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T&S Early Warning News
Get ahead of new stories that are impacting the T&S industry.
Racist tweets quickly surface after Musk closes Twitter deal
Washington Post | October 28, 2022
Company Listed: Twitter
An emboldened cast of anonymous trolls spewed racist slurs and Nazi memes onto Twitter in the hours after billionaire industrialist Elon Musk took over the social network, raising fears that his pledge of unrestricted free speech could fuel a new wave of online hate.
The flood of racist posts was among the most prominent signs of how Twitter had changed in the first hours of Musk’s ownership. But those who were expecting even bigger changes, such as the restoration of former president Donald Trump’s account and the layoff of hundreds if not thousands of Twitter employees, will have to wait longer.
How Facebook and TikTok are helping push Stop the Steal in Brazil
Washington Post | October 29, 2022
Company Listed: Facebook, TikTok
Portuguese-language searches for basic election-related terms such as “fraud,” “intervention” and “ballots” on Facebook and Instagram, which are owned by Meta, have overwhelmingly directed people toward groups pushing claims questioning the integrity of the vote or openly agitating for a military coup, researchers from the advocacy group SumOfUs found. On TikTok, five out of eight top search results for the keyword “ballots” were for terms such as “rigged ballots” and “ballots being manipulated.”
The research is the latest in a growing body of evidence that social platforms are failing to prevent a flood of disinformation — some of it tinged with violence — on their services ahead of the runoff election Sunday between President Jair Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brazilian lawmakers last week granted the nation’s elections chief unilateral power to force tech companies to remove misinformation within two hours of the content being posted — one of the most aggressive legal measures against social media giants that any country has taken.
Teens Turn to TikTok in Search of a Mental Health Diagnosis
Newyork Times | October 29, 2022
Company Listed: TikTok
About a year into the pandemic, Kianna, a high school student in Baltimore, was feeling increasingly isolated. While sitting alone in her bedroom there was too much time to think, she said, so sometimes she would fixate on her seclusion or start critiquing her appearance.
“I remember just being on TikTok for hours during my day,” added Kianna, 17, who asked to be referred to by only her first name when speaking about her mental health. “That’s when my self-esteem started declining.”
T&S Policies & Regulations
Regulatory news and policy decisions impacting the T&S ecosystem.
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Online age-verification system could create ‘honeypot’ of personal data and pornography-viewing habits, privacy groups warn
The Guardian | October 30, 2022
Company Listed: Social Media
In the wake of the Optus and Medibank data breaches, digital rights groups are urging the federal government to rule out requiring identification documents as part of any online age-verification system, warning it could create a honeypot of people’s personal information and pornography-viewing habits.
The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, is developing an online safety “roadmap”, outlining a way to prevent minors from accessing adult content online by ensuring host sites have verified the ages of users.
TikTok has become a global giant. The US is threatening to rein it in
The Guardian | October 31, 2022
Company Listed: TikTok
For much of the tech industry, this summer was a season of economic uncertainty – one that led to a drop in Bitcoin prices, hundreds of laid off workers, and a hiring freeze. For video platform TikTok, it was also the summer that US regulators crossed the aisle to come to something of a consensus: it was time for stricter rules.
Since Buzzfeed reported in June that employees of TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance had access to US consumer data, TikTok has been the focus of rare bipartisan calls for regulation and inquiry.
The Privacy, Data Protection and Cybersecurity Law Review: CBPR and APEC Overview
Lexology | October 31, 2022
Company Listed: Social Media
On 21 April 2022, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, and the United States of America—seven of the nine economies participating in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) and Privacy Recognition for Processors (PRP) Systems—released a declaration announcing the establishment of the Global CBPR Forum and the plan to transition operations of those systems out of APEC.2 The Global CBPR Forum is chiefly tasked with building upon the foundations laid by APEC and establishing an international certification system based on the APEC CBPR and PRP Systems.3 For accountability agents and organizations that have been operating under the APEC systems, this transition will initially entail little change; all approved accountability agents and certified organizations will 'automatically' be recognized in the initial iteration of the global systems 'based on the same terms that they are recognized within the APEC CBPR and PRP Systems'.4 However, covered entities can expect some degree of change to those terms moving forward, as the Global CBPR Forum will be tasked with updating the CBPR and PRP Systems both to ensure that they align with best practices and to promote interoperability with other data protection and privacy frameworks.
One of the primary benefits of the Global CBPR Forum will be the expansion of the US approach to data flows beyond the Indo-Pacific.6 Although the Forum currently consists of APEC economies exclusively, 'participation in the Global CBPR Forum is intended to be open, in principle, to those jurisdictions which accept the objectives and principles of the Global CBPR Forum as embodied in [the] Declaration'.7 Shortly after the Declaration was published, the United States hosted representatives from 20 different jurisdictions from not only the Asia-Pacific, but also Europe, Latin America and the Middle East for multi-stakeholder discussions about the creation of the Global CBPR Forum.8 Australia, which joined in August 2022, and Mexico, which may soon join, were the two economies participating in the APEC CBPR and PRP Systems that were not parties to the Declaration. Also likely to join soon is Bermuda, whose Privacy Commissioner recognized the APEC CBPR System as a valid certification mechanism for transfers of personal information to an overseas third party under Section 15(4) of Bermuda's Personal Information Protection Act.9 It is also significant that Google expressed support for CBPR in July 2022.
T&S Careers & Jobs
T&S jobs posted recently, often within the last 24 hours, looking for top talent.
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