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The Internet

Starlink Will Hit 300Mbps and Expand To 'Most of Earth' This Year (arstechnica.com) 161

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
Starlink broadband speeds will double to 300Mbps "later this year," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter this week. SpaceX has been telling users to expect speeds of 50Mbps to 150Mbps since the beta began a few months ago. From a report: Musk also wrote that "latency will drop to ~20ms later this year." This is no surprise, as SpaceX promised latency of 20ms to 40ms during the beta and had said months ago that "we expect to achieve 16ms to 19ms by summer 2021." It sounds like the speed and latency improvements will roll out around the same time as when Starlink switches from beta to more widespread availability. Two weeks ago, Starlink opened preorders for service expected to be available in the second half of 2021, albeit with limited availability in each region. Reader xonen writes: Starlink has become available in my country, The Netherlands. I verified pricing -- it's the same prices in Euros as in the USA in dollars, which was to be expected due to sales taxes being about equal the difference in value between dollars and euro's, so 99 euro monthly, and 499 up front for the hardware. From the email:

Starlink is now available for order to a limited number of users in your coverage area. Placing your order now will hold your place in line for future service. Orders will be fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis. During beta, users can expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms in most locations over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all. As we launch more satellites, install more ground stations and improve our networking software, data speed, latency and uptime will improve dramatically. The Starlink team will provide periodic updates on availability as we launch more satellites and expand our coverage area. Depending on your location, some orders may take 6 months or more to fulfill. To check availability for your location, visit Starlink.com and re-enter your service address. Thank you for your interest in Starlink and your continued support!
Facebook

Facebook Is Said to Be Building a Product to Compete With Clubhouse (nytimes.com) 27

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Facebook is building an audio chat product that is similar to the popular young app Clubhouse, The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing two people with knowledge of the matter, as the social network aims to expand into new forms of communication. From the report: Clubhouse, a social networking app, has gained buzz for letting people gather in audio chat rooms to talk about various topics. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, has been interested in audio communication forms, said the people with knowledge of the matter, and he appeared in the Clubhouse app on Sunday to chat about augmented and virtual reality. Facebook executives have ordered employees to create a similar product, said the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly. The product is in its earliest stages of development, they said. Facebook has a history of breaking into new technologies and chasing different mediums that have attracted users, especially if those audiences are young. Mr. Zuckerberg bought the photo-sharing site Instagram, the messaging app WhatsApp and the virtual reality company Oculus when all were small start-ups.
Open Source

The Open-Source Magma Project Will Become 5G's Linux (zdnet.com) 28

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Magma was developed by Facebook to help telecom operators deploy mobile networks quickly and easily. The project, which Facebook open-sourced in 2019, does this by providing a software-centric distributed mobile packet core and tools for automating network management. This containerized network function integrates with the existing back end of a mobile network and makes it easy to launch new services at the network edge. Magma operators can build and augment modern and efficient mobile networks at scale. It integrates with existing LTE and newly minted 5G networks. Several Magma community members are also collaborating in the Telecom Infra Project (TIP)'s Open Core Network project group. The plan is to define, build, test, and deploy core network products that integrate Magma with TIP Open Core disaggregated hardware and software solutions.

The Linux Foundation will help oversee this new stage in Magma's organizational future. Magma will be managed under a neutral governance framework at the Linux Foundation. Arm, Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, FreedomFi, Qualcomm, the Institute of Wireless Internet of Things at Northeastern University, the OpenAirInterface(OAI) Software Alliance, and the Open Infrastructure Foundation (OIF). You may ask, since Magma is already working with OIF, which is something of a Linux Foundation rival, why Magma will be working with both? Arpit Joshipura, the Linux Foundation's general manager of Networking, Edge, and IoT, explained, "Magma has gotten great community support from several ecosystem players and foundations including OIF, OAI etc. What we are announcing today is the next evolution of the project where the actual hosting of the project is being set up under the Linux Foundation with neutral governance that has been accepted by the community for a long time. OIF, OAI, and LF will work with their communities of Software Developers to contribute to Magma's core project."
Bug

How DNSpooq Attacks Could Poison DNS Cache Records (zdnet.com) 9

Posted by EditorDavid from the bad-bugs dept.
Earlier this week security experts disclosed details on seven vulnerabilities impacting Dnsmasq, "a popular DNS software package that is commonly deployed in networking equipment, such as routers and access points," reports ZDNet. "The vulnerabilities tracked as DNSpooq, impact Dnsmasq, a DNS forwarding client for *NIX-based operating systems."

