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  • How companies are embracing generative AI for employees…or not | CNN Business

    How companies are embracing generative AI for employees…or not | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Companies are struggling to deal with the rapid rise of generative AI, with some rushing to embrace the technology as workflow tools for employees while others shun it – at least for now.

    As generative artificial intelligence – the technology that underpins ChatGPT and similar tools – seeps into seemingly every corner of the internet, large corporations are grappling with whether the increased efficiency it offers outweighs possible copyright and security risks. Some companies are enacting internal bans on generative AI tools as they work to better understand the technology, and others have already begun to introduce the trendy tech to employees in their own ways.

    Many prominent companies have entirely blocked internal ChatGPT use, including JPMorgan Chase, Northrup Grumman, Apple, Verizon, Spotify and Accenture, according to AI content detector Originality.AI, with several citing privacy and security concerns. Business leaders have also expressed worries about employees dropping proprietary information into ChatGPT and having that sensitive information potentially emerge as an output by the tool elsewhere.

    When users input information into these tools, “[y]ou don’t know how it’s then going to be used,” Mark McCreary, the co-chair of the privacy and data security practice at law firm Fox Rothschild LLP, told CNN in March. “That raises particularly high concerns for companies. As more and more employees casually adopt these tools to help with work emails or meeting notes, McCreary said, “I think the opportunity for company trade secrets to get dropped into these different various AI’s is just going to increase.”

    But the corporate hesitancy to welcome generative AI could be temporary.

    “Companies that are on the list of banning generative AI also have working groups internally that are exploring the usage of AI,” Jonathan Gillham, CEO of Originality.AI, told CNN, highlighting how companies in more risk-averse industries have been quicker to take action against the tech while figuring out the best approach for responsible usage. “Giving all of their staff access to ChatGPT and saying ‘have fun’ is too much of an uncontrolled risk for them to take, but it doesn’t mean that they’re not saying, ‘holy crap, look at the 10x, 100x efficiency that we can lock when we find out how to do this in a way that makes all the stakeholders happy” in departments such as legal, finance and accounting.

    Among media companies that produce news, Insider editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson has encouraged reporters to find ways to use AI in the newsroom. “A tsunami is coming,” he said in April. “We can either ride it or get wiped out by it. But it’s going to be really fun to ride it, and it’s going to make us faster and better.” The organization discouraged staff from putting source details and other sensitive information into ChatGPT. Newspaper chain Gannett paused the use of an artificial intelligence tool to write high school sports stories after the technology called LedeAI made several mistakes in sports stories published in The Columbus Dispatch newspaper in August.

    Of the companies currently banning ChatGPT, some are discussing future usage once security concerns are addressed. UBS estimated that ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after its launch.

    That rapid growth initially left large companies scrambling to find ways to integrate it responsibly. That process is slow for large companies. Meanwhile, website visits to ChatGPT dropped for the third month in a row in August, creating pressure for large tech companies to sustain popular interest in the tools and to find new enterprise applications and revenue models for generative AI products.

    “We at JPMorgan Chase will not roll out genAI until we can mitigate all of the risks,” Larry Feinsmith, JPM’s head of global tech strategy, innovation, and partnerships said at the Databricks Data + AI Summit in June. “We’re excited, we’re working through those risks as we speak, but we won’t roll it out until we can do this in an entirely responsible manner, and it’s going to take time.” Northrop Grumman said it doesn’t allow internal data on external platforms “until those tools are fully vetted,” according to a March report from the Wall Street Journal. Verizon also told employees in a public address in February that ChatGPT is banned “[a]s it currently stands” due to security risks but that the company wants to “safely embrace emerging technology.”

    “They’re not just waiting to sort things out. I think they’re actively working on integrating AI into their business processes separately, but they’re just doing so in a way that doesn’t compromise their information,” Vern Glaser, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at the University of Alberta, told CNN. “What you’ll see with a lot of the companies that will be using AI strategies, particularly those who have their own unique content, they’re going to end up creating their custom version of generative AI.”

    Several companies – and even ChatGPT itself – seem to have already found their own answers to the corporate world’s genAI security dilemma.

    Walmart introduced an internal “My Assistant” tool for 50,000 corporate employees that helps with repetitive tasks and creative ideas, according to an August LinkedIn post from Cheryl Ainoa, Walmart’s EVP of New Businesses and Emerging Technologies, and Donna Morris, Chief People Officer. The tool is intended to boost productivity and eventually help with new worker orientation, according to the post.

    Consulting giants McKinsey, PwC and EY are also welcoming genAI through internal, private methods. PwC announced a “Generative AI factory” and launched its own “ChatPwC” tool in August powered by OpenAI tech to help employees with tax questions and regulations as part of a $1 billion investment for AI capability scaling.

    McKinsey introduced “Lilli” in August, a genAI solution where employees can pose questions, with the system then aggregating all of the firm’s knowledge and scanning the data to identify relevant “With Lilli, we can use technology to access and leverage our entire body of knowledge and assets to drive new levels of productivity,” Jacky Wright, a McKinsey senior partner and chief technology and platform officer, wrote in the announcement. content, summarize the main points and offer experts.

    EY is investing $1.4 billion in the technology, including “EY.ai EYQ,” an in-house large language model, and AI training for employees, according to a September press release

    Tools like MyAssistant, ChatPwC and Lilli solve some of the corporate concerns surrounding genAI systems through custom adaptions of genAI tech, offering employees a private, closed alternative that both capitalizes its ability to increase efficiency and eliminates the risk of copyright or security leaks.

    The launch of ChatGPT Enterprise may also help quell some fears. The new version of OpenAI’s new tool, announced in August, is specifically for businesses, promising to provide “enterprise-grade security and privacy” combined with “the most powerful version of ChatGPT yet” for businesses looking to jump on the generative AI bandwagon, according to a company blog post.

    The highly-anticipated announcement from OpenAI comes as the company says employees from over 80% of Fortune 500 companies have already begun using ChatGPT since it launched publicly late last year, according to its analysis of accounts associated with corporate email domains.

    In response to the concerns raised by many companies over security, about employees dropping proprietary information into ChatGPT and having that sensitive information potentially emerge as an output by the tool elsewhere, OpenAI’s announcement blog post for ChatGPT Enterprise states that it does “not train on your business data or conversations, and our models don’t learn from your usage.”

    In July, Microsoft unveiled a business-specific version of its AI-powered Bing tool, dubbed Bing Chat Enterprise, and promised much of the same security assurances that ChatGPT Enterprise is now touting – namely, that users’ chat data will not be used to train AI models.

    It is still unclear whether the new tools will be enough to convince corporate America that it is time to fully embrace generative AI, though experts agree the tech’s inevitable entry into the workplace will take time and strategy.

    “I don’t think it’s that companies are against AI and against machine learning, per se. I think most companies are going to be trying to use this type of technology, but they have to be careful with it because of the impacts on intellectual property,” Glaser said.

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  • Indonesia bans e-commerce transactions on social media in major blow to TikTok | CNN Business

    Indonesia bans e-commerce transactions on social media in major blow to TikTok | CNN Business

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    Jakarta
    Reuters
     — 

    Indonesia has banned e-commerce transactions on social media platforms, the trade minister said on Wednesday, in a blow to short video app TikTok, which is doubling down on Southeast Asia’s biggest economy to boost its e-commerce business.

    The government said the move, which takes effect immediately, is aimed at protecting offline merchants and marketplaces, adding that predatory pricing on social media platforms is threatening small and medium-sized enterprises.

    The move comes just three months after TikTok pledged to invest billion of dollars in Southeast Asia, mainly in Indonesia, over the next few years in a major push to build its e-commerce platform TikTok Shop.

    TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, has 125 million active monthly users in Indonesia and has been looking to translate the large user base into a major e-commerce revenue source.

    A TikTok Indonesia spokesperson said it would pursue a constructive path forward and was “deeply concerned” with the announcement, “particularly how it would impact the livelihoods of the 6 million” local sellers active on TikTok Shop.

    Indonesia Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan on Wednesday told reporters that the regulation is intended to ensure “fair and just” business competition, adding that it was also intended to ensure data protection of users.

    He warned of letting social media become an e-commerce platform, shop and bank all at the same time.

    The new regulation also requires e-commerce platforms in Indonesia to set a minimum price of $100 for certain items that are directly purchased from abroad, according to the regulation document reviewed by Reuters, and that all products offered should meet local standards.

    Zulkifli said TikTok had one week to comply with the regulation or face the threat of closure. Indonesia Deputy Trade Minister Jerry Sambuaga earlier this month named TikTok’s live streaming features as an example of people selling goods on social media.

    Research firm BMI said TikTok would be the only business affected by the transaction ban and the move was unlikely to harm the digital marketplace industry’s growth.

    Indonesia’s e-commerce market is dominated by the likes of homegrown tech firm GoTo’s Tokopedia, Sea’s Shopee and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s Lazada.

    E-commerce transactions in Indonesia amounted to nearly $52 billion last year and of that, 5% took place on TikTok, according to data from consultancy Momentum Works.

    Indonesia is among the few markets where TikTok has launched TikTok Shop, as it seeks to leverage its large user base in the country.

