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• A Twitter user recently started an account, @SuspendThePres, where he tweets word-for-word what President Donald Trump posts in an "experiment" to see how long it would take Twitter to suspend his account.
• After three days, Twitter said @SuspendThePres violated policies by "glorifying violence," taking action by temporarily suspending its posting privileges and asking the offending tweet be deleted.
• The tweet in question — containing the words "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" — was posted on Trump's account May 29. Twitter did not take down the tweet, but did label it as "glorifying violence."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A Twitter user recently launched an experiment to see what action the platform would take if he started posting Donald Trump's controversial tweets word-for-word. It took only three days for Twitter to notice and suspend the user.

The account @SuspendThePres launched May 29, and started to post tweets identical to those sent on Trump's Twitter. The premise was simple, according to Bizarre Lazar, the Twitter user behind the account: see how long it would take Twitter to take action against him for violating platform policies.

It took just three days for Twitter to flag one of the tweets from @SuspendThePres for violating its terms of service. Twitter temporarily suspended the account and forced the offending tweet to be deleted. The tweet in question mimics Trump's tweet in which he refers to protesters as "thugs" and warns, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

Twitter didn't completely ignore Trump's tweet, but gave it a warning label for "glorifying violence" against police brutality protesters. While Twitter gave Trump a slap on the wrist, @SuspendThePres received a 12-hour suspension for the same tweet, demonstrating the discrepancies in how the platform's policies are applied to politicians and high-profile figures.

"My intention was to see if the things the president was saying, coming from a civilian, would be flagged," Bizarre Lazar told Business Insider. "Really I wanted to simply see if Twitter would play favorites on speech and their terms." 

The president's active Twitter presence — and tendency to use it to make official announcements and launch attacks against opponents — has put the platform under increased scrutiny. Twitter has been forced to emphasize and clarify its policies around tweets from government officials, and has taken the stance it won't take action against tweets that go against the policies in the name of "public interest."

Twitter took unprecedented action against Trump's account just last month when it fact-checked two of his tweets containing false claims about voting by mail. The move almost immediately prompted Trump to issue an executive order targeting Section 230, a statute that allows social media companies to regulate content on their platforms and also removes them from any liability in what users post.

Trump's executive order is what prompted Bizarre Lazar to start his @SuspendThePres experiment, he told Business Insider. It took three days for Twitter to flag the mimicking tweet from @SuspendThePres. According to a screenshot Bizarre Lazar shared online, Twitter required the offending tweet be removed, and implemented restrictions on the account for a 12-hour period.

Now, @SuspendThePres is back online without any restrictions. A Twitter spokesperson told Business Insider in a statement that it was "misleading" to classify its action against the account as a "suspension," and emphasized that the account is now active.

Since the temporary suspension, Bizarre Lazar has continued posting Trump's tweets verbatim from @SuspendThePres. 

"A lot of people's opinions are split on Twitters decision. I think Twitter is locked in a very tough position," Bizarre Lazar told Business Insider. "Either way I'm pretty glad it isn't a decision I have to make. I'm bald enough already."

SEE ALSO: Some of Reddit's most popular threads are going private to protest hate speech and racism on the platform

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• Three Democratic senators are asking AT&T for answers over its decision to strike a "sponsored data" deal with HBO Max, which stops the streaming service from counting toward customers' data caps. 
• Sens. Edward Markey, Richard Blumenthal, and Ron Wyden said the move takes advantage of the rollback of net neutrality protections, and that it could stifle competition and hurt consumers. 
• AT&T noted that its "sponsored data" is available to any other company for purchase, though the senators criticized that the transactions are occuring within the same company. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Three Democratic senators are raising net neutrality concerns over AT&T's decision to strike a data deal with HBO Max, the newly launched streaming service owned by AT&T.

In a letter to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson on Thursday, Sens. Edward Markey, Richard Blumenthal, and Ron Wyden asked the telecom giant for answers over its move to not count HBO Max toward customers' data caps. 

AT&T's maneuver, first reported by The Verge, directs HBO Max to buy "sponsored data" from AT&T, which allows the streaming platform not to count toward data limits, encouraging consumers to use the service without worrying about going over their monthly data allotment. In return, AT&T claims the purchase as revenue, and the dealings cancel out because HBO Max is owned by AT&T. 

"This policy appears to run contrary to the essential principle that in a free and open internet, service providers may not favor content in which they have a financial interest over competitors' content," the senators wrote. 

The senators said that while the Federal Communications Commission, under the Trump administration, moved in 2017 to repeal net neutrality protections, AT&T's maneuver could still raise potential antitrust concerns. 

Net neutrality protections had previously mandated that internet service providers, like AT&T, should treat all internet communications the same and not give preferential treatment to certain websites or services, including by means of charging for it. 

"The Trump FCC may have gutted critical net neutrality protections, but AT&T nonetheless has a responsibility to avoid any policies or practices that harm consumers and stifle competition," the senators wrote, citing the report from The Verge. "We urge you to provide us with an explanation for the behavior described above by June 25, 2020." 

An AT&T spokesperson told Business Insider in response to the letter, "Our wireless subscribers can stream HBO Max video without incurring data charges, which will save money for millions of consumers. This is based on a Sponsored Data arrangement and is a program we offer on the same terms to any entities who wish to sponsor data for their customers. This is similar to arrangements some of our competitors have."

As AT&T notes, its "sponsored data" is available to any other company for purchase, though the senators criticized that the transactions are occuring within the same company. 

