Review into Russia: upday UK’s tech recap
Did Russia shape the 2016 US election? Tech giants ramp up their investigations to find out.
Welcome back to upday UK’s tech recap. Hope you survived this week’s Facebook and Instagram outage. Here’s what made headlines in the world of tech this week.
Russian Review
The review into the role of technology in shaping the 2016 US presidential election took a new turn this week.
Google found evidence that Russian agents exploited its platforms in an attempt to interfere with the election. Using accounts believed to be connected to the Russian government, they purchased more than £3,500 worth of search ads. An additional £40,000 worth of ads with political material were also purchased from Russian internet addresses or with Russian currency.
Previous investigations found that Russian companies bought at least $100,000 in ads on Facebook.
Microsoft also launched an internal investigation into whether Russians bought ads on any of its products or platforms (yes, people still use Bing — Microsoft claims it has an approximately 33% share in the US desktop search market).
Even Pinterest – the social media site popular for sharing recipes, decor ideas and inspirational quotes – was hit by Russian-linked political posts during the 2016 campaign. While Russian agents didn’t directly post on Pinterest, their messages found their way on the visual bookmarking site via users sharing content from Facebook and Twitter.
US president Donald Trump continues to deny any collusion with the Kremlin and Russia in relation to the US presidential election.
Twitter Takedown
One of the biggest news stories of the week was undoubtedly the flurry of allegations against the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Reports in American media alleged that Weinstein raped three women and sexually assaulted and harassed numerous others, using his influence in the industry to threaten and silence his victims.
Since then, a growing number of actors and others in the film industry have accused the film producer inappropriate behaviour. Actress Rose McGowan has emerged as one of the most vocal denouncers of Weinstein. She was named in a New York Times article which revealed decades of sexual harassment by Weinstein.
However, she was temporarily blocked from Twitter for doing so. Twitter “limited” her account for 12 hours for “violating” its rules.
It’s not clear which rules she has violated, but they may be over the tweet where she told Ben Affleck to f*** off, claiming the actor knew about Weinstein’s behaviour.
After the account suspension, users were quick to call out Twitter for double-standards:
Re-launch
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket that was previously used for a mission in February. It’s the third time SpaceX has used one of its landed boosters for a second flight.
The company’s CEO Elon Musk said this is a revolutionary step in his quest to cut space travel costs.
Fish of the Future
One of the most popular tech stories in the app was something fishy 🐠
Dubai International Airport is doing away with security counters next year and introducing virtual fish to verify the identity of passengers instead. Passengers will have to walk through a virtual aquarium tunnel in which 80 in-built cameras will scan their faces.
What’s the point of the fish though? To get passengers’ attention – and their biometrics.
Fake News
Earlier this week, a short-lived (and inaccurate) news story stunned the tech world. A bombshell appeared on the Dow Jones financial newswire on Tuesday: “Google to buy Apple for $9bn”.
Dow Jones said the news appeared as the result of a “technical error” and should be ignored. Even though it was only live for two minutes, it still managed to affect Apple’s share value, sending it from $2 to $158 per share.
Anti-terror Tech
Following fierce criticism from politicians about the tech sector not doing enough to deal with extremist content online, tech companies are reportedly doing something about it.
Sky News reported that tech firms are investing £100m in the fight against terror propaganda. Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter are directly funding both online and community projects.
