Tag Archives: Politics & Government

Election 2024: What are the candidates’ policies on EVs and clean energy?

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The US presidential election is in its final stretch. Before election day on November 5, Engadget is looking at where the candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, stand on the most consequential tech issues of our day.

While the environment and climate change are standard fare for elections, the 2024 campaign has put a surprising amount of focus on EVs. Cars and trucks are some of the biggest contributors to global warming, spewing millions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere every year. So it’s no shock many believe transitioning from traditional combustion engine vehicles to electric will be key to reining in climate change. Of course, an electric car is only as clean as the energy used to charge its batteries, so the Biden administration has also put a lot of effort into expanding clean-energy initiatives in the US. Kamala Harris is widely expected to continue Biden’s work promoting EV adoption and clean energy technology. While Donald Trump has, unsurprisingly, run on a promise to undo it all.

On the campaign trail, Harris hasn’t announced any new major policy initiatives regarding EVs or clean energy. Mostly her comments on the matter have been broad but seek to build on the work done by the Biden administration. Between the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the government invested hundreds of billions of dollars in charging stations, EV tax credits, EV manufacturing, wind and solar.

Earlier in her career, as a senator from California and as a candidate in 2020’s presidential primary, Harris staked out a particularly aggressive stance on EVs and clean energy and made them a core part of her political identity. She supported the Green New Deal and was a cosponsor of the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act of 2019, which would have required all passenger vehicles sold in the US to be zero emissions by 2040.

Harris has since backed off many of those stronger proposals but remains a staunch proponent of using federal resources to build out EV and clean-energy infrastructure. She was the tie-breaking vote for the IRA, which included directives to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and included $370 billion for wind, solar, battery and EV production. Much of the $1.1 trillion IRA money remains unspent, but the administration has sped up efforts to use those funds ahead of the election.

That money has been used to expand charging station infrastructure, begin transitioning the USPS to electric delivery vehicles and increase the amount of electricity produced by wind and solar. Through investments and tax breaks, IRA funds have been used to encourage companies to manufacture more EVs, solar panels, batteries and related components in the US. That includes $100 million announced in May for small- and medium-sized car companies to upgrade their factories for EV production. Harris and Biden have also talked up the fact that the IRA has created 170,000 clean-energy jobs in just one year. The administration also placed stiff tariffs on EVs (100 percent) and solar cells (50 percent) imported from China.

Another key component of the legislation are consumer tax credits for the purchase of electric heat pumps, rooftop solar, batteries and EVs. The EV tax credit also comes with specific requirements regarding vehicle eligibility to encourage US manufacturing throughout the supply chain. Buyers can only claim the credit if the car was assembled in the US, has a certain percentage of battery components built in North America and a minimum amount of minerals extracted either in the United States or a country it has a free trade agreement with, or that have been recycled in North America. And each year those requirements increase, ultimately reaching 100 percent of battery components in 2029 and 80 percent of critical minerals in 2027.

It might seem glib, but Trump’s policies regarding EVs and clean energy can essentially be boiled down to lifting regulations and “drill, baby, drill.” The former president has said repeatedly he would repeal almost all of the Biden administration’s rules regarding emissions, fuel standards and the environment. He also suggested he might get rid of the EV tax credit, which he tried and failed to do during his first term, claiming it unfairly influenced the market, primarily benefited the rich and increased our reliance on China. Considering the price cap on eligible vehicles and requirements regarding component and mineral sourcing, that argument seems on shaky ground. Since securing Elon Musk’s endorsement, Trump has softened some of his anti-EV rhetoric. However, he’s given no indication he’s actually reversed any of his positions.

Trump has also said he will immediately rescind new fuel efficiency and emissions standards established by the Biden administration. He has argued the efficiency requirements are simply impossible for gasoline-powered cars to meet and effectively create a mandate that 67 percent of auto sales in the US be EVs by 2032.

Trump has been even more hostile to clean-energy initiatives. Neither his platform nor the Republican Party’s official platform document mention solar energy at all. And wind energy is only mentioned on the Trump site to deride the Biden administration’s “insane wind subsidies” and generally dismiss windmills as dangerous and inefficient. The bulk of the Trump campaign’s energy policies are focused on expanding oil and natural-gas drilling and investing in nuclear power plants. But he is unlikely to try to end all the IRA’s clean energy and EV initiatives as they often lead to job creation in red states.

