ByteDance, the Chinese company behind the wildly popular video sharing app TikTok, has rejected Microsoft’s bid to buy the app and appears to be leaning toward a deal with investors led by Oracle.  The Trump administration has given ByteDance until September 20 to make a deal or stop operating inside the U.S.  On Sunday, the Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington. (Photo: Diaa Bekheet)In a statement, Microsoft said its proposal “would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests. To do this, we would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combatting disinformation.”The fate of TikTok in the U.S. hangs in the balance as it approaches the Trump administration deadline. In recent months, the video app has become a focus of U.S.-China tensions with the administration accusing the company of being answerable to the Chinese government, a claim that TikTok has denied. In August, President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning TikTok and WeChat, the Chinese messaging app. But even with security concerns about TikTok, Americans have continued to download the app. By end of first quarter 2020, TikTok saw more than 300 million downloads in the U.S., according to Go.Verizon’s data.  Microsoft together with Walmart pursued a deal with ByteDance. A second group of investors led by Oracle emerged as a possible bidder. Oracle is one of the few Silicon Valley firms with top executives who have held fundraisers for President Trump. As the negotiations progressed, the Chinese government changed its export rules stopping TikTok from selling its valuable recommendation algorithm, dubbed “For You,” which queued up the next video for a user to watch. It’s unclear if any deal with Oracle would involve the algorithm. 
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The same Russian military intelligence outfit that hacked the Democrats in 2016 has renewed vigorous U.S. election-related targeting, trying to breach computers at more than 200 organizations including political campaigns and their consultants, Microsoft said Thursday.The intrusion attempts reflect a stepped-up effort to infiltrate the U.S. political establishment, the company said.”What we’ve seen is consistent with previous attack patterns that not only target candidates and campaign staffers but also those who they consult on key issues,” Tom Burt, a Microsoft vice president, said in a blog post. U.K. and European political groups were also probed, he added.Most of the hacking attempts by Russian, Chinese and Iranian agents were halted by Microsoft security software and the targets notified, he said. The company would not comment on who may have been successfully hacked or the impact.Although U.S. intelligence officials said last month that the Russians favor President Donald Trump and the Chinese prefer his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, Microsoft noted Thursday that Chinese state-backed hackers have targeted “high profile individuals associated with the election,” including people associated with the Biden campaign.China’s hackers largely gather intelligence for economic and political advantage, while Russia tends to weaponize stolen data to destabilize other governments.Microsoft did not assess which foreign adversary poses the greater threat to the integrity of the November presidential election. The consensus among cybersecurity experts is that Russian interference is the gravest. Senior Trump administration officials have disputed that, although without offering any evidence.”This is the actor from 2016, potentially conducting business as usual,” said John Hultquist, director of intelligence analysis at the cybersecurity firm FireEye. “We believe that Russian military intelligence continues to pose the greatest threat to the democratic process.”Fancy BearThe Microsoft post shows that Russian military intelligence continues to pursue election-related targets undeterred by U.S indictments, sanctions and other countermeasures, Hultquist said. It interfered in the 2016 campaign seeking to benefit the Trump campaign by hacking the Democratic National Committee and emails of John Podesta, the campaign manager for Hillary Clinton, and dumping embarrassing material online, congressional and FBI investigators have found.The same GRU military intelligence unit, known as Fancy Bear, that Microsoft identifies as being behind the current election-related activity also broke into voter registration databases in at least three states in 2016, though there is no evidence it tried to interfere with voting.Microsoft, which has visibility into these efforts because its software is both ubiquitous and highly rated for security, did not address whether U.S. officials who manage elections or operate voting systems have been targeted by state-backed hackers this year. U.S. intelligence officials say they have so far seen no evidence of infiltrations.Thomas Rid, a Johns Hopkins University geopolitics expert, said he was disappointed by Microsoft’s refusal to differentiate threat level by state actor.”They’re lumping in actors that operate in a very different fashion, probably to make this sound more bipartisan,” he said. “I just don’t understand why.”Microsoft said in the past year it has observed attempts by Fancy Bear to break into the accounts of people directly and indirectly affiliated with the U.S. election, including consultants serving Republican and Democratic campaigns and national and state party organizations — more than 200 groups in all.Also targeted was the center-right European People’s Party, the largest grouping in the European Parliament. A party spokesperson said the hacking attempts were unsuccessful. The German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank, was another target. A spokesperson said there was no evidence of intrusion.Hurricane PandaMicrosoft did not say whether Russian hackers had attempted to break into the Biden campaign but did say that Chinese hackers from the state-backed group known as Hurricane Panda “appears to have indirectly and unsuccessfully” targeted the Biden campaign through non-campaign email accounts belonging to people affiliated with it.The Biden campaign did not confirm the attempt, although it said in a statement that it was aware of the Microsoft report.Iranian state-backed hackers unsuccessfully tried to log into accounts of Trump campaign and administration officials between May and June of this year, the blog said.”We are a large target, so it is not surprising to see malicious activity directed at the campaign or our staff,” Trump campaign deputy press secretary Thea McDonald said. She declined further comment.Tim Murtaugh, the campaign’s communications director, said: “President Trump will beat Joe Biden fair and square and we don’t need or want any foreign interference.”In June, Google disclosed that Hurricane Panda had targeted Trump campaign staffers while Iranian hackers tried to breach accounts of Biden campaign workers. Such phishing attempts typically involve forged emails with links designed to harvest passwords or infect devices with malware.Although both Attorney General William Barr and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien have said China represents the greatest threat to U.S. elections, Microsoft’s only mention of a Trump administration official targeted by Chinese hackers is “at least one prominent individual formerly associated” with the administration.Disinformation campaignsGraham Brookie, director of digital forensic research at The Atlantic Council, disputes the claim made by Barr and O’Brien that China poses the greater threat to this year’s election. Brookie’s lab is at the forefront of unearthing and publicizing Russian disinformation campaigns.Brookie confirmed that his employer was among targets of Hurricane Panda but said there was no evidence the hacking attempts, which he said were unsuccessful, had anything to do with the 2020 election.”We have every indication that this was an instance of cyber-espionage, information gathering, as opposed to electoral interference,” he said.By contrast, Brookie said, “it’s pretty evident that the Russian attempts (Microsoft disclosed) were focused on electoral processes and groups working on that.”Microsoft noted a shift toward greater automation in Fancy Bear methods for trying to steal people’s log-in credentials, which previously largely relied on phishing. In recent months, the group has employed so-called brute-force attacks that barrage an account login with short rapid bursts of potential passwords. It has also used a different method that makes only intermittent login attempts to avoid detection.Fancy Bear has also stepped up its use of the Tor anonymizing service to hide its hacking, Microsoft said.  