    Its 125 million active monthly users in Indonesia is almost on par with its user figures for Europe and behind US users of more than 150 million. TikTok launched an online shopping service in the United States earlier this month.

    Reactions from retailers were mixed.

    Fahmi Ridho, a vendor selling clothes on TikTok, said the platform was a way for stores to recover from the blow dealt by the Covid-19 pandemic.

    “Sales don’t have to be necessarily through [brick and mortar] shops, you can do it online or wherever,” he said “Everything will still have a portion.”

    But Edri, who goes by one name only and sells clothes at a major wholesale market in Jakarta, agreed with the regulation and stressed that there should be limits on items sold online.

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  • ADL says it will resume advertising on X following feud with Elon Musk | CNN Business

    ADL says it will resume advertising on X following feud with Elon Musk | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday said it plans to resume advertising on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, following a spat with owner Elon Musk.

    Musk last month threatened to sue the ADL for defamation, claiming that the nonprofit organization’s statements about rising hate speech on the social media platform had hurt X’s advertising revenue. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt pushed back on the claims, saying that while the ADL was part of a coalition of groups that called on companies to pause advertising on the platform immediately following Musk’s acquisition last year, it had not been engaged in such calls in recent months.

    Musk’s statements about the group also amplified a campaign of antisemitic hate against the organization that had begun prior to Musk’s legal threat, leading to a surge of threats directed at the ADL, Greenblatt told CNN last month.

    The rights group reiterated in a statement Wednesday that “any allegation that ADL has somehow orchestrated a boycott of X or caused billions of dollars of losses to the company or is ‘pulling the strings’ for other advertisers is false.”

    “Indeed, we ourselves were advertising on the platform until the anti-ADL attacks began a few weeks ago,” the group said. “We now are preparing to do so again to bring our important message on fighting hate to X and its users.”

    Musk responded to the ADL’s statement in a post Wednesday saying, “Thank you for clarifying that you support advertising on X.”

    The statement appears to mark a resolution — for now — to weekslong tension between Musk and the ADL, which has coincided with incidents of antisemitism rising across the United States. But the group says it will continue to monitor for antisemitic content on X.

    “As we have noted in our research over the past several years, X – along with other social media platforms — has a serious issue with antisemites and other extremists using these platforms to push their hateful ideas and, in some cases, bully Jewish and other users,” it said. “A better, healthier, and safer X would be a win for the world … As we do with all platforms, we will credit X as it moves in that direction, and we also will call it out when it has not.”

    The ADL and other similar organizations, including the Center for Countering Digital Hate, have said in reports that the volume of hate speech on the website has grown dramatically under Musk’s stewardship. (Musk has criticized the findings.)

    Two brands in August paused their ad spending on X after their advertisements ran alongside an account promoting Nazism. X suspended the account after the issue was flagged and said ad impressions on the page were minimal.

    X has emphasized its new “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach” policy that aims to limit the reach of so-called lawful but awful content on the platform and to protect brands from having their ads appear alongside such content. CEO Linda Yaccarino has also promoted additional brand safety controls for advertisers, including the ability to avoid having their ads show next to “targeted hate speech, sexual content, gratuitous gore, excessive profanity, obscenity, spam, [and] drugs.”

    Asked about Musk’s threats to sue the ADL in an interview last week, Yaccarino said, “I wish that would be different … We’re looking into that.” She added that the ADL should acknowledge X’s progress on addressing antisemitism.

    It appears the platform may have more work to do. A search on Wednesday for Greenblatt’s name immediately surfaced multiple hateful and antisemitic tweets about the ADL leader.

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  • Microsoft completes blockbuster Activision Blizzard takeover after UK removes final hurdle | CNN Business

    Microsoft completes blockbuster Activision Blizzard takeover after UK removes final hurdle | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Microsoft has completed its takeover of Activision Blizzard, the maker of “Call of Duty” and other hit video games, closing one of the biggest tech deals of all time.

    The company said in a filing Friday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that Activision (ATVI) had now become a wholly-owned subsidiary.

    Earlier on Friday, UK antitrust officials approved the planned acquisition, removing the final regulatory hurdle to the deal closing.

    The Competition and Markets Authority said the merger had been cleared after the companies agreed to give up certain cloud gaming rights. The concession is “a game-changer” that will allow “competitive prices and better services,” the CMA said in a statement.

    Microsoft (MSFT) unveiled the deal in early 2022, but it was blocked in April by the UK competition regulator.

    The CMA was the only regulator worldwide standing in the way of the landmark acquisition, which was valued at $69 billion when it was first announced.

    The UK regulator had concerns about competition in the cloud gaming market, saying Microsoft could seek to make Activision’s games exclusive to its own platforms, and then increase the cost of user subscriptions, leaving gamers with less choice.

    In August, Microsoft and Activision addressed those concerns by revising the deal.

    They proposed a restructured merger, which would allow Activision’s cloud streaming rights outside the European Union and three other European countries to be sold to a rival, Ubisoft Entertainment.

    That appeased the CMA, which signaled last month that it would most likely approve the reworked takeover.

    “The new deal will stop Microsoft from locking up competition in cloud gaming,” the agency said Friday.

    “It will also help to ensure that cloud gaming providers will be able to use non-Windows operating systems for Activision content, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.”

    Activision Blizzard is one of the world’s biggest video game developers. Alongside “Call of Duty,” it also produces “World of Warcraft” and “Overwatch.”

    Microsoft, which sells the Xbox gaming console, offers a popular video game subscription service called Xbox Game Pass, as well as a cloud-based video game streaming service.

    The acquisition is expected to help Microsoft boost its standing in the gaming industry and better compete with market leaders Tencent and Sony.

    In a statement on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Microsoft President Brad Smith said “we’re grateful for the CMA’s thorough review and decision.”

    — Olesya Dmitracova contributed to this article.

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  • iPhone sales in China shrink as US political tensions grow | CNN Business

    iPhone sales in China shrink as US political tensions grow | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Demand for Apple’s new iPhone 15 lineup is weaker in China than for last year’s models, according to analysts.

    Sales for the iPhone 15 are down 4.5% in China compared to iPhone 14 sales in the first two weeks after its launch, according to Counterpoint Research. Separately, Bloomberg reported on Monday financial firm Jefferies said iPhone 15 sales dropped by a double-digit percentage following strong customer demand for Huawei’s new Mate 60 smartphone line.

    Apple

    (AAPL)     shares fell 0.08% following the reports.

    The reports come amid a floundering Chinese economy, a struggling housing market, and more competition among higher-end vendors in China, particularly from Chinese device manufacturer Huawei.

    “We’re seeing a lot of nationalism right now as Chinese consumers who think they’ve been wronged by the US government and sanctions are gravitating toward the Mate 60 and that is edging into Apple volumes,” Jeff Fieldhack, research director at Counterpoint, told CNN.

    At the same time, China remains very important to Apple as it is the largest market behind the US. Fieldhack said he doesn’t believe Huawei will surpass Apple right now in terms of smartphone sales but expects continued interest in the Mate 60 will continue to “eek” into Apple’s numbers.

    “Apple made a lot of gains during its launch period last year, where it became number one in China,” he said. “Things looked strong but now, with the political tension and competition, that is a reason for concern.”

    However, the Phone 15 lineup is up about 10% year-over-year in the US, according to Counterpoint. That’s strong growth for Apple considering sales fell for the third consecutive quarter in August, ahead of the iPhone 15 launch.

    The latest iPhone 15 devices come with a slimmer design, a more-advanced main camera system and a customizable Action button, which gives the silence button additional controls, from starting a voice memo to writing a note. Perhaps the biggest change coming to the models is that they will now use a USB-C charging cord, ending an 11-year run with Apple’s proprietary Lightning charging cable.

    This isn’t the first time the Mate 60 has made headlines since its late August launch. In September, the US government sought more information about the Mate 60 Pro’s 5G Kirin 9000s processor reportedly developed specifically for the manufacturer. Its debut shocked industry experts who questioned how the company could make such a chip following sweeping efforts by the United States to restrict China’s access to foreign chip technology because of perceived national security concerns.

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  • Google update makes it easier for US users to remove some unwanted search results | CNN Business

    Google update makes it easier for US users to remove some unwanted search results | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Google unveiled new privacy updates this week that lets US users have a wee bit more control over the search results that pop up about themselves online.

    The tech giant said that it was rolling out a new dashboard that will let you know if web results with your contact information are showing up on its search engine. “Then, you can quickly request the removal of those results from Google — right in the tool,” Danielle Romain, the vice president of Trust at Google, said in a blog post Thursday.

    Romain added that Google will also notify you when new results from the web containing your contact info appear, for added “peace of mind.”

    Google also said it was enabling people to remove any of their personal, explicit images that they no longer wish to be visible in its search engine. For example, if you uploaded explicit content to a website and then subsequently deleted it, you can request its removal from Google’s Search if it’s being published elsewhere without your approval. The policy doesn’t apply, however, to content you are commercializing.

    “More broadly, whether it’s for websites containing personal information, explicit imagery or any other removal requests, we’ve updated and simplified the forms you use to submit requests,” Romain said Thursday.