In general, Donald Trump is skeptical of climate change and efforts to limit humans’ impact on the environment. He has pledged to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord (again) and called for building hundreds of new power plants, including coal, hydro and nuclear, but wind and solar farms are noticeably absent from his plan for American energy independence.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/election-2024-what-are-the-candidates-policies-on-evs-and-clean-energy-133030889.html?src=rss

X’s Community Notes feature has one job, and it’s failing to do it

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It’s no secret that X has become an even bigger cesspool of misleading information, unchecked claims and flat-out falsities since Elon Musk took over. Two new reports from The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and The Washington Post reveal that the safeguards Musk removed and replaced aren’t controlling X’s problems with misinformation.

The CCDH published a report on its investigation into X’s Community Notes feature, a user-driven reporting system in which anonymous users write and rate correction for misleading posts. Researchers took a sample of 283 misleading election posts from the social media platform that received proposed Community Notes between January 1 and August 25. The report says that 209 of those misleading sample posts did not show the Community Notes correction to all X users. Even more alarming, the 209 misleading posts in question racked up 2.2 billion views.

The Washington Post followed the CCDH’s report with its own investigation into X’s Community Notes feature and found that X’s problems with misinformation go far beyond the election.

Former President Donald Trump made the bold claim during his only presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that Haitians were eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio. Moderator and ABC news anchor David Muir corrected Trump’s statement as false because no such cases were reported to local police or government entities. The fact checking website Politifact rated Trump’s claim its lowest false rating of “Pants on Fire.” That didn’t stop this falsehood from spreading across X among conservative-leaning users.

The Post found that an account called End Wokeness with a following of 3.1 million X users started disseminating the former President’s claim about Haitian immigrants. The post remained unchecked for four days until one Community Notes user flagged the post as incorrect, citing five different articles to back up the correction. Unfortunately, the note failed to garner enough votes to label the post as false and it went uncorrected. As of Wednesday, the post is still on @EndWokeness’ account with a Community Note where it’s racked up 4.9 million views.

Musk’s account hasn’t helped the problem. The Post reports that he’s become “one of the X users most often targeted with proposed Community Notes” with one of 10 posts receiving a proposed correction note.

The publication cited a July post from @elonmusk containing a manipulated video of Harris spouting about President Joe Biden’s “senility” and how she became the nominee because she’s “the ultimate diversity hire.” You know where this is going. There’s no Community Notes or correction and the post is still on X even though thousands of replies from other X users are pointing out that it’s a fake. The post has a whopping 136.6 million views.

"Community Notes maintains a high bar to make notes effective and maintain trust across perspectives, and thousands of election and politics related notes have cleared that bar in 2024," Keith Coleman, VP of product at X, said in a statement. "In the last month alone, hundreds of such notes have been shown on thousands of posts and have been seen tens of millions of times. It is because of their quality that notes are so effective." Coleman, who oversees Community Notes, pointed to previous academic research into the feature. That research includes studies that found posts with a Community Note were 60 percent less likely to be shared, and that Community Notes result in an 80 percent uptick in post deletions. 

The CCDH is one of Musk and X’s most vocal opponents. The British non-profit continually monitors Musk’s account for false posts that failed to earn a Community Note, particularly when it comes to the presidential election. CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed said in August that X “is failing woefully to contain the kind of algorithmically-boosted incitement that we all know can lead to real world violence. X took the CCDH to court over claims the non-profit created a “scare campaign” to bring down its advertising revenue. A US district court judge dismissed the lawsuit in March.

Update October 30, 2024, 9 PM ET: This story has been updated to add a statement and additional information from X VP of Product Keith Coleman.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/xs-community-notes-feature-has-one-job-and-its-failing-to-do-it-202645987.html?src=rss

Election 2024: How will the candidates regulate AI?

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The US presidential election is in its final stretch. Before election day on November 5, Engadget is looking at where the candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, stand on the most consequential tech issues of our day.

While it might not garner the headlines that immigration, abortion or inflation do, AI is quietly one of the more consequential issues this election season. What regulations are put in place and how forcefully those rules are enforced will have wide ranging impacts on consumer privacy, intellectual property, the media industry and national security.