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Bingo is back, this time among millennials and Gen Zers. To stave off boredom caused by the coronavirus quarantine and connect with others, millions of global millennials and Gen Zers are issuing challenges to each other on social media.  Challenges have gotten so popular that social media giant Instagram added a “challenge” story sticker to make it easier for users to create their own or nominate others.  Challenges and tags flooding social media range from drawing random oranges and tagging friends, to perfecting 15-second dances on TikTok to keep people busy, connected and entertained.  Here are some of the biggest social media trends and challenges that have gone viral.Bingo  People are making bingos about everything, whether it’s a university, zodiac sign or ethnicity. Bingo questions usually follow a “never have I ever” format that users cross off until they eliminate all the spaces on a card to make bingo. Users tag friends and post to their social media. (Courtesy of @eggtaurus via Instagram)Workout challenges The rules are simple: Film yourself doing 10 or more pushups and tag as many people as you want to challenge them to do the same. The first was the #see10do10 pushup challenge. Workout challenges include the plank challenge, the (Courtesy of Madeline Joung)Drawing challenge  Users draw digital paintings of random objects on Instagram and tag their friends to continue the chain.  Toilet paper challenge  This challenge is popular among pet owners, seeing how many stacks of toilet paper a pet can jump over, leaping over several stacks or sometimes crashing through a wall of toilet paper. 
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A teacher in Nigeria is offering free mathematics classes via Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram to help struggling students affected by the coronavirus lockdown. After almost six months, more than 1,000 students are taking her online classes, across Nigeria and even internationally. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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China’s foreign minister announced Tuesday the start of a global data security initiative, outlining principles that should be followed in areas ranging from personal information to espionage.Wang Yi announced the initiative in a video as part of conference on international cooperation. The initiative comes as the U.S. continues to put pressure on China’s largest technology companies and tries to convince countries around the world to block them.  China’s initiative has eight key points including not using technology to impair other countries’ critical infrastructure or steal data and making sure service providers don’t install backdoors in their products and illegally obtain user data.Wang, speaking in Beijing, also said the initiative seeks an end to activities that “infringe upon personal information” and opposes using technology to conduct mass surveillance against other states.The initiative says companies should also respect the laws of host countries and stop coercing domestic firms to store data generated overseas in their own territory.  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last month unveiled the “Clean Network” program, saying it is aimed at protecting citizen privacy and sensitive information from “malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party.”  Many points of the initiative appear to address some of those accusations.  In an apparent reference to Pompeo’s comments, Zhao said,” China has always been broad and level, open and cooperative. If all countries, especially those intentionally smearing and slandering China with wild allegations, could make such a promise like China, it will be beneficial to the mutual trust and cooperation on digital security issues among all countries.”The U.S. has accused China’s technology companies of posing national security threats by collecting user data and sending it back to Beijing. Companies, including Huawei and ByteDance, have denied those allegations.It is unclear if any other countries have signed on to China’s initiative and how it will be implemented and policed. 
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Many robots are being developed and used these days to maximize speed so factories can efficiently make more products.  One robot developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology is celebrated for how slow it is.  It’s called a SlothBot and visitors can see it working at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.Camera: Carlos Andres Cuervo
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Facebook Inc on Friday removed the pages of U.S. right-wing group Patriot Prayer and its founder Joey Gibson, a company spokesman told Reuters.Patriot Prayer has hosted dozens of pro-gun, pro-Trump rallies. Attendees have repeatedly clashed with left-wing groups around Portland, Oregon, where one group supporter was killed this week.The victim, 39-year-old Aaron Danielson, was walking home on Saturday night after a pro-Trump demonstration in the city when he was shot.A Facebook logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken Jan. 6, 2020.Facebook took down the pages as part of efforts to remove “violent social militias” from its social networks, spokesman Andy Stone said.The company updated its policies last month to ban groups that demonstrate significant risks to public safety.Its dangerous organizations policy now includes groups that celebrate violent acts or suggest they will use weapons, even if they are not directly organizing violence.In a statement posted on Patriot Prayer’s website, Gibson accused Facebook of a double standard.”Antifa groups murdered my friend while he was walking home, and instead of the multibillion dollar company banning Portland Antifa pages they ban Patriot Prayer, Joey Gibson and several other grandmas that are admins,” he wrote.Antifa is a largely unstructured, far-left movement whose followers broadly aim to confront those they view as authoritarian or racist.Gibson espouses non-violence but is accused by anti-fascist groups of provoking confrontations.After the shooting of Danielson he cautioned supporters not to seek revenge, but rather “push back politically, spiritually.”As of earlier this week, the Patriot Prayer page had nearly 45,000 followers on Facebook. It was created in 2017.Facebook last week removed content associated with the Kenosha Guard, a group which had posted a “call to arms” in Kenosha, Wisconsin.The company acted the day after two people were shot and killed at protests in the city, which broke out in response to the police shooting of a Black man earlier that week.Users had flagged the material to Facebook 455 times but were told initially it did not violate the company’s policies, BuzzFeed reported.
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Twitter confirmed on Thursday that an account of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal website was hacked with a series of tweets asking its followers to donate to a relief fund through cryptocurrency.
The incident comes after several Twitter accounts of prominent personalities were hacked in July.
Twitter said it was aware of the activity with Modi’s website account and has taken steps to secure it.
“We are actively investigating the situation. At this time, we are not aware of additional accounts being impacted,” a Twitter spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.
Modi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the tweets posted on the account @narendramodi_in.
The account, with over 2.5 million followers, is the official Twitter handle for Modi’s personal website and the Narendra Modi mobile application.
Modi’s personal Twitter account, which was unaffected by this incident, has over 61 million followers.
The tweets, which have since been taken down, asked the followers to donate to the PM National Relief Fund through cryptocurrency.
Hackers had in July accessed Twitter’s internal systems to hijack some of the platform’s top voices including U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, former U.S. President Barack Obama and billionaire Elon Musk, and used them to solicit digital currency. 
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Facebook Inc said on Thursday it would stop accepting new political ads in the week before the U.S. presidential election in November, bowing to concern that its loose approach to free speech could once again be exploited to interfere with the vote.
 
