Tag Archives: CENS

Business

FTX founder Bankman-Fried objects to tighter bail, says prosecutors ‘sandbagged’ him

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NEW YORK, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried on Saturday urged a U.S. judge not to ban the indicted FTX cryptocurrency executive from communicating with former colleagues as part of his bail, saying prosecutors “sandbagged” the process to put their client in the “worst possible light.”

The lawyers were responding to a Friday night request by federal prosecutors that Bankman-Fried not be allowed to talk with most employees of FTX or his Alameda Research hedge fund without lawyers present, or use the encrypted messaging apps Signal or Slack and potentially delete messages automatically.

Bankman-Fried, 30, has been free on $250 million bond since pleading not guilty to charges of fraud in the looting of billions of dollars from the now-bankrupt FTX.

Prosecutors said their request was in response to Bankman-Fried’s recent effort to contact a potential witness against him, the general counsel of an FTX affiliate, and was needed to prevent witness tampering and other obstruction of justice.

But in a letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers said prosecutors sprung the “overbroad” bail conditions without revealing that both sides had been discussing bail over the last week.

“Rather than wait for any response from the defense, the government sandbagged the process, filing this letter at 6:00 p.m. on Friday evening,” Bankman-Fried’s lawyers wrote. “The government apparently believes that a one-sided presentation – spun to put our client in the worst possible light – is the best way to get the outcome it seeks.”

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers also said their client’s efforts to contact the general counsel and John Ray, installed as FTX’s chief executive during the bankruptcy, were attempts to offer “assistance” and not to interfere.

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in Manhattan declined to comment.

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers proposed that their client have access to some colleagues, including his therapist, but not be allowed to talk with Caroline Ellison and Zixiao “Gary” Wang, who have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors.

They said a Signal ban isn’t necessary because Bankman-Fried is not using the auto-delete feature, and concern he might is “unfounded.”

The lawyers also asked to remove a bail condition preventing Bankman-Fried from accessing FTX, Alameda or cryptocurrency assets, saying there was “no evidence” he was responsible for earlier alleged unauthorized transactions.

In an order on Saturday, Kaplan gave prosecutors until Monday to address Bankman-Fried’s concerns.

“The court expects all counsel to abstain from pejorative characterizations of the actions and motives of their adversaries,” the judge added.

Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci

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US

Meta to reinstate Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts

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Jan 25 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) said Wednesday it will reinstate former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks, following a two-year suspension after the deadly Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021.

The restoration of his accounts could provide a boost to Trump, who announced in November he will make another run for the White House in 2024. He has 34 million followers on Facebook and 23 million on Instagram, platforms that are key vehicles for political outreach and fundraising.

His Twitter account was restored in November by new owner Elon Musk, though Trump has yet to post there.

Free speech advocates say it is appropriate for the public to have access to messaging from political candidates, but critics of Meta have accused the company of lax moderating policies.

Meta said in a blog post Wednesday it has “put new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.”

“In the event that Mr. Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation,” wrote Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, in the blog post.

The decision, while widely expected, drew sharp rebukes from civil rights advocates. “Facebook has policies but they under-enforce them,” said Laura Murphy, an attorney who led a two-year long audit of Facebook concluding in 2020. “I worry about Facebook’s capacity to understand the real world harm that Trump poses: Facebook has been too slow to act.”

The Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Free Press and other groups also expressed concern Wednesday over Facebook’s ability to prevent any future attacks on the democratic process, with Trump still repeating his false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.

Others said it was the right decision.

Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and a former ACLU official, defended the reinstatement. He had previously endorsed the company’s decision to suspend Trump’s account.

“The public has an interest in hearing directly from candidates for political office,” said Jaffer. “It’s better if the major social media platforms err on the side of leaving speech up, even if the speech is offensive or false, so that it can be addressed by other users and other institutions.”

OTHER REACTIVATIONS?

The decision to ban Trump was a polarizing one for Meta, the world’s biggest social media company, which prior to the Trump suspension had never blocked the account of a sitting head of state for violating its content rules.

The company indefinitely revoked Trump’s access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts after removing two of his posts during the Capitol Hill violence, including a video in which he reiterated his false claim of widespread voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election.

It then referred the case to its independent oversight board, which ruled that the suspension was justified but its indeterminate nature was not. In response, Meta said it would revisit the suspension two years after it began.

