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  • Instagram lifts ban on anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after launch of presidential bid | CNN Business

    Instagram lifts ban on anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after launch of presidential bid | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Instagram announced Sunday it had lifted its ban on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist who has launched a presidential bid, two years after it shut down Kennedy’s account for breaking its rules related to Covid-19.

    “As he is now an active candidate for president of the United States, we have restored access to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s, Instagram account,” Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Instagram’s parent company Meta said in a statement.

    Kennedy, who has a long history of spreading vaccine misinformation, was banned from Instagram in February 2021.

    A company spokesperson at the time said Instagram had removed his account for “repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines.”

    While Kennedy’s Instagram account was banned, his Facebook account remained active. Both platforms are owned by Meta.

    Kennedy was a leading anti-vaccination voice during the Covid-19 pandemic, using his social media platforms to sow doubt and misinformation about the shots.

    He has promoted false claims about vaccine links to autism and in 2022 compared vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany.

    His wife, actress Cheryl Hines, publicly condemned Kennedy’s remark as “reprehensible” after he invoked Anne Frank, who was murdered by Nazis as a teenager.

    Hines distanced herself from him in January 2022, tweeting: “His opinions are not a reflection of my own.”

    Kennedy’s return to Instagram, first reported by The Washington Post, will give him access to his more than 769,000 followers.

    The decision comes as traditional media and social media companies attempt to navigate a 2024 election campaign fraught with accusations of misinformation and censorship.

    On Friday, YouTube announced it would no longer remove content featuring false claims that the 2020 US presidential election was stolen, reversing a policy instituted more than two years ago amid a wave of misinformation about the election.

    The decision to reinstate Kennedy comes amid a flurry of activity between the candidate and Silicon Valley.

    On Sunday, Twitter

    (TWTR)     founder Jack Dorsey appeared to endorse Kennedy for president, tweeting a YouTube video titled, “Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. argues he can beat Trump and DeSantis in 2024.” Dorsey added in the tweet, “He can and will.”

    On Monday, Kennedy is due to take part in a live audio chat on Twitter with the company’s owner Elon Musk.

    Meta’s decision to allow Kennedy back on Instagram came a few days after the Democratic presidential candidate publicly complained that the platform was blocking his campaign from creating a new account.

    Stone, the Meta spokesperson, told CNN on Sunday that the restriction was a mistake and that the company had resolved the issue.

    Meta executives have long maintained they believe political candidates should be able to use its platforms to reach voters, even if those candidates sometimes break rules that would get other users banned from its platforms.

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  • Forget about the AI apocalypse. The real dangers are already here | CNN Business

    Forget about the AI apocalypse. The real dangers are already here | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Two weeks after members of Congress questioned OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about the potential for artificial intelligence tools to spread misinformation, disrupt elections and displace jobs, he and others in the industry went public with a much more frightening possibility: an AI apocalypse.

    Altman, whose company is behind the viral chatbot tool ChatGPT, joined Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Microsoft’s CTO Kevin Scott and dozens of other AI researchers and business leaders in signing a one-sentence letter last month stating: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

    The stark warning was widely covered in the press, with some suggesting it showed the need to take such apocalyptic scenarios more seriously. But it also highlights an important dynamic in Silicon Valley right now: Top executives at some of the biggest tech companies are simultaneously telling the public that AI has the potential to bring about human extinction while also racing to invest in and deploy this technology into products that reach billions of people.

    The dynamic has played out elsewhere recently, too. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for example, said in a TV interview in April that AI could lead to “civilization destruction.” But he still remains deeply involved in the technology through investments across his sprawling business empire and has said he wants to create a rival to the AI offerings by Microsoft and Google.

    Some AI industry experts say that focusing attention on far-off scenarios may distract from the more immediate harms that a new generation of powerful AI tools can cause to people and communities, including spreading misinformation, perpetuating biases and enabling discrimination in various services.

    “Motives seemed to be mixed,” Gary Marcus, an AI researcher and New York University professor emeritus who testified before lawmakers alongside Altman last month, told CNN. Some of the execs are likely “genuinely worried about what they have unleashed,” he said, but others may be trying to focus attention on “abstract possibilities to detract from the more immediate possibilities.”

    Representatives for Google and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement, a Microsoft spokesperson said: “We are optimistic about the future of AI, and we think AI advances will solve many more challenges than they present, but we have also been consistent in our belief that when you create technologies that can change the world, you must also ensure that the technology is used responsibly.”

    For Marcus, a self-described critic of AI hype, “the biggest immediate threat from AI is the threat to democracy from the wholesale production of compelling misinformation.”

    Generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Dall-E are trained on vast troves of data online to create compelling written work and images in response to user prompts. With these tools, for example, one could quickly mimic the style or likeness of public figures in an attempt to create disinformation campaigns.

    In his testimony before Congress, Altman also said the potential for AI to be used to manipulate voters and target disinformation were among “my areas of greatest concern.”

    Even in more ordinary use cases, however, there are concerns. The same tools have been called out for offering wrong answers to user prompts, outright “hallucinating” responses and potentially perpetuating racial and gender biases.

    Gary Marcus, professor emeritus at New York University, right, listens to Sam Altman, chief executive officer and co-founder of OpenAI, speak during a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. Congress is debating the potential and pitfalls of artificial intelligence as products like ChatGPT raise questions about the future of creative industries and the ability to tell fact from fiction.

    Emily Bender, a professor at the University of Washington and director of its Computational Linguistics Laboratory, told CNN said some companies may want to divert attention from the bias baked into their data and also from concerning claims about how their systems are trained.

    Bender cited intellectual property concerns with some of the data these systems are trained on as well as allegations of companies outsourcing the work of going through some of the worst parts of the training data to low-paid workers abroad.

    “If the public and the regulators can be focused on these imaginary science fiction scenarios, then maybe these companies can get away with the data theft and exploitative practices for longer,” Bender told CNN.

    Regulators may be the real intended audience for the tech industry’s doomsday messaging.

    As Bender puts it, execs are essentially saying: “‘This stuff is very, very dangerous, and we’re the only ones who understand how to rein it in.’”

    Judging from Altman’s appearance before Congress, this strategy might work. Altman appeared to win over Washington by echoing lawmakers’ concerns about AI — a technology that many in Congress are still trying to understand — and offering suggestions for how to address it.

    This approach to regulation would be “hugely problematic,” Bender said. It could give the industry influence over the regulators tasked with holding it accountable and also leave out the voices and input of other people and communities experiencing negative impacts of this technology.

    “If the regulators kind of orient towards the people who are building and selling the technology as the only ones who could possibly understand this, and therefore can possibly inform how regulation should work, we’re really going to miss out,” Bender said.

    Bender said she tries, at every opportunity, to tell people “these things seem much smarter than they are.” As she put it, this is because “we are as smart as we are” and the way that we make sense of language, including responses from AI, “is actually by imagining a mind behind it.”

    Ultimately, Bender put forward a simple question for the tech industry on AI: “If they honestly believe that this could be bringing about human extinction, then why not just stop?”

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  • Malaysia to take legal action against Meta over ‘undesirable’ content | CNN Business

    Malaysia to take legal action against Meta over ‘undesirable’ content | CNN Business

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    Malaysia said Friday it would take legal action against Facebook parent company Meta for failing to remove “undesirable” posts, the strongest measure the country has taken to date over such content.

    Last year’s closely fought national election has led to a rise in ethnic tensions, and since coming to power in November, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s administration has vowed to curb what it calls provocative posts that touch on race and religion.

    Facebook

    (FB)     has recently been “plagued by” a significant volume of undesirable content relating to race, royalty, religion, defamation, impersonation, online gambling and scam advertisements, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said in a statement.

    It also said Meta had failed to take sufficient action despite the body’s repeated requests and that legal action was necessary to promote accountability for cybersecurity and protect consumers.

    Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The commission also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what legal action might be taken.

    Race and religion are thorny issues in Malaysia, which has a majority of Muslim ethnic Malays alongside significant ethnic Chinese and ethnic Indian minorities.

    Commentary on the country’s revered royals is also a sensitive issue, and negative remarks toward them can be tried under sedition laws.

    The action against Facebook comes just weeks ahead of regional elections in six states that are expected to pit Anwar’s multi-ethnic coalition against a conservative Malay Muslim alliance.

    Facebook is Malaysia’s biggest social media platform, with an estimated 60% of its population of 33 million having a registered account.

    Globally, big social media firms that include Meta, Google’s

    (GOOGL)     YouTube, and TikTok are often under regulatory scrutiny over content posted on their platforms.

    Some Southeast Asian governments have frequently requested that content be taken down.

    In 2020, Vietnam threatened to shut down Facebook in the country if it did not bow to government pressure to censor more local political content on its platform. The authorities said last year that social media platforms operating in Vietnam removed more than 3,200 posts and videos in the first quarter that contained false information and violated the country’s law.

    In Indonesia in 2019, Facebook took down hundreds of local accounts, pages and groups linked to a fake news syndicate.

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  • Apple is now worth $3 trillion, boosted by the Nasdaq’s best start in 40 years | CNN Business

    Apple is now worth $3 trillion, boosted by the Nasdaq’s best start in 40 years | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Apple’s stock ended trading Friday valued at $3 trillion, the only company ever to reach that milestone. It has been riding a Big Tech stock wave that has given the Nasdaq its best first half gain in 40 years.

    Shares of Apple rose more than 2% Friday at a record $193.97. With 15.7 billion shares outstanding, that stock price pushed Apple to its historic market value.

    Apple has been here once before: On January 3, 2022, Apple hit the $3 trillion mark during intraday trading, but it failed to close there.

    The company’s stock closed Thursday at a record high share price for the third-straight day, but it merely budged 0.2% higher. Apple easily surpassed the $190.73 level it needed to break $3 trillion at Friday’s market open.

    The sky-high valuation for the tech giant comes on the heels of its risky launch of the Apple Vision Pro earlier this month and a stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings report in May – even though sales and profit slumped.

    The Vision Pro, which will go on sale next year, impressed tech journalists who got an early preview of the augmented reality device. But it is entering a nascent market with little mainstream consumer adoption. Apple plans to charge a hefty $3,499 for its headset, which currently has limited apps and experiences, and requires users to stay tethered to a battery pack the size of an iPhone.