The world’s biggest social network also said it was creating a label for posts by candidates or campaigns that try to claim victory before the election results are official, and widening the criteria for content to be removed as voter suppression.
 
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post announcing the changes that he was concerned about the unique challenges voters would face due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has prompted a surge in voting by mail.
 
 “I’m also worried that with our nation so divided and election results potentially taking days or even weeks to be finalized, there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the country,” he said.
 
 Zuckerberg has previously defended his decision to allow for a freewheeling political conversation on Facebook, including through paid ads, which the company exempts from its fact-checking program with external partners, including Reuters.
 
 He said in his post he continued to believe that the “best antidote to bad speech is more speech,” but acknowledged that in the final days of an election, “there may not be enough time to contest new claims.”
 
 Facebook will continue to allow campaigns and others to run political ads that are already in the system, and will permit them to change spending amounts and user targeting, but will block adjustments to the ads’ content or design.
 
 Facebook has been battered by criticism, including from its own employees, since allowing several inflammatory posts by President Donald Trump to remain untouched earlier this summer, including one which contained misleading claims about mail-in ballots.
 
 Disinformation experts have also raised the alarm, echoed in threat assessments by Facebook executives, about false claims and conspiracy theories spreading in the increasingly likely scenario that official results are not immediately available on election night.
 
 Zuckerberg said Facebook was “increasingly seeing attempts to undermine the legitimacy of our elections from within our own borders” in addition to foreign influence campaigns, like the one it and U.S. intelligence agencies determined Russia carried out to meddle in the 2016 vote.
 
 Moscow has denied the allegations.
 
 To address those threats, Facebook will label any posts seeking to delegitimize the outcome of the election, he wrote. The company also will remove posts with misinformation about COVID-19 and voting, which Zuckerberg said could be used to scare people away from exercising their right to vote.
 
 Seeking to boost credible information in addition to tamping down misleading posts, Facebook will partner with Reuters to provide news in the social network’s Voting Information Center about official results.
 
 Zuckerberg said the company would not plan to make any further changes to its election policies beyond those listed in his post before the official declaration of the result.
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Pakistan has blocked access to five dating apps for their delivery of “immoral/indecent content” in the majority-Muslim nation. The state regulator, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, PTA, identified the platforms as Tinder, Grindr, Tagged, Skout and SayHi.”PTA issued notices to the above-mentioned platforms for the purpose of removing dating services and to moderate livestreaming content in accordance with the local laws of Pakistan,” PTA said Tuesday. It did not elaborate on the ban, but the country’s laws prohibit homosexuality and extra-marital relationships. The PTA statement noted that the five companies failed to respond to its directive within the stipulated time, prompting the authority to block their services in Pakistan. The statement did not elaborate on the time frame. Officials at the five companies have not commented on PTA’s action, which has been criticized at home. “PTA, deciding what adults should watch privately or not, is itself “immoral” if “morality” or “moral order” could be understood as a term in Islamic Pakistan! PTA is creating undemocratic trends; courts need to stop PTA!,” tweeted Moeed Pirzada, a prime-time TV news anchor in Pakistan.Tinder is globally popular and owned by Match Group.  FILE – A woman checks the Grindr app on her mobile phone, May 29, 2019.Grindr, which has a large following in the United States, describes itself as a social network “for gay, bi, trans, and queer people.” The PTA directive noted, however, that the authority can unblock the services if the management of their companies “assures adherence to the local laws with respect to moderating the indecent/immoral content through meaningful engagement.”Data from analytics firm Sensor Tower shows Tinder has been downloaded more than 440,000 times in Pakistan within the last 12 months, the Reuters news agency reported. Grindr, Tagged and SayHi have each been downloaded about 300,000 times. Skout has been downloaded 100,000 times during the same period, according to the data.   Last week, PTA formally asked video sharing platforms YouTube and TikTok to immediately block what PTA denounced as “vulgar, indecent, nude and hate speech content for viewing in Pakistan.”   The authorities directed both companies to tighten its content monitoring and moderation mechanism to block access to “the unlawful material” and “objectionable” content. 
 