Meta’s blog post Wednesday suggested it may reactivate other suspended accounts, including those penalized for their involvement in civil unrest. The company said those reinstated accounts would be subject to more stringent review and penalties for violations.

Whether, and how, Trump will seize upon the opportunity to return to Facebook and Instagram is unclear.

Trump has not sent any new tweets since regaining his account on Twitter, saying he would prefer to stick with his own app Truth Social. But his campaign spokesman told Fox News Digital last week that being back on Facebook “will be an important tool for the 2024 campaign to reach voters.”

In a post on Truth Social, Trump responded to his reinstatement on Meta apps, saying: “Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution!” He did not indicate if or when he would begin posting on Meta platforms again.

Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat who previously chaired the House Intelligence Committee, criticized the decision to reinstate him.

“Trump incited an insurrection,” Schiff wrote on Twitter. “Giving him back access to a social media platform to spread his lies and demagoguery is dangerous.”

Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas and Katie Paul in Palo Alto; additional reporting by Greg Bensinger, David Shepardson, Kanishka Singh, Eva Mathews and Yuvraj Malik; Editing by Kenneth Li and Rosalba O’Brien

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World

India police detain students gathered to watch BBC documentary on Modi

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NEW DELHI, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Students were detained by the Delhi police on Wednesday as they gathered to watch a recent BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India has dismissed as propaganda and blocked its streaming and sharing on social media.

This follows similar disruptions, some of which turned violent, at gatherings this week by students to watch the documentary that questions Modi’s leadership during deadly riots two decades ago, as his opponents raise questions of government censorship.

Modi, who is aiming for a third term in elections next year, was the chief minister of Gujarat in February 2002 when a suspected Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, setting off one of independent India’s worst outbreaks of religious bloodshed.

In reprisal attacks across the state at least 1,000 people were killed, mostly Muslims, as crowds roamed the streets over days, targeting the minority group. Activists put the toll at around 2,500, over twice that number.

The government has said the BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question” released last week is a biased “propaganda piece” and has blocked the sharing of any clips from it on social media.

The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) said on Wednesday it plans to show the documentary in every Indian state.

“They won’t stop the voice of dissent,” said Mayukh Biswas, general secretary of the SFI, the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Ahead of one of those screenings at Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia university, 13 students were detained amid a heavy police deployment. The university blamed the students for creating a “ruckus on the street” and said they did not have permission for holding the show, police said.

“There is no chance that anybody who tries to disturb the discipline of the university will go free,” the university’s vice chancellor, Najma Akhtar, told Reuters.

A day earlier, bricks were hurled, allegedly by members of a right-wing group, on students hoping to watch the documentary at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, students said.

Student leader Aishe Ghosh said they were watching the documentary on their phones and laptops after power was cut off about half an before a scheduled screening.

The university had denied permission and threatened disciplinary action if the documentary was screened.

“It was obviously the administration that cut off the power,” Ghosh said. “We are encouraging campuses across the country to hold screenings as an act of resistance against this censorship.”

The media coordinator for the university did not comment when asked about the on-campus power cut.

A spokesman for the right-wing student group did not respond to a message seeking comment. A police spokesperson did not respond to queries.

Protests also erupted following the film’s screening at campuses in the southern state of Kerala on Tuesday while a show was cancelled mid-way at a university in the north Indian city of Chandigarh, according to local media reports.

Derek O’Brien, a member of parliament in the upper house of the parliament, wrote on Twitter on Saturday that the opposition “will continue to fight the good fight against censorship” in reference to the block on sharing clips from the documentary on social media.

The BBC said its documentary series examines tensions between India’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority and explores Modi’s politics in relation to those tensions.

“The documentary was rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards,” the BBC said.

It approached “a wide range of voices, witnesses and experts” and featured a range of opinion including responses from people in Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, the BBC said.

Reporting by Shivam Patel in New Delhi and Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai; additional reporting by Krishn Kaushik; Editing by Robert Birsel and Jonathan Oatis

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World

Xi says COVID control is entering new phase as cases surge after reopening

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  • China overcame unprecedented difficulties in COVID battle: Xi
  • Still a time of struggle for controlling COVID: Xi
  • In Wuhan, surge in new cases shows signs of easing
  • Shanghai has 10 million infections, health official says
  • End of zero-COVID curbs prompts global concern

WUHAN/BEIJING, Dec 31 (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Saturday for more effort and unity as the country enters a “new phase” in its approach to combating the pandemic, in his first comments to the public on COVID-19 since his government changed course three weeks ago and relaxed its rigorous policy of lockdowns and mass testing.