    Apple’s

    (AAPL)     stock has skyrocketed 49% this year, boosted by a broader surge in Big Tech stocks as investors have jumped onto the AI bandwagon. Nvidia

    (NVDA)     leads the S&P 500 with a 190% jump this year, followed by Meta

    (META)     at 138%.

    The Nasdaq grew by 31.7% in the first half of the year, notching its largest first half percentage gain since 1983.

    This year’s stock market success for Apple comes in sharp contrast to 2022. At the start of 2023, Apple’s market cap fell below $2 trillion in trading for the first time since early 2021.

    Wall Street ended the first half of 2023 on a positive note as the tech rally led markets to close higher for both the month and second quarter of the year.

    The S&P 500 gained 6.5% in June, its best monthly performance since January. It also notched its third consecutive quarter of growth, up 8.3% in the second quarter. The S&P 500 is about 15.9% higher so far this year, its best half since 2019.

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  • Thousands of authors demand payment from AI companies for use of copyrighted works | CNN Business

    Thousands of authors demand payment from AI companies for use of copyrighted works | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Thousands of published authors are requesting payment from tech companies for the use of their copyrighted works in training artificial intelligence tools, marking the latest intellectual property critique to target AI development.

    The list of more than 8,000 authors includes some of the world’s most celebrated writers, including Margaret Atwood, Dan Brown, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, James Patterson, Jodi Picoult and Philip Pullman, among others.

    In an open letter they signed, posted by the Authors Guild Tuesday, the writers accused AI companies of unfairly profiting from their work.

    “Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry provide the ‘food’ for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been no bill,” the letter said. “You’re spending billions of dollars to develop AI technology. It is only fair that you compensate us for using our writings, without which AI would be banal and extremely limited.”

    Tuesday’s letter was addressed to the CEOs of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Facebook-parent Meta, Google, Stability AI, IBM and Microsoft. Most of the companies didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Meta, Microsoft and Stability AI declined to comment.

    Much of the tech industry is now working to develop AI tools that can generate compelling images and written work in response to user prompts. These tools are built on large language models, which are trained on vast troves of information online. But recently, there has been growing pressure on tech companies over alleged intellectual property violations with this training process.

    This month, comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors filed a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Meta, while a proposed class-action suit accused Google of “stealing everything ever created and shared on the internet by hundreds of millions of Americans,” including copyrighted content. Google has called the lawsuit “baseless,” saying it has been upfront for years that it uses public data to train its algorithms. OpenAI did not previously respond to a request for comment on the suit.

    In addition to demanding compensation “for the past and ongoing use of our works in your generative AI programs,” the thousands of authors who signed the letter this week called on AI companies to seek permission before using the copyrighted material. They also urged the companies to pay writers when their work is featured in the results of generative AI, “whether or not the outputs are infringing under current law.”

    The letter also cites this year’s Supreme Court holding in Warhol v Goldsmith, which found that the late artist Andy Warhol infringed on a photographer’s copyright when he created a series of silk screens based on a photograph of the late singer Prince. The court ruled that Warhol did not sufficiently “transform” the underlying photograph so as to avoid copyright infringement.

    “The high commerciality of your use argues against fair use,” the authors wrote to the AI companies.

    In May, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared to acknowledge more needs to be done to address concerns from creators about how AI systems use their works.

    “We’re trying to work on new models where if an AI system is using your content, or if it’s using your style, you get paid for that,” he said at an event.

    – CNN’s Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report.

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  • Elon Musk: Only paid subscribers will get recommended in Twitter ‘For You’ feed | CNN Business

    Elon Musk: Only paid subscribers will get recommended in Twitter ‘For You’ feed | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Less than a day after Elon Musk implied that Twitter users might soon only see tweets from paid subscribers in their default feed, the billionaire was forced to clarify that posts from accounts users follow will still be visible, too.

    Twitter’s “For You” tab, the first screen that users see when they open the app, curates tweets by using an algorithm. That means it can surface tweets from people you don’t follow. Late Monday, Musk said the For You tab will soon only recommend people who pay for the premium Twitter Blue service.

    “Starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations,” he announced in a tweet Monday evening. “The is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle. Voting in polls will require verification for same reason.”

    But on Tuesday, Musk tweeted a clarification: “Forgot to mention that accounts you follow directly will also be in For You, since you have explicitly asked for them.” Oops.

    In the five months since Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter, he and the company have been forced to rethink, clarify, delay or walk back a number of changes to the platform, prompting some confusion and whiplash among users in the process.

    Appearing in the “For You” feed helps users build their number of followers. Voting in polls doesn’t benefit users in the same way, but blocking them from voting may prompt some to sign up for the paid service.

    Musk frequently posts his own polls on Twitter, asking users everything from whether he should give up his position as CEO of the platform to whether he should sell shares of Tesla

    (TSLA)     stock.

    Although Musk said Twitter is making the change to battle with bot accounts, he later tweeted “That said, it’s ok to have verified bot accounts if they follow terms of service & don’t impersonate a human.”

    It is part of Musk’s plans to shift Twitter away from being almost completely dependent on advertising dollars for its revenue. A significant portion of Twitter’s ad base has left the platform since Musk took over in October.

    Last week, Musk announced that users who have had a free blue checkmark – typically government officials, celebrities, members of the media and other high profile users – would lose that free verification starting in April unless they agree to pay a subscription fee – either $84 annually or $8 a month.

    Musk and actor William Shatner clashed on Twitter over the weekend, when Shatner objected to the idea of paying for the checkmark.

    “Hey @elonmusk what’s this about blue checks going away unless we pay Twitter?” Shatner tweeted. “I’ve been here for 15 years giving my time & witty thoughts all for bupkis. Now you’re telling me that I have to pay for something you gave me for free?”

    Musk responded to Shatner on Sunday in a tweet: “It’s more about treating everyone equally. There shouldn’t be a different standard for celebrities.”

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  • How Uber left Lyft in the dust | CNN Business

    How Uber left Lyft in the dust | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    For years, Lyft positioned itself as the “nice guy” in the ride-hailing industry. It let rival Uber do most of the dirty work fighting regulators and the taxi industry to create a path for a new crop of companies to offer rides to customers through an app.

    In the process, Lyft cultivated a feel-good brand – but Uber dominated the market. For a brief moment in 2017, however, it looked like the balance of power might shift, as Uber was rocked by a seemingly endless series of PR crises that culminated with its founder and CEO Travis Kalanick stepping down.

    Six years later, however, Lyft’s position is arguably more precarious than it has ever been. Uber now has 74% of the US rideshare market, up from 62% in 2020, according to market research firm YipitData, while Lyft’s market share slipped to 26% from 38% during that same period. Meanwhile, Lyft stock has plunged nearly 90% since it went public in 2019.

    In a nod to those challenges, Lyft announced Monday that its two cofounders, Logan Green and John Zimmer, would step back from their management roles and the company would bring in Amazon veteran and Lyft board member David Risher to take the helm of Lyft as CEO.

    In its announcement, Lyft framed the leadership change as a straightforward succession plan. “All founders eventually find the right moment to step back and the right leaders to take their company forward,” Green said in a statement. “As a member of the board, he knows both the challenges and opportunities ahead.”

    For Lyft, the current challenges are immense. While Uber diversified its business beyond ride-hailing by delivering meals and grocery items, Lyft never did. That arguably hurt the company earlier in the pandemic when fewer customers were traveling but more were ordering items online. Late last year, Lyft said it was cutting 13% of its staff, or 700 employees, as part of a major effort to cut costs.

    At the same time, Lyft now faces an Uber that is run by a seasoned executive, Expedia veteran Dara Khosrowshahi, who immediately got to work straightening up the company’s business and image. Under Khosrowshahi, Uber doubled down on growing its meal delivery business, while working to cut costs elsewhere, including by selling off more experimental efforts like its self-driving car unit.

    In its most recent earnings report last month, Uber said that it had its “strongest quarter ever,” reporting a 49% year-over-year increase in revenue. Lyft’s latest earnings report, meanwhile, was unusually disappointing for Wall Street.

    One tech analyst, Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities, said Lyft’s conference call to discuss the results “was a Top 3 worst call we have ever heard” as its “management is trying to play darts blindfolded.” He slammed the earnings outlook offered on the call as a “debacle for the ages.”

    With Risher as the new CEO, Lyft is clearly hoping for a turnaround. Risher was the 37th employee of Amazon – a company that has long been the model for the on-demand industry – and he went on to become the e-commerce giant’s first head of product and head of US retail. In its statement announcing Risher as the new CEO, Lyft pointed to his legacy at Amazon: “In tribute to Mr. Risher’s contributions, Jeff Bezos added a permanent thank-you to the Amazon website, where it can still be seen  today.”

    Tom White, a senior research analyst at D.A. Davidson, wrote in a note this week that the new CEO “could signal an increased willingness to broaden the strategic aperture at  LYFT a bit as it relates to areas like product strategy (delivery), partnerships, or other novel ways to create value.”

    Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick (left); current Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi (right).

    Nicholas Cauley, an analyst at research firm Third Bridge, wrote that Lyft “still has many levers it can pull to regain market share.” He added: “There are still improvements to be made and a leadership change is a positive catalyst for turning the ship around.”

    But in an interview with CNN’s Julia Chatterley on Wednesday, Risher seemed to dash hopes that Lyft would borrow from Uber’s playbook and branch into other delivery categories.

    Risher told CNN he wants to make sure Lyft focuses on providing a great ride-hailing service and “not get distracted by delivering pizzas or packages or all sorts of other things that other companies are doing.”

    “I don’t really want to get in the same car that, you know, just delivered the tuna sandwich,” he added. “And if you talk to drivers, they say, ‘Gosh, I don’t make as much in food delivery and it’s more frustrating. I get tickets when I’m double parked in front of the restaurant and so forth.’ So, you know, I think that, that Uber has its challenges too. I really do.”

    Risher also said “it’s not our focus” to pursue a sale of the company.

    While the market initially seemed to welcome Risher’s appointment, the slight uptick in Lyft stock after the news came out was quickly wiped out a day later once Risher started talking about his plans for the company.

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  • First on CNN: A new group of Twitter vendors is suing the company for alleged unpaid bills | CNN Business

    First on CNN: A new group of Twitter vendors is suing the company for alleged unpaid bills | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    A group of Twitter vendors on Tuesday filed a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that the company has failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in overdue bills.