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Facebook said Tuesday that it removed a small network of accounts and pages linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency, the “troll factory” that has used social media accounts to sow political discord in the U.S. since the 2016 presidential election.  Twitter also suspended five related accounts. The company said the tweets from these Russia-linked accounts “were low quality and spammy” and that most received few, if any, likes or retweets. The people behind the accounts recruited “unwitting” freelance journalists to post in English and Arabic, mainly targeting left-leaning audiences. Facebook said Tuesday the network’s activity focused on the U.S., U.K., Algeria and Egypt and other English-speaking countries and countries in the Middle East and North Africa.  The company said it started investigating the network based on information from the FBI about its off-Facebook activities. The network was in the early stages of development, Facebook added, and saw “nearly no engagement” on Facebook before it was removed. The network consisted of 13 Facebook accounts and two pages. About 14,000 accounts followed one or more of the pages, though the English-language page had a little over 200 followers, Facebook said.FILE – An man looks at a Facebook app on his smartphone in Amritsar, India, March 22, 2018.Still, its presence points to ongoing Russian efforts to disrupt the U.S. election and sow political discord in an already divided country. To evade detection, the people behind the network recruited Americans to do their bidding, likely unknowingly, both as journalists and as people authorized to purchase political advertisements in the U.S. Facebook said the people behind the network posted about global events ranging from racial justice in the U.S. and the U.K., NATO, the QAnon conspiracy, President Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. The network spent about $480 on advertising on Facebook, primarily in U.S. dollars. However, Facebook said less than $2 worth of those ads targeted the U.S. The network’s posts directed people to a website called PeaceData, which claims to be a global news organization that, according to a  report by research firm Graphika, “took a left-wing stance, opposing what it portrayed as Western imperialism and the excesses of capitalism.” The FBI said in a statement Tuesday that it provided information to the platforms “to better protect against threats to the nation’s security and our democratic processes.” “While technology companies independently make decisions regarding the content of their platforms and the safety of their members, the FBI is actively engaged with our federal partners, election officials, and the private sector to mitigate foreign threats to our nation’s security and our elections,” the statement said.  Separately, Twitter said Tuesday it will start adding context to its trending section, which shows some of the most popular topics on the service at any given moment. Experts and even Twitter’s own employees have expressed concerns that the trending section can be gamed to spread misinformation and abuse. Twitter uses algorithms and human employees to determine what topics are trending — it is not simply the most popular topics, but topics that are newly popular at any given time. But it’s not difficult to artificially elevate trends.  In the coming weeks, Twitter said, users in the U.S., U.K., Brazil, India and several other countries will see brief descriptions added to some trends to add context. “To be clear, we know there is more work to do to improve trends and the context updates we’re announcing today are just a small step in the right direction,” said Liz Lee, a product trust partner and Frank Oppong, a product manager, in a blog post. “We need to make trends better and we will.” 
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Getting an Amazon package delivered from the sky is closer to becoming a reality.The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it had granted Amazon approval to deliver packages by drones.Amazon said that the approval is an “important step,” but added that it is still testing and flying the drones. It did not say when it expected drones to make deliveries to shoppers.The online shopping giant has been working on drone delivery for years, but it has been slowed by regulatory hurdles. Back in December 2013, Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said in a TV interview that drones would be flying to customer’s homes within five years.Last year, Amazon unveiled self-piloting drones that are fully electric, can carry 5 pounds of goods and are designed to deliver items in 30 minutes by dropping them in a backyard. At the time, an Amazon executive said deliveries to shoppers would be happening “within months,” but more than 14 months have passed since then.Seattle-based Amazon is the third drone delivery service to win flight approval, the FAA said. Delivery company UPS and a company owned by search giant Google won approval last year.
 