China’s abrupt switch earlier this month from the “zero-COVID” policy that it had maintained for nearly three years has led to infections sweeping across the country unchecked. It has also caused a further drop in economic activity and international concern, with Britain and France becoming the latest countries to impose curbs on travellers from China.

The switch by China followed unprecedented protests over the policy championed by Xi, marking the strongest show of public defiance in his decade-old presidency and coinciding with grim growth figures for the country’s $17 trillion economy.

In a televised speech to mark the New Year, Xi said China had overcome unprecedented difficulties and challenges in the battle against COVID, and that its policies were “optimised” when the situation and time so required.

“Since the outbreak of the epidemic … the majority of cadres and masses, especially medical personnel, grassroots workers braved hardships and courageously persevered,” Xi said.

“At present, the epidemic prevention and control is entering a new phase, it is still a time of struggle, everyone is persevering and working hard, and the dawn is ahead. Let’s work harder, persistence means victory, and unity means victory.”

New Year’s Eve prompted reflection online and by residents of Wuhan, the epicentre of the COVID outbreak nearly three years ago, about the zero-COVID policy and the impact of its reversal.

People in the central city of Wuhan expressed hope that normal life would return in 2023 despite a surge in cases since pandemic curbs were lifted.

Wuhan resident Chen Mei, 45, said she hoped her teenage daughter would see no further disruptions to her schooling.

“When she can’t go to the school and can only have classes online it’s definitely not an effective way of learning,” she said.

VIDEO REMOVED

Across the country, many people voiced similar hopes on social media, while others were critical.

Thousands of users on China’s Twitter-like Weibo criticised the removal of a video made by local outlet Netease News that collated real-life stories from 2022 that had captivated the Chinese public.

Many of the stories included in the video, which by Saturday could not be seen or shared on domestic social media platforms, highlighted the difficulties ordinary Chinese faced as a result of the previously strict COVID policy.

Weibo and Netease did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

One Weibo hashtag about the video garnered almost 4 million hits before it disappeared from platforms at about noon on Saturday. Social media users created new hashtags to keep the comments pouring in.

“What a perverse world, you can only sing the praises of the fake but you cannot show real life,” one user wrote, attaching a screenshot of a blank page that is displayed when searching for the hashtags.

The disappearance of the videos and hashtags, seen by many as an act of censorship, suggests the Chinese government still sees the narrative surrounding its handling of the disease as a politically sensitive issue.

HOSPITALS OVERWHELMED

The wave of new infections has overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes across the country, with lines of hearses outside crematoriums fuelling public concern.

China, a country of 1.4 billion people, reported one new COVID death for Friday, the same as the day before – numbers that do not match the experience of other countries after they reopened.

UK-based health data firm Airfinity said on Thursday that about 9,000 people in China were probably dying each day from COVID. Cumulative deaths in China since Dec. 1 have likely reached 100,000, with infections totalling 18.6 million, it said.

Zhang Wenhong, director of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, told the People’s Daily in an interview published on Saturday that Shanghai had reached a peak of infections on Dec. 22, saying there were currently about 10 million cases.

He said those numbers indicated that some 50,000 people in the city of 25 million would need to be hospitalized in the next few weeks.

At the central hospital of Wuhan, where former COVID whistleblower Li Wenliang worked and later died of the virus in early 2020, patient numbers were down on Saturday compared with the rush of the past few weeks, a worker outside the hospital’s fever clinic told Reuters.

“This wave is almost over,” said the worker, who was wearing a hazmat suit.

A pharmacist whose store is next to the hospital said most people in the city had now been infected and recovered.

“It is mainly old people who are getting sick with it now,” he said.

In the first indication of the toll on China’s giant manufacturing sector from the change in COVID policy, data on Saturday showed factory activity shrank for the third straight month in December and at the sharpest pace in nearly three years.

Reporting by Martin Quinn Pollard, Tingshu Wang and Xiaoyu Yin in Wuhan, Eduardo Baptista in Beijing; Writing by Sumeet Chatterjee
Editing by Helen Popper and Frances Kerry

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Business

Elon Musk’s Twitter suspension of journalists draws global backlash

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Dec 16 (Reuters) – Twitter’s unprecedented suspension of at least five journalists over claims they revealed the real-time location of owner Elon Musk drew swift backlash from government officials, advocacy groups and journalism organizations across the globe on Friday.