Normally, politicians lack clear or coherent policies on emerging technologies. But somewhat shockingly, both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have at least some track record handling artificial intelligence. VP Harris, in particular, has been very hands-on in shaping the current administration’s approach. And Donald Trump was the first president to sign an executive order regarding AI.

That being said, neither has made AI a central component of their campaign, and we’re making some educated guesses here about how either would approach it once in the White House.

With Harris’ considerable involvement in the Biden administration’s AI efforts, it’s safe to assume she would move forward with many of those policies. While the White House started laying the groundwork for its AI initiatives in early 2021, it wasn’t until late 2023 that they kicked into high gear, and Harris has often been the public face of those efforts, including holding numerous press calls on the issue and appearing at the Global Summit on AI Safety in London. She has used these venues to draw attention to the potential pitfalls, both large and small, of AI ranging from “cyberattacks at a scale beyond anything we have seen before” to seniors being “kicked off [their] healthcare plan because of a faulty AI algorithm.”

October 2023 saw the issuance of an executive order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. This order noted the potential for AI to solve broad societal issues as well as its ability to “exacerbate societal harms, such as fraud, discrimination, bias and disinformation; displace and disempower workers; stifle competition and pose risks to national security.” It laid out eight guiding principles focused on creating standardized evaluations for AI systems, protecting workers, consumer privacy and combating inherent bias.

It also called for agencies to name a chief AI officer (CAIO) and directed the federal government to develop policies and strategies using and regulating AI. This included developing technologies for identifying and labeling AI-generated content and building guardrails to prevent the creation of images depicting sexual abuse and deepfake pornography.

Harris helped secure commitments from Apple, Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, Adobe, Cohere, IBM, NVIDIA, Palantir, Salesforce, Scale AI, Stability and OpenAI to work towards the administration’s goals. She also worked to obtain endorsements from 31 nations of a declaration regarding the responsible creation and use of military AI. At this stage, the latter is merely a commitment to work together to establish rules and guidelines. But there are many absences on that list, most notably Russia, China and Israel.

Because the technology is so new, however, there are still a lot of questions about the specifics of how a Harris administration would handle AI. Besides, without an act of Congress, the White House would be limited in how it could regulate the industry or punish those that run afoul of its policies.

On the campaign trail, Harris hasn’t said much new about the issue, outside of a brief mention at a Wall Street fundraiser, during which she said, “We will encourage innovative technologies, like AI and digital assets, while protecting our consumers and investors.” Harris does have strong ties to Silicon Valley, so it remains to be seen just how much she would try to rein in the industry. But as of now, most of her statements have focused on protecting consumers and workers.

Donald Trump holds the distinction of being the first president to sign an executive order regarding AI, but his actual public statements on the matter have been limited. In February 2019, he established the American AI Initiative, which created the first national AI research institutes, called for doubling the funding of AI research and set forth broad regulatory guidance. It also called for the creation of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office, which would serve as a central hub for coordinating research and policy across the government.

Unsurprisingly, the executive order signed by former President Trump and the policies set forth by his allies have focused more on encouraging private sector growth and limited government oversight. The official Republican party platform adopted at the RNC in July called for repealing Biden’s October 2023 executive order claiming it “hinders AI Innovation and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology.” It goes on to call for the development of AI “rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing.”

Unfortunately the RNC platform and Trump don’t get much more specific than that. So we’ll have to look at what the former president’s allies at the America First Policy Institute and Heritage Foundation have put forth to get a better idea of how a second Trump presidency might handle AI.

America First began drafting a document earlier this year that called for launching Manhattan Projects for military AI and for reducing regulations. (Currently, there are limited regulations in place regarding AI, as the government is largely in the information-gathering stage of policy development. Congress has yet to pass any meaningful AI legislation.)

It also called for the creation of industry-led agencies tasked with evaluating and securing American artificial intelligence technologies. This is in contrast with the Biden administration’s executive order, which put responsibility for those efforts firmly in the hands of the federal government.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 (PDF) gets into more specifics, though it is worth noting Trump has tried to distance himself somewhat from that document. Much of the discourse around AI in the 922-page tome is dedicated to China: countering its technological advancements, limiting its access to American technology and preventing it from backing joint research projects with American interests, especially on college campuses. It calls for increasing the use of AI and machine learning in intelligence gathering and analysis, while simultaneously calling for a heavier reliance on the private sector to develop and manage the technology.