"Although HBO Max may technically be paying for this benefit, AT&T is essentially paying itself," the senators wrote. "This practice of allowing one arm of your company to 'pay' another arm of your company for preferential treatment attempts to mask its true impact."

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Slack is partnering with Amazon in a multi-year agreement that means all Amazon employees will be able to start using Slack. The deal comes just as Slack faces increased competition from Microsoft Teams, and it will also see Slack migrate its voice and video calling features over to Amazon’s Chime platform alongside a broader adoption of Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Amazon’s roll out of Slack to all of its employees is a big part of the deal, thanks to an enterprise-wide agreement. It’s not immediately clear how many of Amazon’s 840,000 employees will be using Slack, though. Up until today, Slack’s biggest customer has been IBM, which is rolling out Slack to its 350,000 employees.

While Slack has long used AWS to power parts of its chat...

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Signal’s new blur tool will automatically locate and blur faces. | Image: Signal

Encrypted messaging app Signal has announced a new face-blurring tool that will be incorporated into the latest Android and iOS versions of the software.

Users sharing pictures through the app will be able to quickly blur faces, adding another layer of privacy to pictures, though not necessarily hiding the subject’s identity completely.

In a blog post announcing the update, Signal co-founder Moxie Marlinspike linked the update to the worldwide protests against racism and police violence sparked by the killing of George Floyd by law enforcement. These protests have led to record downloads for Signal, which uses end-to-end encryption to make messages harder to intercept.

“We’ve also been working to figure out additional ways we can...

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Back in June of 2020, when this article was first written, people were taking to the streets to organize for justice and protest against systemic racism and police brutality. Now, nearly two years later, people are again taking to the streets, this time to protest the possibility that the Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that guaranteed people the right to terminate their pregnancies. There were protests across the country on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2022, when the news hit; there are bound to be more in the coming weeks.

As a result, we thought it would be a good idea to revisit this examination of how you can protect your phone data when attending a protest. Here goes:

Be aware

If you’re attending or even just...

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Image: Humbolt

Hublot is taking another crack at the smartwatch market with the Hublot Big Bang e, a high-end watch running Wear OS that will set you back thousands of dollars.

The Big Bang e comes in two variations: titanium, which retails for $5,200, and black ceramic, priced at $5,800. Both include a 42mm OLED high-definition touchscreen covered with sapphire crystal along with a Snapdragon Wear 3100 processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, and a 300mAh battery.

The watch includes a few extra features beyond those typically found in the Android-based operating system. The Big Bang e has its own watchfaces with some additional abilities, such as one that keeps track of the lunar calendar and another that changes color throughout the day as part of...

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Photo by Saul Martinez/Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting social media companies faced its first legal challenge Tuesday, claiming that Trump violated the companies’ rights to free speech.

In its lawsuit, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) called Trump’s order “retaliatory” because it specifically attacked Twitter for using its First Amendment right to comment and moderate the president’s tweets. By attacking Twitter, the organization claimed that Trump’s order could discourage other platforms from exercising their free speech rights to moderate the president’s posts out of fear of retaliation from the federal government.

“The Executive Order is designed to deter social media services from fighting misinformation, voter suppression,...

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Photo by Tobias Hase / Picture Alliance via Getty Images

Pressure is mounting from all directions on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for his refusal to take action against posts from President Donald Trump. The latest salvo comes from 33 former employees who worked at the company during its early stages, including some who helped create Facebook’s original community guidelines. The open letter was first published by The New York Times; we have republished the letter in full below.

While many of the arguments in the letter have been made before, including recently by The Verge, the letter published today presents a singularly clear and strongly argued case against Zuckerberg’s position. The group of former employees argues that Facebook’s position on moderating Trump is inconsistent, that it...

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

President Trump’s verified Snapchat account will no longer be promoted within the app after executives concluded that his tweets over the weekend promoted violence, the company said today. His account, RealDonaldTrump, will remain on the platform and continue to appear on search results. But he will no longer appear in the app’s Discover tab, which promotes news publishers, elected officials, celebrities, and influencers.

“We are not currently promoting the president’s content on Snapchat’s Discover platform,” the company said in a statement. “We will not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion on Discover. Racial violence and injustice have no place in our society and we stand together with...

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The rumored next version of Google’s TV dongle | XDA Developers

If at first you don’t succeed, try try try try try again

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‘Hardware companies are scratching their heads on how they’ll help in this public cloud transition -- and they can’t. They become irrelevant,’ says Nutanix CEO Dheeraj Pandey in an interview with CRN.

A Facebook software engineer publicly resigned in a LinkedIn note Monday over the company’s handling of President Trump's calls for violence on Facebook. The resignation letter has since gone viral on LinkedIn, with more than 39,000 reactions.

The news is part of a shift at Facebook. Traditionally, employees have voiced their concerns about Mark Zuckerberg's leadership internally, but they have rarely broadcast those views publicly. That has changed this week, with the public resignation, a "virtual walkout," and outspoken social media posts from current and recently-departed Facebook employees.

"I'm resigning from my job at Facebook," Timothy J. Aveni, a software engineer at the company, wrote on his own Facebook page on Monday. In his LinkedIn post, Aveni said that his role at Facebook was "battling the spread of misinformation."

