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World

Elon Musk says around 100 Starlinks now active in Iran

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Dec 26 (Reuters) – SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Monday that the company is now close to having 100 active Starlinks, the firm’s satellite internet service, in Iran, three months after he tweeted he would activate the service there amid protests around the Islamic country.

Musk said, “approaching 100 starlinks active in Iran”, in a tweet on Monday.

The billionaire had said in September that he would activate Starlink in Iran as part of a U.S.-backed effort “to advance internet freedom and the free flow of information” to Iranians.

The satellite-based broadband service could help Iranians circumvent the government’s restrictions on accessing the internet and certain social media platforms amid protests around the country.

The Islamic Republic has been engulfed in protests that erupted after the death in September of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody after being arrested by the morality police for wearing “unsuitable attire”.

Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

Iran reroutes plane carrying soccer star’s wife, blames UK over unrest

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DUBAI, Dec 26 (Reuters) – Iranian authorities rerouted a flight bound for Dubai on Monday and prevented the wife and daughter of former national soccer team captain Ali Daei, who has supported anti-government protests, from leaving the country, state media reported.

Amid a concerted clampdown, Tehran also said the arrests in Iran of citizens linked to Britain reflected its “destructive role” in the more than three months of unrest.

People from across Iran’s social spectrum have joined one of the most sustained challenges to the country’s ruling theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, relying heavily on social media platforms – which the government is trying to shut down – to organise and spread news of demonstrations.

A service that could help Iranians circumvent internet restrictions is Starlink, a satellite-based broadband service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Musk said on Monday that the company was getting close to having 100 active Starlink satellite receivers inside Iran.

Meanwhile Daei’s wife was banned from travelling abroad, Iran’s judiciary said, after authorities ordered the Mahan Air plane she had been a passenger in to land on Iran’s Kish Island in the Gulf.

“I really don’t know the reason for this. Did they want to arrest a terrorist?” Daei told semi-official news agency ISNA.

After he voiced support for the protests on social media, authorities this month shut down a jewellery shop and a restaurant he owned.

The protests were triggered by the Sept. 16 death in detention of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian held for wearing “inappropriate attire” under Iran’s strict Islamic dress code for women.

Iran has accused Western countries, Israel and Saudi Arabia of fomenting the unrest, allegations accompanied by arrests of dozens of dual nationals, part of an official narrative designed to shift blame away from the Iranian leadership.

Asked by a reporter to comment on Sunday’s announcement of the arrest of seven people linked to Britain, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said: “Some countries, especially the one you mentioned, had an unconstructive role regarding the recent developments in Iran.

“Their role was totally destructive and incited the riots.”

The British foreign ministry had said it was seeking further information from Iranian authorities on the reported arrests.

Rights group HRANA says about 18,500 people have been arrested during the unrest. Government officials say most have been released.

Besides arrests, authorities have imposed travel bans on dozens of artists, lawyers, journalists and celebrities for endorsing the protests.

HRANA also said that as of Dec. 25, 507 protesters had been killed, including 69 minors, as well as 66 members of the security forces.

Iran’s troubled rial currency on Monday fell to a record low of 415,400 against the dollar, according to forex site Bonbast.com. It has lost about 24% of its value since the protests began, as Iranians grappling with official inflation of about 50% buy dollars and gold in an effort to protect their savings.

Reporting by Dubai newsroom, additional reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru;
Editing by Mark Heinrich and John Stonestreet

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Twitter restores suicide prevention feature after Reuters report

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NEW YORK, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc restored a feature that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking up certain content, after coming under pressure from some users and consumer safety groups over its removal.

Reuters reported on Friday that the feature was taken down a few days ago, citing two people familiar with the matter, who said the removal was ordered by the social media platform’s owner Elon Musk.

After publication of the story, Twitter head of trust and safety Ella Irwin confirmed the removal and called it temporary. “We have been fixing and revamping our prompts. They were just temporarily removed while we do that,” Irwin said in an email to Reuters.

“We expect to have them back up next week,” she said.

About 15 hours after the initial report, Musk, who did not initially respond to requests for comment, tweeted “False, it is still there.” In response to criticism by Twitter users, he also tweeted “Twitter doesn’t prevent suicide.”

The feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, placed a banner at the top of search results for certain topics. It listed contacts for support organizations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, COVID-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression.

Its elimination had led some consumer safety groups and Twitter users to express concerns about the well-being of vulnerable users of the platform.

In part due to pressure from consumer safety groups, internet services including Twitter, Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O) and Meta’s Facebook (META.O) have for years tried to direct users to well-known resource providers such as government hotlines when they suspect someone may be in danger of harming themselves or others.

In her email, Twitter’s Irwin said, “Google does really well with these in their search results and (we) are actually mirroring some of their approach with the changes we are making.”

She added, “We know these prompts are useful in many cases and just want to make sure they are functioning properly and continue to be relevant.”

Eirliani Abdul Rahman, who had been on a recently dissolved Twitter content advisory group, said the disappearance of #ThereIsHelp was “extremely disconcerting and profoundly disturbing.”