The document also spends significant time discussing AI’s potential to “reduce waste, fraud and abuse,” particularly with regards to Medicare and Medicaid. However, it makes almost no mention of protecting consumer privacy, ensuring the accuracy and fairness of algorithms, or identifying abusive or misleading uses of AI, beyond combating Chinese propaganda.

While both candidates’ platforms lack specifics regarding the regulation of artificial intelligence, they do lay out two clearly different approaches. Kamala Harris has made consumer protections and building guardrails against abuse a cornerstone of her AI policy proposals; Donald Trump has predictably focused on reducing regulation. Neither has suggested they would try to put the proverbial AI genie back in the bottle, not that such a thing would be feasible.

The big question marks are just how much of the America First Policy Institute or Project 2025 proposals a Trump administration would adopt. His own official platform mirrors many policy positions of Project 2025. While it may not reflect any of its AI proposals specifically, there’s little reason to believe his approach would differ dramatically on this specific issue.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/election-2024-how-will-the-candidates-regulate-ai-133045610.html?src=rss

FBI suspects China-linked hackers accessed officials’ call logs and SMS messages, report says

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Late last week, the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) confirmed they were investigating “the unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China.” At the same time, The New York Times reported that phones used by Donald Trump, JD Vance and Kamala Harris’ campaign staff were among the targets, though it was unclear what data the group may have been able to access.

Now, The New York Times has new details about the extent of the hack, which is reportedly linked to a Chinese group known as “Salt Typhoon.” According to The Times, aides to President Joe Biden, as well as Trump’s family members were also targeted, in addition to diplomats and other government officials. Even more concerning, though, is what the hackers may have been able to access. From the report:

F.B.I. investigators think the hackers may have been able to access unencrypted SMS text messages on the targeted devices, as well as call logs, according to people familiar with the investigation. They said there was also evidence indicating that audio communications were captured, though it was not immediately clear whether that meant voice mail or phone call conversations.

CISA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment The agency said last week in a joint statement with the FBI that the investigation was “ongoing” and that the affected companies and other potential victims had been notified. At least 10 companies, including Verizon and AT&T, were impacted, according to The Washington Post. A spokesperson for AT&T declined to comment. Verizon didn’t immediately respond to questions, but previously told The Times the company was “aware that a highly sophisticated nation-state actor has reportedly targeted several U.S. telecommunications providers to gather intelligence.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/fbi-suspects-china-linked-hackers-accessed-officials-call-logs-and-sms-messages-report-says-000434865.html?src=rss

The Harris/Walz campaign has its own Fortnite map

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We’re in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential election and both sides are pulling out all the stops to get those all-important undecided voters. The Harris/Walz campaign is exploring an unconventional option: a map in Epic Games’ mega online multiplayer hit Fortnite.

The “Freedom Town, USA” map available at 7331-5536-6547 is a little different from the usual Fortnite matches. Forbes senior contributor Paul Tassi played the new map and reported that there aren’t any guns in Freedom Town (probably for obvious reasons). Instead, the game focuses on racing with cars and parkour style. The map also has some campaign signs and decorations for Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz’s presidential run.

Video games have become a cornerstone of the Harris/Walz campaign. Harris’ camp has its own Twitch page that’s been broadcasting games like World of Warcraft and the latest Madden title as a way to spark discussions with the voting public. The Fortnite map, however, doesn’t look like it’s doing a great job of getting the message out to players. As of this story’s publishing, the map only has less than 300 active players.

Political ads and recruitment in video games isn’t just limited to this campaign cycle. Then-candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign introduced the concept to politics when they purchased ads in 18 games including Need for Speed: Carbon and Madden NFL 13 on Microsoft’s Xbox Live service and the mobile version of Tetris, according to NPR.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-harriswalz-campaign-has-its-own-fortnite-map-220450255.html?src=rss

Election 2024: How will the candidates regulate big tech?

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The US presidential election is in its final stretch. Before election day on November 5, Engadget is looking at where the candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, stand on the most consequential tech issues of our day.