    The four firms — captioning services company White Coat Captioning, consulting group YES Consulting and public relations firms Cancomm and Dialogue México — allege that Twitter is in breach of their contracts and has yet to pay bills ranging from around $40,000 to $140,000 for services they provided the company last year.

    Tuesday’s lawsuit, which was filed in California Northern District Court and first reported by CNN, refers to the companies suing Twitter as “small businesses without the resources, time, and money to litigate these claims on their own.”

    The lawsuit comes as new Twitter owner Elon Musk attempts to slash costs after buying the company for $44 billion, a significant amount of which came from debt financing. It also adds to the growing list of legal actions Twitter is facing from landlords, business partners and former employees claiming the company has failed to pay what they are owed since Musk’s takeover.

    Twitter is also facing lawsuits from at least one landlord claiming it has missed rent payments, a private jet company for unpaid bills for executive flights and an event production company who said Twitter failed to pay it after canceling the “Chirp Conference” it had been set to organize in November after Musk took over the company.

    The latest suit was filed by Shannon Liss-Riordan, who has also filed four proposed class action lawsuits and hundreds of arbitration demands on behalf of Twitter employees laid off following Musk’s takeover in pursuit of additional severance they allege they were promised by the company prior to Musk’s takeover. Some former workers have also alleged sex and disability discrimination and other issues, which the company has argued in court are without merit.

    Twitter has moved to dismiss many of the lawsuits in court. Twitter, which fired much of its media relations team last fall, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the new lawsuit.

    “Elon Musk told Twitter vendors that, if they want to get paid, then sue,” Liss-Riordan said in a statement to CNN, referring to comments reportedly made by the Twitter owner. “Well, he’s now getting his wish. Businesses, like employees, should not have to sue to get paid what they are owed.”

    In the new lawsuit, White Coat Captioning said it provided real-time captioning services for events and classes for Twitter employees who were hard of hearing or spoke languages other than English. The company alleged that it began contacting Twitter in November about overdue and pending invoices for services rendered under a contract signed in March 2022.

    “Twitter reassured White Coat Captioning it had processed and would pay these invoices, but it never did,” the firm alleged in the complaint. In January, the firm claims that Twitter said it was conducting an “additional review” of the invoices. Twitter owes the captioning company around $42,000, according to the complaint.

    YES Consulting, which said it provided leadership training to Twitter employees per an agreement signed in March 2022, alleges that Twitter owes it approximately $49,000 for services provided between August and November last year.

    Latin American public relations firm Dialogue also alleges that Twitter has failed to pay approximately $140,000 for eight invoices for services provided in November and December of last year.

    The vendors are seeking damages in the amount each company is allegedly owed by Twitter, as well as interest.

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  • Elizabeth Holmes must report to prison this month while waiting out her appeal, judge rules | CNN Business

    Elizabeth Holmes must report to prison this month while waiting out her appeal, judge rules | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    A judge on Monday denied Elizabeth Holmes’ request to remain free while she appeals her conviction, setting the stage for the disgraced Theranos founder to report to prison later this month.

    In his order, Judge Edward Davila of the Northern District of California said Holmes does not pose a danger to the community or a flight risk, but he cast doubt on her appeal. Even if Homes won her appeal, he said, it is unlikely to result in a reversal, or an order for a new trial, for all of the counts on which she was found guilty.

    Davila previously ordered Holmes to turn herself into custody on April 27, 2023.

    Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison last November, after she was convicted months earlier on multiple charges of defrauding investors while running the failed blood testing startup Theranos. Attorneys for Holmes did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment on the ruling.

    Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, Holmes’ ex-boyfriend and the former chief operating officer at Theranos, was also found guilty on multiple counts of fraud in a separate trial. He was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison last December. Balwani’s request to remain out of prison during his appeal was also denied, and he has been ordered by Davila to surrender to prison on April 20.

    Once valued at $9 billion, Theranos attracted top investors and retail partners with claims that it had developed technology to test for a wide range of conditions using just a few drops of blood. The company began to unravel after a Wall Street Journal investigation in 2015 reported that Theranos had only ever performed roughly a dozen of the hundreds of tests it offered using its proprietary technology, and with questionable accuracy.

    Holmes’ trial was initially delayed multiple times, due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and then because of her pregnancy. Following her sentencing in November, Holmes sought to delay the start of her prison term after giving birth to her second child.

    While Davila denied Holmes represented a flight risk, he also addressed the fact that she had previously booked a one-way ticket to Mexico in January 2022.

    “Booking international travel plans for a criminal defendant in anticipation of a complete defense victory is a bold move, and the failure to promptly cancel those plans after a guilty verdict is a perilously careless oversight,” Davila wrote in the court filing.

    Holmes’ attorneys had previously claimed that Holmes had hoped the verdict would be different when booking the travel plans and that she wanted to make this trip to attend the wedding of friends in Mexico. Davila wrote in court documents that the court accepts Holmes’ “representation that the oneway flight ticket—while ill-advised—was not an attempt to flee the country.”

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  • Universal Music Group calls AI music a ‘fraud,’ wants it banned from streaming platforms. Experts say it’s not that easy | CNN Business

    Universal Music Group calls AI music a ‘fraud,’ wants it banned from streaming platforms. Experts say it’s not that easy | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Universal Music Group — the music company representing superstars including Sting, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande — has a new Goliath to contend with: artificial intelligence.

    The music group sent urgent letters in April to streaming platforms, including Spotify

    (SPOT)     and Apple Music, asking them to block artificial intelligence platforms from training on the melodies and lyrics of their copywritten songs.

    The company has “a moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorized use of their music and to stop platforms from ingesting content that violates the rights of artists and other creators,” a spokesperson from Universal Music Group, or UMG, told CNN. “We expect our platform partners will want to prevent their services from being used in ways that harm artists.”

    The move by UMG, first reported by the Financial Times, aims to stop artificial intelligence from creating an existential threat to the industry.

    Artificial intelligence, and specifically AI music, learns by either training on existing works on the internet or through a library of music given to the AI by humans.

    UMG says it is not against the technology itself, but rather AI that is so advanced it can recreate melodies and even musicians’ voices in seconds. That could possibly threaten UMG’s deep library of music and artists that generate billions of dollars in revenue.

    “UMG’s success has been, in part, due to embracing new technology and putting it to work for our artists — as we have been doing with our own innovation around AI for some time already,” UMG said in a statement Monday. “However, the training of generative AI using our artists’ music … begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on.”

    The company said AI that uses artists’ music violates UMG’s agreements and copyright law. UMG has been sending requests to streamers asking them to take down AI-generated songs.

    “I understand the intent behind the move, but I’m not sure how effective this will be as AI services will likely still be able to access the copyrighted material one way or another,” said Karl Fowlkes, an entertainment and business attorney at The Fowlkes Firm.

    No regulations exist that dictate on what AI can and cannot train. But last month, in response to individuals looking to seek copyright for AI-generated works, the US Copyright Office released new guidance around how to register literary, musical, and artistic works made with AI.

    “In the case of works containing AI-generated material, the Office will consider whether the AI contributions are the result of ‘mechanical reproduction’ or instead of an author’s ‘own original mental conception, to which [the author] gave visible form,’” the new guidance says.

    The copyright will be determined on a case-by-case basis, the guidance continued, based on how the AI tool operates and how it was used to create the final piece or work.

    The US Copyright Office announced it will also be seeking public input on how the law should apply to copywritten works the AI trains on, and how the office should treat those works.

    “AI companies using copyrighted works to train their models to create similar works is exactly the type of behavior the copyright office and courts should explicitly ban. Original art is meant to be protected by law, not works created by machines that used the original art to create new work,” said Fowlkes.

    But according to AI experts, it’s not that simple.

    “You can flag your site not to be searched. But that’s a request — you can’t prevent it. You can just request that someone not do it,” said Shelly Palmer, Professor of Advanced Media at Syracuse University.

    For example, a website can apply a robots.txt file that works like a guardrail to control which URL’s “search engine crawlers” can access a given site, according to Google. But it is not a full stop, keep-out option.

    Grammy-winning DJ and producer David Guetta proved in February just how easy it is to create new music using AI. Using ChatGPT for lyrics and Uberduck for vocals, Guetta was able to create a new song in an hour.

    The result was a rap with a voice that sounded exactly like Eminem. He played the song at one of his shows in February, but said he would never release it commercially.

    “What I think is very interesting about AI is that it’s raising a question of what is it to be an artist,” Guetta told CNN last month.

    Guetta believes AI is going to have a significant impact on the music industry, so he’s embracing it instead of fighting it. But he admits there are still questions about copyright.

    “That is an ethical problem that needs to be addressed because it sounds crazy to me that today I can type lyrics and it’s going to sound like Drake is rapping it, or Eminem,” he said.

    And that is exactly what UMG wants to avoid. The music group likens AI music to “deep fakes, fraud, and denying artists their due compensation.”

    “These instances demonstrate why platforms have a fundamental legal and ethical responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists,” the UMG statement said.

    Music streamers Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora did not return request for comment.

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  • This is Google’s new folding phone | CNN Business

    This is Google’s new folding phone | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Just a few days ahead of its product launch, Google unveiled an early look at its first foldable smartphone.

    In a video posted to Twitter and YouTube, the company teased a Pixel phone with a vertical hinge that can be opened to reveal a tablet-like display.

    The company will host its annual developer conference at its Mountain View, California, headquarters next week, where it’s rumored to also introduce a Pixel 7a budget phone, its latest Android operating system and advancements to its AI-powered Bard chatbot.

    Although the company didn’t reveal specs for the Pixel Fold, it’s become increasingly common for companies to show off products leading up to their own events in an effort to drum up excitement and set expectations at a time when it’s difficult to surprise onlookers with something unexpected.

    Despite great interest in foldable phones — and a resurgence in 90s-style flip phones among celebrities and TikTok influencers — the foldable market is relatively small; with Samsung dominating the category, followed by others including Motorola/Lenovo, Oppo, and Huawei. According to ABI Research, foldable and flexible displays made up about 0.7% of the smartphone market in 2021, and in 2022 expected to fall just shy of 2%.

    High price points have limited consumer adoption, too. The Pixel Fold is rumored to start at $1,700.

    It’s not surprising Google is dipping its toes into the world of foldables but it’s possible it waited to launch its own version until the technology became more advanced. Early versions of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold, for example, had issues with the screen and most apps were not well optimized for the design.