    “Of course, removing content from Google Search does not remove it from the web or other search engines, but we hope these changes give you more control over private information appearing in Google Search,” she added.

    The moves by Google are essentially limited, but a step toward a US-version of Europe’s legally mandated “right to be forgotten” laws. The US updates do not currently, however, go beyond the scope of personal explicit images or contact information. Digital privacy advocates have long lamented how US policy lags far behind the European Union’s approach. An EU court established the right to be forgotten via a ruling in 2014, though the same court said in 2019 that Google does not have to honor the right outside of the EU.

    The privacy updates unveiled by Google this week, however, notably lack any mention of the latest privacy battleground in Big Tech: generative AI. As companies scramble to create large language models, the technology that underpins generative AI tools, many users and privacy advocates are now imploring tech companies to give users a way to opt-out of having their digital data used to train AI tools.

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  • The identities behind the 30 unindicted co-conspirators in Trump’s Georgia case | CNN Politics

    The identities behind the 30 unindicted co-conspirators in Trump’s Georgia case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
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    Fulton County’s sweeping indictment against former President Donald Trump and 18 additional co-defendants also includes details involving 30 “unindicted co-conspirators” – people who Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis alleges took part in the criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

    Some of the co-conspirators are key Trump advisers, like Boris Epshteyn, while several others are likely Georgia officials who were the state’s fake electors for Donald Trump.

    One of the unindicted co-conspirators who appears multiple times in the indictment is Georgia’s Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. Willis was barred by a state judge from investigating Jones after she hosted a fundraiser last year for Jones’ Democratic opponent when he was a state senator running for lieutenant governor.

    The 98-page document alleges the 30 unindicted co-conspirators, who are not named, “constituted a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities” across the 41 charges laid out in the indictment.

    “Prosecutors use the ‘co-conspirator’ label for people who are not charged in the indictment but nonetheless were participants in the crime,” said Elie Honig, a CNN senior legal analyst and former federal and state prosecutor. “We do this to protect the identity and reputation of uncharged people – though they often are readily identifiable – and, at times, to turn up the pressure and try to flip them before a potential indictment drops.”

    CNN was able to identify some of the co-conspirators by piecing together details included in the indictment. Documents reviewed from previous reporting also provide clues, especially the reams of emails and testimony from the House January 6 Committee’s report released late last year.

    CNN has been able to identify or narrow down nearly all of the unindicted co-conspirators:

    The indictment refers to Trump’s speech on November 4, 2020, “falsely declaring victory in the 2020 presidential election” and that Individual 1 discussed a draft of that speech approximately four days earlier, on October 31, 2020.

    The January 6 committee obtained an email from Fitton sent on October 31 to Trump’s assistant Molly Michael and his communications adviser Dan Scavino, which says, “Please see below a draft statement as you requested.”

    The statement Fitton wrote also says in part, “We had an election today – and I won.”

    The indictment states that co-conspirator 3 appeared at the infamous November 19, 2020, press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, with Rudy Giuliani, one of the defendants in the case. Epshteyn was there.

    A November 19, 2020 photo shows Trump campaign advisor Boris Epshteyn at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC.

    The indictment also includes two emails between co-conspirator 3, John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro, two lawyers who pushed the strategy of then-Vice President Mike Pence trying to overturn the election on January 6, 2021, including one with a draft memo for options of how to proceed on January 6.

    According to emails released by the January 6 committee, Epshteyn was the third person on those emails.

    Individual 4 received an email from co-defendant David Shafer, who was then Georgia’s Republican Party chair, on November 20, 2020, that said Scott Graham Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman, “has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie,” according to the indictment.

    CNN obtained court documents that show Shafer sent this email to Sinners in November 2020: “Scott Hall has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie. I know him.” Hall is one of the 19 defendants charged in the indictment.

    The indictment notes an additional email from December 12, 2020, from Shafer to Individual 4 advising them to “touch base” with each of the Trump presidential elector nominees in Georgia in advance of the December 14, 2020, meeting to confirm their attendance.

    CNN reporting from June 2022 reveals an email exchange between Sinners and David Shafer on December 13, 2020, 18 hours before the group of alternate electors gathered at the Georgia State Capitol.

    “I must ask for your complete discretion in this process,” Sinners wrote. “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result – a win in Georgia for President Trump – but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.”

    Kerik’s attorney, Tim Parlatore, confirmed to CNN that his client is the unnamed individual listed in the indictment as co-conspirator 5. The indictment refers to co-conspirator 5 taking part in several meetings with lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Arizona, states Trump was contesting after the 2020 election.

    That included the meeting Kerik attended at the White House on November 25, 2020, with a group of Pennsylvania legislators, along with Trump, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and individual 6.

    Former New York Police Department Commissioner Bernie Kerik at Trump National Golf Club on June 13.

    Parlatore took issue with Willis’ definition of co-conspirator in the case of Kerik, saying that the indictment only refers to him in the context of receiving emails and attending meetings.

    The indictment says on November 25, 2020, Trump, Meadows, Giuliani, Ellis, Individuals 5 and 6 met at the White House with a group of Pennsylvania legislators.

    According to the January 6 committee report, Waldron was among the visitors who were at the White House that day, along with Kerik and attorney Katherine Freiss. Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Meadows, explained that their conversation with the president touched on holding a special session of the Pennsylvania state legislature to appoint Trump electors.

    The indictment also says on December 21, 2020, Sidney Powell, a defendant in the case, sent an email to Individuals 6, 21 and 22 that they were to immediately “receive a copy of all data” from Dominion’s voting systems in Michigan.

    The Washington Post reported last August that the email stated Waldron was among the three people to receive the data, along with Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders.

    Waldron at a hearing in front of Michigan lawmakers in December 2020.

    Waldron is the only person who was involved in both the White House meeting and received the Powell email.

    The indictment says Giuliani re-tweeted a post from co-conspirator 8 on December 7, 2020, calling upon Georgia voters to contact their local representatives and ask them to sign a petition for a special session to ensure “every legal vote is counted.” The date and content of the tweet match a tweet posted by Jones, who was at the time a state senator.

    Burt Jones, Georgia's Republican Lieutenant Governor

    Jones, who was elected lieutenant governor in November, appears more than a dozen times throughout the indictment as co-conspirator 8, including as a fake elector.

    After the 2020 election, Jones was calling for a special session of the Georgia legislature, something Gov. Brian Kemp and former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan refused to do.

    On Thursday, Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, told CNN that he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Jones’ role in the state’s 2020 election interference case, after a judge blocked Willis from investigating him last year.

    The indictment lists several emails sent to co-conspirator 9 related to preparations for the fake electors who met on December 14, 2020, including an email from Chesebro “to help coordinate with the other 5 contested States, to help with logistics of the electors in other States hopefully joining in casting their votes on Monday.”

    According to emails obtained by the January 6 committee, that email was sent to an account belong to the Georgia GOP treasurer, which at the time was Brannan.

    Co-conspirator 9 is also included in the indictment as one of the 13 unindicted co-conspirators who served as fake electors.

    Co-conspirators 10 and 11 are Georgia GOP officials Carolyn Fisher and Vikki Consiglio

    The indictment says on December 10, 2020, Ken Chesebro sent an email to Georgia state Republican Chair David Shafer and Individuals 9, 10 and 11, with documents that were to be used by Trump electors to create fake certificates.

    The January 6 committee obtained as part of its evidence an email from Chesebro sent on December 10 sent to Shafer and three other email addresses. One is for Carolyn Fisher, the former Georgia GOP first vice chair, one is for the Georgia Republican Party treasurer and one is for the Georgia GOP assistant treasurer, the role Consiglio was serving in 2020.

    The email contains attachments of memos and certificates that could be used to help swap out the Biden electors with a slate of electors for Trump.

    Both co-conspirators 10 and 11 also served as fake electors in Georgia.

    Co-conspirators 2 and 8-19 are the fake electors

    Of the 30 unindicted co-conspirators, 13 are listed as the fake electors for Donald Trump, who signed papers “unlawfully falsely holding themselves out as the duly elected and qualified presidential electors from the State of Georgia,” according to the indictment.

    Three of the 16 Georgia fake electors were charged in the indictment: David Shafer, Shawn Still and Cathleen Alston Latham.

    The other 13 fake electors, according to the fake electors certificate published by the National Archives, are Jones (co-conspirator 8), Joseph Brannan (co-conspirator 9), James “Ken” Carroll, Gloria Godwin, David Hanna, Mark Hennessy, Mark Amick, John Downey, Daryl Moody, Brad Carver, CB Yadav and two others who appear to be Individuals 10 and 11.

    Several of the fake electors who were not charged are only listed in the indictment for their role signing on as electors for Trump, while others, like Jones, appear in other parts of the indictment as being more actively involved with the alleged conspiracy.

    The indictment says Individual 20 was part of a meeting at the White House on December 18, 2020, with Trump, Giuliani and Powell, known to have discussed the possibility of seizing voting machines.

    The December 18 meeting featured prominently during some of the hearings from the January 6 committee. All but two of the outside advisers who attended have been named as co-defendants in the indictment already: former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.