"Mark always told us that he would draw the line at speech that calls for violence. He showed us on Friday that this was a lie. Facebook will keep moving the goalposts every time Trump escalates, finding excuse after excuse not to act on increasingly dangerous rhetoric. Since Friday, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand and process the decision not to remove the racist, violent post Trump made Thursday night, but Facebook, complicit in the propagation of weaponized hatred, is on the wrong side of history," Aveni's Facebook post continues. "#blacklivesmatter."

Do you work at Facebook and are dissatisfied with the company's handling of Trump's posts? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work computer or phone, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.

Aveni is referring to Trump's post in which the President repeated a phrase from Walter Headley, a white Miami police chief who said "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" about crushing protests in 1967. Trump also posted the message to his Twitter account; in response, Twitter put the tweet behind a dialogue box which says the tweet violates Twitter's policies for glorifying violence.

Aveni's resignation comes a day after employees also staged a virtual walk-out to protest the lack of action from Facebook, and while multiple Facebook employees have tweeted their dissatisfaction with Zuckerberg over his refusal to act on Trump's posts. They also, of course, come during nationwide protests over police killings.

Zuckerberg has maintained that the post on Facebook should stay up. In his own post, Zuckerberg wrote, "I disagree strongly with how the President spoke about this, but I believe people should be able to see this for themselves, because ultimately accountability for those in positions of power can only happen when their speech is scrutinized out in the open."

In another public departure, engineering manager Own Anderson tweeted on Monday, "I am proud to announce that as of the end of today, I am no longer a Facebook employee." Anderson added in a follow-up tweet that their leaving of the company had been planned for some time, so it may not have been explicitly linked to Facebook's recent activity. But he added, "after last week, I am happy to no long[er] support policies and values I vehemently disagree with."

Aveni also added in his message on LinkedIn, "I cannot stand by Facebook’s continued refusal to act on the president’s bigoted messages aimed at radicalizing the American public. I’m scared for my country, and I’m watching my company do nothing to challenge the increasingly dangerous status quo." He wrote that his last day will be on June 12.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The Teams gallery view is slated to expand from the current maximum of nine participants at once.

• Smartphone sales declined by 20.2% in the first quarter of 2020 as a result of impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Gartner.
• Huawei took the biggest hit, with market growth dropping by 27.3% in Q1 2020 compared to Q1 2019.
• Not only is Huawei grappling with the impacts of the coronavirus along with the rest of the industry, but it's also at a disadvantage because it cannot use Google's software and app store.
• The results come after the smartphone industry has been struggling in recent years as consumers are finding high-end phones less appealing.  
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

It's shaping up to be a rough year for the smartphone market so far. Lockdown orders and the economic fallout from the coronavirus have made it challenging for consumers to spend on nonessential products like smartphones, sending sales plummeting, according to the latest report from market research firm Gartner.

Smartphone sales declined by 20.2% in the first quarter of 2020, with all of the top five smartphone makers seeing sales drop except for Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi. Huawei took the biggest hit of all, with market growth plummeting by 27.3% year-over-year. Samsung's market growth dropped by 22.7%, comparatively, while Apple's dropped by 8.2%. 

The International Data Corporation, which also tracks smartphone sales, published similar results in late April, saying that the smartphone market suffered its biggest year-over-year decline in the first quarter of 2020 because of the coronavirus.

Even though Huawei saw the biggest drop, it still held its number two spot in the global smartphone market, outpacing Apple, Xiaomi, and Oppo, playing second to only Samsung.

Huawei is at a particular disadvantage because it can no longer use Google's version of Android and its family of popular apps, like Gmail and Google Maps, since Google is barred from doing business with the Chinese tech giant.

President Trump signed an executive order last May barring American companies like Google from doing business with Huawei over national security concerns. That order was recently extended that order through May 2021, although the tech giant has been gaining temporary licenses to work with US companies. 

Huawei has developed its own mobile software and apps to replace Google's, called Huawei Mobile Services, but the company will still likely struggle to gain traction outside of China, Gartner says.

"Huawei will have a challenging year," Anshul Gupta, a senior research analyst at Gartner, wrote in a release announcing the results. "It has developed the Huawei Mobile Service (HMS) ecosystem, but with the lack of popular Google apps and Google Play Store, Huawei is unlikely to attract new smartphone buyers in international markets."

The smartphone market has been faltering in recent years as demand for high-end premium smartphones, such as top-of-the-line models from Samsung and Apple, has been sluggish. In the first quarter of 2019, for example, Gartner cited "slowing innovation in flagship smartphones and rising prices" as a reason for customers holding onto their smartphones for longer periods of time, in turn contributing to lower sales.

The situation seemed less bleak in the third quarter of 2019, as Canalys Insights, another research firm, found that smartphone sales had actually grown for the first time in two years. But it only grew by 1% according to Canalys, and Gartner reported that the market had actually shrunken by 0.4%. 

Some smartphone makers have been combating this trend by releasing cheaper models, like Apple's $400 iPhone SE and Samsung's $400 A151. But the coronavirus pandemic presented new challenges: customers have spent more time indoors, Americans have had less expendable income after record job loss, and tech giants have seen their international supply chains and retail operations disrupted. 

SEE ALSO: Microsoft's tiniest new Surface laptop has one big advantage over the pricier iPad Pro — but there are 2 key reasons why it's still not right for most people

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‘I couldn’t be prouder to be a Cisco Partner with the leadership Cisco and [Robbins] has shown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the racial divide, xenophobia and inequality we are facing as a society,’ says one longtime Cisco partner.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

I. The CEO

On Friday afternoon, Facebook made one of its most controversial content moderation decisions in company history. After President Trump posted to Facebook some tweets that Twitter had placed behind a warning for “glorifying violence,” Mark Zuckerberg said that the company would allow them to stand.