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After years of planning, China now dominates the world’s production of new generation batteries that are key to transitioning away from fossil fuels. These new batteries are essential for electric vehicles and most portable consumer electronics such as cell phones and laptops.  By 2040, energy analysts estimate over half of all passenger vehicles sold worldwide could be electric, according to 2019 report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. They expect a similar percentage of light commercial vehicles in the U.S., Europe and China sales will be electric within that time, BNEF predicts. If current trends continue, most of them will likely use Chinese batteries, a key element for transitioning away from fossil fuels, and most of those batteries will be lithium ion, which are also popular for cellphones and laptops because of their high energy per unit mass relative to other electrical energy storage systems, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.“Looking at the global automotive industry chain, China, for the first time, has taken the lead in the world in the manufacturing of key parts,” state media Xinhua said in August in a report titled “China’s dominant position in batteries needs to be further consolidated.”  Switching from oil As the United States and China face off over advanced communication technologies like 5G, the world’s battery supply is not yet a major issue. But it will likely grow in importance if the U.S. continues to transition away from fossil fuel energy sources for items such as vehicles, power grids, mobile phones and laptop computers. And that could make the global battery supply an issue of national security.  For nearly half a century, American politicians have sought to protect the country from disruptions caused by foreign oil producers.  “All of our national security decisions were set against the backdrop of what they might mean to our energy security, following the 1973 Yom Kippur war when Egypt and Syria invaded Israel and the Arab nations cut off supplies to the US and allies who helped Israel.” Dan Kish, senior vice president for policy at the American Energy Alliance, a not-for-profit energy advocacy organization, told VOA. In 2019, the U.S. achieved its long-held goal of energy independence” producing enough oil and gas for its domestic needs. The achievement points to the challenge of controlling the raw materials that will power the world’s next energy revolution. According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), last year the U.S. imported 78% of its cobalt, and all of its graphite. For the foreseeable future, the country will likely need to depend on Chinese supply chains to produce the batteries that help power America’s economy.  Graphite, cobalt, lithium According to data released from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a London-based research firm for the lithium-ion battery industry, in 2019, Chinese chemical companies accounted for 80% of the world’s total output of raw materials for advanced batteries.  “Of the 136 lithium-ion battery plants in the pipeline to 2029, 101 are based in China,” the firm said in May. “China controls the processing of pretty much all the critical minerals, whether it’s rare earth, lithium, cobalt or graphite,” Pini Althaus, the chief executive of USA Rare Earth, said in a telephone interview with VOA.  A little-known Chinese company that was founded in 2011 is now the world’s biggest maker of electric vehicle batteries.  For three consecutive years ending in 2019, South Korea’s market tracker SNE Research has ranked China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) as No. 1 in the electric vehicle battery production, with a 27.9% market share. CATL makes electric-car batteries for Tesla. CATL hairman Zeng Yuqun told Bloomberg last month that they have developed a power pack that lasts more than a million miles. Among their top customers are Daimler AG, BMW and Toyota.  Battery supply chain China has focused on building capacity at every stage of the battery supply chain.  In addition to rare earths, the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries depends on some key materials like graphite, the material used in pencil tips. In 2019, China produced more than 60% of the world’s graphite, according to U.S. government research. That means Beijing can set world prices. “This is a completely untenable situation,” said Althaus, whose company has a pilot project in Colorado with the goal of producing a full range of rare earths as well as lithium.   He said that it could take the U.S. 20 to 30 years to catch up with China. “It does not matter whether it is China or any other country. It is very dangerous if the world only depends on one country to provide key raw materials.  African cobalt, Chinese factories  Cobalt has emerged as one of the hottest commodities in the new energy revolution because it is widely used in electric vehicles as well as computer and consumer electronics. But unlike graphite, which China has significant natural reserves, the country’s cobalt reserves accounts for only about 1% of the world’s total. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) produces more than 60% of the world’s mined cobalt.  But Beijing controls the global supply of this silvery-blue metal.  According to a working paper published last year by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), eight of the 14 largest cobalt mines in the DRC are Chinese-owned and account for almost half of the country’s output.    DRC mining ownership was not always controlled by China. For example, the largest mine in DRC, the Tenke Fungurume Mine where cobalt is a by-product of its copper mining, was owned by an American company until 2016. That year, for $2.65 billion, Freeport-McMoRan Inc., a leading international mining company with headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, sold its mine to China Molybdenum. China’s influence dominates cobalt processing with Chinese companies controlling about 80% of the cobalt refining industry, where it is turned into commercial-grade cobalt metal and power, according to Benchmark Minerals. World lithium reserves China is among the five top countries with the most lithium resources, according to the 2020 USGS, but it has been buying stakes in mining operations in Australia and South America where most of the world’s lithium reserves are found.  China’s Tianqi Lithium now owns 51% of the world’s largest lithium reserve, Australia’s Greenbushes lithium mine. In 2018, the same company also paid about $4 billion to become the second-largest shareholder in Sociedad Química y Minera (SQM), the largest lithium producer in Chile.  Another Chinese company, Ganfeng Lithium, now has a long-term agreement to underwrite all lithium raw materials produced by Australia’s Mount Marion mine, the world’s second-biggest, high-grade lithium reserve.  
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Facebook Inc said it would block news publishers and people in Australia from sharing news on Facebook and Instagram if a proposal to force the U.S. tech giant to pay local media outlets for content becomes law. The Australian government said in July it would require tech giants Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google to pay for news provided by media companies under a royalty-style system that is scheduled to become law this year. “This is not our first choice – it is our last. But it is the only way to protect against an outcome that defies logic and will hurt, not help, the long-term vibrancy of Australia’s news and media sector,” Facebook Australia managing director Will Easton said in a statement published on Tuesday. Following an inquiry into the state of the media market and the power of the U.S. platforms, the Australian government late last year told Facebook and Google to negotiate a voluntary deal with media companies to use their content. After those negotiations failed, Australia’s competition regulator drafted laws that it said would allow news businesses to negotiate for fair payment for their journalists’ work. Easton said the proposed legislation misunderstands the dynamic of the internet and will damage news organizations. Australia’s Ministry for Communications did not immediately respond to questions on Tuesday.  
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Forty percent of Americans back President Donald Trump’s threat to ban videosharing app TikTok if it is not sold to a U.S. buyer, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national poll, suggesting that many support the effort to separate the social media upstart from its Chinese parent.The poll published Monday, which surveyed 1,349 adult respondents across the United States, found that 40% backed Trump’s recent executive order forcing China’s ByteDance to sell its TikTok operations in the United States by Sept. 15. Thirty percent of the respondents said they opposed the move, while another 30% said they didn’t know either way.The responses were largely split along party lines, and many of those who agreed with Trump’s order said they do not know much about TikTok. Among Republicans, for example, 69% said they supported the president’s order while only 32% said they were familiar with the app. Twenty-one percent of Democrats also supported Trump’s order and 46% said they were familiar with TikTok.The figures suggest most Americans had only “a fleeting knowledge of the brand,” said Dipanjan Chatterjee, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. Chatterjee said the negative attitudes were likely the result of the public rhetoric around TikTok – and increasing tensions with Beijing.”Clearly there’s been a politicization of TikTok,” he said.TikTok users have captured the teenage zeitgeist with catchy song-and-dance videos in the United States and elsewhere, but its parent company’s ties to Beijing have been the subject of bipartisan concern as relations with China deteriorate.Those worries culminated earlier this month in a do-or-die order from Trump to ByteDance, with the Trump administration saying that TikTok is a potential national security risk due to the vast amount of private data the app is compiling on U.S. consumers. TikTok claims about 100 million monthly active users in the U.S.The Chinese company must now divest TikTok in the United States. Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp are among U.S. companies fighting to snap up its assets.The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 38% of respondents said they were either very or somewhat familiar with the app and 25% said they had watched a video on the platform. Thirty-five percent agreed with the statement that they had “heard of it, but that’s about it.”Americans also appeared to be more critical of the Chinese company than they were of American-based technology companies: 47% of respondents said they either held very unfavorable, somewhat unfavorable, or “lean towards unfavorable” attitudes toward TikTok. By contrast, just 11% said they had similarly unfavorable impressions of Seattle-based Amazon – the world’s largest online retailer which is facing allegations of monopolistic behavior from both sides of the U.S. political aisle. 