Slashdot reader Joe2020 shared Help Net Security's quote from Shlomi Oberman, CEO and researcher at JSOF. "Some of the bigger users of Dnsmasq are Android/Google, Comcast, Cisco, Red Hat, Netgear, and Ubiquiti, but there are many more. All major Linux distributions offer Dnsmasq as a package, but some use it more than others, e.g., in OpenWRT it is used a lot, Red Hat use it as part of their virtualization platforms, Google uses it for Android hotspots (and maybe other things), while, for example Ubuntu just has it as an optional package."

More from ZDNet: Dnsmasq is usually included inside the firmware of various networking devices to provide DNS forwarding capabilities by taking DNS requests made by local users, forwarding the request to an upstream DNS server, and then caching the results once they arrive, making the same results readily available for other clients without needing to make a new DNS query upstream. While their role seems banal and insignificant, they play a crucial role in accelerating internet speeds by avoiding recursive traffic...

Today, the DNSpooq software has made its way in millions of devices sold worldwide [including] all sorts of networking gear like routers, access points, firewalls, and VPNs from companies like ZTE, Aruba, Redhat, Belden, Ubiquiti, D-Link, Huawei, Linksys, Zyxel, Juniper, Netgear, HPE, IBM, Siemens, Xiaomi, and others. The DNSpooq vulnerabilities, disclosed today by security experts from JSOF, are dangerous because they can be combined to poison DNS cache entries recorded by Dnsmasq servers. Poisoning DNS cache records is a big problem for network administrators because it allows attackers to redirect users to clones of legitimate websites...

In total, seven DNSpooq vulnerabilities have been disclosed today. Four are buffer overflows in the Dnsmasq code that can lead to remote code execution scenarios, while the other three bugs allow DNS cache poisoning. On their own, the danger from each is limited, but researchers argue they can be combined to attack any device with older versions of the Dnsmasq software...

The JSOF exec told ZDNet that his company has worked with both the Dnsmasq project author and multiple industry partners to make sure patches were made available to device vendors by Tuesday's public disclosure.
Twitter

Twitter's Decentralized Social Network Project Takes a Baby Step Forward (theverge.com) 24

Posted by BeauHD from the slow-and-steady dept.
Bluesky, Twitter's decentralized social networking effort, has announced its first major update since 2019. The Verge reports: The Bluesky team released a review of the decentralized web ecosystem and said it's hoping to find a team lead in the coming months. The review follows Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey discussing Bluesky earlier this month, when he called it a "standard for the public conversation layer of the internet." The review outlines a variety of known decentralized systems. It includes ActivityPub, known for powering the social network Mastodon; the messaging standard XMPP, which powers WhatsApp and the now-defunct Google Talk; and Solid, a decentralization project led by World Wide Web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee. The report covers how these systems handle key social network elements like discoverability, moderation, and privacy, as well as how services based on them can scale up, interoperate, and make money.

This doesn't tell us how Bluesky itself might operate. If it results in a protocol, that system might be created from scratch, or it might build on an existing standard like ActivityPub â" a possibility Dorsey mentioned in 2019 upon unveiling the initiative. [...] However, the report offers a snapshot of who's been working on Bluesky. It was authored by Jay Graber, creator of event-organizing platform Happening. Other contributors include Mastodon developer Eugen Rochko, peer-to-peer Beaker Browser co-creator Paul Frazee, ActivityPub standard co-editor Christopher Lemmer Webber, and InterPlanetary File System project lead Molly Mackinlay.

