Google to launch anti-misinformation campaign ahead of EU elections
London, UK Reuters Google is preparing to launch an anti-misinformation campaign across five countries in the European Union, the company told Reuters ahead of the bloc’s parliamentary elections and tougher new rules tackling online content. In June, EU citizens will elect a new European Parliament to pass policies and laws in the region and lawmakers […]
StrangeSights: A luxury hotel – for bunnies; ‘wordle’ tops Google’s search list; and, Santas hit the slopes…
DAVID ADAMS provides a round-up of some stories on the odder side of life…
India nixes privacy bill that alarmed big tech companies, works on new law
New Delhi, IndiaReuters India’s government on Wednesday withdrew a data protection and privacy bill which was first proposed in 2019 and had alarmed big technology companies such as Facebook and Google, announcing it was working on a new comprehensive law. The 2019 law had proposed stringent regulations on cross-border data flows and proposed giving the […]
Facebook switches news back on in Australia, signs content deals
Sydney, AustraliaReuters Facebook Inc ended a one-week blackout of Australian news on its popular social media site on Friday and announced preliminary commercial agreements with three small local publishers. The moves reflected easing tensions between the US company and the Australian Government, a day after the country’s parliament passed a law forcing it and Alphabet […]
Updated: Facebook ‘refriends’ Australia after changes to media laws
Updated 9pm (AEDT)Canberra, AustraliaReuters Facebook will restore Australian news pages after Canberra offered amendments to a proposed law designed to force tech giants to pay for media content displayed on their platforms, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Tuesday. Australia and the social media group have been locked in a standoff for more than a week […]
Intel leads tech-dominated list of religiously inclusive workplaces
RNS Intel and Texas Instruments are the two most religiously inclusive workplaces among the United States’ 200 largest companies, according to the 2021 Corporate Religious Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Index (REDI Index) published on 9th February. American Airlines, American Express, Google and PayPal also earned top scores. The REDI Index measures the religious inclusion […]
Facebook blocks news content in Australia as it blasts proposed law
Dallas, USReuters Facebook Inc will block news content from being read and shared in its news feed in Australia, drawing a line in the sand against a proposed Australian law that would require it and Alphabet Inc’s Google to pay the country’s news publishers for content. The move, announced in a blog post on Wednesday, […]
Google launches $US3 million fund to fight vaccine misinformation
Gdansk, PolandReuters The Google News Initiative on Tuesday launched a global open fund to fight misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, worth up to $US3 million. The “COVID-19 Vaccine Counter Misinformation Open Fund” aims to support journalistic efforts to effectively fact-check misinformation about the COVID-19 immunisation process, the initiative belonging to Alphabet’s Google said in a blog […]
“Algorithms of oppression”: Big tech urged to combat discrimination
Thomson Reuters Foundation Nearly a decade has passed since Safiya Noble googled “Black girls” and found the search results were mostly pornographic – a discovery that drove her to explore how algorithms can perpetuate discrimination and inequality. Google went on to fix that search engine issue, but Noble said the problem is far from solved. […]
Tracing apps may stem COVID-19 spread even when only a few use them – study
Reuters Contact tracing apps can sharply reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus even when only a few people use them, a study published on Thursday by researchers at Google and Oxford University showed. An app used by 15 per cent of the population together with a well-staffed contact-tracing workforce can lead to a 15 […]