“I know many people are upset that we’ve left the President’s posts up,” Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post, “but our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies.”

“When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” Trump had tweeted — quoting a former Miami police chief who, in 1967, called for a violent crackdown on the...

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• The wealthy tech elite are opening their checkbooks to donate millions of dollars to organizations that they think will bring about criminal and social reform.
• Some of them are even vowing to match the donations of others who contribute.
• For those wanting to do the same, this list may act as a reference of organizations that have the endorsements of some powerful people.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As the nation has risen to protest the death of George Floyd, luminaries across the tech industry were quick to chime in with statements of support for the Black community.

Many are going further and also publicly donating to organizations that are working to solve problems of racial inequality, criminal justice, or police brutality.

Some feel that this kind of charitable giving is not a good enough solution from the tech industry: They want to see it coupled with concrete actions within their own companies — the tech industry has an appalling record on diversity — and on their own platforms, which have been criticized for allowing content that incites violence or harassment. 

But for those wanting to donate to a worthy organization, this list may offer some inspiration, especially since a number of these tech execs have offered to match donations. 

SEE ALSO: The irony is, if Section 230 were to die like Trump says he wants, Twitter and Facebook would probably have to bar him

Apple is giving an unspecified amount to the Equal Justice Initiative.

The EJI works to end mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and racial inequality. It provides legal representation to prisoners who may have been wrongly convicted of crimes, as well as prisoners that can't afford effective representation.

While CEO Tim Cook, in an internal memo to employees, did not say how much the company would donate, he added that Apple would match all employee donations two-for-one in the month of June. 

Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook would donate $10 million to racial justice groups, and highlighted Fair and Just Prosecution, which the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative supports.

Zuckerberg said Facebook would donate $10 million to racial justice groups recommended by employees and the company's "civil rights advisors." But he wasn't more specific in his post on Sunday. 

Zuckerberg also said that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative foundation has invested about $40 million, over several years, to criminal justice reform organizations. For example, Fair and Just Prosecution, which is a support and networking organization for newly elected criminal prosecutors interested in justice reform.

 

Box CEO Aaron Levie and Paradigm CEO Joelle Emerson, who are married, have committed $500,000 to unnamed justice reform groups

Silicon Valley power couple Aaron Levie and Joelle Emerson — the CEOs of Box and Paradigm — are donating $500,000 to support organizations working on social and criminal reforms, Levie said in a tweet.

At the time of that message Friday, he was looking for ideas, and responses included the Minnesota Freedom Fund, a nonprofit that helps pay bail for low-income individuals who cannot otherwise afford it and also works to protect immigrants.

Peloton is donating $500,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

The NAACP LDEF is one America's oldest and well-respect legal organization fighting for racial justice. It has been endorsed by most of the others on this list.

Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield and Away cofounder Jen Rubio — another powerful Valley couple —are donating $700,000 to Black Lives Matter and a bunch of other organizations.

Beyond the $700,000 pledged, the duo also set aside $300,000 to match donations to those orgs, per posts on Twitter. 

While Black Lives Matter started as a Twitter hashtag after a jury acquitted the man on trial for killing Trayvon Martin, it's now a thriving social organization founded by three black women. The group acts as a watchdog on policies ranging from police reform to COVID-19 information, distributes resources, and funds Black artists.

The couple is also donating to the NAACP LDEF, EJI, and to:

Bail Project, a non-profit fund that helps pay bail for people in need, and combats racial and economic disparities in the bail system.

The Center for Policing Equity, which uses data science to measure bias in policing. 

Campaign Zero, a think-tank advocating for data-backed criminal justice and policing policies.

Project Nia, which is working to end the incarceration of children and young adults. 

Color of Change, which organizes social media campaigns and petitions to expose and demand justice on incidents of racial injustice. 

Until Freedom, an organization that helps network and train organizers and develop thoughtful campaigns to combat racial injustice.

Loveland Foundation, which supports Black women and girls by funding therapy, fellowships, and other programs.

 

 

David Karp is donating $1 million to NAACP LDF, The Policing Project, and unknown others.

David Karp, the founder of Tumbler who sold his company to Yahoo for $1.1 billion in 2013, announced on Twitter that he and his partner are donating $1 million to various organizations including the NAACP LDF and The Policing Project.

The Policing Project partners with communities and the police to promote public safety through transparency and engagement.

Stripe CEO Patrick Collison and his brother John have endorsed Campaign Zero

Collison tweeted that he and his Stripe cofounder and brother John investigated organizations most likely to be effective in creating effective police and criminal justice reform.

Although he wrote that he and his brother would like to "support their work," he did not pledge a specific dollar amount. 

He then recommended reading the social media posts by Campaign Zero founder Samuel Sinyangwe and former President Barack Obama, who recommended organizations like the Nationwide Bail Fund, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Center for Policing Equity.

Obama also supports:

Black Futures Lab, which works with Black people to transform Black communities through programs that encourage voting and engages with leaders and watches corporate policies. 

National Black Justice Coalition, a civil rights organization dedicated to the empowerment of Black and LGBTQ/SGL communities.

Movement For Black Lives seeks to organize the black community around policies that give Black citizens more power in government and ends racially unfair practices.