    “Google has been working on bringing better user experiences to foldable devices from a software perspective, so when coupled with improvements on the hardware side the market conditions are at a state now where it makes sense for a Pixel Fold,” said Michael Inouye, an analyst at ABI Research.

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  • Lyft stock plunges nearly 15% on weaker than expected revenue forecast | CNN Business

    Lyft stock plunges nearly 15% on weaker than expected revenue forecast | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Lyft may have a bumpy road ahead to recovery.

    The ride-hailing company reported revenue of $1 billion for the quarter ending in March, marking a 14% year-over-year increase and beating Wall Street estimate’s. But the company forecast weaker-than-expected revenue for the current quarter, which was enough to jitter investors.

    Shares of Lyft plunged nearly 15% in after-hours trading Thursday following the earnings results.

    The latest earnings report comes on the heels of Lyft shaking up its the C-suite and announcing plans to cut 26% of its employees as it fights for market share and profitability.

    David Risher, who previously worked at Amazon and Microsoft, recently took over as CEO of Lyft and the company’s two co-founders stepped down from their management positions at the company. Risher has been a member of the Lyft board since 2021.

    On a conference call with analysts on Thursday to discuss the results, Risher said Lyft is currently at “an inflection point” as people return to pre-pandemic social habits.

    “I am very aware of our current levels of growth and profitability are not acceptable,” Risher said on the call, his first as CEO. “I am committed to growing Lyft into a large, durable, profitable business, that our riders, drivers and shareholders love, and I look forward to keeping you informed on our progress.”

    Compared to its chief rival Uber, Lyft has so far struggled to bounce back from the pandemic’s hit to its business. While Uber diversified its business beyond ride-hailing by delivering meals and grocery items during the health crises, Lyft never did. Uber also was able to attract drivers back to the platform better than Lyft as pandemic restrictions eased in the U.S.

    Earlier this week, Uber said in its quarterly earnings report that revenue was up 29%, as demand for its rideshare and delivery services held firm despite lingering recession fears.

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  • Donald Trump Fast Facts | CNN Politics

    Donald Trump Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States.

    Birth date: June 14, 1946

    Birth place: New York, New York

    Birth name: Donald John Trump

    Father: Fred Trump, real estate developer

    Mother: Mary (Macleod) Trump

    Marriages: Melania (Knauss) Trump (January 22, 2005-present); Marla (Maples) Trump (December 1993-June 1999, divorced); Ivana (Zelnicek) Trump (1977-1990, divorced)

    Children: with Melania Trump: Barron, March 20, 2006; with Marla Maples: Tiffany, October 13, 1993; with Ivana Trump: Eric, 1984; Ivanka, October 30, 1981; Donald Jr., December 31, 1977

    Education: Attended Fordham University; University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Finance, B.S. in Economics, 1968

    As Trump evolved from real estate developer to reality television star, he turned his name into a brand. Licensed Trump products have included board games, steaks, cologne, vodka, furniture and menswear.

    He has portrayed himself in cameo appearances in movies and on television, including “Zoolander,” “Sex and the City” and “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”

    Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again,” was first used by Ronald Reagan while he was running against President Jimmy Carter.

    For details on investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election, visit 2016 Presidential Election Investigation Fast Facts.

    1970s – After college, works with his father on apartment complexes in Queens and Brooklyn.

    1973 – Trump and his father are named in a Justice Department lawsuit alleging Trump property managers violated the Fair Housing Act by turning away potential African American tenants. The Trumps deny the company discriminates and file a $100 million countersuit, which is later dismissed. The case is settled in 1975, and the Trumps agree to provide weekly lists of vacancies to Black community organizations.

    1976 – Trump and his father partner with the Hyatt Corporation, purchasing the Commodore Hotel, an aging midtown Manhattan property. The building is revamped and opens four years later as the Grand Hyatt Hotel. The project kickstarts Trump’s career as a Manhattan developer.

    1983-1990 – He builds/purchases multiple properties in New York City, including Trump Tower and the Plaza Hotel, and also opens casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, including the Trump Taj Mahal and the Trump Plaza. Trump buys the New Jersey Generals football team, part of the United States Football League, which folds after three seasons.

    1985 – Purchases Mar-a-Lago, an oceanfront estate in Palm Beach, Florida. It is renovated and opens as a private club in 1995.

    1987 – Trump’s first book, “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” is published, and becomes a bestseller. The Donald J. Trump Foundation is established in order to donate a portion of profits from book sales to charities.

    1990 – Nearly $1 billion in personal debt, Trump reaches an agreement with bankers allowing him to avoid declaring personal bankruptcy.

    1991 – The Trump Taj Mahal files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

    1992 – The Trump Plaza and the Trump Castle casinos file for bankruptcy.

    1996 – Buys out and becomes executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants.

    October 7, 1999 – Tells CNN’s Larry King that he is going to form a presidential exploratory committee and wants to challenge Pat Buchanan for the Reform Party nomination.

    February 14, 2000 – Says that he is abandoning his bid for the presidency, blaming discord within the Reform Party.

    January 2004 – “The Apprentice,” a reality show featuring aspiring entrepreneurs competing for Trump’s approval, premieres on NBC.

    November 21, 2004 – Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

    2005 – Establishes Trump University, which offers seminars in real estate investment.

    February 13, 2009 – Announces his resignation from his position as chairman of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Days later, the company files for bankruptcy protection.

    March 17, 2011 – During an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Trump questions whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States.

    June 16, 2015 – Announces that he is running for president during a speech at Trump Tower. He pledges to implement policies that will boost the economy and says he will get tough on immigration. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best…They’re sending people who have lots of problems,” Trump says. “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”

    June 28, 2015 – Says he’s giving up the TV show “The Apprentice” to run for president.

    June 29, 2015 – NBCUniversal says it is cutting its business ties to Trump and won’t air the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants because of “derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants.”

    July 8, 2015 – In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Trump says he “can’t guarantee” all of his employees have legal status in the United States. This is in response to questions about a Washington Post report about undocumented immigrants working at the Old Post Office construction site in Washington, DC, which Trump is converting into a hotel.

    July 22, 2015 – Trump’s financial disclosure report is made public by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

    August 6, 2015 – During the first 2016 Republican debate, Trump is questioned about a third party candidacy, his attitude towards women and his history of donating money to Democratic politicians. He tells moderator Megyn Kelly of Fox News he feels he is being mistreated. The following day, Trump tells CNN’s Don Lemon that Kelly was singling him out for attack, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

    September 11, 2015 – Trump announces he has purchased NBC’s half of the Miss Universe Organization, which organizes the annual Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants.

    December 7, 2015 – Trump’s campaign puts out a press release calling for a “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

    May 26, 2016 – Secures enough delegates to clinch the Republican Party nomination.

    July 16, 2016 – Introduces Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate.

    July 19, 2016 – Becomes the Republican Party nominee for president.

    September 13, 2016 – During an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says his office is investigating Trump’s charitable foundation “to make sure it’s complying with the laws governing charities in New York.”

    October 1, 2016 – The New York Times reports Trump declared a $916 million loss in 1995 which could have allowed him to legally skip paying federal income taxes for years. The report is based on a financial document mailed to the newspaper by an anonymous source.

    October 7, 2016 – Unaired footage from 2005 surfaces of Trump talking about trying to have sex with a married woman and being able to grope women. In footage obtained by The Washington Post, Trump is heard off-camera discussing women in vulgar terms during the taping of a segment for “Access Hollywood.” In a taped response, Trump declares, “I said it, I was wrong and I apologize.”

    October 9, 2016 – During the second presidential debate, CNN’s Cooper asks Trump about his descriptions of groping and kissing women without their consent in the “Access Hollywood” footage. Trump denies that he has ever engaged in such behavior and declares the comments were “locker room talk.” After the debate, 11 women step forward to claim that they were sexually harassed or sexually assaulted by the real estate developer. Trump says the stories aren’t true.

    November 8, 2016 – Elected president of the United States. Trump will be the first president who has never held elected office, a top government post or a military rank.

    November 18, 2016 – Trump agrees to pay $25 million to settle three lawsuits against Trump University. About 6,000 former students are covered by the settlement.

    December 24, 2016 – Trump says he will dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation “to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as President.” A spokeswoman for the New York Attorney General’s Office says that the foundation cannot legally close until investigators conclude their probe of the charity.

    January 10, 2017 – CNN reports that intelligence officials briefed Trump on a dossier that contains allegations about his campaign’s ties to Russia and unverified claims about his personal life. The author of the dossier is a former British spy who was hired by a research firm that had been funded by both political parties to conduct opposition research on Trump.

    January 20, 2017 – Takes the oath of office from Chief Justice John Roberts during an inauguration ceremony at the Capitol.

    January 23, 2017 – Trump signs an executive action withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade deal negotiated by the Obama administration and awaiting congressional approval.

    January 27, 2017 – Trump signs an executive order halting all refugee arrivals for 120 days and banning travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days. Additionally, refugees from Syria are barred indefinitely from entering the United States. The order is challenged in court.

    February 13, 2017 – Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigns amid accusations he lied about his communications with Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. Flynn later pleads guilty to lying to the FBI.

    May 3, 2017 – FBI Director James Comey confirms that there is an ongoing investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia during a hearing on Capitol Hill. Less than a week later, Trump fires Comey, citing a DOJ memo critical of the way he handled the investigation into Clinton’s emails.

    May 2017 – Shortly after Trump fires Comey, the FBI opens an investigation into whether Trump “had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests,” citing former law enforcement officials and others the paper said were familiar with the probe.

    May 17, 2017 – Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is appointed as special counsel to lead the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, including potential collusion between Trump campaign associates and Russian officials. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein makes the appointment because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from investigations into Trump’s campaign.

    May 19, 2017 – Departs on his first foreign trip as president. The nine-day, five-country trip includes stops in Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican, a NATO summit in Brussels and a G7 summit in Sicily.

    June 1, 2017 – Trump proclaims that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord but adds that he is open to renegotiating aspects of the environmental agreement, which was signed by 175 countries in 2016.

    July 7, 2017 – Meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in person for the first time, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany.

    August 8, 2017 – In response to nuclear threats from North Korea, Trump warns that Pyongyang will “face fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Soon after Trump’s comments, North Korea issues a statement saying it is “examining the operational plan” to strike areas around the US territory of Guam.

    August 15, 2017 – After a violent clash between neo-Nazi activists and counterprotesters leaves one dead in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump holds an impromptu press conference in the lobby of Trump Tower and declares that there were “fine people” on both sides.

