pandemic. Teachers get sick, and there aren’t substitutes to cover them. Where there are strict virus testing protocols, there aren’t always tests or people to give them.

In New York City, an attack this month on third-party software vendor Illuminate Education didn’t result in canceled classes, but teachers across the city couldn’t access grades. Local media reported the outage added to stress for educators already juggling instruction with enforcing COVID-19 protocols and covering for colleagues who were sick or in quarantine.

Albuquerque Superintendent Scott Elder said getting all students and staff online during the pandemic created additional avenues for hackers to access the district’s system. He cited that as a factor in the Jan. 12 ransomware attack that canceled classes for some 75,000 students.

The cancellations — which Elder called “cyber snow days” — gave technicians a five-day window to reset the databases over a holiday weekend.

Elder said there’s no evidence student information was obtained by hackers. He declined to say whether the district paid a ransom but noted there would be a “public process” if it did.

Hager, the art teacher, said the cyberattack increased stress on campus in ways that parents didn’t see.

Fire drills were canceled because fire alarms didn’t work. Intercoms stopped working.

Nurses couldn’t find which kids were where as positive test results came in, Hager said. “So potentially there were students on campus that probably were sick.” It also appears the hack permanently wiped out a few days worth of attendance records and grades.

Edupoint, the vendor for Albuquerque’s student information database, called Synergy, declined to comment.

Many schools choose to keep attacks under wraps or release minimal information to prevent revealing additional weaknesses in their security systems.

“It’s very difficult for the school districts to learn from each other, because they’re really not supposed to talk to each other about it because you might share vulnerabilities,” Elder said.

Last year, the FBI issued a warning about a group called PYSA, or “Protect Your System, Amigo,” saying it was seeing an increase in attacks by the group on schools, colleges and seminaries. Other ransomware gangs include Conti, which last year demanded $40 million from Broward County Public Schools, one of the nation’s largest.

Most are Russian-speaking groups that are based in Eastern Europe and enjoy safe harbor from tolerant governments. Some will post files on the dark web, including highly sensitive information, if they don’t get paid.

While attacks on larger districts garner more headlines, ransomware gangs tended to target smaller school districts in 2021 than in 2020, according to Brett Callow, a threat analyst at the firm Emsisoft. He said that could indicate bigger districts are increasing their spending on cybersecurity while smaller districts, which have less money, remain more vulnerable.

A few days after Christmas, the 1,285-student district of Truth or Consequences, south of Albuquerque, also had its Synergy student information system shut down by a ransomware attack. Officials there compared it to having their house robbed.

“It’s just that feeling of helplessness, of confusion as to why somebody would do something like this because at the end of the day, it’s taking away from our kids. And to me that’s just a disgusting way to try to, to get money,” Superintendent Channell Segura said.

The school didn’t have to cancel classes because the attack happened on break, but the network remains down, including keyless entry locks on school building doors. Teachers are still carrying around the physical keys they had to track down at the start of the year, Segura said.

In October, President Joe Biden signed the K-12 Cybersecurity Act, which calls for the federal cyber security agency to make recommendations about how to help school systems better protect themselves.

New Mexico lawmakers have been slow to expand internet usage in the state, let alone support schools on cyber security. Last week, state representatives introduced a bill that would allocate $45 million to the state education department to build a cybersecurity program by 2027.

Ideas on how to prevent future hacks and recover from existing ones usually require more work from teachers.

In the days following the Albuquerque attack, parents argued on Facebook over why schools couldn’t simply switch to pen and paper for things like attendance and grades.

Hager said she even heard the criticism from her mother, a retired school teacher.

“I said, ‘Mom, you can only take attendance on paper if you have printed out your roster to begin with,'” Hager said.

Teachers could also keep duplicate paper copies of all records — but that would double the clerical work that already bogs them down.

In an era where administrators increasingly require teachers to record everything digitally, Hager says, “these systems should work.”
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Myanmar’s military government is set to pass a new cybersecurity law that will ban the use of internet services, a move that has been condemned by digital rights activists and business groups.

The Southeast Asian country has been in turmoil since a coup by the military last February. A widespread grassroots movement has seen thousands refuse to accept military rule, with anti-coup communications and demonstrations now largely mobilized online.

But a draft bill released by the junta, if passed, would criminalize the use of virtual private networks and online gambling, carrying a punishment of one to three years’ imprisonment and fines of up to $2,800.

The first draft of the bill was released last year, but progress on the legislation slowed after substantial public outcry and industrywide criticism. The legislation is expected to become law next week.

“We are speculating the bill will actually be official within just a few days, it might come before the first of February,” Ma Htike, a digital rights activist, told VOA.

People living in Myanmar rely heavily on internet access, especially social media platforms such as Facebook, for news, and many have struggled to get online since the junta took control of the country’s telecommunication regulators after the Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Major Norwegian telecommunication operator Telenor recently quit its operations inside the country because of the political situation.

The military regularly shuts down the internet, routinely blocks social media platforms and censors what information can be found online, all in the name of ensuring national “stability.”