It also hints at the fact that decentralization often isn't profitable. The report focuses on monetization options like membership fees and cryptocurrency microtransactions, but it also notes that "many decentralized projects run on volunteer work and donations" -- something that isn't ideal for a platform supporting commercial networks like Twitter.
Social Networks

'Anti-Facebook' MeWe Social Network Adds 2.5 Million New Members In One Week 71

Posted by BeauHD from the privacy-first dept.
Los Angeles-based social media network MeWe, touted to be the ad-free future of social networking, is currently the No. 1 downloaded social app in the Google Play Store, and the No. 3 downloaded app out of all apps in the store. The privacy-first "anti-Facebook" platform added 2.5 million new members in the last week. ZDNet reports: Since launching in 2016, it surged to nine million users in October 2020, doubling its membership during each of the last three years. The platform is currently sitting at 15.5 million members -- 50% of whom are outside of North America. MeWe is now translated into 20 languages and is currently the No. 1 social app in Hong Kong. The company says that its membership spikes frequently -- as people worldwide seek a social network that respects them as customers to be delighted, not with "data to share, target, or sell."

MeWe claims to be the new mainstream social network with the features people love and no ads, no targeting, and no newsfeed manipulation. MeWe is the most downloaded social app and No. 3 in the list of most downloaded apps as of Jan. 15, 2021. It was knocked off the top slot by WhatsApp alternatives Signal and Telegram, which are benefitting from the brouhaha over WhatsApp's data privacy changes.
Security

Ubiquiti Tells Customers To Change Passwords After Security Breach (zdnet.com) 25

Posted by BeauHD from the another-day-another-breach dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Networking equipment and IoT device vendor Ubiquiti Networks has sent out today notification emails to its customers informing them of a recent security breach. "We recently became aware of unauthorized access to certain of our information technology systems hosted by a third party cloud provider," Ubiquiti said in emails today. The servers stored information pertaining to user profiles for account.ui.com, a web portal that Ubiquiti makes available to customers who bought one of its products. The site is used to manage devices from a remote location and as a help and support portal.

According to Ubiquiti, the intruder accessed servers that stored data on UI.com users, such as names, email addresses, and salted and hashed passwords. Home addresses and phone numbers may have also been exposed, but only if users decided to configure this information into the portal. How many Ubiquiti users are impacted and how the data breach occurred remains a mystery. It is currently unclear if the "unauthorized access" took place when a security researcher found the exposed data or was due to a malicious threat actor. Despite the bad news to its customers, Ubiquiti said that it had not seen any unauthorized access to customer accounts as a result of this incident. The company is now asking all users who receive the email to change their account passwords and turn on two-factor authentication.
Wireless Networking

D-Link Made a USB Adapter that Adds Wi-Fi 6 To Your Laptop (theverge.com) 38

Posted by msmash from the interesting-tacks dept.
D-Link is trying to make it simple to give your computer a Wi-Fi upgrade. From a report: The networking company has announced what it's calling an "industry-first" Wi-Fi 6 adapter built into a USB stick. Plug it into your laptop or desktop computer, and you may be able to get better performance than from your older Wi-Fi chip. The adapter advertises speeds up to 1,200Mbps. It's not entirely clear who the target audience is for this upgrade. You'll need to be connected to a Wi-Fi 6 router to get the biggest benefits, and most people still don't own one of those (the Wi-Fi 6 standard only started rolling out two years ago). And if the laptop or desktop you're using was bought any time in recent memory, chances are it supports Wi-Fi 5, which isn't a huge step down from Wi-Fi 6.
Games

Ten-Year Long Study Confirms No Link Between Playing Violent Video Games as Early as Ten Years Old and Aggressive Behavior Later in Life (gamesage.net) 95

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: A ten-year longitudinal study published in the Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking on a group in early adolescence from as young as ten years old, investigated how playing violent video games at an early age would translate into adulthood behavior (23 years of age). Titled "Growing Up with Grand Theft Auto: A 10-Year Study of Longitudinal Growth of Violent Video Game Play in Adolescents" the study found no correlation between growing up playing video games and increased levels of aggression ten years later. This particular study utilized a more contemporary approach for analyzing its data, known as the person-centered approach. Traditional studies use a variable-centered approach whereby researchers treat each variable, or characteristic, as related to another variable. An example would be that exercising is related to a reduced incidence of heart disease. This has been particularly valuable when comparing groups. In a person-centered approach researchers combine various algorithms across variables to determine how these variables compare among individuals. This approach provides a more accurate depiction of how variables relate to the individual.
Network