The Biden administration has been more aggressive than almost any in recent American history in its antitrust efforts. In the tech sector alone, it has ongoing cases against Apple, Meta, Google and Amazon, not to mention its battles with Ticketmaster, Microsoft, Kroger, CVS, Visa, Penguin Random House and more. Biden, Lina Khan (chair of the FTC) and Jonathan Kanter (head of the DOJ’s antitrust division) have spent the last several years working to prevent giant mergers, increase competition and punish companies (however lightly) for unfair business practices. It is unlikely that whoever succeeds Joe Biden will be quite as fervent in their fight against monopolies. That being said, it’s not only possible but probable that either a Harris or Trump administration would be very active in the antitrust field.

There is some expectation that a Kamala Harris White House will pursue these sorts of cases less aggressively. Part of that assumption is simply down to the fact that Harris hasn’t said a ton on the issue. She touts her record as attorney general of California in leading lawsuits against the medical industry, and says during her stump speeches that “companies need to play by the rules, respect the rights of workers and unions and abide by fair competition. And if they don’t, I will hold them accountable.” But she often doesn’t get more specific than that.

Her campaign also released a detailed economic policy document, though it makes little mention of antitrust and antimonopoly proposals. When it does discuss those issues, it focuses exclusively on landlords, grocery stores and the pharmaceutical industry. It does advocate for the passage of the Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act, though. This bill would make it illegal for landlords to use software from companies like RealPage and Yardi to coordinate on housing prices and rent increases.

However, Harris’ ties to Silicon Valley has led some to believe she would pump the brakes on antitrust efforts focused on the tech industry. Her brother-in-law, Tony West, is chief legal officer for Uber, her debate adviser was Karen Dunn, the lawyer currently heading up Google’s defense in an ongoing antitrust case, and she counts Laurene Powell Jobs (widow of Steve Jobs) among her closest friends. She’s also been quiet in the face of calls from major donors like Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn) and Barry Diller (IAC, Expedia Group and TripAdvisor) to fire Lina Khan.

Nonetheless, she has also surrounded herself with many people deeply engaged in the Biden administration’s antitrust efforts, including Brian Deese, the former head of the National Economic Council (NEC); Rachel Brown, who led on competition policy at the NEC and Bharat Ramamurti, who was not only Deese’s deputy at the NEC but also worked for Elizabeth Warren, who has made fighting big business a cornerstone of her political identity. It’s unlikely these antitrust crusaders would join Harris’ campaign if they did not believe she would continue the work of the Biden administration in some meaningful capacity.

Unlike what you’d expect from a typical Republican administration, the Trump White House was actually pretty active in the antitrust space, focusing primarily on the tech and healthcare industries. Trump has made no secret of his animosity towards some of the biggest players in the tech space, so there’s little reason to believe he’d scale back or abandon the cases against Google, Apple, Meta and Amazon underway.

During his first tenure, the Trump administration went after Google over its search results and Facebook following its purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram in antimonopoly cases. He also sought to block the acquisition of Time Warner by AT&T. Even after he left the White House, Trump continued his assault on big tech by filing personal lawsuits against Twitter, Facebook and Google, alleging censorship. According to Concurrences (an antitrust think tank), while Republican administrations tend to prioritize criminal cartel cases, the Trump DOJ pursued fewer of those than any administration since Nixon and focused more on mergers and antimonopoly cases.

While Trump hasn’t said much about his antitrust views on the campaign trail, his running mate, JD Vance, has made it a regular topic of his stump speeches. Vance has voiced strong support for breaking up big corporations, especially in the tech industry. He’s even praised Lina Khan as “one of the few people in the Biden administration I think is doing a pretty good job.”

Complicating this, however, under Trump, the DOJ and FTC were constantly mired in controversy, and he was routinely accused of using the agencies to punish his perceived enemies. To make things even murkier, there is no mention of antitrust or antimonopoly efforts or policies either on Trump’s Agenda 47 site or the official RNC platform. This makes it difficult to predict what to expect from a second Trump term. While there was significant antitrust activity on his watch, at times it seemed guided by political whims and personal vendettas. And without a guiding principle outlined in any official policy document, it’s impossible to know what avenues the DOJ and FTC might focus on to go after companies that find themselves the target of Trump’s ire.

While Donald Trump and the RNC don’t spill too many words discussing antitrust issues, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 document does. It notes there is still some disagreement among Republicans on how aggressively to pursue antitrust action. But it focuses extensively on the changing view within the party that seeks more aggressive actions to break up the largest players in the market.