 

Venture capital investor Hunter Walk has shared a document listing $500,000 worth of matching donations available from wealthy techies to social change organizations

As more offers of donations and matching funds come pouring from the tech community, Hunter Walk, an investor for seed stage venture fund Homebrew is keeping track in a list.

In addition to Black Lives Matter, the NAACP LDEF, and EJI, and other previously mentioned organizations, Venture Capitalist Greg Sands will also match donations to the Voter Participation Center.

VPC encourages under-represented voter communities to vote especially young people, people of color and unmarried women.

 

 

 

 

Protesters demonstrate against police brutality and the death of George Floyd outside the St. Louis City Justice Center and City Hall on June 1, 2020 in St Louis, Missouri. | Photo by Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images

If you’ve been participating in the recent protests and want to do more, or if you’re unable to participate and want to do something, one way to help is to donate your money or your time. There are a range of organizations that are providing activists with bail bonds and legal help, or that are helping small businesses and other community resources that have been adversely affected.

What follows is only a limited list. Two things should be kept in mind:

First: before you click on a link to donate to an organization or fund, make sure that it is legitimate. Unfortunately, whenever there is a crisis, there are also those out there who will try to take advantage of the larger community’s eagerness to help. In addition, some well-meaning...

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It is because these tech companies are not the government that they are so susceptible to politicians lobbying or threatening them.

"It’s far overdue for all of us to take action to eradicate systemic racism, xenophobia, inequality and all forms of bigotry in America," says Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins.

Images: Samsung

Samsung’s Sero TV, which rotates between landscape and portrait orientations depending on what kind of content you’re watching, has gone on sale in the US and UK. Samsung says that the 43-inch TV is available for $1,999.99 / £1,599. That’s a lot considering the TV’s relatively small screen size, but you’re still getting a 4K QLED panel.

The Sero has been available in Korea for a little while now, but back at CES 2020, Samsung announced that it would be bringing the TV to the US and other global markets. The thinking is that the TV’s portrait orientation will mean it’s better at showing Instagram stories, TikTok videos, Snapchat content, and any other videos typically shot vertically rather than horizontally.

Images:...

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• President Donald Trump and likely Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden have both called for Section 230 to be revoked.
• Section 230 is part of a 1996 law on how content can be moderated on the internet, among other guidelines.
• The two politicians disagree on why the law should be revoked. 
• Trump's concerns involve the moderation of content on the internet, like recent fact-checks put on his tweets. 
• Biden has said he wants social media sites to be held liable for the content posted on their platforms; currently they are not under Section 230. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The revocation of a provision in a 1996 law regarding the internet is one of the few things to bring President Donald Trump and likely Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to a consensus, but only slightly. 

Both politicians have called for Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 to be revoked; Trump in recent days has called for it to be revoked, and Biden said so earlier this year. 

But, the two disagree on why it should be revoked. 

Section 230 has been called the most important law for the internet. It provides "interactive computer services" like Facebook and Twitter the ability to moderate content on their platforms that is violent, harassing, "or otherwise objectionable," without the platforms illegally infringing on people's First Amendment right to free speech. 

The law also includes a provision that bars sites like Twitter and Facebook from being held liable as publishers for the content posted on their platforms. While a newspaper would be held liable for false information produced and published by them, websites are treated merely as the medium and are not responsible for the content posted on their platforms. 

These two points are at the center of Trump's and Biden's calls to revoke the law. 

Why Trump wants it revoked 

 

"REVOKE 230!" Trump tweeted on Friday. The day prior, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to alter Section 230 and change the way they interpret and enforce it. 

The move came after Twitter flagged one of his tweets that made unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud and mail-in ballots. Twitter later flagged another of his tweets as "glorifying violence." Both were the the platform's first time to take such measures against the president, but the tweets remained accessible and were not taken down. 

Trump's concerns about Section 230 center around the protections it provides to social media sites if they choose to moderate content. Trump and other conservatives have alleged that sites like Facebook and Twitter have exercised anti-conservative bias in their policing of content on their platforms. 

Why Biden wants it revoked

Twitter and Facebook, among other sites, have been criticized for their hesitance to take down misinformation on their platforms. Specifically, Twitter has drawn ire because of Trump's tweets, which critics say are often misleading or spreading outright misinformation. 

Twitter, and other platforms like it, are protected by Section 230 from being held liable for falsehoods or defaming statements published on their sites, while a newspaper could be sued for libel or defamation for statements published on their sites or in their papers. 

Biden has said that companies like Facebook should be held liable for misinformation on their platforms. He told The New York Times' editorial board earlier this year that Section 230 "immediately should be revoked." 

"It should be revoked because [Facebook] is not merely an internet company," Biden said. "It is propagating falsehoods they know to be false ... It's irresponsible. It's totally irresponsible." 

His campaign did not immediately respond to a request to provide an update to his remarks in light of Trump's executive order, but the Biden campaign told The Verge on Thursday that "it will not be the position of any future Biden Administration … that the First Amendment means private companies must provide a venue for, and amplification of, the president's falsehoods, lest they become the subject of coordinated retaliation by the federal government."

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• Making sure a computer network is secure and reliable has become a priority for businesses in the digital age.
• This has led to the rise of network traffic analysis tools that help businesses constantly monitor their computer networks and flag threats or other issues.
• IT Central Station, where IT professionals can weigh in on software tools they use, recently conducted a survey on network traffic analysis.
• Here are the 8 top NTA companies according to a May survey.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Keeping watch over a network is increasingly important for any business in the digital age.