    August 25, 2017 – Trump’s first pardon is granted to former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt for disregarding a court order in a racial-profiling case. Trump did not consult with lawyers at the Justice Department before announcing his decision.

    September 5, 2017 – The Trump administration announces that it is ending the DACA program, introduced by Obama to protect nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. Trump calls on Congress to introduce legislation that will prevent DACA recipients from being deported. Multiple lawsuits are filed opposing the policy in federal courts and judges delay the end of the program, asking the government to submit filings justifying the cancellation of DACA.

    September 19, 2017 – In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump refers to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man” and warns that the United States will “totally destroy North Korea” if forced to defend itself or its allies.

    September 24, 2017 – The Trump administration unveils a third version of the travel ban, placing restrictions on travel by certain foreigners from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. (Chad is later removed after meeting security requirements.) One day before the revised ban is set to take effect, it is blocked nationwide by a federal judge in Hawaii. A judge in Maryland issues a similar ruling.

    December 4, 2017 – The Supreme Court rules that the revised travel ban can take effect pending appeals.

    December 6, 2017 – Trump recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announces plans to relocate the US Embassy there.

    January 11, 2018 – During a White House meeting on immigration reform, Trump reportedly refers to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries.”

    January 12, 2018 – The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump allegedly had an affair with a porn star named Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels. The newspaper states that Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, arranged a $130,000 payment for a nondisclosure agreement weeks before Election Day in 2016. Trump denies the affair occurred. In March, Clifford sues Trump seeking to be released from the NDA. In response, Trump and his legal team agree outside of court not to sue or otherwise enforce the NDA. The suit is dismissed. A California Superior Court judge orders Trump to pay $44,100 to Clifford, to reimburse her attorneys’ fees in the legal battle surrounding her nondisclosure agreement.

    March 13, 2018 – Trump announces in a tweet that he has fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and will nominate CIA Director Mike Pompeo as Tillerson’s replacement.

    March 20, 2018 – A New York Supreme Court judge rules that a defamation lawsuit against Trump can move forward, ruling against a July 2017 motion to dismiss filed by Trump’s lawyers. The lawsuit, filed by Summer Zervos, a former “Apprentice” contestant, is related to sexual assault allegations. In November 2021, attorneys for Zervos announce she is dropping the lawsuit.

    March 23, 2018 – The White House announces that it is adopting a policy, first proposed by Trump via tweet in July 2017, banning most transgender individuals from serving in the military.

    April 9, 2018 – The FBI raids Cohen’s office, home and a hotel room where he’d been staying while his house was renovated. The raid is related to a federal investigation of possible fraud and campaign finance violations.

    April 13, 2018 – Trump authorizes joint military strikes in Syria with the UK and France after reports the government used chemical weapons on civilians in Douma.

    May 7, 2018 – The Trump administration announces a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal border crossings. Sessions says that individuals who violate immigration law will be criminally prosecuted and warns that parents could be separated from children.

    May 8, 2018 – Trump announces that the United States is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.

    May 31, 2018 – The Trump administration announces it is imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from allies Canada, Mexico and the European Union.

    June 8-9, 2018 – Before leaving for the G7 summit in Quebec City, Trump tells reporters that Russia should be reinstated in the group. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 led to Russia’s suspension. After leaving the summit, Trump tweets that he will not endorse the traditional G7 communique issued at the end of the meeting. The President singles out Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for making “false statements” at a news conference.

    June 12, 2018 – Trump meets Kim in person for the first time during a summit in Singapore. They sign a four-point statement that broadly outlines the countries’ commitment to a peace process. The statement contains a pledge by North Korea to “work towards” complete denuclearization but the agreement does not detail how the international community will verify that Kim is ending his nuclear program.

    June 14, 2018 – The New York attorney general sues the Trump Foundation, alleging that the nonprofit run by Trump and his three eldest children violated state and federal charity law.

    June 26, 2018 – The Supreme Court upholds the Trump administration’s travel ban in a 5-4 ruling along party lines.

    July 16, 2018 – During a joint news conference with Putin in Helsinki, Trump declines to endorse the US government’s assessment that Russia interfered in the election, saying he doesn’t “see any reason why” Russia would be responsible. The next day, Trump clarifies his remark, “The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.” He says he accepts the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the election but adds, “It could be other people also.”

    August 21, 2018 – Cohen pleads guilty to eight federal charges, including two campaign finance violations. In court, he says that he orchestrated payments to silence women “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office.” On the same day, Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort is convicted on eight counts of federal financial crimes. On December 12, Cohen is sentenced to three years in prison.

    October 2, 2018 – The New York Times details numerous tax avoidance schemes allegedly carried out by Trump and his siblings. In a tweet, Trump dismisses the article as a “very old, boring and often told hit piece.”

    November 20, 2018 – Releases a statement backing Saudi Arabia in the wake of the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Virginia resident, killed in October at a Saudi consulate in Turkey. Khashoggi was a frequent critic of the Saudi regime. The Saudis initially denied any knowledge of his death, but then later said a group of rogue operators were responsible for his killing. US officials have speculated that such a mission, including the 15 men sent from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to murder him, could not have been carried out without the authorization of Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In the statement, Trump writes, “Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event, maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!”

    December 18, 2018 – The Donald J. Trump Foundation agrees to dissolve according to a document filed in Manhattan Supreme Court. The agreement allows the New York attorney general’s office to review the recipients of the charity’s assets.

    December 22, 2018 – The longest partial government shutdown in US history begins after Trump demands lawmakers allocate $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall before agreeing to sign a federal funding package.

    January 16, 2019 – After nearly two years of Trump administration officials denying that anyone involved in his campaign colluded with the Russians to help his candidacy, Trump lawyer and former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani, says “I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign. I said the President of the United States.”

    January 25, 2019 – The government shutdown ends when Trump signs a short-term spending measure, providing three weeks of stopgap funding while lawmakers work on a border security compromise. The bill does not include any wall funding.

    February 15, 2019 – Trump declares a national emergency to allocate funds to build a wall on the border with Mexico. During the announcement, the President says he expects the declaration to be challenged in court. The same day, Trump signs a border security measure negotiated by Congress, with $1.375 billion set aside for barriers, averting another government shutdown.

    February 18, 2019 – Attorneys general from 16 states file a lawsuit in federal court challenging Trump’s emergency declaration.

    March 22, 2019 – Mueller ends his investigation and delivers his report to Attorney General William Barr. A senior Justice Department official tells CNN that there will be no further indictments.

    March 24, 2019 – Barr releases a letter summarizing the principal conclusions from Mueller’s investigation. According to Barr’s four-page letter, the evidence was not sufficient to establish that members Trump’s campaign tacitly engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the Russian government to interfere with the election.

    April 18, 2019 – A redacted version of the Mueller report is released. The first part of the 448-page document details the evidence gathered by Mueller’s team on potential conspiracy crimes and explains their decisions not to charge individuals associated with the campaign. The second part of the report outlines ten episodes involving possible obstruction of justice by the President. According to the report, Mueller’s decision not to charge Trump was rooted in Justice Department guidelines prohibiting the indictment of a sitting president. Mueller writes that he would have cleared Trump if the evidence warranted exoneration.

    May 1, 2019 – The New York Times publishes a report that details how Giuliani, in his role as Trump’s personal attorney, is investigating allegations related to former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential Trump opponent in the 2020 presidential race. Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma Holdings. In 2016, the elder Biden pressured Ukraine to oust a prosecutor who had investigated Burisma for corruption. Giuliani suggests that Biden’s move was motivated by a desire to protect his son from criminal charges. Giuliani’s claims are undermined after Bloomberg reports that the Burisma investigation was “dormant” when Biden pressed the prosecutor to resign.

    June 12, 2019 – Trump says he may be willing to accept information about political rivals from a foreign government during an interview on ABC News, declaring that he’s willing to listen and wouldn’t necessarily call the FBI.

    June 16, 2019 – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveils a sign at the proposed site of a Golan Heights settlement to be named Trump Heights.

    June 18, 2019 – Trump holds a rally in Orlando to publicize the formal launch of his reelection campaign.

    June 28, 2019 – During a breakfast meeting at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman reportedly discuss tensions with Iran, trade and human rights.

    June 30, 2019 – Trump becomes the first sitting US president to enter North Korea. He takes 20 steps beyond the border and shakes hands with Kim.

    July 14, 2019 – Via Twitter, Trump tells Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Illhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley to “go back” to their home countries. Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley are natural-born US citizens; Omar was born in Somalia, immigrated to the United States and became a citizen.

    July 16, 2019 – The House votes, 240-187, to condemn the racist language Trump used in his tweets about Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Omar and Pressley.

    July 24, 2019 – Mueller testifies before the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee.

    July 25, 2019 – Trump speaks on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump asks Zelensky for a “favor,” encouraging him to speak with Giuliani about investigating Biden. In the days before the call, Trump blocked nearly $400 million in military and security aid to Ukraine.

    August 12, 2019 – A whistleblower files a complaint pertaining to Trump’s conduct on the Zelensky call.

    September 11, 2019 – The Trump administration lifts its hold on military aid for Ukraine.

    September 24, 2019 – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces the beginning of an impeachment inquiry related to the whistleblower complaint.

    September 25, 2019 – The White House releases notes from the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky. The readout contains multiple references to Giuliani and Barr. In response, the Justice Department issues a statement that says Barr didn’t know about Trump’s conversation until weeks after the call. Further, the attorney general didn’t talk to the President about having Ukraine investigate the Bidens, according to the Justice Department. On the same day as the notes are released, Trump and Zelensky meet in person for the first time on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. During a joint press conference after the meeting, both men deny that Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate Biden in exchange for aid.

    September 26, 2019 – The House releases a declassified version of the whistleblower complaint. According to the complaint, officials at the White House tried to “lock down” records of Trump’s phone conversation with Zelensky. The complaint also alleges that Barr played a role in the campaign to convince Zelensky that Biden should be investigated. Trump describes the complaint as “fake news” and “a witch hunt” on Twitter.

    September 27, 2019 – Pompeo is subpoenaed by House committees over his failure to provide documents related to Ukraine. Kurt Volker, US special envoy to Ukraine, resigns. He was named in the whistleblower complaint as one of the State Department officials who helped Giuliani connect with sources in Ukraine.