Citrix Devices Are Being Abused as DDoS Attack Vectors (zdnet.com) 17

Posted by msmash from the security-woes dept.
Threat actors have discovered a way to bounce and amplify junk web traffic against Citrix ADC networking equipment to launch DDoS attacks. From a report: While details about the attackers are still unknown, victims of these Citrix-based DDoS attacks have mostly included online gaming services, such as Steam and Xbox, sources have told ZDNet earlier today. The first of these attacks have been detected last week and documented by German IT systems administrator Marco Hofmann. Hofmann tracked the issue to the DTLS interface on Citrix ADC devices. DTLS, or Datagram Transport Layer Security, is a more version of the TLS protocol implemented on the stream-friendly UDP transfer protocol, rather than the more reliable TCP. Just like all UDP-based protocols, DTLS is spoofable and can be used as a DDoS amplification vector.
Privacy

Facebook Hits Back at Apple With Second Critical Newspaper Ad (theverge.com) 109

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
Facebook is stepping up its campaign against Apple's privacy changes with a second full-page newspaper ad today. This new ad claims Apple's iOS 14 privacy changes "will change the internet as we know it," and force websites and blogs "to start charging you subscription fees" or add in-app purchases due to a lack of personalized ads. From a report: It follows a similar full-page newspaper ad in the The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post yesterday. Apple is planning to make changes to iOS 14 early next year that will require developers to ask for permission to gather data and track users across mobile apps and websites on an iPhone or iPad. Apple revealed how iOS 14 users will be prompted to opt into tracking in apps this week, noting that developers like Facebook can explain to users why they should allow tracking within the prompt. These changes will impact Facebook's lucrative ad business, but the social networking giant is framing them as something far larger that could impact small businesses. Unsurprisingly, Apple doesn't agree. "We believe that this is a simple matter of standing up for our users," said an Apple spokesperson in response to Facebook's first full-page newspaper ad yesterday. "Users should know when their data is being collected and shared across other apps and websites -- and they should have the choice to allow that or not."
Networking

Norman Abramson, Pioneer Behind Wireless Networks, Dies At 88 (nytimes.com) 7

Posted by BeauHD from the rest-in-peace dept.
Norman Abramson, one of the pioneers behind wireless networks, has died at 88. The cause was skin cancer that had metastasized to his lungs, his son, Mark, said. The New York Times reports: Professor Abramson's project at the University of Hawaii was originally designed to transmit data to schools on the far-flung Hawaiian islands by means of a radio channel. But the solution he and his group devised in the late 1960s and early '70s would prove widely applicable; some of their technology is still in use in today's smartphones, satellites and home WiFi networks. The technology they created allowed many digital devices to send and receive data over that shared radio channel. It was a simple approach that did not require complex scheduling of when each packet of data would be sent. If a data packet was not received, it was simply sent again. The approach was a departure from telecommunications practices at the time, but it worked.

The wireless network in Hawaii, which began operating in 1971, was called ALOHAnet, embracing the Hawaiian salutation for greeting or parting. It was a smaller, wireless version of the better known ARPAnet, the precursor to the internet, which allowed researchers at universities to share a network and send messages over landlines. The ARPAnet was led by the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency, which also funded the ALOHAnet. "The early wireless work in Hawaii is vastly underappreciated," said Marc Weber, an internet historian at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. "Every modern form of wireless data networking, from WiFi to your cellphone, goes back to the ALOHAnet."
Facebook

Key People Are Leaving Facebook and Torching the Company In Departure Notes (buzzfeednews.com) 104

Posted by BeauHD from the cause-and-effect dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: On Wednesday, a Facebook data scientist departed the social networking company after a two-year stint, leaving a farewell note for their colleagues to ponder. As part of a team focused on "Violence and Incitement," they had dealt with some of the worst content on Facebook, and they were proud of their work at the company. Despite this, they said Facebook was simply not doing enough. "With so many internal forces propping up the production of hateful and violent content, the task of stopping hate and violence on Facebook starts to feel even more sisyphean than it already is," the employee wrote in their "badge post," a traditional farewell note for any departing Facebook employee. "It also makes it embarrassing to work here."