    The meeting featured fiery exchanges between Trump’s White House lawyers and his team of outside advisers, including on whether to appoint Sidney Powell as special counsel to investigate voter fraud, according to the indictment and previous details that have been disclosed about the meeting.

    The outside advisers famously got into a screaming match with Trump’s White House lawyers – Pat Cipollone and Eric Herschmann – at the Oval Office meeting. Cipollone and Herschmann, along with Meadows, pushed back intensely on the proposals, Cipollone and Herschmann testified to the January 6 committee.

    Co-conspirators 21 and 22 are Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders

    Co-conspirators 21 and 22 are Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders – who are both affiliated with Byrne’s America Project, a conservative advocacy group that contributed funding to Arizona’s Republican ballot audit. Hayes was a former surfer from Hawaii and Sanders has a cybersecurity background in the private sector.

    The indictment says on Dec. 21, 2020, Sidney Powell sent an email to the chief operations officer of SullivanStrickler, saying that individual 6, who CNN identified as Waldron, along with individuals 21 and 22, were to immediately “receive a copy of all data” from Dominion’s voting systems in Michigan.

    According to the Washington Post, Conan and Todd were the other two people listed on the email to receive the data.

    The final eight co-conspirators listed in the indictment are connected to the effort to access voting machines in Georgia’s Coffee County.

    Co-conspirator 25 and 29 are a Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and analyst Jeffrey Lenberg

    The indictment says that Misty Hampton allowed co-conspirators 25 and 29 to access non-public areas of the Coffee County elections office on January 18, 2021. Logan and Lenberg were the two outsiders granted access to the elections office that day by Hampton, according to surveillance video previously obtained by CNN. No one else was given access to the office that day, according to a CNN review of the footage.

    The indictment also notes that co-conspirator 25 downloaded Coffee County election data that SullivanStrickler then had uploaded to a separate server. Documents previously obtained by CNN show five accounts that downloaded the data – one account belongs to Logan and none of them belong to Lenberg. Still, CNN could not definitively determine who exactly downloaded the data.

    Logan and his company conducted the so-called Republican audit of the 2020 ballots cast in Arizona’s Maricopa County.

    The indictment says that co-conspirator 28 “sent an e-mail to the Chief Operations Officer of SullivanStrickler LLC” directing him to transmit data copied from Coffee County to co-conspirator 30 and Powell. CNN has previously reported on emails Penrose and Powell arranged upfront payment to a cyber forensics firm that sent a team to Coffee County.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Baidu and SenseTime launch ChatGPT-style AI bots to the public | CNN Business

    Baidu and SenseTime launch ChatGPT-style AI bots to the public | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Chinese tech firms Baidu and SenseTime launched their ChatGPT-style AI bots to the public on Thursday, marking a new milestone in the global AI race.

    Baidu has opened public access to its ERNIE Bot, allowing users to conduct AI-powered searches or carry out an array of tasks, from creating videos to providing summaries of complex documents.

    The news sent its shares 3.1% higher in New York on Wednesday and 4.7% higher in Hong Kong on Thursday.

    Baidu (BIDU) is among the first companies in China to get regulatory approval for the rollout, and it is the first to launch this type of service publicly, according to a person familiar with the matter.

    Until Thursday, ERNIE Bot, also called “Wenxin Yiyan” in Chinese, had been offered only to corporate clients or select members of the public who requested access through a waitlist.

    Meanwhile, SenseTime, an AI startup based in Hong Kong, also announced the public launch of its SenseChat platform on Thursday. The company’s shares surged 4% in Hong Kong following the news

    “We are pleased to announce that starting today, it is fully available to serve all users,” a SenseTime spokesperson told CNN in a statement.

    China published new rules on generative AI in July, becoming one of the world’s first countries to regulate the industry. The measures took effect on August 15.

    Baidu has been a frontrunner in China in the race to capitalize on the excitement around generative artificial intelligence, the technology that underpins systems such as ChatGPT or its successor, GPT-4. The latter has impressed users with its ability to simplify coding, rapidly create a website from a simple sketch and pass exams with high marks.

    Baidu announced its own iteration in February, giving it an early advantage in China, according to analysts. It unveiled ERNIE a month later, showing how it could generate a newsletter, come up with a corporate slogan and solve a math riddle.

    Since then, competitors such as Alibaba (BABA) and SenseTime have announced plans to launch their own ChatGPT-style tools, adding to the list of Chinese businesses jumping on the bandwagon. Alibaba told CNN Thursday that it had filed for regulatory approval for its own bot, which was introduced in April.

    The company is now waiting to officially launch and “the initial list of companies that have received the approval is expected to be released by relevant local departments within one week,” said an Alibaba Cloud spokesperson.

    Some critics say the new offerings from Chinese firms will add fuel to an existing US-China rivalry in emerging technologies. Baidu CEO Robin Li has tried to shake off that comparison, saying previously that the company’s platform “is not a tool for the confrontation between China and the United States.”

    The firm’s new feature — which will be embedded in its popular search engine, among its other offerings — follows a similar feature introduced by Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL) in May, which allows users to search the web using its AI chatbot.

    Baidu says its service stands out because of its advanced grasp of Chinese queries, as well as its ability to generate different types of responses, such as text, images, audio and video.

    By comparison, GPT-4 is also able to analyze photos, but currently only generates text responses, according to its developer, OpenAI.

    While ERNIE Bot is available globally, its interface is in Chinese, though users will be able to enter both Chinese and English prompts, a Baidu spokesperson told CNN.

    SenseTime, which unveiled its service in April, has touted a range of features, which it says allow users to write or debug code more efficiently or receive personalized medical advice from a virtual health consultation assistant.

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  • Appeals court says Biden admin likely violated First Amendment but narrows order blocking officials from communicating with social media companies | CNN Politics

    Appeals court says Biden admin likely violated First Amendment but narrows order blocking officials from communicating with social media companies | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal appeals court on Friday said the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment in some of its communications with social media companies, but also narrowed a lower court judge’s order on the matter.

    The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that certain administration officials – namely in the White House, the surgeon general, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – likely “coerced or significantly encouraged social media platforms to moderate content” in violation of the First Amendment in its efforts to combat Covid-19 disinformation.

    But the three-judge panel said the preliminary injunction issued by US District Judge Terry Doughty in July, which ordered some Biden administration agencies and top officials not to communicate with social media companies about certain content, was “both vague and broader than necessary to remedy the Plaintiffs’ injuries, as shown at this preliminary juncture.”

    The Biden administration had previously argued in the lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general claiming unconstitutional censorship that channels with social media companies must stay open so that the federal government can help protect the public from threats to election security, Covid-19 misinformation and other dangers.

    In briefs submitted earlier this summer, the administration wrote, “There is a categorical, well-settled distinction between persuasion and coercion,” adding that Doughty had “equated legitimate efforts at persuasion with illicit efforts to coerce.”

    The 5th Circuit left in place part of the injunction that barred certain Biden administration officials from “threatening, pressuring, or coercing social-media companies in any manner to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce posted content of postings containing protected free speech.”

    “But,” the appeals court said, “those terms could also capture otherwise legal speech. So, the injunction’s language must be further tailored to exclusively target illegal conduct and provide the officials with additional guidance or instruction on what behavior is prohibited.”

    The appeals court reversed several aspects of Doughty’s sweeping order, concluding that those pieces of it risked blocking the federal government “from engaging in legal conduct.”

    The 5th circuit left the order, which had been temporarily blocked earlier in the summer, on pause for 10 days so that the case can be appealed to the Supreme Court.

    The opinion was handed down jointly by Circuit Judges Edith Clement, Jennifer Walker Elrod and Don Willett – all appointees of Republican presidents.

    The conservative appeals court sided with many of the arguments put forward by the plaintiffs, which included private individuals as well Missouri and Louisiana, but also narrowed the injunction’s scope so that it only applied to the White House, the surgeon general, the CDC and the FBI. Doughty had included other agencies in his July order.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • 6 takeaways from Apple’s iPhone 15 event | CNN Business

    6 takeaways from Apple’s iPhone 15 event | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Apple unveiled its iPhone 15 lineup along with other major updates during its September keynote event on Tuesday.

    The company announced it will switch to USB-C charging from its proprietary Lightning charging cable with the iPhone 15, marking a milestone for the company by adopting universal charging. The change aims to ultimately streamline the charging process across various devices — and brands.

    The company also showed off its Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches, with new colors and features including gesture control, and a new iteration of its AirPods Pro wireless earbuds, also with USB-C charging.

    The iPhone charger update, along with changes to its design and camera system, comes as Apple looks to give consumers more reasons to upgrade their iPhones. Last month, Apple’s sales fell for the third consecutive quarter. iPhone revenue came in at $39.7 billion for the quarter, marking an approximately 2% year-over-year decline, as people update their devices less often.

    Apple on Tuesday said it will not raise prices for the iPhone 15 lineup, which could further incentivize users to upgrade.

    Here are the main takeaways from Apple’s Tuesday event:

    The latest iPhones are packed with subtle but significant design changes. To start, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max now feature a titanium casing, allowing the design to be slimmer and thinner than before.