In a 24-hour poll later by Musk on Twitter on whether to restore the journalists’ accounts, 58.7% votes were in favor of restoring them immediately.

The accounts were still suspended approximately 15 minutes after the poll closed, a check by Reuters showed.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The suspensions on Thursday evening drew criticism from government officials, advocacy groups and journalism organizations in several parts of the world, with some saying the microblogging platform was jeopardizing press freedom.

Officials from France, Germany, Britain and the European Union condemned the suspensions.

The episode, which one well known security researcher labeled the “Thursday Night Massacre”, is being regarded by critics as fresh evidence of the billionaire, who considers himself a “free speech absolutist,” eliminating speech and users he personally dislikes.

Shares in Tesla (TSLA.O), an electric car maker led by Musk, slumped 4.7% on Friday and posted their worst weekly loss since March 2020, with investors increasingly concerned about his being distracted and about the slowing global economy.

Roland Lescure, the French minister of industry, tweeted on Friday that, following Musk’s suspension of journalists, he would suspend his own activity on Twitter.

Melissa Fleming, head of communications for the United Nations, tweeted she was “deeply disturbed” by the suspensions and that “media freedom is not a toy.”

The German Foreign Office warned Twitter that the ministry had a problem with moves that jeopardized press freedom.

ELONJET

The suspensions stemmed from a disagreement over a Twitter account called ElonJet, which tracked Musk’s private plane using publicly available information.

On Wednesday, Twitter suspended the account and others that tracked private jets, despite Musk’s previous tweet saying he would not suspend ElonJet in the name of free speech.

Shortly after, Twitter changed its privacy policy to prohibit the sharing of “live location information.”

Then on Thursday evening, several journalists, including from the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post, were suspended from Twitter with no notice.

In an email to Reuters overnight, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, said the team manually reviewed “any and all accounts” that violated the new privacy policy by posting direct links to the ElonJet account.

“I understand that the focus seems to be mainly on journalist accounts, but we applied the policy equally to journalists and non-journalist accounts today,” Irwin said in the email.

The Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing said in a statement on Friday that Twitter’s actions “violate the spirit of the First Amendment and the principle that social media platforms will allow the unfiltered distribution of information that is already in the public square.”

Musk accused the journalists of posting his real-time location, which is “basically assassination coordinates” for his family.

The billionaire appeared briefly in a Twitter Spaces audio chat hosted by journalists, which quickly turned into a contentious discussion about whether the suspended reporters had actually exposed Musk’s real-time location in violation of the policy.

“If you dox, you get suspended. End of story,” Musk said repeatedly in response to questions. “Dox” is a term for publishing private information about someone, usually with malicious intent.

The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, one of the journalists who had been suspended but was nonetheless able to join the audio chat, pushed back against the notion that he had exposed Musk or his family’s exact location by posting a link to ElonJet.

Soon after, BuzzFeed reporter Katie Notopoulos, who hosted the Spaces chat, tweeted that the audio session was cut off abruptly and the recording was not available.

In a tweet explaining what happened, Musk said “We’re fixing a Legacy bug. Should be working tomorrow.”

Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Additional reporting by Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco, Eva Mathews, Rhea Binoy and Sneha Bhowmik in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Zieminski, Jonathan Oatis and Muralikumar Anantharaman

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Business

Twitter suspends several journalists, Musk cites ‘doxxing’ of his jet

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Dec 15 (Reuters) – Twitter on Thursday suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists who recently wrote about its new owner Elon Musk, with the billionaire tweeting that rules banning the publishing of personal information applied to all, including journalists.

Responding to a Tweet on the account suspensions, Musk, who has described himself as a free speech absolutist, tweeted: “Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else,” a reference to Twitter rules banning the sharing of personal information, called doxxing.

Musk’s tweet referred to Twitter’s Wednesday suspension of @elonjet, an account tracking his private jet in real time using data available in the public domain. Musk had threatened legal action against the account’s operator, saying his son had been mistakenly followed by a “crazy stalker”.

It was unclear if all the journalists whose accounts were suspended had commented on or shared news about @elonjet.

“Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not,” Musk tweeted on Thursday.

He had tweeted last month that his commitment to free speech extended “even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk”.