Using internal Facebook data and projections to support their points, the data scientist said in their post that roughly 1 of every 1,000 pieces of content -- or 5 million of the 5 billion pieces of content posted to the social network daily -- violates the company's rules on hate speech. More stunning, they estimated using the company's own figures that, even with artificial intelligence and third-party moderators, the company was "deleting less than 5% of all of the hate speech posted to Facebook." (After this article was published, Facebook VP of integrity Guy Rosen disputed the calculation, saying it "incorrectly compares views and content." The employee addressed this in their post and said it did not change the conclusion.)

The sentiments expressed in the badge post are hardly new. Since May, a number of Facebook employees have quit, saying they were ashamed of the impact the company was having on the world or worried that the company's inaction in moderating hate and misinformation had led to political interference, division, and bloodshed. Another employee was fired for documenting instances of preferential treatment of influential conservative pages that repeatedly spread false information. But in just the past few weeks, at least four people involved in critical integrity work related to reducing violence and incitement, crafting policy to reduce hate speech, and tracking content that breaks Facebook's rules have left the company. In farewell posts obtained by BuzzFeed News, each person expressed concerns about the company's approach to handling US political content and hate speech, and called out Facebook leadership for its unwillingness to be more proactive about reducing hate, incitement, and false content. In the wake of the 2020 US Election, Facebook's "election integrity" team, which was charged with "helping to protect the democratic process" and reducing "the spread of viral information and fake accounts," was recently disbanded as a stand-alone unit. Company leadership also reportedly shot down a proposal from the company's integrity teams to throttle the distribution of false and misleading election content from prominent political accounts, like President Donald Trump's.
Facebook

FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization (ftc.gov) 122

Posted by msmash from the time-to-face-the-music dept.
The Federal Trade Commission today sued Facebook, alleging that the company is illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct. FTC: Following a lengthy investigation in cooperation with a coalition of attorneys general of 46 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam, the complaint alleges that Facebook has engaged in a systematic strategy -- including its 2012 acquisition of up-and-coming rival Instagram, its 2014 acquisition of the mobile messaging app WhatsApp, and the imposition of anticompetitive conditions on software developers -- to eliminate threats to its monopoly. This course of conduct harms competition, leaves consumers with few choices for personal social networking, and deprives advertisers of the benefits of competition. The FTC is seeking a permanent injunction in federal court that could, among other things: require divestitures of assets, including Instagram and WhatsApp; prohibit Facebook from imposing anticompetitive conditions on software developers; and require Facebook to seek prior notice and approval for future mergers and acquisitions. "Personal social networking is central to the lives of millions of Americans," said Ian Conner, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition. "Facebook's actions to entrench and maintain its monopoly deny consumers the benefits of competition. Our aim is to roll back Facebook's anticompetitive conduct and restore competition so that innovation and free competition can thrive."
Security

iPhone Zero-Click Wi-Fi Exploit is One of the Most Breathtaking Hacks Ever (arstechnica.com) 114

Posted by msmash from the security-woes dept.
Dan Goodin, writing for ArsTechnica: Earlier this year, Apple patched one of the most breathtaking iPhone vulnerabilities ever: a memory corruption bug in the iOS kernel that gave attackers remote access to the entire device -- over Wi-Fi, with no user interaction required at all. Oh, and exploits were wormable -- meaning radio-proximity exploits could spread from one nearby device to another, once again, with no user interaction needed. This Wi-Fi packet of death exploit was devised by Ian Beer, a researcher at Project Zero, Google's vulnerability research arm. In a 30,000-word post published on Tuesday afternoon, Beer described the vulnerability and the proof-of-concept exploit he spent six months developing single-handedly. Almost immediately, fellow security researchers took notice.

"This is a fantastic piece of work," Chris Evans, a semi-retired security researcher and executive and the founder of Project Zero, said in an interview. "It really is pretty serious. The fact you don't have to really interact with your phone for this to be set off on you is really quite scary. This attack is just you're walking along, the phone is in your pocket, and over Wi-Fi someone just worms in with some dodgy Wi-Fi packets." Beer's attack worked by exploiting a buffer overflow bug in a driver for AWDL, an Apple-proprietary mesh networking protocol that makes things like Airdrop work. Because drivers reside in the kernel -- one of the most privileged parts of any operating system -- the AWDL flaw had the potential for serious hacks. And because AWDL parses Wi-Fi packets, exploits can be transmitted over the air, with no indication that anything is amiss.
Desktops (Apple)