Even if it was only temporarily removed to make way for improvements, “normally you would be working on it in parallel, not removing it,” she said.

Reporting by Kenneth Li in New York, Sheila Dang in Dallas, Paresh Dave in Oakland, and Fanny Potkin in Singapore; Editing by Daniel Wallis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Facebook parent Meta to settle Cambridge Analytica case for $725 million

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Dec 23 (Reuters) – Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) has agreed to pay $725 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit accusing the social media giant of allowing third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, to access users’ personal information.

The proposed settlement, which was disclosed in a court filing late on Thursday, would resolve a long-running lawsuit prompted by revelations in 2018 that Facebook had allowed the British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to access data of as many as 87 million users.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs called the proposed settlement the largest to ever be achieved in a U.S. data privacy class action and the most that Meta has ever paid to resolve a class action lawsuit.

“This historic settlement will provide meaningful relief to the class in this complex and novel privacy case,” the lead lawyers for the plaintiffs, Derek Loeser and Lesley Weaver, said in a joint statement.

Meta did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which is subject to the approval of a federal judge in San Francisco. The company said in a statement settling was “in the best interest of our community and shareholders.”

“Over the last three years we revamped our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy program,” Meta said.

Cambridge Analytica, now defunct, worked for Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign in 2016, and gained access to the personal information from millions of Facebook accounts for the purposes of voter profiling and targeting.

Cambridge Analytica obtained that information without users’ consent from a researcher who had been allowed by Facebook to deploy an app on its social media network that harvested data from millions of its users.

The ensuing Cambridge Analytica scandal fueled government investigations into its privacy practices, lawsuits and a high-profile U.S. congressional hearing where Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg was grilled by lawmakers.

In 2019, Facebook agreed to pay $5 billion to resolve a Federal Trade Commission probe into its privacy practices and $100 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claims that it misled investors about the misuse of users’ data.

Investigations by state attorneys general are ongoing, and the company is fighting a lawsuit by the attorney general for Washington, D.C.

Thursday’s settlement resolved claims by Facebook users that the company violated various federal and state laws by letting app developers and business partners harvest their personal data without their consent on a widespread basis.

The users’ lawyers alleged that Facebook misled them into thinking they could keep control over personal data, when in fact it let thousands of preferred outsiders gain access.

Facebook argued its users have no legitimate privacy interest in information they shared with friends on social media. But U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria called that view “so wrong” and in 2019 largely allowed the case to move forward.

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Nate Raymond

Thomson Reuters

Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.

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Business

Facebook parent Meta to settle Cambridge Analytica scandal case for $725 mln

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Dec 23 (Reuters) – Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) has agreed to pay $725 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit accusing the social media giant of allowing third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, to access users’ personal information.

The proposed settlement, which was disclosed in a court filing late on Thursday, would resolve a long-running lawsuit prompted by revelations in 2018 that Facebook had allowed the British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to access data of as many as 87 million users.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs called the proposed settlement the largest to ever be achieved in a U.S. data privacy class action and the most that Meta has ever paid to resolve a class action lawsuit.

“This historic settlement will provide meaningful relief to the class in this complex and novel privacy case,” the lead lawyers for the plaintiffs, Derek Loeser and Lesley Weaver, said in a joint statement.

Meta did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which is subject to the approval of a federal judge in San Francisco. The company said in a statement settling was “in the best interest of our community and shareholders.”

“Over the last three years we revamped our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy program,” Meta said.

Cambridge Analytica, now defunct, worked for Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign in 2016, and gained access to the personal information from millions of Facebook accounts for the purposes of voter profiling and targeting.

Cambridge Analytica obtained that information without users’ consent from a researcher who had been allowed by Facebook to deploy an app on its social media network that harvested data from millions of its users.

The ensuing Cambridge Analytica scandal fueled government investigations into its privacy practices, lawsuits and a high-profile U.S. congressional hearing where Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg was grilled by lawmakers.

In 2019, Facebook agreed to pay $5 billion to resolve a Federal Trade Commission probe into its privacy practices and $100 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claims that it misled investors about the misuse of users’ data.

Investigations by state attorneys general are ongoing, and the company is fighting a lawsuit by the attorney general for Washington, D.C.

Thursday’s settlement resolved claims by Facebook users that the company violated various federal and state laws by letting app developers and business partners harvest their personal data without their consent on a widespread basis.

The users’ lawyers alleged that Facebook misled them into thinking they could keep control over personal data, when in fact it let thousands of preferred outsiders gain access.

Facebook argued its users have no legitimate privacy interest in information they shared with friends on social media. But U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria called that view “so wrong” and in 2019 largely allowed the case to move forward.

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Nate Raymond

Thomson Reuters

Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.

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Business

Tesla doubles discounts on mainstay vehicles to $7,500 in U.S.

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Dec 21 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) is offering $7,500 discounts on Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles (EV) delivered in the United States this month, its website showed on Wednesday, amid concerns the automaker is facing softening demand as economies slow and EV tax incentives loom.