He tweeted on Thursday that there would be a seven-day suspension for doxxing, following that up with a poll asking Twitter users to vote on when to reinstate the doxxed accounts.

He then said he had offered too many options on the poll and would redo it, after results showed that some 43% voted for reinstating the accounts “now” – the largest share for any option.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The suspensions echo chaotic actions at Twitter since Musk took over, including rapid firings of top management and thousands of employees, seesawing on how much to charge for Twitter’s subscription service Twitter Blue, and reinstating banned accounts, including that of former President Donald Trump.

Twitter now leans heavily on automation to moderate content, doing away with certain manual reviews and favoring restrictions on distribution rather than removing certain speech outright, its new head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, told Reuters this month.

An image of Elon Musk is seen on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos in this picture illustration taken April 28, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

‘QUESTIONABLE AND UNFORTUNATE’

Among the journalist accounts suspended on Thursday was that of Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell (@drewharwell), who wrote on social media platform Mastodon that he had recently written about Musk and posted links to “publicly available, legally acquired data.”

Twitter also suspended the official account of Mastodon (@joinmastodon), which has emerged as an alternative to Twitter. Mastodon could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sally Buzbee, the Post’s executive editor, said Harwell’s suspension undermined Musk’s claims that he intended to run Twitter as a platform dedicated to free speech.

Harwell, however, was able to speak on a Twitter spaces conversation with fellow journalists late on Thursday evening, a chat that Musk himself briefly dropped in on.

“You dox, you get suspended. End of story,” Musk said on the chat as Harwell rejected the assertion that he had exposed Musk’s real-time location, saying he had simply posted about @elonjet.

Twitter updated its policy on Wednesday prohibiting the sharing of “live location information.”

The accounts of Times reporter Ryan Mac (@rmac18), CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan (@donie), and Mashable reporter Matt Binder @MattBinder were also suspended, as was that of independent journalist Aaron Rupar (@atrupar), who covers U.S. policy and politics.

Mac recently posted a number of Twitter threads on the @elonjet suspension and interviewed Jack Sweeney, the 20-year-old operator of the account.

A spokesperson for The New York Times called the suspensions “questionable and unfortunate. Neither The Times nor Ryan have received any explanation about why this occurred. We hope that all of the journalists’ accounts are reinstated and that Twitter provides a satisfying explanation for this action.”

CNN said it had asked Twitter for an explanation on the suspensions and would reevaluate its relationship with the platform based on that response.

The other reporters could not immediately be reached for comment.

Reporting by Sheila Dang, Greg Bensinger, Katie Paul, Paresh Dave, Hyunjoo Jin, Costas Pitas, Maria Ponnezhath, Rhea Binoy, Abinaya V; Writing by Sayantani Ghosh; Editing by William Mallard

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Business

Elon Musk manages free speech versus ‘hellscape’ at Twitter

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Oct 28 (Reuters) – Mere hours after Elon Musk kicked off a new era at Twitter Inc, the billionaire owner was deluged with pleas and demands from banned account holders and world leaders.

The flood of requests underscore the challenge the CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) faces, balancing a promise to restore free speech while preventing the platform from descending into a “hellscape,” as he had vowed in an open letter to advertisers on Thursday.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump, who was permanently banned from Twitter over accusations of inciting violence after the Jan. 6, 2021 capitol riots, welcomed the takeover, but said little about a return to Twitter. “I am very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands, and will no longer be run by Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs who truly hate our country.” read more

Dmitry Medvedev, former Russia president and current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, tweeted his congratulations: “Good luck @elonmusk in overcoming political bias and ideological dictatorship on Twitter. And quit that Starlink in Ukraine business.”

Others asked Musk to reverse penalties inflicted by the social media platform. In response to @catturd2, an anonymous account with 852,000 followers, known for being a big supporter of Trump’s election fraud claims, and who said it was “shadowbanned,” Musk tweeted “I will be digging in more today.”

The editor-in-chief of Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT, Margarita Simonyan, asked Musk to “unban RT and Sputnik accounts and take the shadow ban off mine as well?”

The pressure is mounting on Musk and Twitter as he is set to address the Twitter staff on Friday after closing the deal.

“Hey @ElonMusk, now that you own Twitter, will you help fight back against Trudeau’s online censorship bill C-11?” tweeted Canada Proud, an organization working to vote out Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“First I’ve heard,” Musk responded in a tweet on Friday.