All kinds of companies, from small businesses to big corporations, need to make sure their networks are secure and that they can quickly respond to problems, from a hacking attack or glitches that are slowing down traffic.

This has led to the rise of network traffic analysis (NTA) technologies that enable businesses to continuously monitor the state of their computer networks. NTA tools quickly detect and respond to threats, and flag other problems on a network.

NTA is still a small market, but it is expanding rapidly, Lawrence Orans, research vice president at Gartner, said.

"We've seen very strong growth in this market," he told Business Insider.  'There are dozens of vendors competing...The barrier to entry is low. It's relatively simple to develop a sensor that can monitor network traffic.  Also, there are well known machine learning algorithms that can be applied to analyzing network traffic."

Many NTA technologies are typically deployed in private data centers, although Gartner expects cloud-based systems "to start growing over the next few years," Orans said.

The sharp pivot to remote work in the COVID-19 crisis will likely speed up this process.

IT Central Station, the review site where IT professionals weigh in on the software they use, recently conducted a survey on NTA tools.

Here are the top network traffic analysis technologies, according to a May IT Central Station survey of IT professionals:

Cisco

Rating: 4 out of 5

Ranking score: 72

Most compared to: Darktrace, Splunk User Behavior Analytics

It's not surprising that Cisco, the most dominant networking company in the world, would also be a player in a space focused on monitoring and flagging issues on a network. Cisco Stealthwatch gets high marks from IT professionals who have tried it. One of them said in a May IT Central Station survey that the Cisco product "reduced the amount of time to detect an immediate threat."

 

Darktrace

Rating: 3.8 out of 5

Ranking score: 54

Most compared to: Cisco Stealthwatch, Vector AI, Crowdstrike Falcon

Darktrace is a hot cybersecurity startup that had been valued at $1.7 billion and had been expected to go public soon. The company, which has offices in San Francisco, London and Hong Kong, is known for having board members who served in prominent intelligence agencies, including the CIA and MI5. An IT professional surveyed by IT Central Station said Darktrace is effective in flagging "the behavior of users and malicious external or internal threats."

 

Plixer

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Ranking score: 46

Most compared to:  Cisco Stealthwatch, SolarWinds Network Traffic Analyzer, PRTG Network Monitor

Founded in 1999, Plixer, which is based in Kennebunk, Maine, was acquired by Battery Ventures in 2018.

Its Scrutinizer technology collects and processes meta data from different sources on a network, including Cisco, VMware and Amazon Web Services logs to provide insights into the state of a network, according to Gartner. An IT Central Station reviewer said its Scrutinizer technology "improved our fault-finding by at least 50 percent." The tool offers access to historical data that enhanced the ability to find issues in day-to-day networking, the reviewer said.

 

Vectra AI

Rating: 4.4 out of  5

Ranking score: 22

Most compared to: Darktrace, Cisco Stealthwatch, Awake Security Platform

Vectra has raised $222.5 million from investors including Accel and Wipro Ventures making it one of the hottest cybersecurity startups today.  Founded in 2012, the Silicon Valley company's CEO Hitesh Sheth said he realized the power of AI in rapidly detecting problems on a network. 

"In 2012, there was an inflection point that I saw in using AI that comes from security," he told Business Insider in an interview last year.

 

 

 

 

Awake Security

Rating:  4.7 out of 5

Ranking score: 18

Most compared to: Darktrace, Vectra AI, Cisco Stealthwatch

Silicon Valley startup Awake Security, which uses AI to secure networks, has raised $66 million from investors, including Greylock Partners and Bain Capital Partners. In fact, the company secured its most recent round, $36 million, just last month as the coronavirus crisis was escalating, highlighting strong investor interest in the company.

CEO Rahul Kashyap  said it was looking to stronger growth after the COVID-19 crisis. "Our round was oversubscribed, and this capital injection gives us the ability to move faster when this is done," told Business Insider in an interview in April.

 

Fidelis Cybersecurity

Rating: 4 out of 5

Ranking score: 11

Most compared to: CrowdStrike Falcon, FireEye Endpoint Security, Altivo Networks

Founded in 2002, Fidelis Cybsersecurity is known for threat-detection and response technologies. An IT Central Station reviewer said Fidelis's Elevate technology "improved our hunt ability with quick search tools, to zone in on malware or other anomalies."

Fidelis, whose technology has been used by the University of California system, was acquired earlier this year by  Skyview Capital.

Aruba

Rating: 4.3 out of 5

Ranking score: 10

Most compared to:  Cisco Stealthwatch, Darktrace, Splunk User Behavior Analytics

Founded in 2002, Aruba Networks was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $3 billion in 2015 and is now owned by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The networking company has become a critical part of HPE's bid to establish a stronger position in cloud and edge computing. 

Aruba focused more closely on the network traffic analysis market two years ago after it acquired Niara, according to Gartner. Aruba's IntroSpect technology uses machine learning and statistical analysis to monitor network traffic.

RSA

Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Ranking score: 8

Most compared to: Vectra AI, Darktrace, ExtraHop

RSA is one of the most well-known network security companies. Its NetWitness Network product also got upbeat reviews from professionals, including one who praised the "way it captures the traffic, and it contains every detail of the communication." However, other professionals also pointed to areas where it can be improved, such as its detection features.

RSA is also in transition after Dell, which acquired it after the tech giant bought EMC and VMware in 2015, announced that it was selling the network security company for $2.1 billion to a consortium that included the Symphony Technology Group. The transaction is expected to close in a few months.