But political analyst Aung Thu Nyein describes the latest draft legislation as unusually severe.

“The leaked new communication law is the most draconian law restricting many freedoms and privacy of a person,” he told VOA. “This law could be a major roadblock to technological development as well, such as prohibiting the use of digital coins and blockchain technology, etc.

“It is definitely for the purpose of oppression of freedom of speech and a tool for control,” he said.

Junta-enforced regional internet blackouts make VPNs vital to accessing independent news online via private networks outside of the country.

According to Top10VPN, Myanmar went without internet access for 72 consecutive days from February to April of last year, driving demand for VPNs up by 7,200%. The report also says the shutdowns came at a cost, with Myanmar suffering nearly $3 billion in lost revenue, according to the indicators from the World Bank, The International Telecommunication Union, Eurostat and the U.S. Census.

Htike says most of Myanmar’s citizens continue to struggle with the blackouts.

“There are still various locations that the mobile internet has not been available,” she told VOA, adding that junta-backed regulators have scheduled price increases for internet subscriptions, which is likely to pose “a big obstacle” for most citizens in a country with typically low per capita incomes.

“[The] internet plays a pivot role to send information to all parts of the country, from cities to remote corners,” said Aung Htun, a journalist for Burma VJ, an informal network of professional and citizen video journalists who pool footage. “That’s why the military tried to raise the data fees higher than previously.”

In its attempts to control the flow of information, the Myanmar military has also cracked down on the country’s media. According to Reporting ASEAN, a monitoring group in Southeast Asia, 120 journalists have been arrested with 49 still detained and 16 convicted. The licenses of at least five media outlets have been revoked.

Aung Htun also says the looming internet restrictions under the new law will put people at increased risk of arrest in public, where the military sometimes randomly searches phones.

“It’s getting more difficult to hide data in your phone. It’s better to use simple ways; don’t keep any important data in your phone,” he said, adding that journalists must “stay low, and try to be in touch with your colleagues [only] by secure network.”

Freedom House, a nonprofit research institute that ranks internet freedom by country on a scale in which 100 is “most free,” placed Myanmar at 17 in 2021.

Ten foreign businesses and industry groups in Myanmar said in a joint letter they are “deeply concerned” over the latest draft of the cybersecurity law.

“If enforced, the current draft disrupts the free flow of information and directly impacts businesses’ abilities to operate legally and effectively in Myanmar,” the statement read.

Htike said the new law could force customers to break the law in order to use basic business services.

“Myanmar’s economy really declined after the coup, but still small businesses have used social media and networks, but with this kind of [restriction] it’s going to be very difficult,” she added.

Feb. 1 marks one year since the Myanmar military removed the country’s democratically elected government. To mark the anniversary, anti-coup activists have called for a silent strike, which leaves the streets of towns and cities across Myanmar deserted.

“Silent strikes are a good strategy for people to get involved,” said Htike, who also warned that risks remain whether you’re demonstrating in the streets or online.

Myanmar’s military routinely stops and searches people to check phones for evidence of VPN activity, such as whether the phone has Facebook access, which is impossible without a VPN.

They also surveil the web for digital anti-junta activity.

In a silent protest, Htike added, “it might be difficult for [the military] to do search and seizure [on empty streets], but [even] if people are active [only] online, they can [still] be targeted there.”

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, gained independence from Britain in 1948, but most of its modern history has been under military rule.

After a brief period of civilian rule, the military in November 2020 began making unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud. On Feb. 1 of 2021, the military removed the democratically elected government and arrested leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, both of whom have since been sentenced to several jail terms.

Widespread opposition to military rule has resulted in thousands of arrests and at least 1,499 killings, according to the Thai-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
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Electric vehicles are in high demand as gas prices and concerns about carbon emissions and global warming climb. From the 2022 Washington Auto Show, VOA’s Saqib Ul Islam examines where consumers and car manufacturers think all-electric vehicles are heading in the future.

Camera: Saqib Ul Islam Produced by: Saqib Ul Islam
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The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announced Friday U.S.-based telecommunications companies AT&T and Verizon can activate more of their fifth-generation, or 5G, transmitters after consultation with the agency. 

Earlier this month, the telecommunication companies agreed they would delay launching the new wireless service near key airports after weeks of legal wrangling with the nation’s largest airlines and U.S. government regulators that feared the 5G service would interfere with aircraft technology and cause massive flight disruptions. 

But in its release Friday, the FAA said both companies provided additional data about the exact location of wireless transmitters and supported more thorough analysis of how 5G C-band signals interact with aircraft instruments. 

The agency said it used that data to precisely map the size and shape of the areas around airports where 5G signals might interfere with aircraft, allowing the regulators to shrink the areas where wireless operators had to delay their antenna activations. 

The FAA said that will allow wireless providers to safely turn on more towers as they deploy new 5G service in major markets across the country. The agency expressed its appreciation for the “collaborative approach” AT&T and Verizon took in providing the data. 

The FAA says it is continuing to work with helicopter operators and others in the aviation community to ensure they can safely operate in areas of current and planned 5G deployment. 

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 

 
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