AWS Brings the Mac Mini To Its Cloud (techcrunch.com) 38

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
AWS today opened its re:Invent conference with a surprise announcement: the company is bringing the Mac mini to its cloud. These new EC2 Mac instances, as AWS calls them, are now available in preview. They won't come cheap, though. From a report: The target audience here -- and the only one AWS is targeting for now -- is developers who want cloud-based build and testing environments for their Mac and iOS apps. But it's worth noting that with remote access, you get a fully-featured Mac mini in the cloud, and I'm sure developers will find all kinds of other use cases for this as well. Given the recent launch of the M1 Mac minis, it's worth pointing out that the hardware AWS is using -- at least for the time being -- are i7 machines with six physical and 12 logical cores and 32 GB of memory. Using the Mac's built-in networking options, AWS connects them to its Nitro System for fast network and storage access. This means you'll also be able to attach AWS block storage to these instances, for example.
Facebook

Facebook Antitrust Probes Will Target Acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram (cnet.com) 13

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
A group of state attorneys general, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, is on track to file antitrust charges against Facebook in early December, according to a report Thursday from the Washington Post. CNET: The move comes as the US Federal Trade Commission is also reportedly finalizing its antitrust probe into the social media giant. State and federal investigators plan to bring antitrust charges against Facebook over its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, alleging that the deals "helped create an anti-competitive social networking juggernaut," according to the Post. Investigators may also reportedly argue that Facebook weaponized its vast trove of user data to help quash rivals.
Crime

Microsoft Engineer Gets Nine Years For Stealing $10 Million From Microsoft (arstechnica.com) 41

Posted by BeauHD from the don't-steal-from-your-employer dept.
A former Microsoft software engineer from Ukraine has been sentenced to nine years in prison for stealing more than $10 million in store credit from Microsoft's online store. Ars Technica reports: From 2016 to 2018, Volodymyr Kvashuk worked for Microsoft as a tester, placing mock online orders to make sure everything was working smoothly. The software automatically prevented shipment of physical products to testers like Kvashuk. But in a crucial oversight, it didn't block the purchase of virtual gift cards. So the 26-year-old Kvashuk discovered that he could use his test account to buy real store credit and then use the credit to buy real products.

At first, Kvashuk bought an Office subscription and a couple of graphics cards. But when no one objected to those small purchases, he grew much bolder. In late 2017 and early 2018, he stole millions of dollars worth of Microsoft store credit and resold it online for bitcoin, which he then cashed out using Coinbase. US prosecutors say he netted at least $2.8 million, which he used to buy a $160,000 Tesla and a $1.6 million waterfront home (his proceeds were less than the value of the stolen credit because he had to sell at a steep discount).

Kvashuk made little effort to cover his tracks for his earliest purchases. But as his thefts got bigger, he took more precautions. He used test accounts that had been created by colleagues for later thefts. This was easy to do because the testers kept track of test account credentials in a shared online document. He used throwaway email addresses and began using a virtual private networking service. Before cashing out the bitcoins, he sent them to a mixing service in an attempt to hide their origins. Kvashuk reported the bitcoin windfall to the IRS but claimed the bitcoins had been a gift from his father.
Facebook

Threatening Bans, Facebook Will Now Require Moderation For Groups Spreading Misinformation (mashable.com) 216

Posted by EditorDavid from the mandatory-moderation dept.
"While the election may have now been called for Joe Biden, our misinformation nightmare is far from over," quips Mashable: As unsubstantiated pro-Trump conspiracies about election fraud continue to spread on the internet, Facebook is taking further action with Facebook Groups, a feature that is often weaponized by misinformation spreaders. According to Facebook, the social networking company will now put certain problematic Facebook Groups in "probation" periods. During this 60-day timeframe, all posts to these groups must be manually approved by a group's administrators or moderators.

A group will be placed in this probationary state if the company finds that many of its posts are violating its community standards policies. There will be no appeals process for the probation period. All groups, whether public or private, are subject to probation.

If policy violation problems continue to persist within these groups during the probationary period, Facebook will ban the group.
A Facebook spokesperson tells CNET these actions are being taken "temporarily...in order to protect people during this unprecedented time."

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