 

 

Here's IT Central Station's ranking criteria, for the curious:

IT Central Station computes a ranking score for each product based on a composite of:

• Number of reviews' average star rating
• Number of times the product has been compared to alternative solutions
• Number of views of reviews
• Number of followers on IT Central Station.

The total ranking of a product is based on a weighted aggregate score. The score is calculated as follows: The product with the highest count in each area gets the highest available score. (Twenty points for reviews; 16 points for views, comparisons, and followers.) Every other product gets assigned points based on its total in proportion to the No. 1 product in that area.

Zoom will add stronger encryption to its paid customers’ video calls, but isn’t planning to offer the enhanced security to all accounts, Reuters reported. A security consultant with the company told Reuters that it still wasn’t clear whether some accounts, such as nonprofit users, might qualify for the more secure calls.

“Zoom’s approach to end-to-end encryption is very much a work in progress - everything from our draft cryptographic design, which was just published last week, to our continued discussions around which customers it would apply to,” a company spokesperson said in an email to The Verge.

The videoconferencing platform has boomed in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic, but has been plagued by myriad security issues....

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Putting things in jars is a surprisingly therapeutic activity. | Photo by William Poor / The Verge

If you’re anything like us, over the past couple of months you’ve probably finished every “must watch” TV series on Netflix, cleaned your apartment from top to bottom, and completed every video game in your backlog. We get it: social distancing can get pretty boring.

So if you’re finding yourself with a lot of time to kill, why not spend it on learning something completely new? With some basic supplies and online resources, it’s possible to learn a lot of cool and sometimes downright useful skills, like knitting, calligraphy, or even taking care of a bicycle.

We’re a tech site (obviously) so we’re not claiming to be experts in all of the hobbies we’re recommending below. But what we are good at is locating a lot of very specific and...

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• Webcams are in short supply, as they've suddenly become popular — and often necessary — accessories since many workers have been asked to conduct business from home. 
• Lenovo is selling its 500 FHD Webcam for a $20 discount, bringing its price down from $70 to $50.
• It streams video up to 1080p resolution and comes with a built-in privacy shutter. It's an ideal option to stream better-looking video than the built-in webcam on the vast majority of laptops. 

I just searched for "webcams" on Amazon, and the results were pretty dire — I was faced with a bunch of unrecognizable, no-name webcams that might be fine, but don't incite a tremendous amount of trust. 

Indeed, webcams — good webcams — are hard to come by these days. It's widely reported that webcams are in short supply during the pandemic. And, it's not surprising. Webcams weren't the hottest of product categories just a few months ago, before the Covid-19 outbreak forced people to conduct business from home, so companies had little reason to manufacture them in massive quantities.

So, when I saw Lenovo's neat little $20 discount on its 500 FHD Webcam, bringing its price down from $70 to $50, I thought I'd share.

For $50, you can have  a pretty nifty, uncomplicated plug-n-play webcam with 1080p resolution, so it'll take full advantage of most video calling services that top out at 1080p video streaming. It plugs into a computer's standard USB-A port, and the webcam itself has a USB-C port. Yes, the cable is included. 

The Lenovo 500 FHD Webcam has a wide 75-degree lens, which is pretty standard among webcams, as well as a privacy shutter to block the lens when you're not using it, which is less standard and a great additional feature.

For Windows 10 users, the Lenovo FHD 500 Webcam supports Windows Hello facial recognition for unlocking your computer. It doesn't specify whether it'll work with macOS on Mac computers. I've reached out to Lenovo asking whether it'll work with macOS devices, and I'll update this post when they reply. 

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• On Monday, a 46-year-old black man named George Floyd died in Minneapolis after a white police officer pinned him to the ground by the neck for several minutes during an arrest.
• Following Floyd's death, protesters took to the streets and have continued protesting throughout the week. On Thursday night, a Minneapolis police station was set ablaze by protesters.
• In a social media post on Friday morning, President Trump channeled a 1960s police chief whose harsh policing sparked riots in Miami. "When the looting starts, the shooting starts," Trump tweeted, and referred to the protesters as "thugs." 
• Trump posted the same message to his Twitter account and his Facebook account, but only one of the two services flagged his threat of violence as a violation of rules regarding user conduct: Twitter.
• A note that reads "This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence" is attached to Trump's message, and users must click through the warning to view what the tweet said.
• Facebook has done nothing with the same message posted to its service.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

On May 25, a 46-year-old black man named George Floyd was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis. 

A video of the officer with his knee pinned to Floyd's neck for several minutes was widely circulated, which captures Floyd pleading for his life before becoming unresponsive. "Please, please, please, I can't breathe," he says in the video. "Don't kill me."

Floyd died later that evening in medical care.

His death has sparked protests across the United States, particularly in Minneapolis where Floyd died. Those protests have become increasingly violent, and on Thursday night a Minneapolis police precinct was set ablaze by protesters.

In a series of messages published to his social media platforms, President Trump decried the protesters as "THUGS" and threatened violent retaliation. 

"When the looting starts, the shooting starts," Trump said on Twitter and Facebook, a direct quote of a notoriously harsh Miami police chief who invoked the phrase against black Americans during the race riots of the late 1960s.

Since Trump posted his messages to social media platforms, which have their own rules of conduct on free speech, his message was flagged by Twitter for "glorifying violence." In order to see the tweet, you must click through a warning that explicitly says the message violates Twitter's usage policies "regarding the glorification of violence based on the historical context of the last line, its connection to violence, and the risk it could inspire similar actions today."