    October 3, 2019 – Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump says both Ukraine and China should investigate alleged corruption involving Biden and his son. CNN reports that the President had brought up Biden and his family during a June phone call with Xi Jinping. In that call, Trump discussed the political prospects of Biden as well as Elizabeth Warren. He also told Xi that he would remain quiet on the matter of Hong Kong protests. Notes documenting the conversation were placed on a highly secured server where the transcript from the Ukraine call was also stored.

    October 6, 2019 – After Trump speaks on the phone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the White House announces that US troops will move out of northern Syria to make way for a planned Turkish military operation. The move marks a major shift in American foreign policy and effectively gives Turkey the green light to attack US-backed Kurdish forces, a partner in the fight against ISIS.

    October 9, 2019 – Turkey launches a military offensive in northern Syria.

    October 31, 2019 – Trump says via Twitter that he is changing his legal residency from New York to Florida, explaining that he feels he is treated badly by political leaders from the city and state.

    November 7, 2019 – A judge orders Trump to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit against his charity filed by the New York state attorney general. According to the suit, Trump breached his fiduciary duty by allowing his presidential campaign to direct the distribution of donations. In a statement, Trump accuses the attorney general of mischaracterizing the settlement for political purposes.

    November 13, 2019 – Public impeachment hearings begin and Trump meets Erdogan at the White House.

    November 20, 2019 – During a public hearing, US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland says he worked with Giuliani on matters related to Ukraine at the “express direction of the President of the United States” and he says “everyone was in the loop.” Sondland recounts several conversations between himself and Trump about Ukraine opening two investigations: one into Burisma and another into conspiracies about Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 US election.

    December 10, 2019 – House Democrats unveil two articles of impeachment, one for abuse of power and one for obstruction of Congress.

    December 11, 2019 – Trump signs an executive order to include discrimination against Jewish people as a violation of law in certain cases, with an eye toward fighting antisemitism on college campuses.

    December 13, 2019 – The House Judiciary Committee approves the two articles of impeachment in a party line vote.

    December 18, 2019 – The House of Representatives votes to impeach Trump, charging a president with high crimes and misdemeanors for just the third time in American history.

    January 3, 2020 – Speaking at Mar-a-Lago, Trump announces that a US airstrike in Iraq has killed Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force.

    January 8, 2020 – Iran fires a number of missiles at two Iraqi bases housing US troops in retaliation for the American strike that killed Soleimani. No US or Iraqi lives are reported lost, but the Pentagon later releases a statement confirming that 109 US service members had been diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injuries in the wake of the attack.

    January 24, 2020 – Makes history as the first President to attend the annual March for Life rally in Washington, DC, since it began nearly a half-century ago. Trump reiterates his support for tighter abortion restrictions.

    January 29, 2020 – Trump signs the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement into law, which replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement.

    January 31, 2020 – The Trump administration announces an expansion of the travel ban to include six new countries. Immigration restrictions will be imposed on: Nigeria, Eritrea, Tanzania, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar (known as Burma), with exceptions for immigrants who have helped the United States.

    February 5, 2020 – The Senate votes to acquit Trump on two articles of impeachment. Sen. Mitt Romney is the sole Republican to vote to convict on the charge of abuse of power, joining with all Senate Democrats in a 52-48 not guilty vote. On the obstruction of Congress charge, the vote falls along straight party lines, 53-47 for acquittal.

    May 29, 2020 – Trump announces that the United States will terminate its relationship with the World Health Organization.

    July 10, 2020 – Trump commutes the prison sentence of his longtime friend Roger Stone, who was convicted of crimes that included lying to Congress in part, prosecutors said, to protect the President. The announcement came just days before Stone was set to report to a federal prison in Georgia.

    October 2, 2020 – Trump announces that he has tested positive for coronavirus. Later in the day, Trump is transferred to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and returns to the White House on October 5.

    November 7, 2020 – Days after the presidential election on November 3, CNN projects Trump loses his bid for reelection to Biden.

    November 25, 2020 – Trump announces in a tweet that he has granted Michael Flynn a “full pardon,” wiping away the guilty plea of the intelligence official for lying to the FBI.

    December 23, 2020 – Announces 26 new pardons, including for Stone, Manafort and son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, Charles.

    January 6, 2021 – Following Trump’s rally and speech at the White House Ellipse, pro-Trump rioters storm the US Capitol as members of Congress meet to certify the Electoral College results of the 2020 presidential election. A total of five people die, including a Capitol Police officer the next day.

    January 7-8, 2021 – Instagram and Facebook place a ban on Trump’s account from posting through the remainder of his presidency and perhaps “indefinitely.” Twitter permanently bans Trump from the platform, explaining that “after close review of recent Tweets…and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

    January 13, 2021 – The House votes to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” He is the only president to be impeached twice.

    January 20, 2021 – Trump issues a total of 143 pardons and commutations that include his onetime political strategist, Steve Bannon, a former top fundraiser and two well-known rappers but not himself or his family. He then receives a military-style send-off from Joint Base Andrews on Inauguration morning, before heading home to Florida.

    February 13, 2021 – The US Senate acquits Trump in his second impeachment trial, voting that Trump is not guilty of inciting the deadly January 6 riots at the US Capitol. The vote is 43 not guilty to 57 guilty, short of the 67 guilty votes needed to convict.

    May 5, 2021 – Facebook’s Oversight Board upholds Trump’s suspension from using its platform. The decision also applies to Facebook-owned Instagram.

    June 4, 2021 – Facebook announces Trump will be suspended from its platform until at least January 7th, 2023 – two years from when he was initially suspended.

    July 1, 2021 – New York prosecutors charge the Trump Organization and Trump Payroll Corporation with 10 felony counts and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg with 15 felony counts in connection with an alleged tax scheme stretching back to 2005. Trump himself is not charged. On December 6, 2022, both companies are found guilty on all charges.

    February 14, 2022 – Accounting firm Mazars announces it will no longer act as Trump’s accountant, citing a conflict of interest. In a letter to the Trump Organization chief legal officer, the firm informs the Trump Organization to no longer rely on financial statements ending June 2011 through June 2020.

    May 3, 2022 – The Trump Organization and the Presidential Inaugural Committee agree to pay a total of $750,000 to settle with the Washington, DC, attorney general’s office over allegations they misspent money raised for former President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

    June 9-July 21, 2022 – The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol holds eight hearings, where it hears from witnesses including top ex-Trump officials, election workers, those who took part in the attack and many others. Through live testimony, video depositions, and never-before-seen material, the committee attempts to paint the picture of the former president’s plan to stay in power and the role he played on January 6.

    August 8, 2022 – The FBI executes a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, as part of an investigation into the handling of presidential documents, including classified documents, that may have been brought there.

    August 12, 2022 – A federal judge unseals the search warrant and property receipt from the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. The unsealed documents indicate the FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents from its search, including some materials marked as “top secret/SCI” – one of the highest levels of classification, and identify three federal crimes that the Justice Department is looking at as part of its investigation: violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records.

    September 21, 2022 – The New York state attorney general files a lawsuit against Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization, alleging they were involved in an expansive fraud lasting over a decade that the former President used to enrich himself. According to the lawsuit, the Trump Organization deceived lenders, insurers and tax authorities by inflating the value of his properties using misleading appraisals.

    October 3, 2022 – Trump files a lawsuit against CNN for defamation, seeking $475 million in punitive damages.

    November 15, 2022 – Announces that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

    November 19, 2022 – Trump’s Twitter account, which was banned following the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, is reinstated after users respond to an online poll posted by Twitter CEO and new owner Elon Musk.

    December 19, 2022 – The Jan. 6 insurrection committee votes to refer Trump to the Department of Justice on at least four criminal charges. Four days later the panel releases its final report recommending Trump be barred from holding office again.

    February 9, 2023 – Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts are restored following a two-year ban in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, a Meta spokesperson confirms to CNN. On March 17, 2023, YouTube restores Trump’s channel.

    March 30, 2023 – A grand jury in New York votes to indict Trump, the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges.

    April 4, 2023 – Surrenders and is placed under arrest before pleading not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records in Manhattan criminal court. Prosecutors allege that Trump sought to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election through a hush money scheme with payments made to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump. He has denied the affairs. Hours after his arraignment, Trump rails against the Manhattan district attorney and the indictment during a speech at his Florida resort at Mar-a-Lago.

    May 9, 2023 – A Manhattan federal jury finds Trump sexually abused former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the spring of 1996 and awards her $5 million for battery and defamation.

    May 15, 2023 – A report by special counsel John Durham is released. In it he concludes that the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. The report does not recommend any new charges against individuals or “wholesale changes” about how the FBI handles politically charged investigations, despite strongly criticizing the agency’s behavior.

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  • WhatsApp will now let you edit messages. But there’s a catch | CNN Business

    WhatsApp will now let you edit messages. But there’s a catch | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    WhatsApp is rolling out a long-requested new feature: message editing.

    The Meta-owned messaging platform on Tuesday said users will now be able to edit messages – as long as it’s within 15 minutes after sending. Adjusted messages will be shown in the chat with an “edited” label, without showing edit history.

    “From correcting a simple misspelling to adding extra context to a message, we’re excited to bring you more control over your chats,” WhatsApp said in a statement.

    The new WhatsApp feature follows a similar move by Apple’s iMessage last fall to let users edit messages up to five times within 15 minutes after sending. It appears WhatsApp’s edit feature will allow only one revision, according to a video the company posted to Twitter.

    WhatsApp users can access the edit feature by long-pressing on a message. Editing has begun to roll out globally and will be available to the platform’s more than 2 billion users in the coming weeks, the company said.

    WhatsApp has in recent years rolled out a number of privacy and commerce features for users and businesses operating on the app, as it seeks to boost usage and compete with rivals like Signal. In August, WhatsApp introduced the ability for users to check their messages without other people knowing they’re online.

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  • Elon Musk says Twitter has ‘no actual choice’ about government censorship requests | CNN Business

    Elon Musk says Twitter has ‘no actual choice’ about government censorship requests | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Criticized for giving into governments’ censorship demands, Elon Musk on Sunday claimed that Twitter has “no actual choice” about complying those requests.

    The comment comes after Musk has previously called himself a “free speech absolutist” and said he wanted to buy Twitter to bolster users’ ability to speak freely on the platform. Shortly after agreeing to acquire Twitter, Musk explained his approach to free speech by saying: “Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? And if that is the case, then we have free speech.”