DAY ONE

Several employees who spoke with Reuters on Friday said there had been no communication from management about what happens next.

Musk was expected to address employees on Friday, but the employees said they had not received any notice by the late afternoon.

Two sources familiar with the matter said Musk’s teams were investigating Twitter’s code and asking questions about how aspects of the platform work.

Musk appeared to have joined the company’s Slack channel by Friday, according to a screenshot seen by Reuters.

Musk also tweeted on Friday that Twitter will form a “content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints,” and that no major decisions on moderation or account reinstatements will be made before it convenes.

Despite an appeal to advertisers on Thursday that he hoped to make Twitter “the most respected advertising platform in the world,” at least one major automaker – GM (GM.N) – said it temporarily paused its advertising and was working to “understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership.”

Employees also continued to fret about the future of their jobs. Fewer than 10% of 266 Twitter employees who participated in a poll on messaging app Blind expected to still have their jobs in three months. Blind allows employees to air grievances anonymously after they sign up with corporate emails.

Musk fired Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, according to people familiar with the matter. He had accused them of misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform.

Agrawal and Segal were in Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters when the deal closed and were escorted out, the sources added.

Musk, who also runs rocket company SpaceX, plans to become Twitter’s interim CEO, according to a person familiar with the matter and following an earlier report by Reuters. Musk also plans to scrap permanent bans on users, Bloomberg said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Twitter, Musk and the executives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

‘CHIEF TWIT’

Before closing the deal, Musk walked into Twitter’s headquarters on Wednesday with a big grin and a porcelain sink, subsequently tweeting “let that sink in.” He changed his Twitter profile description to “Chief Twit.”

European regulators also reiterated past warnings that, under Musk’s leadership, Twitter must still abide by the region’s Digital Services Act, which levies hefty fines on companies if they do not control illegal content.

“In Europe, the bird will fly by our EU rules,” EU industry chief Thierry Breton tweeted on Friday morning.

European Parliament lawmaker and civil rights proponent Patrick Breyer suggested people look for alternatives where privacy is a priority.

“Twitter already knows our personalities dangerously well due to its pervasive surveillance of our every click. Now this knowledge will be falling into Musk’s hands.”

Musk has indicated he sees Twitter as a foundation for creating a “super app” that offers everything from money transfers to shopping and ride-hailing.

But Twitter is struggling to engage its most active users who are vital to the business. These “heavy tweeters” account for less than 10% of monthly overall users but generate 90% of all tweets and half of global revenue.

Musk will face a challenge building revenue “given that the controversial opinions he appears to want to give more of a free rein to are often unpalatable to advertisers,” said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Susannah Streeter.

As news of the deal spread, some Twitter users were quick to flag their willingness to walk away.

“I will be happy to leave in a heartbeat if Musk, well, acts as we all expect him to,” said a user with the @mustlovedogsxo account.

Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; additional reporting by David Shepardson and Katie Paul; Editing by Kenneth Li, Nick Zieminski, Deepa Babington and Jacqueline Wong

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US

Project Veritas loses jury verdict to Democratic consulting firm

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Political activist James O’Keefe, currently CEO of Project Veritas, speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) annual meeting at National Harbor near Washington, U.S., March 1, 2019. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo/File Photo

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Sept 23 (Reuters) – A federal jury has found Project Veritas, a conservative group often accused of using deceptive tactics, liable for violating wiretapping laws and misrepresenting itself in an undercover effort to target Democratic political consultants.

Jurors in Washington on Thursday awarded $120,000 to a member of Democracy Partners, co-founded by self-described progressive strategist Robert Creamer.

Democracy Partners claimed it had been infiltrated by a Project Veritas operative who lied about her name and background to obtain an internship during the 2016 presidential campaign, and secretly recorded conversations while working there.

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The firm and Creamer said Project Veritas used “heavily edited” footage in videos that falsely suggested they conspired to incite violence at then-Republican candidate Donald Trump’s rallies and schemed to promote voter fraud.

According to the complaint, the espionage cost the plaintiffs, who supported Trump’s Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, more than $500,000 of contracts.

Project Veritas said it did nothing wrong and will appeal.

The Mamaroneck, New York-based group has long characterized its work as journalism, and said the verdict threatens the use of hidden cameras by investigative journalists.

“Project Veritas will continue to fight for every journalist’s right to news gather, investigate, and expose wrongdoing – regardless of how powerful the investigated party may be,” Chief Executive James O’Keefe said in a statement.