    Other design changes on the premium models include a more-advanced 48 megapixel main camera with a larger sensor and a new telephoto lens for 5x optical zoom camera, exclusively on iPhone 15 Pro Max. The new Pro models’ design also features contoured edges and a customizable Action button, which gives the ring/silence button additional controls, from starting a voice memo to writing a note.

    Meanwhile, the basic iPhone 15 phones now include updated image stabilization for taking photos and videos, 2x optimization and updated portraits with richer color and better low-light performance. They will also come with the “Dynamic Island” tool – home to alerts, notifications and other controls, in place of the notch – which were previously only available on the iPhone 14 Pro.

    The iPhone 15 lineup also includes an Ultra-Wideband chip to power a handful of new features, including one that makes it easier to find friends who share their location in crowded areas.

    The iPhone 15 comes in 5 colors (white, black, pink, green and yellow) and in two sizes: A 6.1-inch screen for the iPhone 15 and 6.7 inches for iPhone 15 Pro.

    The iPhone 15 will start at $799, and iPhone 15 Pro will start at $999. The iPhone 15 models will be available for pre-order on Friday and for sale in stores on Friday, September 22.

    Perhaps the biggest change coming to the iPhone 15 models is that they will now use a USB-C charging cord, ending an 11-year run with Apple’s proprietary Lightning charging cable.

    Now Apple customers can use the same USB-C chargers to power their iPhones, iPads and Mac computers — no more scrambling to find the right charger for each device. Apple said a dedicated USB-C controller will allow for transfer speeds of up to 20 times faster than with USB-2 technology for the iPhone 15 Pro.

    The new iPhone 15 models will now use a USB-C charging cord, ending an 11-year run with Apple's proprietary lightning charging cable.

    The switch would come less than a year after the European Union voted to approve legislation to require smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, portable speakers and other small devices to support USB-C charging by 2024. The first-of-its-kind law aims to pare down the number of chargers and cables consumers must contend with when they purchase a new device, and to allow users to mix and match devices and chargers even if they were produced by different manufacturers.

    Apple will also sell a $29 USB-C Lightning adapter to let people connect their existing Lightning accessories to a USB-C-enabled iPhone or iPad to charge or share data.

    The company told CNN that iPhone users can recycle their old Lightning chargers via its in-store recycling program.

    Apple Watches are displayed during an announcement of new products on the Apple campus Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, in Cupertino, Calif.

    Apple kicked off Tuesday’s event by announcing the new Apple Watch Series 9, which features Apple’s in-house silicon chip and ultrawideband connectivity. The updated Apple Watch will let users log health data with their voice, use “name drop” to share contact information by touching another Apple Watch and raise their wrist to automatically brighten the display. The Series 9 will come in colors such as pink, navy, red, gold, silver and graphite.

    Apple also showed off the second iteration of its rugged Ultra smartwatch line, featuring the updated S9 custom chip and a new UWB chip. It also features more information on the display for more intensive tracking.

    The Apple Watch Series 9 will start at $399 and the Ultra is priced at $799. Customers can place orders today and they will be available on September 22.

    Apple on Tuesday announced the new Watch Series 9, with new gesture controls and improved connectivity.

    Apple is introducing an innovative and unique way to control its new lineup of smartwatches. The Watch Series 9 and high-end Ultra 2 watch will include a new gesture control called Double Tap, allowing allow users to tap their index finger and thumb together twice, to answer or end phone calls, play and pause music, or snooze alarms. The hand gesture can also scroll through widgets, much like turning the digital crown.

    The company said Double Tap is enabled by an enhanced neural engine that processes data from sensors and machine learning, and by monitoring the change in blood flow when two fingers are tapped together. It is available starting next month.

    A similar hand tap will be used to control the Vision Pro mixed reality headset when it launches next year.

    Apple’s next-generation software for the iPhone will be available to download starting on Monday, September 18. In June, the company showed off a slew of new tools coming to iOS 17, such as a more accurate autocorrect, a new feature called Live Voicemail that will transcribe a caller’s message in real time, and a NameDrop tool that lets users share their contact information by holding two iPhones close together. The iPhone’s phone app will also reposition the hang up button to the bottom right of the screen, next to other functions.

    The update will also bring adaptive audio to the AirPods Pro, which will adjust the noise cancellation and volume based on a user’s surroundings, and introduce conversation mode, which customizes the sound of what you’re listening to and softens when you start speaking to someone nearby.

    The iPhone 15 Pro is displayed after its introduction on the Apple campus, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, in Cupertino, Calif.

    Lisa Jackson, Apple’s VP of environment, policy and social initiatives, said that the company’s Watch Series 9 will be Apple’s “first-ever carbon-neutral product,” thanks to efforts to reduce its carbon footprint and to offset emissions with carbon buybacks. She said this has been certified by an independent third-party.

    Doubling down on sustainability initiatives, Jackson also said the tech giant will no longer use leather in any new Apple product, including watch bands.

    Instead of leather, Apple said it will begin using a new textile that it is calling “fine woven.”

    Fine woven will be made of 68% post-consumer recycled content, giving it a significantly lower carbon footprint than leather, Apple said.

    “Beyond expected improved performance and incremental innovation embedded into Apple’s new products, it is great to see Apple communicate on sustainability as a new competitive advantage — especially with Apple’s first carbon neutral products,” Forrester Principal Analyst Thomas Husson said in emailed commentary following the event.

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  • Donald Trump Jr.’s X account was hacked, his spokesman says | CNN Business

    Donald Trump Jr.’s X account was hacked, his spokesman says | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A spokesman for former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Donald Trump Jr.’s account on X – the platform formerly known as Twitter – had been compromised after the account began sharing a series of unusual and erratic posts.

    “Don’s account has been hacked,” Andrew Surabian posted on X, adding that a post claiming the former president had died was “obviously not true.”

    In addition to falsely pronouncing the death of the senior Trump, the compromised account also claimed that Trump Jr. would be running for president himself. Within minutes, the post had been reshared more than 1,000 times on X and viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

    Another post appeared to threaten the country of North Korea, while a pinned post on the account’s profile insulted President Joe Biden with the use of a racist epithet.

    Roughly a half-hour after the posts surfaced, they had been removed. X did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    The incident raises fresh questions about X’s role in securing user accounts, particularly those belonging to high-profile political figures as the platform prepares for the 2024 elections. In August, X said it is staffing up on its safety and election teams following mass layoffs last year that according to owner Elon Musk ultimately eliminated more than 80% of the company’s headcount.

    It is also unclear whether the compromise may have resulted in unauthorized access of Trump Jr.’s private direct messages, or whether Trump Jr. may have had two-factor authentication enabled on his account.

    X is still under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission over the company’s ability to sufficiently protect user privacy and whether it may have violated binding commitments it made in 2011 to securing the platform. The investigation began after the company’s former security chief, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, filed a whistleblower disclosure first reported by CNN and The Washington Post last year that alleged widespread and unaddressed security vulnerabilities.

    This is not the first time high-profile accounts on the platform have been taken over. In 2020, for example, hackers gained control of accounts belonging to former President Barack Obama, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and others including Biden and Musk themselves by posing as Twitter’s IT support. At the time, Twitter admitted that the hackers had downloaded account data that potentially included private messages.

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  • Epic Games to lay off 16% of its workforce | CNN Business

    Epic Games to lay off 16% of its workforce | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, said on Thursday that it will lay off 16% of its staff, around 830 employees, as it attempts to reverse what CEO Tim Sweeney called “unrealistic” spending.

    In a letter to employees Thursday, Sweeney said the video game company had been “spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic.”

    “I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic,” Sweeney said in the letter, which the company shared publicly. He added that Epic plans to divest from the online independent music platform Bandcamp, which it bought last year and which will now be acquired by the music marketplace firm Songtradr. Epic will also spin off most of its marketing division SuperAwesome into a standalone company.

    Epic’s layoffs are just the latest job cuts to hit the tech industry, which was forced to adjust after the stunning growth many companies saw during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic began to slow. Meta, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Lyft and others have all reduced their workforces earlier this year. More recently, Google parent Alphabet made its second round of layoffs of the year, eliminating several hundred recruiting jobs in September after having cut 12,000 employees in January.

    About two-thirds of Epic’s Thursday layoffs will impact employees outside the company’s “core development” teams, Sweeney said. Some laid off workers announced on LinkedIn that they had been affected, including employees working in user experience for Fortnite, production, employee engagement and recruitment.

    Laid off employees will receive a severance offer that includes six months of base pay, accelerated stock vesting and other benefits, according to Sweeney.

    “We’re cutting costs without breaking development or our core lines of businesses so we can continue to focus on our ambitious plans,” Sweeney said. “Some of our products and initiatives will land on schedule, and some may not ship when planned because they are under-resourced for the time being. We’re ok with the schedule tradeoff if it means holding on to our ability to achieve our goals.”

    The Epic layoffs also come amid the latest escalation in a protracted legal battle between the video game company and tech giant Apple. Following a yearslong back-and-forth over an antitrust lawsuit brought by Epic over Apple’s App Store payment practices, both companies have asked the US Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling in the case.

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  • Microsoft, Amazon facing UK antitrust probe over cloud services | CNN Business

    Microsoft, Amazon facing UK antitrust probe over cloud services | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Microsoft and Amazon could be in hot water over apparently making it difficult for UK customers to use multiple suppliers of vital cloud services.

