presidential election
Human Capital: Coinbase and Clubhouse aside, Ethel’s Club founder wants to take us ‘Somewhere Good’
Welcome back to Human Capital, a weekly digest about diversity, inclusion and the human labor that powers tech. This week, we’re looking at a number of topics because a lot…
Facebook sues two companies engaged in data scraping operations
Facebook today says it has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. against two companies that had engaged in an international “data scraping” operation. The operation extended across Facebook properties, including…
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Working for social justice isn’t a ‘distraction’ for mission-focused companies
People do their best work and form championship teams when they feel good about supporting their teammates and colleagues, not when they remain silent on their behalf.
A bug in Joe Biden’s campaign app gave anyone access to millions of voter files
A privacy bug in Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s official campaign app allowed anyone to look up sensitive voter information on millions of Americans, a security researcher has found. The…
PandaDoc employees arrested in Belarus after founders protest against Lukashenko regime
Yesterday four employees (pictured) of U.S.-headquartered enterprise startup PandaDoc were arrested in Minsk by the Belarus police, in what appears to be an act of state-led retaliation, after the company’s…
Facebook to block new political ads 1 week before Nov 3, adds more tools and rules for fair elections
We’re now 61 days away from the U.S. presidential election, and Facebook is once more ramping up its efforts to level the playing field and attempt to keep its platform…
Mobile voting can ease polling place unease in the COVID-19 era
Failing to explore new options to prevent a voting disaster this fall amidst a global pandemic could have grave repercussions on the future of this nation.
Twitter hides Trump tweet behind notice for potentially dissuading people from voting
Twitter flagged one of President Donald Trump’s tweets on Monday, placing it behind a notice that warns users it violates the platform’s rules against dissuading people from voting. In the…
Twitter pledges to dial up efforts to combat election misinformation
In the latest sign of U.S. platforms bracing for the 2020 U.S. presidential election in November, Twitter has said it will step up efforts to prevent its service from being…
UK gov’t asleep at the wheel on Russia cyber ops threat, report warns
The UK lacks a comprehensive and cohesive high level strategy to respond to the cyber threat posed by Russia and other hostile states using online disinformation and influence ops to…
Facebook and Instagram boot close Trump ally Roger Stone for network of fake accounts
Facebook released today its latest report detailing disinformation campaigns operating on its massive social network, and this one came with a few surprises. In the new report, Facebook disclosed that…
Blistering civil rights audit raises alarms about Facebook’s ongoing policy failures
The results of a multiyear investigation into Facebook’s policies and their consequences for the civil liberties of its more than 2.5 billion users are out. The audit, conducted by former…
Facebook adds option for US users to turn off political ads, launches voting info hub
Beginning today, Facebook users in the U.S. will have the option to “turn off” all political advertising on the platform. The company made the controversial decision not to fact-check or…
Vote.org founder launches VoteAmerica, a nonprofit using tech tools to help Americans vote by mail
With November looming, the scramble to protect the 2020 U.S. election from coronavirus chaos is on. To that end, a small, skilled cluster of voting rights advocates are launching a…
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A US House candidate says she was hacked — now she’s warning others
“I cannot think of a reason not to share this with the public,” Brianna Wu tweeted. “Two of my non-campaign Google accounts were compromised by someone in Russia,” she said. Wu isn’t just any other target. As a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Massachusetts’ 8th District, she has a larger target…
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After Iowa caucus flub, can tech be trusted in elections?
An app intended to speed up reporting of election results for the Iowa caucuses has failed spectacularly, not only confusing the electorate but perhaps poisoning their feelings toward making any technological “improvements” to the voting process whatsoever. TechCrunch staff reporters Brian Heater, Jonathan Shieber, Zack Whittaker, Devin Coldewey and Ingrid Lunden discussed the issue informally.…
In Los Angeles, the Women’s March embraces technology to organize and inspire
The roughly 300,000 marchers that filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles for the third annual Women’s March received more than just an opportunity to hear from some of the…
Buttigieg’s CISO resigns, leaving no known cybersecurity chiefs among the 2020 candidates
Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has lost his campaign’s chief information security officer, citing “differences” with the campaign over its security practices. Mick Baccio, who served under the former South Bend…
More than half a year after Google said Android phones could be used as a security key, the feature is coming to iPhones. Google said it’ll bring the feature to…
Why the world must pay attention to the fight against disinformation and fake news in Taiwan
On Saturday, Taiwan will hold its presidential election. This year, the outcome is even more important than usual because it will signal in which direction the country’s people want its…
Most of the largest US voting districts are vulnerable to email spoofing
Only 5% of the largest voting counties in the U.S. are protected against email impersonation and phishing attacks, seen as a key attack method by hackers who officials say want…
In the waning years of the last millennium, at my university, one of the cause célèbres of the progressive left was a concept known as “Manufacturing Consent,” the title of…
Only a few 2020 US presidential candidates are using a basic email security feature
Just one-third of the 2020 U.S. presidential candidates are using an email security feature that could prevent a similar attack that hobbled the Democrats during the 2016 election. Out of…
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Jeanette Manfra, senior DHS cybersecurity official, to leave government
Jeanette Manfra, one of the most senior and experienced U.S. cybersecurity officials, is leaving government after more than a decade in the public sector. Manfra, who served as assistant director for cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), will join the private sector in the New Year. CISA is Homeland Security’s dedicated civilian…
Lawmakers ask US intelligence chief to investigate if TikTok is a national security threat
Two lawmakers have asked the government’s most senior U.S. intelligence official to assess if video-sharing app TikTok could pose “national security risks” to the United States. In a letter by…
British parliament presses Facebook on letting politicians lie in ads
In yet another letter seeking to pry accountability from Facebook, the chair of a British parliamentary committee has pressed the company over its decision to adopt a policy on political…
The reelection campaign will be live-streamed. US president Donald Trump has joined Amazon-owned live-streaming platform Twitch. Twitch is best known as a social video streaming platform for gamers but does…
SmartNews’ head of product on how the news discovery app wants to free readers from filter bubbles
Since launching in the United States five years ago, SmartNews, the news aggregation app that recently hit unicorn status, has quietly built a reputation for presenting reliable information from a…
US sanctions two Russians for cyber-related election interference
The U.S. Treasury has imposed sanctions against two Russian nationals accused of working for a notorious disinformation unit. In a statement, the Treasury said Igor Nesterov, 34, and Denis Kuzmin,…
Facebook has suspended ‘tens of thousands’ of apps suspected of hoarding data
Facebook has suspended “tens of thousands” of apps connected to its platform which it suspects may be collecting large amounts of user profile data. That’s a sharp rise from the…