While Project 2025 pays some lip service to the negative impact on consumers of having too much industry power concentrated in too few hands, it spends most of its time discussing ESG (environmental, social and governance) and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives by businesses as a non-economic reason to pursue antitrust efforts, suggesting the Heritage Foundation sees antimonopoly laws not as a way to prevent the concentration of economic power, but as a cudgel to punish those promoting social and political ideologies it dislikes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/election-2024-how-will-the-candidates-regulate-big-tech-133013600.html?src=rss

President Biden sets up new AI guardrails for military, intelligence agencies

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The White House issued its first national security memorandum outlining the use of artificial intelligence for the military and intelligence agencies. The White House also shared a shortened copy of the memo with the public.

The new memo sets up guidelines for military and intelligence agencies for using AI in its day-to-day operations. The memo sets a series of deadlines for agencies to study the applications and regulations of AI tools, most of which will lapse following President Biden’s term. The memo also aims to limit “the most dystopian possibilities, including the development of autonomous weapons,” according to the New York Times.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan announced the new directive today at the National Defense University as part of a talk on AI’s presence in government operations. Sullivan has been one of the President’s most vocal proponents for examining the benefits and risks of AI technology. He also raised concerns about China’s use of AI to control its population and spread misinformation and how the memo can spark conversations with other countries grappling with implementing its own AI strategies.

The memorandum establishes some hard edges for AI usage especially when it comes to weapons systems. The memo states that AI can never be used as a decision maker for launching nuclear weapons or assigning asylum status to immigrants coming to the US. It also prohibits AI from tracking anyone based on their race or religion or determining if a suspect is a known terrorist without human intervention.

The memo also lays out protections for private-sector AI advance as “national assets that need to be protected…from spying or theft by foreign adversaries,” according to the Times. The memorandum orders intelligence agencies to help private companies working on AI models secure their work and provide updated intelligence reports to project their AI assets.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/president-biden-sets-up-new-ai-guardrails-for-military-intelligence-agencies-201752211.html?src=rss

Of course telecom companies are suing the FTC to block the new ‘click-to-cancel’ rule

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An industry group representing telecom providers like Comcast and Charter has sued the FTC to block the recently-ratified “click-to-cancel” rule, as reported by Reuters. The NCTA, formerly known as the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, filed the suit with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on the grounds that the rule oversteps the FTC’s authority.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau, which represents the online advertising industry, and the Electronic Security Association, which represents the home security industry, are also involved in the lawsuit. The groups call the FTC ruling “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.” There’s also language in the suit that suggests that jumping through annoying hoops to cancel a subscription is actually helpful to consumers, according to USA Today. So this little mom and pop trade organization is just looking out for us, the little guy. I’m practically glowing with appreciation.

For news junkies, the lawsuit’s venue may have raised some eyebrows. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans is widely considered to be the nation’s most right-leaning appeals court, so it’s where giant corporations and political entities like to drop suits like this.

Judges from this court temporarily banned the White House, FBI and the Surgeon General from urging social media companies to take down posts filled with misinformation. The court also invalidated a ban on bump stocks, limited access to the abortion pill mifepristone and made it difficult to fund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB.)

Several of these decisions were reversed by the Supreme Court, so the 5th Circuit is actually markedly more conservative than even SCOTUS. To that end, 12 of the 17 judges on the court were appointed by Republican presidents, with six being appointed by former President Trump. The NCTA and its industry partners have been accused by consumer advocacy groups of “venue shopping” by selecting a federal appeals court that would likely look favorably on the suit.

“The big businesses that deploy deceptive subscription models to trap customers are trying to sue their way out of this regulation to lower costs for millions of consumers,” Liz Zelnick, director for the watchdog group Accountable.US said in a statement published by USA Today. “We’ve seen this movie before, with big industry players venue shopping in a corporate-friendly jurisdiction regardless of the impact on Americans.”

The FTC ratified the “click-to-cancel” rule on October 16 in a vote that went down along party lines. Simply put, this ruling requires providers to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up for one. It prohibits companies from misrepresenting their recurring services and memberships.

“Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription,” said Chair Lina Khan. “The FTC’s rule will end these tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money. Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/of-course-telecom-companies-are-suing-the-ftc-to-block-the-new-click-to-cancel-rule-153728158.html?src=rss

Oversight Board says Meta’s handling of a satirical image of Harris and Walz raises ‘serious concerns’

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Two weeks before the US presidential election, the Oversight Board says it has “serious concerns” about Meta’s content moderation systems in “electoral contexts,” and that the company risks the “excessive removal of political speech” when it over-enforces its rules. The admonishment came as the board weighed in on a case involving a satirical image of Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Meta originally removed the post, shared on Facebook in August, that showed an edited version of a movie poster from Dumb and Dumber. The original 1994 movie poster shows the two main characters grabbing each other’s nipples through their shirts. In the altered version, the actors’ faces were replaced by Harris and Walz.

According to the Oversight Board, Meta cited its bullying and harassment rules, which includes a provision barring “derogatory sexualized photoshop or drawings.” The social network later restored the post after it drew attention from the Oversight Board, and the company acknowledged the satirical image didn’t break its rules because it didn’t depict sexual activity.

Despite Meta’s reversal, the board says the case suggests larger issues in how Meta handles posts dealing with election-related content. “This post is nothing more than a commonplace satirical image of prominent politicians and is instantly recognizable as such,” the board wrote. “Nonetheless, the company’s failure to recognize the nature of this post and treat it accordingly raises serious concerns about the systems and resources Meta has in place to effectively make content determinations in such electoral contexts.”

In response to the Oversight Board's take on the situation, a Meta spokesperson gave the following brief statement: "We mistakenly removed this post but restored it after the issue was brought to our attention."

It’s unusually direct criticism from the Oversight Board, which released its analysis of the case in a summary decision, which comes without the group’s typical laundry list of recommendations for the social media company. The board has previously pushed Meta to clarify its rules around satirical content.The latest case highlights another issue that many of the company’s users have also complained about: over-enforcing its rules.

“In this case, however, the Board highlights the overenforcement of Meta’s Bullying and Harassment policy with respect to satire and political speech in the form of a non-sexualized derogatory depiction of political figures,” the board wrote. “It also points to the dangers that overenforcing the Bullying and Harassment policy can have, especially in the context of an election, as it may lead to the excessive removal of political speech and undermine the ability to criticize government officials and political candidates, including in a sarcastic manner.”

Update, October 23 2024, 1:00PM ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from Meta.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/oversight-board-says-metas-handling-of-a-satirical-image-of-harris-and-walz-raises-serious-concerns-100046800.html?src=rss

DJI challenges its ‘Chinese military company’ Pentagon designation in court

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DJI has filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Defense over its addition to the Pentagon list that designates it as a "Chinese military company." In its filing, shared by The Verge, the company said it's challenging the designation because it's "neither owned nor controlled by the Chinese military." It described itself as the "largest privately owned seller of consumer and commercial drones," mostly used by first responders, fire and police departments, businesses and hobbyists. 

The company claimed that because the Pentagon has officially proclaimed it as a national security threat, it has suffered "ongoing financial and reputational harm." It also said that it has lost business from both US and internal customers, which terminated contracts and refused to enter new ones, and it has been banned from signing contracts with multiple federal government agencies. 

DJI explained that it tried to engage with the Department of Defense for over 16 months and submitted a "comprehensive delisting petition" on July 27, 2023 to get the agency to remove its designation. However, the agency allegedly refused to engage in a meaningful way and to explain its reasoning behind adding the company to the list. On January 31, 2024, the DoD redesignated the company without notice, DJI wrote in its complaint. DJI alleged that the DoD only shared its full rationale for its designation after it informed the agency that it was going to "seek judicial relief."

The company claimed that the DoD's reasoning wasn't adequate to support its designation, that the agency confused people with common Chinese names and that it relied on "stale alleged facts and attenuated connections." DJI is now asking the court to declare the DoD's actions as unconstitutional, describing the Pentagon's designation and failure to remove it from the "Chinese military company" list a violation of the law and of its due-process rights. 

DJI has long been at the crosshairs of various US government agencies. The Department of Commerce added it to its entity list in 2020, which prevented US companies from supplying it with parts without a license. A year later, it was added to the Treasury department's "Chinese military-industrial complex companies" list for its alleged involvement in the surveillance of Uyghur Muslim people in China. And just a few days ago, DJI confirmed that its latest consumer drones are being held at the border by US customs, which cited the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The drone-maker denied that it has manufacturing facilities in Xinjiang, the region associated with forced Uyghur labor. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/dji-challenges-its-chinese-military-company-pentagon-designation-in-court-120036412.html?src=rss