    The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the country’s antitrust regulator, said Thursday it was launching an investigation into the UK cloud infrastructure services market to determine whether players were engaged in anti-competitive practices.

    Cloud computing firms, such as Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS), use data centers around the world to provide remote access to computing services and storage. This “cloud infrastructure” forms the foundation for how software applications, such as Gmail and Dropbox, are developed and run.

    The CMA probe has been initiated following a report from Britain’s media and communications regulator Ofcom, which found that the supply of cloud infrastructure in the United Kingdom is highly concentrated and competition limited.

    “We welcome Ofcom’s referral of public cloud infrastructure services to us for in-depth scrutiny,” CMA CEO Sarah Cardell said in a statement.

    “This is a £7.5 billion market that underpins a whole host of online services — from social media to [artificial intelligence] foundation models. Many businesses now completely rely on cloud services, making effective competition in this market essential.”

    The CMA said it would conclude its investigation by April 2025.

    The probe is the latest evidence of increased scrutiny of big tech companies by European regulators, which have tightened rules in recent years in areas such as data protection and targeted advertising.

    The European Digital Services Act, which came into force at the end of August, reflects one of the most comprehensive and ambitious efforts by policymakers anywhere to regulate tech giants. It applies to companies including Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Snapchat, TikTok and Meta (META), the owner of Facebook and Instagram.

    According to Ofcom, last year Microsoft and AWS had a combined market share of 70-80% in the UK cloud infrastructure services market. Google is their closest competitor with a share of 5-10%.

    In its report, Ofcom identified features of the market that make it more difficult for customers to change providers or to use multiple providers, such as switching fees.

    “If customers have difficulty switching and using multiple providers, it could make it harder for competitors to gain scale and challenge AWS and Microsoft effectively for the business of new and existing customers,” Ofcom wrote.

    The report also raised concerns about the software licensing practices of some cloud providers, particularly Microsoft.

    Both Amazon and Microsoft said they would engage “constructively” with the CMA.

    But a spokesperson for AWS added that the company disagreed with Ofcom’s findings. “We… believe they are based on a fundamental misconception of how the IT sector functions, and the services and discounts on offer,” the spokesperson said, noting that “the cloud has made switching between providers easier than ever.”

    A spokesperson for Microsoft added: “We are committed to ensuring the UK cloud industry remains innovative, highly competitive and an accelerator for growth across the economy.”

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  • How to block graphic social media posts on your kids’ phones | CNN Business

    How to block graphic social media posts on your kids’ phones | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Many schools, psychologists and safety groups are urging parents to disable their children’s social media apps over mounting concerns that Hamas plans to disseminate graphic videos of hostages captured in the Israel-Gaza war.

    Disabling an app or implementing restrictions, such as filtering out certain words and phrases, on young users’ phones may be sound like a daunting process. But platforms and mobile operating systems offer safeguards that could go along way in protecting a child’s mental health.

    Following the attacks on Israel last weekend, much of the terror has played out on social media. Videos of hostages taken on the streets and civilians left wounded continue to circulate on varying platforms. Although some companies have pledged to restrict sensitive videos, many are still being shared online.

    That can be particularly stressful for minors. The American Psychological Association recently issued a warning about the psychological impacts of the ongoing violence in Israel and Gaza, and other research has linked exposure to violence on social media and in the news as a “cycle of harm to mental health.”

    Alexandra Hamlet, a clinical psychologist in New York City, told CNN people who are caught off guard by seeing certain upsetting content are more likely to feel worse than individuals who choose to engage with content that could be upsetting to them. That’s particularly true for children, she said.

    “They are less likely to have the emotional control to turn off content that they find triggering than the average adult, their insight and emotional intelligence capacity to make sense of what they are seeing is not fully formed, and their communication skills to express what they have seen and how to make sense of it is limited comparative to adults,” Hamlet said.

    If deleting an app isn’t an option, here are other ways to restrict or closely monitor a child’s social media use:

    Parents can start by visiting the parental control features found on their child phone’s mobile operating system. iOS’ Screen Time tool and Android’s Google Family Link app help parents manage a child’s phone activity and can restrict access to certain apps. From there, various controls can be selected, such as restricting app access or flagging inappropriate content.

    Guardians can also set up guardrails directly within social media apps.

    TikTok: TikTok, for example, offers a Family Pairing feature that allows parents and guardians to link their own TikTok account to their child’s account and restrict their ability to search for content, limit content that may not be appropriate for them or filter out videos with words or hashtags from showing up in feeds. These features can also be enabled within the settings of the app, without needing to sync up a guardian’s account.

    Facebook, Instagram and Threads: Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and threads, has an educational hub for parents with resources, tips and articles from experts on user safety, and a tool that allows guardians to see how much time their kids spend on Instagram and set time limits, which some experts advise should be considered during this time.

    YouTube: On YouTube, the Family Link tool allows parents to set up supervised accounts for their children, screen time limits or block certain content. At the same time,YouTube Kids also provides a safer space for kids, and parents who decide their kids are ready to see more content on YouTube can create a supervised account. In addition, autoplay is turned off by default for anyone under 18 but can be turned off anytime in Settings for all users.

    Hamlet said families should consider creating a family policy where family members agree to delete their apps for a certain period of time.

    “It could be helpful to frame the idea as an experiment, where everyone is encouraged to share how not having the apps has made them feel over the course of time,” she said. “It is possible that after a few days of taking a break from social media, users may report feeling less anxious and overwhelmed, which could result in a family vote of continuing to keep the apps deleted for a few more days before checking in again.”

    If there’s resistance, Hamlet said should try to reduce the time spent on apps right now and come up with an agreed upon number of minutes each day for usage.

    “Parents could ideally include a contingency where in exchange for allowing the child to use their apps for a certain number of minutes, their child must agree to having a short check in to discuss whether there was any harmful content that the child had exposure to that day,” she said. “This exchange allows both parents to have a protected space to provide effective communication and support, and to model openness and care for their child.”

    TikTok: A TikTok spokesperson, which said the platform uses technology and 40,000 safety professionals to moderate the platform, told CNN it is taking the situation seriously and has increased dedicated resources to help prevent violent, hateful, or misleading content on the platform.

    Meta: Meta similarly said it has set up a special operations center staffed with experts, including fluent Hebrew and Arabic speakers, to monitor and respond to the situation. “Our teams are working around the clock to keep our platforms safe, take action on content that violates our policies or local law, and coordinate with third-party fact checkers in the region to limit the spread of misinformation,” Meta said in a statement. “We’ll continue this work as this conflict unfolds.”

    YouTube: Google-owned YouTube said it is providing thousands of age-restricted videos that do not violate its policies – some of these, however, are not appropriate for viewers under 18. (This may include bystander footage). The company told CNN it has “removed thousands of harmful videos” and its teams “remain vigilant to take action quickly across YouTube, including videos, Shorts and livestreams.”

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  • Cyberattack forces hospitals to divert ambulances in Connecticut and Pennsylvania | CNN Politics

    Cyberattack forces hospitals to divert ambulances in Connecticut and Pennsylvania | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A cyberattack on Thursday knocked computer systems offline at hospitals in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, forcing them to send ambulances to other hospitals, hospital spokespeople told CNN.

    As of late Friday morning, Crozer Health, a network of three hospitals and a medical center in the Philadelphia suburbs, was still diverting ambulances for stroke and trauma patients to other hospitals because of a “ransomware attack,” Crozer Health spokesperson Lori Bookbinder told CNN.

    The hack hit Prospect Medical Holdings and affected all of their health care facilities, according to a statement from PMH affiliate Eastern Connecticut Health Network. PMH owns 16 hospitals in California, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, according to its website.

    At Eastern Connecticut Health Network, which includes two hospitals, the urgent care center is closed and elective surgeries were canceled until further noticed because of the hack, according to the network’s website.

    Other Prospect Medical Holdings affiliates reported disruptions from the hack.

    “We are working closely with federal law enforcement to respond to this incident,” Prospective Medical Holdings said in a statement to CNN.

    National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson told CNN that the White House is “closely monitoring the ongoing incident,” adding that “the Department of Health and Human Services has been in contact with the company to offer federal assistance, and we are ready to provide support as needed to prevent any disruption to patient care as a result of this incident.”

    The company has so far declined offers of federal assistance, according to a US official.

    But Prospective Medical Holdings said later Friday that they “believe there may have been a miscommunication or a misunderstanding” and that they “welcome any assistance from the federal government.”

    CharterCARE Health Partners, which includes two hospitals in Rhode Island, said Thursday that the incident was affecting “inpatient and outpatient operations” and that “some patient procedures may be affected.”

    Patient care continues at the affected hospitals, but they’re operating with limited capacity in what is now a well-rehearsed routine. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, ransomware and other cyberattacks hampered patient care at American hospitals that are often ill-equipped to deal with them.

    Eastern Connecticut Health Network ended ambulance diversion at 10 a.m. local time Friday, spokesperson Nina Kruse told CNN. The emergency rooms at ECHN’s two hospitals have been open throughout the incident, Kruse said.