That is up from the $3,750 credit it has offered on Model 3 and Model Y vehicles delivered before the end of the year. It has also recently started offering free supercharging for 10,000 miles (16,093 kms) for the December vehicles.

The latest discount came just days after the U.S. Treasury Department delayed restrictions on EV incentives until March, meaning Teslas and other U.S-made electric vehicles are likely to qualify for the full $7,500 credits temporarily.

Customers have canceled their orders and held off their purchases until the new credits take effect in January, weighing on Tesla demand.

Analysts also worry that rising interest rates and CEO Elon Musk’s controversial Twitter management could hurt the Tesla brand and sales.

“The fact they seem to be cutting price to increase deliveries volumes doesn’t raise confidence, particularly at a time where we see increasing competition,” Craig Irwin, a senior analyst at ROTH Capital Partners, said.

The rare discounts follow a series of price hikes over the past couple of years by the automaker, which blamed supply chain disruption and inflation.

Tesla is also offering $5,000 credit in Canada on Model 3 and Model Y vehicles delivered before the end of the year. The U.S. automaker has also given a discount of 6,000 yuan ($860) on some models in China to the end of 2022.

Tesla in October said it would miss its vehicle delivery target this year, but downplayed concerns about demand after its revenue missed Wall Street estimates.

($1 = 6.9761 yuan)

Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco, Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat and Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Hogue and Emelia Sithole-Matarise

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Musk to step down as Twitter CEO once he finds ‘someone foolish’ enough as successor

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Dec 20 (Reuters) – Billionaire Elon Musk said on Tuesday he will step down as chief executive of Twitter Inc
once he finds a replacement, but will still run some key divisions of the social media platform.

“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” Musk wrote on Twitter.

Musk’s $44 billion takeover of Twitter in October has been marked by chaos and controversy, with some investors questioning if he is too distracted to also properly run his electric vehicle automaker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), in which he is personally involved in production and engineering.

This is the first time Musk has mentioned stepping down as chief of the social media platform, after Twitter users voted for him to resign in a poll, which the billionaire launched on Sunday evening.

In the poll, 57.5% of around 17.5 million people voted “yes.” Musk had said on Sunday he would abide by the results. He has not provided a time frame for when he will step down and no successor has been named.

The poll results capped a whirlwind week that included changes to Twitter’s privacy policy and the suspension – and reinstatement – of journalists’ accounts that drew condemnation from news organizations, advocacy groups and officials across Europe.

Wall Street calls for Musk to step down had been growing for weeks and recently even Tesla bulls have questioned his focus on the social media platform and how it might distract him from running the EV maker.

Musk has himself said he had too much on his plate, and that he would look for a Twitter CEO. He said on Sunday, though, that there was no successor and that “no one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive.”

Reporting by Ann Maria Shibu and Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler, Anne Marie Roantree and

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Twitter prohibits users from promoting accounts on Facebook, Mastodon

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Dec 18 (Reuters) – Twitter on Sunday said that it will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames.

The move would impact content from social media platforms like Meta Platforms’ (META.O) Facebook and Instagram, along with Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post while allowing cross-content posting, Twitter support said in a tweet.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who recently invested in social media platform Nostr, replied to the Twitter support post with one word: “Why?”. In a reply to another user posting about the Nostr promotion ban, Dorsey said, “doesn’t make sense”.

Short video-platform TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance Ltd, was not included in the list.

Last week, Twitter disbanded its Trust and Safety Council, a volunteer group formed in 2016 to advise the social media platform on site decisions.

The policy change follows other chaotic actions at Twitter since Elon Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla (TSLA.O), bought the social network. He fired top management and laid off about half of its workforce, while seesawing on how much to charge for Twitter’s subscription service Twitter Blue.

Musk also suspended the accounts of several journalists over a controversy on publishing public data about the billionaire’s plane.

Musk reinstated the accounts after criticism from government officials, advocacy groups and journalism organizations from several parts of the globe on Friday, with some saying the microblogging platform was jeopardizing press freedom.

Reporting by Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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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

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

Elon Musk’s team seeks new funding for Twitter – investor

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Dec 16 (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s team has reached out to investors to raise new funds for his struggling social media platform Twitter, one of the investors said.

Ross Gerber, president and CEO at Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management, told Reuters that he was contacted by a Musk representative about offering more shares at the same price, $54.20, that Musk paid to take the company private in October.

Jared Birchall, the managing director of Elon Musk’s family office reached out to potential investors this week, news platform Semafor reported on Friday, citing two people familiar with the fundraising effort.

Twitter and Musk did not respond to Reuters requests for comments.

Twitter has seen advertisers flee amid worries about Musk’s approach to policing tweets, hitting revenues and its ability to pay interest on the $13 billion debt that Musk took on to buy the social media company.

Musk sold another $3.6 billion worth of shares in Tesla earlier this week, making it nearly $40 billion worth of shares in the electric-vehicle company sold this year.

Tesla shares on Friday posted their worst weekly loss since March 2020, with investors increasingly concerned about Musk being distracted by Twitter and the slowing global economy.

Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco, Priyamvada C in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Michael Perry

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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