Trump's identical message posted to Facebook remains untouched — despite violating Facebook's Community Standards for conduct. 

Specifically, Facebook's rules regarding "violence and criminal behavior," which state:

"While we understand that people commonly express disdain or disagreement by threatening or calling for violence in non-serious ways, we remove language that incites or facilitates serious violence. We remove content, disable accounts, and work with law enforcement when we believe there is a genuine risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety. We also try to consider the language and context in order to distinguish casual statements from content that constitutes a credible threat to public or personal safety. In determining whether a threat is credible, we may also consider additional information like a person's public visibility and the risks to their physical safety."

Facebook representatives did not respond to a request for comment on this story, but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly argued in favor of exclusions to Facebook's Community Standards as they pertain to what he calls "political speech."

As recently as this week, Zuckerberg has argued against Facebook curtailing speech from politicians — even if that speech is in direct violation of Facebook's own rules.

"We have a different policy than Twitter on this," Zuckerberg told Fox News' Dana Perino on Wednesday.

"I believe strongly that Facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online. I think in general, private companies shouldn't be, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," Zuckerberg said. 

SEE ALSO: LIVE UPDATES: CNN reporter arrested live on air while covering George Floyd protests, Twitter rebukes Trump for posts on 'THUGS'

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In a Q2 earnings call, Benioff said the cloud giant is prepared to enter ‘stage 2’—a safe reopening of the economy. Despite the challenges of the last quarter brought on by the coronavirus crisis, Salesforce continues to invest in innovation, along with protecting its employees, customers and communities in unprecedented times

• Based on Salesforce's first quarter results — which were mainly in-line with expectations — the company has been able to escape the worst effects of the coronavirus crisis due to its subscription-based business.
• CEO Marc Benioff said that the company had granted temporary "financial flexibility" to some customers affected by the pandemic and guaranteed its sales people a one-time commission.
• Benioff said that these investments in employees and customers are already benefiting Salesforce, and will make it stronger in the long run. 
• Benioff also highlighted that Salesforce is still closing large deals and seeing strong interest from customers. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said during the company's earnings call that some unusual concessions that it made in the first quarter of 2020 — guaranteeing salespeople their commissions and giving customers "flexibility" on their contracts — were worthy "investments" as it deals with the pandemic and economic downturn. 

Overall, the coronavirus crisis didn't have a meaningful impact on Salesforce's first quarter results Thursday, which were in line with expectations. Like its peers in the cloud software industry, Salesforce has been able to escape the worst effects that have hit other industries due to its subscription-based business. 

Benioff said that while the company didn't expect any major disruption, it's still being cautious. While several major tech companies like Twitter and Dell declined to offer financial guidance during the coronavirus, Salesforce braved the markets, offering Q2 guidance that was lower than analyst expectations and lowering the full year outlook as well.

Benioff said Salesforce took some strategic steps to help its employees and customers get through the quarter and to set it up for long-term success:

For one, Salesforce provided temporary "financial flexibility" to help customers most affected by the pandemic. That could include discounts or delayed payment plans, though Benioff didn't specify. Analysts have predicted that this would be a necessary step for Salesforce and other cloud software companies as their customers have difficulty paying or renewing subscriptions.

Also, Salesforce gave its sales people a one-time guaranteed commission for the quarter to take the pressure off at a time when closing deals would be difficult. The move gave those employees "tremendous confidence in our ability to take care of them," Benioff said.

Benioff described both these decisions as key to building trust with employees and customers and making sure Salesforce would be better-positioned for the future.

"We have great confidence that our investments — we already see it in our employees, our customers, our communities in the first quarter — well, they're benefiting us," he said. "They're benefiting us now in the short term, [and will in] the long term with tremendous strength and tremendous growth."

CFO Mark Hawkins said that Salesforce's "financial flexibility" for customers did impact cash flow for the quarter, though he didn't say how much and added that the company expects "to collect the majority of the balance this year." Hawkins did say that the guaranteed commission to its sales people cost $140 million in the first quarter. 

Looking at future customer demand

Despite many industries facing difficulties at this time, Benioff noted some companies are still able to invest in big "digital transformation" initiatives, and boasted that Salesforce is still closing big deals, like a multi-year agreement with AT&T, which plans to go all-in on Salesforce products. 

Salesforce's diverse portfolio of products helps it continue to snag customer interest from those companies able to invest in digitizing, Benioff added.

"My personal belief is always that in a moment of crisis, you need to invest through it," he said. "Maybe not every company can do that but a lot of companies surprisingly can."

He added that he's been on more sales calls with CEOs in the last two months than ever before in his career, and that he's hearing over and over again that digital transformation "isn't a want to have, it's a must have."

Do you work at Salesforce? Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at pzaveri@businessinsider.com or Signal at 925-364-4258. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google and Microsoft have worked together to improve the spellcheck experience in Chrome and Edge. The latest versions of Chrome and Edge are now powered by the built-in Windows Spellcheck feature rather than the previous Hunspell open source implementation. The switch means spellcheck within Chrome and Edge will now have better support for URLs, acronyms, email addresses, and an improved shared custom dictionary.

“This feature was developed as a collaboration between Google and Microsoft engineers in the Chromium project, enabling all Chromium-based browsers to benefit from Windows Spellcheck integration,” explains Microsoft’s Edge team.

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