    This isn’t Crozer Health’s first bout with ransomware. A June 2020 attack orchestrated by a prolific ransomware gang forced the hospital network to take its computer systems offline.

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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  • Modern romance: falling in love with AI | CNN Business

    Modern romance: falling in love with AI | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Alexandra is a very attentive girlfriend. “Watching CUBS tonight?” she messages her boyfriend, but when he says he’s too busy to talk, she says, “Have fun, my hero!”

    Alexandra is not real. She is a customizable AI girlfriend on dating site Romance.AI.

    As artificial intelligence seeps into seemingly every corner of the internet, the world of romance is no refuge. AI is infiltrating the dating app space – sometimes in the form of fictional partners, sometimes as advisor, trainer, ghostwriter or matchmaker.

    Established players in the online dating business like Tinder and Hinge are integrating AI into their existing products. New apps like Blush, Aimm, Rizz and Teaser AI (most of them free or with many free features) offer completely new takes on virtual courtship. Some use personality tests and analysis of a user’s physical type to train AI-powered systems – and promise higher chances of finding a perfect match. Others apps act as Cyrano de Bergerac, employing AI to whip up the most appealing response to a potential match’s query: ‘What’s your favorite food? or “a typical Sunday?”

    Around half of all adults under 30 have used a dating site or app, according to 2023 Pew Research findings – but nearly half of users report their experience as being negative. Empty conversations, few matches and endless swiping leave many users single and unhappy with apps – problems that many in the AI dating app field say could be solved with the technology, making people less lonely and fostering easier, deeper connections.

    Of course, the average online dater now has other issues to deal with, having to wonder if the person they are are speaking with might be relying entirely on AI-generated conversation. And is it even possible that a computer can identify a potential love connection? Is it a way of cheating the dating game?

    “It’s like saying using a word processor is like cheating on generating a novel. In so many ways this is just a new tool that enables people to be faster and more creative. AI is just honestly no different from sending a friend a gif or a meme. You’re taking existing content, and you’re repurposing it to connect with somebody,” Dmitri Mirakyan, co-founder of AI dating conversation app YourMove.AI, told CNN. “The world’s becoming a more lonely place, and I think AI could make that easier and better for people.”

    And many people seem ready for AI to take part in their online dating life. A March study by cybersecurity and digital privacy company Kaspersky found 75% of dating app users are willing to use ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot, to deliver the perfect line.

    “There is a growing fatigue with dating apps right now as there is a lot of pressure on people to be ‘original’ and cut through the noise created by the continuous choice being offered to single people – unfortunately dating has become a numbers game,” Crystal Cansdale, dating expert at global dating app Inner Circle, commented on the study.

    Founders of the new apps say they are doing a fair share of good. Here are a few of the ways AI apps are now trying to help you fall in love:

    Try Rizz.app, Teaser AI or YourMove.AI.

    Founders and designers of these apps say people find starting and keeping conversations going the most challenging part of the process. “Dating app conversations are exhausting,” reads YourMove.AI’s homepage. “We can make it easier. So you can spend less time texting, and more time dating.”

    Rizz.app and YourMove.AI allow users to upload words or screenshots, receiving a witty AI-generated response to be used either to create their own dating app profile, respond to someone else’s or just keep a conversation going. Mirakyan says he was hoping to help people like himself who have struggled in social situations.

    “I was a really freaking awkward kid…I couldn’t really read social cues, but I remember reading this book called ‘Be More Chill’ about a computer that you could put into your ear that would tell you what to say so that you could sound cool and fit in,” Mirakyan told CNN. “It feels like it’s an opportunity to really make a difference with this fairly large subset of people that for various reasons find the current social environment challenging.”

    Teaser.AI is a new stand-alone dating app from the makers of viral camera app Dispo, and it adds an unusual twist. Users build the average profile – but also select personality traits for their AI bot they train. (Options include “traditional,” “toxic,” and “unhinged.”) When matching with another person, users first get to read a conversation between their two AIs they’ve created to “simulate [what] a potential conversation between you two might look like,” according to the app. Once a human messages, the bots takes a back seat.

    Woman using mobile phone home STOCK

    “We see it as an improvement, a tweak of the current dating app ecosystem,” Teaser.AI co-Founder and CEO Daniel Liss told CNN. “So many of those apps it feels are not really designed to get you out there meeting people. They’re designed to keep you on the app for as long as possible. So for us, we view this technology as a way to give people a nudge… just starting that conversation and to creating connection.”

    Find out on dating apps Iris and Aimm.

    These apps are among those using AI technology to better pair potential couples, relying on gathered data to determine how compatible two people are.

    Dating app Iris is all about AI-determined mutual attraction. It initiates new members by putting them through “training” where they are shown faces of “people” of their desired gender – some stock images, others AI-generated – and prompted to hit “Pass,” “Maybe,” or “Like.” The app uses the information to learn a user’s physical type, then only offers potential matches with a high data-backed chance of mutual attraction and lower odds of rejection.

    Also hoping that AI can find better matches is Aimm, a full service digital matchmaker that uses a virtual assistant to perform intense personality assessments before conducting a matchmaking process to find an optimal match. Founder Kevin Teman says the technology is really good at putting two people together who have the possibility to fall in love – but that it can only go so far.

    “The tug of war that I see is thinking ‘how can a computer be able to know what real human love is,’ and the way people assess whether they’re in love with somebody may not be able to translate perfectly into a machine,” Teman told CNN.

    Try Blush or RomanticAI. These startups offer an array of AI potential matches, digital girlfriends and boyfriends that users can chat with.

    Both apps market themselves as places to practice relationship skills, giving users a chance to converse with bots in a romantic environment. Blush uses a traditional dating app set-up, letting users swipe, chat with matches and even go on virtual dates. Before entering the app, users get a warning: “Be aware that AI can say triggering, inappropriate, or false things.”

    Blush reports that their audience is mostly men and largely people in their early 20s who are struggling to connect romantically with others. “A lot of people reported that exploring different romantic relationships or dating scenarios with AI really helped them first boost their own confidence and feel like they feel more prepared to be dating, which I think especially after COVID was definitely a problem for many of us,” Blush’s chief product officer Rita Popova told CNN.

    Romantic.AI is set up more like a chat room, offering several male and female bots to choose from- though there is a much larger selection of female options, including Mona Lisa and the Ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti. The bots have bios with interests, career and body type, giving users a multi-faceted idea of a person while chatting.

    It creates a “safe space for any kind of desire, any kind of sexuality relief or something like that. AI is giving the ultimate acceptance of whatever you want to bring over there,” COO Tanya Grypachevskaya told CNN.

    RomanticAI has over one million monthly users using the app for over an hour a day on average, according to the company.

    One user left a rave review after using the app to find closure after a breakup. “He created his custom-made character with the traits similar in personality as his girlfriend. He talked to it and he talked and he was able to tell all of the things he wanted to tell but didn’t have the opportunity before. So the whole review was about ‘guys, thank you so much. It really gave me an opportunity to close this chapter of my life and move on,” said Grypachevskaya.

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  • Justin Trudeau blasts Facebook for blocking news as Canada’s wildfires rage | CNN Business

    Justin Trudeau blasts Facebook for blocking news as Canada’s wildfires rage | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blasted Facebook for “putting corporate profits ahead of people’s safety” as the social media platform continues to block news content while wildfires rage in Canada’s Northwest Territories and British Columbia.

    “It is so inconceivable that a company like Facebook is choosing to put corporate profits ahead of ensuring that local news organizations can get up-to-date information to Canadians, and reach them where Canadians spend a lot of their time; online, on social media, on Facebook,” Trudeau said during a news conference Monday.

    Some 60,000 people across the Northwest Territories and British Columbia have been placed under evacuation orders since this weekend, according to the most recent numbers from Canadian officials. Also on Monday, Trudeau described the devastation wrought by the wildfires as “apocalyptic” and praised Canadians for stepping up to support evacuees.

    Earlier this month, Facebook’s parent-company Meta began to block news links from Facebook and Instagram in Canada, in response to recently-passed legislation in the country that requires tech companies to negotiate payments to news organizations for hosting their content.

    A Meta spokesperson told CNN in a statement on Monday that Canadians “continue to use our technologies in large numbers to connect with their communities and access reputable information, including content from official government agencies, emergency services and non-governmental organizations.”

    The new legislation in Canada “forces us to end access to news content in order to comply with the legislation but we remain focused on making our technologies available,” the statement added, pointing to Meta’s Safety Check tool, which the company said more than 45,000 people had used as of Friday to mark themselves as safe.

    The Meta spokesperson added that 300,000 people have visited the Yellowknife and Kelowna Crisis Response pages on Facebook.

    The Canadian legislation, known as Bill C-18 or the Online News Act, was given final approval in June. It aims to support the sustainability of news organizations by regulating “digital news intermediaries with a view to enhancing fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace.”

    Meta has previously stated, via a company blogpost, that the legislation “misrepresents the value news outlets receive when choosing to use our platforms.” The ongoing controversy in Canada comes amid a global debate over the relationship between news organizations and social media companies about the value of news content, and who gets to benefit from it.