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China’s new rules around tech exports mean ByteDance’s sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations could need Beijing’s approval, a Chinese trade expert told state media, a requirement that would complicate the forced and politically charged divestment.ByteDance has been ordered by President Donald Trump to divest short video app TikTok — which is challenging the order — in the United States amid security concerns over the personal data it handles.Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp are among the suitors for the assets, which also includes TikTok’s Canada, New Zealand and Australia operations.However, China late on Friday revised a list of technologies that are banned or restricted for export for the first time in 12 years and Cui Fan, a professor of international trade at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said the changes would apply to TikTok.”If ByteDance plans to export related technologies, it should go through the licensing procedures,” Cui said in an interview with Xinhua published on Saturday.China’s Ministry of Commerce added 23 items –- including technologies such as personal information push services based on data analysis and artificial intelligence interactive interface technology — to the restricted list.It can take up to 30 days to obtain preliminary approval to export the technology.TikTok’s secret weapon is believed to be its recommendation engine that keeps users glued to their screens. This engine, or algorithm, powers TikTok’s “For You” page, which recommends the next video to watch based on an analysis of your behavior.Cui noted that ByteDance’s development overseas had relied on its domestic technology that provided the core algorithm and said the company may need to transfer software codes or usage rights to the new owner of TikTok from China to overseas.”Therefore, it is recommended that ByteDance seriously studies the adjusted catalog and carefully considers whether it is necessary to suspend” negotiations on a sale, he added.ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.China’s foreign ministry has said that it opposes the executive orders Trump has placed on TikTok and that Beijing will defend the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese businesses.
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Facebook made a mistake in not removing a militia group’s page earlier this week that called for armed civilians to enter Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid violent protests after police shot Jacob Blake, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.The page for the “Kenosha Guard” violated Facebook’s policies and had been flagged by “a bunch of people,” Zuckerberg said in a video posted Friday on Facebook. The social media giant has in recent weeks adopted new guidelines removing or restricting posts from groups that pose a threat to public safety.Facebook took down the page Wednesday, after an armed civilian allegedly killed two people and wounded a third Tuesday night amid protests in Kenosha that followed the shooting of Blake, who is Black.”It was largely an operational mistake,” Zuckerberg said. “The contractors, the reviewers, who the initial complaints were funneled to, didn’t, basically didn’t pick this up.”Zuckerberg did not apologize for the error and said that so far, Facebook hasn’t found any evidence that Rittenhouse was aware of the Kenosha Guard page or the invitation it posted for armed militia members to go to Kenosha.Facebook is now taking down posts that praise the shooting or shooter, Zuckerberg said. Yet a report Thursday by The Guardian newspaper found examples of support and even fundraising messages still being shared on Facebook and its photo-sharing service, Instagram.Zuckerberg also contrasted the treatment of Blake, who was shot in the back by Kenosha police, and the white 17-year-old now charged in Tuesday’s slayings, Kyle Rittenhouse, who carried an AR-15-style rifle near police without being challenged. Zuckerberg also acknowledged the civil rights demonstration Friday in Washington, D.C.”There’s just a sense that things really aren’t improving at the pace that they should be, and I think that’s really painful, really discouraging,” Zuckerberg said.Zuckerberg also said the company is working on improving its execution, though he did not provide details. He acknowledged that the approaching presidential election would present greater challenges around polarizing content.”There is a real risk and a continued increased risk through the election during this very sensitive and polarized and highly charged time,” he said.
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Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s neuroscience startup Neuralink on Friday unveiled a pig named Gertrude that has had a coin-sized computer chip in her brain for two months, showing off an early step toward the goal of curing human diseases with the same type of implant.Co-founded by Tesla Inc and SpaceX CEO Musk in 2016, San Francisco Bay Area-based Neuralink aims to implant wireless brain-computer interfaces that include thousands of electrodes in the most complex human organ to help cure neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s, dementia and spinal cord injuries and ultimately fuse humankind with artificial intelligence.”An implantable device can actually solve these problems,” Musk said on a webcast Friday, mentioning ailments such as memory loss, hearing loss, depression and insomnia.Musk did not provide a timeline for those treatments, appearing to retreat from earlier statements that human trials would begin by the end of this year. Neuralink’s first clinical trials with a small number of human patients would be aimed at treating paralysis or paraplegia, the company’s head surgeon, Dr. Matthew MacDougall, said.Neuroscientists unaffiliated with the company said the presentation indicated that Neuralink had made great strides but cautioned that longer studies were needed.Musk presented what he described as the “three little pigs demo.” Gertrude, the pig with a Neuralink implant in the part of the brain that controls the snout, required some coaxing by Musk to appear on camera, but eventually began eating off of a stool and sniffing straw, triggering spikes on a graph tracking the animal’s neural activity.Musk said the company had three pigs with two implants each, and also revealed a pig that previously had an implant. They were “healthy, happy and indistinguishable from a normal pig,” Musk said. He said the company predicted a pig’s limb movement during a treadmill run at “high accuracy” using implant data.Musk described Neuralink’s chip, which is roughly 23 millimeters in diameter, as “a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires.””I could have a Neuralink right now and you wouldn’t know,” Musk said. “Maybe I do.”One comment from a webcast viewer described the animals as “Cypork.”Graeme Moffat, a University of Toronto neuroscience research fellow, said Neuralink’s advancements were “order of magnitude leaps” beyond current science thanks to the novel chip’s size, portability, power management and wireless capabilities.Stanford University neuroscientist Sergey Stavisky said the company had made substantial and impressive progress since an initial demonstration of an earlier chip in July 2019.”Going from that to the fully implanted system in several pigs they showed is impressive and, I think, really highlights the strengths of having a large multidisciplinary team focused on this problem,” Stavisky said.Some researchers said longer studies would be required to determine the longevity of the device.Neuralink’s chip could also improve the understanding of neurological diseases by reading brain waves, one of the company’s scientists said during the presentation.Recruiting, not fundraisingMusk said the focus of Friday’s event was recruiting, not fundraising. Musk has a history of bringing together diverse experts to drastically accelerate the development of innovations previously limited to academic labs, including rocket, hyperloop and electrical vehicle technologies through companies such as Tesla and SpaceX.Neuralink has received $158 million in funding, $100 million of which came from Musk, and employs about 100 people.Musk, who frequently warns about the risks of artificial intelligence, said the implant’s most important achievement beyond medical applications would be “some kind of AI symbiosis where you have an AI extension of yourself.”Small devices that electronically stimulate nerves and brain areas to treat hearing loss and Parkinson’s disease have been implanted in humans for decades. Brain implant trials have also been conducted with a small number of people who have lost control of bodily functions due to spiral cord injuries or neurological conditions like strokes.Startups such as Kernel, Paradromics and NeuroPace also are trying to exploit advancements in material, wireless and signaling technology to create devices similar to Neuralink. In addition, medical device giant Medtronic PLC produces brain implants to treat Parkinson’s disease, essential tremors and epilepsy.  
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The head of TikTok resigned Wednesday as tensions mount between the Chinese-owned video platform and the White House, which contends TikTok is a security risk in the U.S.
 