    He added at the time that Twitter would “be very reluctant to delete things” and “be very cautious with permanent bans,” and that the platform would aim to allow all legal speech.

    But Musk has faced blowback in recent weeks for appearing to cave to government censorship demands, including by removing some accounts and tweets at the behest of the government of Turkey ahead of the country’s elections (which the company later said it would attempt to fight in court). And in an interview with the BBC last month, Musk was asked about whether Twitter had removed a documentary about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the request of the Indian government, and said he didn’t know “what exactly happened.”

    Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias on Sunday tweeted an article suggesting that Twitter has complied with a majority of government takedown requests since Musk took over as the platform’s owner. Musk replied: “Please point out where we had an actual choice and we will reverse it.”

    Musk has previously said the company would comply with laws governing social media companies around the world, although such laws in some cases appear to conflict with his free speech vision. Twitter did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    In last month’s interview with the BBC, Musk said, “the rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict, and we can’t go beyond the laws of a country … If we have a choice of either our people go to prison or we comply with the laws, we will comply with the laws.” At another point in the interview, Musk said: “If people of a given country are against a certain type of speech, they should talk to their elected representatives and pass a law to prevent it.”

    “By ‘free speech,’ I simply mean that which matches the law,” Musk said in a tweet last year about his vision for Twitter. “I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.”

    In some countries, Twitter could risk substantial fines and other penalties — including, potentially, bans of the platform — for not complying with local laws.

    However, prior to Musk’s takeover, Twitter frequently fought government takedown requests in court, including from India and Turkey, in addition to publicly releasing detailed information about such requests and how it handled them. In many cases, Twitter led the charge among social media companies in protecting its users’ rights around the world.

    In last recent removal request report before Musk’s takeover, Twitter said it received more than 47,000 removal requests between July and December 2021, and complied with 51% of them. In many cases, when it did comply with a removal request because of a certain country’s laws, it removed the violating content only in that country, rather than globally.

    Musk was also criticized for backing down on his “free speech” vision when Twitter temporarily banned the accounts of several high-profile journalists in December, claiming that they had violated a new “doxxing” policy on the site. None of the banned journalists appeared to have shared Musk’s precise real-time location — the restrictions came after they reported on Twitter’s removal of an account that posts the updated location of Musk’s private jet.

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  • Silicon Valley escalates the battle over returning to the office | CNN Business

    Silicon Valley escalates the battle over returning to the office | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Three years after Silicon Valley companies led the charge for embracing remote work in the early days of the pandemic, the tech industry is now escalating the fight to bring employees back into the office -— and igniting tensions with staff in the process.

    Google, which has long been a bellwether for workplace policies in the tech industry and beyond, frustrated some employees this week by announcing plans to begin more strictly enforcing its policy that requires workers in-office at least three days a week. The updated policy includes tracking office badge attendance and possibly factoring it into performance reviews, according to CNBC, citing internal memos.

    “Overnight, workers’ professionalism has been disregarded in favor of ambiguous attendance tracking practices tied to our performance evaluations,” Chris Schmidt, a software engineer at Google and member of the grassroots Alphabet Workers Union, told CNN in a statement. “The practical application of this new policy will be needless confusion amongst workers and a disregard for our various life circumstances.”

    In a statement, Ryan Lamont, a Google spokesperson, told CNN that its policy of working in the office three days a week is “going well, and we want to see Googlers connecting and collaborating in-person, so we’re limiting remote work to exception only.”

    Lamont said that company leaders can see reports showing how their teams are adopting the hybrid work model, including “aggregated data” on badge swipes. He added that now that the company is more than a year into its hybrid model, “we’re formally integrating this approach into all of our workplace policies.”

    Google isn’t alone in facing pushback from employees. Other tech companies are also grappling with how best to compel workers to come into the office after they’ve grown accustomed to greater flexibility. The tug-of-war is compounded by the fact that tech companies have laid off tens of thousands of employees over the past year, leveling a major blow to employee morale.

    At Amazon, tensions boiled over last week as hundreds of office workers staged a walkout to call attention to their grievances, including the three-day return-to-office mandate that was implemented in May.

    A current Amazon worker who spoke at the walkout said that she started an internal Slack channel called “remote advocacy” because she wanted a space where workers could discuss how the new return-to-office policy would impact their lives.

    “Before I realized what was happening, that channel had 33,000 people in it,” the worker, who identified only as Pamela, said to the crowd at the event. Pamela called the Slack channel advocating for remote work “the largest concrete expression of employee dissatisfaction in our entire company history.”

    But the employee criticism isn’t stopping tech companies, who have spent billions on sprawling campuses over the years and often preach the value of serendipitous workplace interactions, from moving forward with their return to office policies.

    In response to the walkout, Amazon previously told CNN it may “take time” for some workers to adjust to being in the office more days. But the company also said it’s “happy with how the first month of having more people back in the office has been” and touted the extra “energy, collaboration, and connections happening” in the office.

    Facebook-parent Meta similarly doubled down last week on its push to get workers in the office, warning that employees currently assigned to an office must return to in-person work three days a week starting this September. (A Meta spokesperson told CNN the updated policy was not set in stone, and employees designated as remote workers will be allowed to keep their remote status).

    At least one tech company is taking a gentler approach.

    Salesforce is trying to lure staff into offices by offering to donate $10 to a local charity for each day an employee comes in from June 12 to June 23, according to an internal Slack message reported on by Fortune.

    A Salesforce spokesperson told CNN: “Giving back is deeply embedded in everything we do, and we’re proud to introduce Connect for Good to encourage employees to help us raise $1 Million+ for local nonprofits.”

    But it might take more than temporary charitable contributions to convince some workers it’s worthwhile to return. Schmidt, the software engineer at Google, said that even if you go into the office, there’s no guarantee you’ll have people on your team to work with or even a desk to sit at.

    “Many teams are distributed, and for some of us there may not be anyone to collaborate with in our physical office locations,” Schmidt said. “Currently, New York City workers do not even have enough desks and conference rooms for workers to use comfortably.”

    “A one size fits all policy does not address these circumstances,” he added. “We deserve a voice in shaping the policies that impact our lives to establish clear, transparent and fair working conditions for all of us.”

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  • Meta lowers the minimum age for its Quest headsets from 13 to 10 | CNN Business

    Meta lowers the minimum age for its Quest headsets from 13 to 10 | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Facebook-parent Meta plans to lower the minimum age for its virtual reality headsets from 13 years old to 10 years old, despite pressure from lawmakers not to market its VR services to younger users.

    Parents will be able to set up accounts for children as young as 10 years old on Meta’s Quest 2 and Quest 3 headsets starting later this year, the company said in a blog post Friday.

    Preteens will be required to get a parent’s approval to set up an account and download apps onto the device, according to the company. Meta said it will also use children’s ages to “provide age-appropriate experiences” such as recommending suitable apps.

    “There’s a vast array of engaging and educational apps, games, and more across our platform, the majority of which are rated for ages 10 and up,” Meta said in the post.

    The company’s push to lower the minimum age comes as Meta and other social media companies face growing scrutiny over their impact on young users, including their potential to harm teens’ mental health or lead them down harmful content rabbit holes.

    Parents and lawmakers have also specifically raised alarms about the use of VR — and the future version of the internet Meta calls the “metaverse” — by teens and children.

    Earlier this year, two Democratic senators urged Meta to suspend a plan to offer Horizon Worlds, the company’s flagship VR app, to teens between the ages of 13 and 17, arguing the technology could harm young users’ physical and mental health. The lawmakers, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, called Meta’s plan “unacceptable” in light of the company’s “record of failure to protect children and teens,” in a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

    But in April, Meta forged ahead with its plan to allow teens as young as 13 in the United States and Canada to use Horizon Worlds, prompting additional outcry from lawmakers and civil society groups.

    Parents told CNN last year about instances of discovering their children were viewing violent and disturbing content in VR and struggling to come up with ways to keep their kids safe.

    Meta is attempting to address some of parents’ concerns.

    In its Friday blog post, Meta said parents will be able to set time limits and enforce breaks for their preteens on the headsets. The accounts of users under 13 will be set to private and have their active status hidden on apps by default unless parents choose to change those settings. Meta also makes it possible to cast content from its VR headsets to a TV or phone screen, so parents can watch what their kids are seeing.

    Meta said it will not serve ads to users in this age group, and that parents can choose whether their child’s data can be used to improve the company’s services. Meta added on Friday that Horizon Worlds will remain restricted to users 13 and older in the United States and Canada (and 18 and older in Europe) when it allows preteens to create parent-manged accounts on the headsets later this year.

    Meta’s headset and Horizon Worlds represent Zuckerberg’s vision for a next-generation internet, where users can interact with each other in virtual spaces resembling real life. The company has so far struggled to attract a mainstream audience for these products.

    Update: This story has been updated to reflect Meta’s plan to continue restricting Horizon Worlds to users 13 and older.

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  • SolarWinds chief vows to fight any legal action from US regulators over alleged Russian hack | CNN Business

    SolarWinds chief vows to fight any legal action from US regulators over alleged Russian hack | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The chief executive of US software firm SolarWinds told employees Friday that “we intend to vigorously defend ourselves” in the face of potential legal action from US regulators over the firm’s handling of a sweeping 2020 breach by alleged Russian hackers, according to an internal SolarWinds email obtained by CNN.

    The US Securities and Exchange Commission has informed current and former SolarWinds executives that it intends to recommend “civil enforcement action” alleging the company broke federal securities laws in its public statements and “internal controls” related to the hack, SolarWinds said in a filing with regulators on Friday.

    The hackers – who the Biden administration said worked for the Russian foreign intelligence service – allegedly used SolarWinds software to access the unclassified email networks of the departments of Justice, Homeland Security and other agencies in a cybersecurity and counterintelligence failure that US officials vowed to rectify.

    The SEC notice is an indication that US regulators are moving closer to bringing a civil lawsuit against SolarWinds that could result in fines or other penalties. A so-called Wells notice from the enforcement agency is not a formal charge or determination that a defendant broke the law.

    “Despite our extraordinary measures to cooperate with and inform the SEC, they continue to take positions we do not believe match the facts,” SolarWinds CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna said in the email to employees.

    SolarWinds “will continue to explore a potential resolution of this matter before the SEC makes any final decision,” Ramakrishna said, adding that the SEC investigation could be a “distraction” to employees in the coming months.