Democracy Partners said in a statement it hoped the verdict would “help to discourage Mr. O’Keefe and others from conducting these kind of political spy operations — and publishing selectively edited, misleading videos.”

Media including the New York Times, which Project Veritas is suing for defamation, and Politico earlier reported the verdict.

The $120,000 award was on a fraudulent misrepresentation claim.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman, who oversaw the trial, will assess damages based on jurors’ separate finding that the operative, Allison Maass, intended to breach a fiduciary duty, according to the verdict form.

Friedman has yet to rule on the defendants’ arguments that they should prevail as a matter of law.

“This case implicates fundamental First Amendment issues. The folks on my left prefer to ignore that fact,” the defendants’ lawyer Paul Calli said in a statement. “We will see what the finish line brings.”

The case is Democracy Partners LLC et al v Project Veritas Action Fund et al, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, No. 17-01047.

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Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis

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US

U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right regulate online speech

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Facebook, Google and Twitter logos are seen in this combination photo from Reuters files. REUTERS/File Photo

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Sept 16 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld a Texas law that bars large social media companies from banning or censoring users based on “viewpoint,” a setback for technology industry groups that say the measure would turn platforms into bastions of dangerous content.

The largely 2-1 ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, sets up the potential for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the law, which conservatives and right-wing commentators have said is necessary to prevent “Big Tech” from suppressing their views.

“Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say,” Judge Andrew Oldham, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote in the ruling.

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The Texas law was passed by the state’s Republican-led legislature and signed by its Republican governor.

The tech groups that challenged the law and were on the losing end of Friday’s ruling include NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which count Meta Platforms’ (META.O) Facebook, Twitter (TWTR.N) and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) YouTube as members.

They have sought to preserve rights to regulate user content when they believe it may lead to violence, citing concerns that unregulated platforms will enable extremists such as Nazi supporters, terrorists and hostile foreign governments.

The association on Friday said it disagreed with forcing private companies to give equal treatment to all viewpoints. “‘God Bless America’ and ‘Death to America’ are both viewpoints, and it is unwise and unconstitutional for the state of Texas to compel a private business to treat those the same,” it said in a statement.

Some conservatives have labeled the social media companies’ practices abusive, pointing to Twitter’s permanent suspension of Trump from the platform shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters. Twitter had cited “the risk of further incitement of violence” as a reason.

The Texas law forbids social media companies with at least 50 million monthly active users from acting to “censor” users based on “viewpoint,” and allows either users or the Texas attorney general to sue to enforce the law.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Twitter hailed the ruling as “massive victory for the constitution and free speech.”

Because the 5th Circuit ruling conflicts with part of a ruling by the 11th Circuit, the aggrieved parties have a stronger case for petitioning the Supreme Court to hear the matter.

In May, the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, found that most of a similar Florida law violates the companies’ free speech rights and cannot be enforced. read more

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Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Leslie Adler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Gulf states demand Netflix pull content deemed offensive

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Signage at the Netflix booth is seen on the convention floor at Comic-Con International in San Diego, California, U.S., July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Bing Guan/File Photo

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DUBAI, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Gulf Arab states have demanded that U.S. streaming giant Netflix (NFLX.O) remove content deemed offensive to “Islamic and societal values” in the region, Saudi Arabia’s media regulator said on Tuesday.

It did not specify the content, but mentioned that it included content aimed at children. Saudi state-run Al Ekhbariya TV, in a programme discussing the issue, showed blurred out animation clips that appeared to show two girls embracing.

The Riyadh-based General Commission for Audiovisual Media statement said the content violated media regulations in the Gulf Cooperation Council, which groups Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait.

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If Netflix continued to broadcast the content then “necessary legal measures will be taken”, it said, without elaborating.

Netflix did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The UAE issued a similarly worded statement regarding Netflix content on Tuesday, saying it would follow up on what the platform broadcasts in coming days and “assess its commitment to broadcasting controls” in the country.

Same-sex relationships are criminalised in many Muslim-majority nations and films featuring such relationships have in the past been banned by regulators in those countries, while others with profanity or illicit drug use are sometimes censored.

The UAE and other Muslim states earlier this year banned Walt Disney-Pixar’s animated feature film “Lightyear” from screening in cinemas because it features characters in a same-sex relationship. read more

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Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi in Riyadh and Alexander Cornwell in Dubai; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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