Chief Executive Officer Kevin Mayer announced his resignation days after the company filed a lawsuit challenging a U.S. government crackdown on the company over claims the social media app can be a tool to spy on U.S. citizens.
 
Mayer, a former Disney executive who joined the company in May, said in letter to employees his decision to quit came after the “political environment has sharply changed” in recent weeks.
 
“I understand that the role that I signed up for, including running TikTok globally, will look very different as a result of the U.S. administration’s action to push for a sell-off of the U.S. business.”
 
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 banning TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, sells its U.S. operations to an American company within 90 days.FILE – The logo of the TikTok application is seen on a screen in this picture illustration taken Feb. 21, 2019. Computer software firm Microsoft, headquartered in the northwestern U.S. city of Redmond, Washington, has confirmed it is negotiating to purchase TikTok’s operations in the U.S., Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Bloomberg News has reported that technology business Oracle Corp., based in the western U.S. city of Redwood City, California, is also entertaining a bid for the company.
 
TikTok argues in its lawsuit that Trump’s executive order was an abuse of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because it is not “an unusual and extraordinary threat.”
 
The company provides a platform on which short videos are shared. Since its launch in 2017, TikTok has become very popular, with hundreds of millions of users worldwide, many of them teens.
 
U.S. officials are concerned that TikTok may pose a security threat, fearing that the company might share its user data with China’s government. However, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has said it does not share user data with the Chinese government and maintains that it only stores U.S. user data in the U.S. and Singapore.
 