    During his remarks Monday, Trudeau said Facebook’s move to block news content is “bad for democracy” in the long run. “But right now, in an emergency situation, where up-to-date local information is more important than ever, Facebook’s putting corporate profits ahead of people’s safety,” Trudeau said.

    CNN’s Brian Fung contributed to this report.

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  • Microsoft splits Teams from Office in Europe after EU pressure | CNN Business

    Microsoft splits Teams from Office in Europe after EU pressure | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Microsoft will allow business customers in Europe to buy its video and chat app Teams separately from its Office software, it said Thursday, a month after the European Union opened an antitrust investigation into the company’s bundling of the products.

    The change will take effect from October 1, affecting business customers in the EU and four other European countries that use Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites.

    Microsoft (MSFT) will also make it easier for other companies — for example, Zoom and Slack, which is owned by Salesforce — to integrate their products with Microsoft 365, the new name for Office 365.

    “We believe these changes balance the interests of our competitors with those of European business customers, providing them with access to the best possible solutions at competitive prices,” Nanna-Louise Linde, the company’s vice-president for European government affairs, said in a blog post.

    Microsoft will continue to engage with the investigation and “remain open to exploring pragmatic solutions that benefit both customers and developers in Europe,” she added.

    The company will charge “core enterprise customers” €2 ($2.2) less per month for Microsoft 365 and Office 365 — which include Word, Excel and Outlook among other apps — without the popular Teams app.

    New customers in Europe will be able to buy Teams, best-known for its video-conferencing feature, separately for €5 ($5.4) per month.

    “Existing enterprise customers who already have a suite with Teams can choose to stay with their current productivity suite or to move to a without-Teams suite,” Linde said.

    The EU launched its probe into possible anticompetitive practices by Microsoft following a 2020 complaint by Slack that alleged Microsoft illegally tied Teams to its dominant workplace software.

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  • What to expect from Apple’s iPhone 15 reveal | CNN Business

    What to expect from Apple’s iPhone 15 reveal | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Apple is expected to debut its iPhone 15 lineup Tuesday at the company’s annual September keynote event, and it could introduce the biggest change to the phone’s design in 11 years.

    The press event, which Apple teased with a “wonderlust” tagline, will take place at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, and will be livestreamed on its website, starting at 10 a.m. local time.

    Although the annual iPhone event has become formulaic over the years, announcing incremental changes to battery life, camera system and displays, this year Apple is expected to introduce USB-C charging to its smartphones for the first time. The change could ultimately streamline the charging process across various devices and brands.

    But the company will have to show off more than just a new charging system to get users to upgrade. Last month, Apple’s sales fell for the third consecutive quarter. iPhone revenue came in at $39.7 billion for the quarter, marking an approximately 2% year-over-year decline.

    Here’s more of what to expect:

    Apple has previously switched its iPads and MacBooks to USB-C charging, but now may be the time for the company to finally make the change on iPhones. The move would come less than a year after the European Union voted to approve legislation to require smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, portable speakers and other small devices to support USB-C charging by 2024. The first-of-its-kind law aims to pare down the number of chargers and cables consumers must contend with when they purchase a new device and to allow users to mix and match devices and chargers even if they were produced by different manufacturers.

    “This is arguably the biggest disruption to iPhone design for several years, but in reality, it is hardly a dramatic move,” said Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight.

    Last year, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Greg Joswiak, publicly stressed the value and ubiquity of the Lightning charger, which is designed for faster device charging, but noted “obviously we will have to comply” with the EU mandate. The Lightning charger was introduced in 2012.

    The change to USB-C would also likely usher in a wave of charging accessories, potentially in various colors. It’s possible iPhone users will also pay up for a USB-C wall adapter because it will be a different size connector.

    The entire iPhone 15 lineup is rumored to get the “Dynamic Island” feature — an interactive home for alerts, notifications and various controls — that replaces the notch on top of the screen. The tool launched on the higher-end iPhone 14 Pro models last year.

    Although there are few other rumors circulating about its entry-level iPhone models, the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max models are expected to get a handful of new features, according to a Bloomberg report. This may include a rear-facing periscope lens, which allows for more optical zoom, and a titanium casing to make the device up to 15% lighter and thinner. The Pro models are also expected to get Apple’s latest A17 chip – the first with 3 nanometer technology, which could deliver faster processing and a longer-lasting battery.

    The lineup is also expected to come in various new colors, as hinted at in the Apple logo featured in the event’s invitation, including navy and updated shades of gray, white and silver.

    In June, Apple introduced the Vision Pro, a mixed reality headset that the company says will usher in a new era of “spatial computing.” Yoram Wurmser, an analyst at Insider Intelligence, believes the company will tease “some new features and deeper collaborations” to drum up excitement ahead of its 2024 launch. (It’s also possible Apple could announce a launch date). The headset blends both virtual reality and augmented reality, a technology that overlays virtual images on live video of the real world. The headset is Apple’s biggest, and riskiest, product launch in years.

    New AirPods, Apple Watches and software release dates

    The company typically unveils its latest Apple Watches alongside the iPhone each year, so it’s likely we’ll see the debut of the Apple Watch Series 9 and possibly its next-generation Ultra 2 smartwatch, its more rugged wearable for serious sports enthusiasts. According to Bloomberg, Apple is working on a full revamp of its smartwatch for next year’s Apple Watch Series 10, so this year’s updates will be relatively minor.

    In addition, Apple is expected to show off its next-generation AirPods with a new charging case that will work with USB-C cables. It’s also likely to announce launch dates for its next-generation operating systems for the iPhone, iPads, Mac computers and Apple Watch.

    In May, for example, Apple showed off a slew of new tools coming to iOS 17, such as a more accurate autocorrect, a new feature called Live Voicemail that will transcribe a caller’s message in real time, and a NameDrop tool that lets users share their contact information by holding two iPhones close together. The iPhone’s phone app will also reposition the hang up button to the bottom right of the screen, next to other functions.

    With the new iPhone expected to take center stage, many analysts don’t anticipate Apple will release new iPads or Mac computers until October. And despite rivals Samsung and Google doubling down on foldable devices, Apple is still not expected to unveil a similar version this fall.

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  • TikTok Shop is now open for business | CNN Business

    TikTok Shop is now open for business | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    TikTok is officially kicking off its US e-commerce efforts with the launch of TikTok Shop.

    The short-form video platform launched an in-app shopping experience in the United States on Tuesday, according to a company blog post, after months of testing. TikTok Shop allows users to find and directly purchase products used in live videos, tagged in content shown on their algorithm-driven For You page, pinned on brand profiles or marketed in a new “Shop” tab.

    For creators, the feature could bring new streams of income by connecting them with brands for commission-based marketing partnerships. TikTok is also offering “Fulfilled by TikTok,” a program that handles all of the logistics for sellers, including storing, packing and shipping.

    “With community-driven trends like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt inspiring people to discover and share the products they love, TikTok is creating a new shopping culture,” the company wrote. “With TikTok Shop, we’re giving people a place to experience the joy of discovering and purchasing new products without leaving the app.”

    TikTok is looking to quadruple its merchandise sales by the end of the year to hit $20 billion, according to Bloomberg.

    The app’s push into live e-commerce comes as other platforms have struggled with online shopping initiatives.

    Meta-owned Instagram killed livestream product tagging and shopping in March and got rid of the shopping tab on the app’s navigation bar. Facebook also axed live shopping in October. Meanwhile,YouTube partnered with Shopify in 2022 to help creators sell products.

    Amazon has been offering Amazon Live since 2019, a streaming hub that sells items through live videos. Amazon Storefront, launched in 2018, also allows creators to build pages that bring together content and product recommendations to sell to followers, for a commission.

    TikTok Shop is already available throughout parts of Asia and the United Kingdom. Southeast Asia, a region with a collective population of 630 million – half of them under 30 – is one of TikTok’s biggest markets in terms of user numbers, generating more than 325 million visitors to the app every month, according to Reuters.

    But the platform has yet to translate its large user base into a major e-commerce revenue source in the region as it faces fierce competition from bigger rivals of Sea’s Shopee, Alibaba’s Lazada and GoTo’s Tokopedia.

    E-commerce transactions across the region reached nearly $100 billion last year, with Indonesia alone accounting for $52 billion, according to data from consultancy Momentum Works.

    TikTok facilitated $4.4 billion of transactions across Southeast Asia last year, up from $600 million in 2021, but it still trailed far behind Shopee’s $48 billion of regional merchandise sales in 2022, Momentum Works told Reuters in June.

    Cracking the United States has proven even harder. TikTok Shop, as launched Tuesday, has been in testing since November.

    The platform has previously backed down from efforts to push e-commerce. TikTok piloted a shopping experience in partnership with Shopify in 2021 that did not stick, and reports circulated in 2022 that TikTok was giving up altogether on live shopping in the United States and Europe after struggling to connect with consumers.

    The move to once again revitalize e-retail efforts in the United States comes as the app faces increasing scrutiny from lawmakers. Some critics and a growing number of US lawmakers on both sides of the aisle view TikTok as a national security threat, since it is owned by China-based company ByteDance. Some US officials have expressed fears that the Chinese government could spy on US data via TikTok, though there is so far no evidence that the Chinese government has ever accessed personal information of US-based TikTok users.

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