    The SEC did not respond to CNN’s request for comment Friday night. The Biden administration has increasingly embraced regulation as a means of forcing big software providers and critical infrastructure firms to improve their cybersecurity practices.

    “We are cooperating in a long investigative process that seems to be progressing to charges by the SEC against our company and officers,” a SolarWinds spokesperson said in a statement to CNN. “Any potential action will make the entire industry less secure by having a chilling effect on cyber incident disclosure.”

    Austin, Texas-based SolarWinds maintains that it acted appropriately in responding to the hack, which cybersecurity experts have called notable in its sophistication and scope. For several months in 2020, hackers used software made by SolarWinds and other technology firms to burrow into US government agencies and corporate victims in an apparent spying campaign.

    Moscow has denied involvement.

    After the hack became public, US lawmakers demanded answers from federal cybersecurity officials on why the hackers were undetected for so long, as well as criticized SolarWinds for its security practices prior to the hack.

    But SolarWinds says it has instituted numerous security reforms in the years since the hack, and has pushed that message of reform in public appearance with federal officials.

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  • Nvidia says US curbs on AI chip sales to China would cause ‘permanent loss of opportunities’ | CNN Business

    Nvidia says US curbs on AI chip sales to China would cause ‘permanent loss of opportunities’ | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Nvidia warned Wednesday that if the United States imposes new restrictions on the export of AI chips to China, it would result in a “permanent loss of opportunities” for US industry.

    The company’s chief financial officer, Colette Kress, said she didn’t anticipate any “immediate material impact” but tighter curbs would impact earnings in the future.

    US officials plan to tighten export curbs announced in October to restrict the sale of some artificial-intelligence chips to China, according to multiple media reports, including the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. Washington has ramped up efforts to cut China off from key technologies that can support its military.

    The US Department of Commerce has not replied to a CNN request for comment.

    The rules, as reported, could make it harder for companies like Nvidia

    (NVDA)     to sell advanced chips to China. Fueled by a boom in demand for its AI chips, the company briefly hit a market capitalization of $1 trillion in late May.

    “We are aware of reports that the US Department of Commerce is considering further controls that may restrict exports of our A800 and H800 products to China,” Kress told an investment conference.

    “Over the long-term, restrictions prohibiting the sale of our datacenter GPUs to China, if implemented, would result in a permanent loss of opportunities for US industry to compete and lead in one of the world’s largest markets and impact on our future business and financial results,” she said.

    GPUs refer to graphics processing units, which are chips or electronic circuits capable of rendering graphics for display on electronic devices.

    “Given the strength of demand for our products worldwide, we do not anticipate that such additional restrictions, if adopted, would have an immediate material impact on our financial results. We do not anticipate any immediate material impact on our financial results,” Kress added.

    Last October, the Biden administration unveiled a sweeping set of export controls that ban Chinese companies from buying advanced chips and chip-making equipment without a license.

    The new move is aimed in part at Nvidia’s A800 chip, which the US-based company created following the introduction of last year’s curbs in order to continue to sell to China, Bloomberg reported.

    China is a key market for Nvidia. Revenues from mainland China and Hong Kong accounted for 22% of the company’s revenue last year, according to its financial statements.

    On Wednesday, shares of Nvidia slumped as much as 3.2%, before recouping some of the losses. It ended down 1.8%. Chinese AI stocks suffered much heavier losses.

    Inspur Electronic Information Industry fell by 10%, the maximum allowed, on Wednesday in Shenzhen. It dropped again by 5.3% on Thursday. Chengdu Information Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences slid 12% on Wednesday. Baidu

    (BIDU)    , which is developing a rival to ChatGPT, sank 4.4% on Thursday in Hong Kong.

    “The US could ruin China’s AI party,” Jefferies analyst said in a research note. Local chipsets do not have Nvidia’s GPU ecosystem, thus every update may require reworking, resulting in lower efficiency and higher costs.

    The Biden administration’s chip curbs would be “much more effective” in limiting China’s advances in military power driven by AI than rules restricting US investment in China’s tech sector, the analysts added.

    China has strongly criticized US restrictions on tech exports, saying earlier this year that it “firmly opposes” such measures.

    In May, Beijing banned Chinese operators of critical information infrastructure from buying products from Micron Technology

    (MU)    , in apparent retaliation against sanctions imposed by Washington and its allies on the country’s chip sector.

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  • Elon Musk is the gift that keeps on giving to Mark Zuckerberg | CNN Business

    Elon Musk is the gift that keeps on giving to Mark Zuckerberg | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    At the start of last year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in the hot seat.

    Revelations from hundreds of internal company documents, known as the Facebook Papers, had drawn sharp criticism from lawmakers, users and civil society groups in late 2021 and forced company executives to appear before Congress. Zuckerberg’s plan to rebrand Facebook as Meta and pivot to the so-called metaverse was met with broad skepticism. And the company’s core ad business was under significant pressure from privacy changes made by Apple.

    But then, the attention of lawmakers, media and the tech world writ large abruptly shifted to another tech billionaire: Elon Musk.

    Musk early last year criticized Twitter, then nearly joined its board, then agreed to buy the company before launching a monthslong and ultimately unsuccessful fight to get out of the deal. The saga, which only continued after Musk completed the deal and pushed through numerous controversial changes, often dominated news cycles. In the process, it seemed to make Twitter’s rivals look better managed and draw away critical attention that might otherwise have been focused on other tech giants, including Meta, as they went through painful layoffs and suffered declines on Wall Street.

    This week, however, Zuckerberg notched his biggest win from Musk yet. After years of trying and failing to capture Twitter’s audience with copycat features, Zuckerberg is now capitalizing on Twitter’s struggles with a new app called Threads. Meta’s Twitter clone launched this week to unprecedented success, despite Meta’s history of privacy violations and enabling election meddling, not to mention longstanding concerns that the company and Zuckerberg wield too much power over the social media market.

    The app’s overnight success was a direct result of the chaos under Musk’s leadership of Twitter since last October. During that time, he has managed to anger many of the platform’s users and advertisers with his erratic statements, mass layoffs and significant changes to Twitter’s policies. While Twitter users have lamented what Musk’s ownership has meant for the platform, it may be the best thing that could have happened for Zuckerberg.

    “Musk has done one thing after another to piss off his own user base,” said Herbert Hovenkamp, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School.

    Some early Threads users even commented on the strange nature of the situation — that they would be eager to join a social network run by one billionaire whose company has faced intense public criticism simply because they were so eager to get away from another.

    “It boggles the mind,” one user posted to Threads. “I boycotted Facebook years ago and when I heard about this I joined immediately.”

    “Never used [Facebook] nor [Instagram],” another user said, adding that they had to join Instagram for the first time to gain access to Threads. “Last thing I would have EVER expected was to use any platform of Zuckerberg’s.”

    And yet, by Friday, Zuckerberg said Threads had reached 70 million user signups — amassing a user base nearly a third of the size of Twitter’s in fewer than two days for a platform that could eventually help knock out one of Facebook’s chief rivals and give a boost to Meta’s struggling ad business.

    If Musk is a boon to Zuckerberg’s fortunes, he’s an unlikely one. Zuckerberg and Musk have often been at odds over the years.

    In 2018, in the wake of Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, Musk said he had deleted the Facebook pages for his companies Tesla and SpaceX because the platform “gives me the willies.” And later that year, he also deleted his Instagram account.

    More recently, Musk has claimed that Instagram “makes people depressed” and appeared to imply that Meta was complicit in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    Zuckerberg has also thrown jabs at Musk, including after a SpaceX explosion accidentally blew up a satellite that was being used by Facebook, and in a critique of his stance on artificial intelligence during a 2017 Facebook Live broadcast.

    But earlier this year, Zuckerberg also complimented Musk’s leadership of Twitter. In a podcast interview last month, Zuckerberg said that “Elon led a push early on to make Twitter a lot leaner … I think that those were generally good changes.”

    In some ways, Musk’s moves at Twitter may have given Zuckerberg and Meta — as well as other tech companies — cover to take similar actions without as much criticism. Meta announced it would eliminate more than 20,000 employees over two rounds of layoffs, marking the largest cuts in its history. But Meta came off looking responsible compared to Twitter’s mass layoffs by handling the cuts professionally and providing more robust severance.

    After Musk restored the account of former President Donald Trump following a two-year suspension that began after the January 6 attack, Twitter faced criticism from civil society civic? groups who called on advertisers to boycott the platform. But Meta, along with YouTube, followed suit several months later (although those platforms cited their own risk analyses, rather than Musk’s leadership, in explaining their decisions).

    The distraction and chaos of Musk’s Twitter takeover could hardly have come at a better time for Zuckerberg and Meta.

    The social media giant’s business had a brutal year — posting its first-ever quarterly revenue decline as a public company during the June quarter, and then again in each of the two remaining quarters of the year, as it struggled with a weak online advertising market while pouring billions into its plan for the metaverse. The company lost more than $600 billion in market value during 2022.

    Now, the launch of Threads marks a huge new opportunity for Meta and Zuckerberg. Threads could be a way of getting social media users to spend even more time on Meta’s apps, especially as Facebook increasingly struggles with the perception of being a has-been platform that’s less attractive to younger users.

    Zuckerberg said on Wednesday that he hopes to eventually have more than one billion users on Threads, far more than the 238 million active users on Twitter prior to Musk’s takeover.

    Although there are no ads on the platform yet, Threads could also ultimately supplement Meta’s core advertising business. Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who oversaw the Threads launch, told The Verge in an interview about the new platform this week that, “if we make something that lots of people love and keep using, we will, I’m sure, monetize it” through advertising.

    For Musk, losing Twitter users, or having its future growth hamstrung, thanks to Threads, could mean further harm to the $44 billion investment he made to buy the social media platform — and, perhaps more importantly, to his reputation as a genius with a knack for turning around troubled companies.

    Musk appears to be trying to push back against Zuckerberg’s turn of fortune. On Wednesday, a lawyer for Musk sent a letter to Meta threatening to sue the company over the rival app, accusing it of trade secret theft through the hiring of former Twitter employees. (Meta denied the charge.)

    The Twitter-Threads battle has raised the stakes for another fight: a cage fight that Musk and Zuckerberg have spent the past several weeks planning. Zuckerberg, a regular practitioner of Brazilian jiu jitsu, appears to have the upper hand.

    But whether or not the fight ends up going forward, Zuckerberg seems to have already won.

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