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Tax officials in Africa estimate that government revenues will drop between 10 and 30 percent in 2020 as a result of the economic fallout stemming from the coronavirus pandemic. But while businesses in the hospitality, construction and retail sectors have suffered, digital companies have boomed as more people stay home and conduct their activities online.This is driving talks in Africa about how to make sure big multinationals such as Google and Facebook, which do not always have a physical presence in the countries where they make a profit, can be taxed.Logan Wort, executive secretary of the African Tax Administration Forum, was among government officials, members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and African Union who gathered virtually Wednesday to address the issue.FILE – A worker sorts online orders before they are delivered to customers from a Checkers store, amid a nationwide coronavirus lockdown, in Johannesburg, South Africa, July 14, 2020.Wort said that due to the coronavirus pandemic, businesses in the sectors of e-commerce, online transactions and other digital services have experienced a boom. The e-commerce sector alone is projected to increase its revenues by 41 percent, according to the African Tax Administration Forum.  “Question: Are we collecting better on these transactions? Are we aware of these transactions? Are the businesses doing these transactions, do they have a physical presence in our countries and, if not, do our regulations provide for them to be taxed?” Wort asked.Talks about how to roll out harmonized laws to allocate tax rights in cross-border transactions are currently under way among members of the OECD. This is because governments across the world are concerned there is a misalignment between the location where profits are reported and the location where economic activities occur.Victor Harison, the commissioner of economic affairs for the African Union, said the tax-to-GDP ratio in 26 African countries reporting to the AU is just 17.2 percent, compared to 32.2 percent in developed countries that belong to the OECD.He called on more African countries to participate in talks on a global level about how to tax multinational companies so the profits from their wealth can be shared more equitably. “So far, only 25 African countries are part of this initiative, which is a cause of concern for the African Union,” Harison said. “Corporate income tax is a substantial source of taxation in Africa, amounting to more than 25 percent of total revenues in most countries.”  FILE – A schoolgirl receives online lessons in the district of Port Bouet in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, April 21, 2020.David Masondo, deputy minister of finance of South Africa, said Africa needs a central body within the African Union to speak with one voice on tax policies. “These unified policies should include or focus on improving the allocation of tax rights in cross-border transactions, including the digital transactions of multinational enterprises,” Masondo said.The U.S. has pushed for its companies to be able to opt in and out of the global rules on taxing multinational companies, as long as they adhere to certain basic principles.Annet Oguttu, a member of the high-level panel on financial accountability and transparency, said while Europe was at loggerheads with the U.S. over the matter, African countries also have a role to play in the discussion. “The focus of the discussion seems to be about the U.S. protecting its multinationals and the European countries trying to get the best out of it,” she said. “The question then is, where do we stand as developing countries in Africa? Perhaps coming together under the platform of ATAF could bring together a more united front that could be able to address these issues.” Talks at a global level are due to reconvene in October, now that proposals about how to tax digital multinationals have been shared among governments. 
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U.S. forces are taking an aggressive approach in cyberspace ahead of November’s presidential election, aiming to wipe out threats from foreign countries and other actors before they have a chance to disrupt voting or other critical, election-related systems. “Cyber Command needs to do more than prepare for a crisis in the future; it must compete with adversaries today,” Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of U.S. Central Command, and senior adviser Michael Sulmeyer said in a piece published Tuesday in FILE – National Security Agency Director Gen. Paul Nakasone testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019.“U.S. forces must compete with adversaries on a recurring basis, making it far more difficult for them to advance their goals over time,” the officials wrote, outlining the strategy for the public with the presidential election now less than three months away. “Additionally, cyber effects operations allow Cyber Command to disrupt and degrade the capabilities our adversaries use to conduct attacks.” Nakasone and Sulmeyer say the more proactive approach to protecting the upcoming U.S. election began, in part, in October 2019, after a team from Cyber Command traveled to Podgorica, Montenegro, to investigate attempts, possibly by Russia, to infiltrate that country’s networks. In the process, the Cyber Command team “saw an opportunity to improve American cyber defenses ahead of the 2020 election,” they said in the article. Nakasone and Sulmeyer also say they are building on efforts from 2018, when Cyber Command joined with the National Security Agency to form the Russia Small Group (RSG) to help protect the congressional mid-term elections, shoring up vulnerabilities within the U.S. election infrastructure, sounding alarms about Russian disinformation campaigns, and hunting for malware. “Thanks to these and other efforts, the United States disrupted a concerted effort to undermine the midterm elections,” they wrote. “Together with its partners, Cyber Command is doing all of this and more for the 2020 elections.” Managing riskCritics point out that the more aggressive approach to cyber defense carries risks. Namely, they worry that whether due to a miscalculation or an accident, a confrontation in cyberspace could escalate and lead to all-out war. But U.S. Cyber Command officials argue the risk is manageable and that the “hunt forward” strategy allows them to impose necessary costs on adversaries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. “Inaction poses its own risks: that Chinese espionage, Russian intimidation, Iranian coercion, North Korean burglary, and terrorist propaganda will continue unabated,” Nakasone and Sulmeyer wrote in the magazine. “So, the question is how, not whether, to act.” Determining whether Cyber Command’s “hunt forward” approach is paying off may be difficult. U.S. officials charged with protecting key voting-related systems said at least so far, there are no signs of any country-directed attacks on the United States. FILE – Senior Cybersecurity Adviser at the Department of Homeland Security Matthew Masterson testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 22, 2019.“We are not and have not seen specific targeting of those election systems that has been attributable to nation-state actors at this time,” Matthew Masterson, senior cybersecurity adviser for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), told the Atlantic Council on Tuesday. “(We) aren’t seeing a broad campaign in that way,” he said, adding, “We’re cognizant that’s in the playbook.” Evidence of meddlingEarlier this month, U.S. counterintelligence officials warned they have evidence that Russia, China and Iran are trying to meddle with the November election. “We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President (Joe) Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment,’” National Counterintelligence and Security Center Director William Evanina said in a statement.  “Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President (Donald) Trump’s candidacy on social media and Russian television,” he added. China and Iran, according to Evanina, appear to prefer a Biden presidency.  Official: US Adversaries Taking Sides, Wielding Influence Ahead of Election  US counterintelligence officials, splitting with President Trump, warn Russian-linked actors are pulling for his reelection as China and Iran aim to put Democrat Joe Biden in the White HouseBut for now, descriptions by counterintelligence officials portray such efforts by Russia, as well as by China and Iran, more as disinformation campaigns as opposed to attacks on computer systems and networks that could play a key role in collecting and tabulating votes. Most of the activity on that front, for the time being, appears to be coming from criminal actors with no definitive ties to Russia, China or other U.S. adversaries. “We do see regular scanning, regular probing of election infrastructure as a whole, what you’d expect to see as you run IT systems,” said CISA’s Masterson, citing the use of ransomware as a top concern.  “What we see is an ability to shut down county (local government) networks as a whole, which obviously has an impact on the election office to operate,” he said. Still, U.S. election security officials are optimistic that measures put in place since 2016 will be enough to ward off any attacks. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The 2020 election will be the most secure election in modern history,” CISA Director Chris Krebs told reporters last month. US Officials Promising ‘Most Secure Election in Modern History’The officials say while the November presidential election will not be risk free, defense and back-up systems should guarantee a free and fair result 
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While most parents are stressed about kids and remote online learning, some experts say expect more of that in the future, and that that may be a good thing. Deana Mitchell reports.
Camera, Producer: Deana Mitchell
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