• Facebook Blasted By Myanmar Human Rights Groups
    Human rights groups in Myanmar are panning Facebook’s response to the spread of hate speech on its platform, The Guardian reports. “Earlier this week, Zuckerberg told Vox Facebook’s systems had detected a pair of chain letters spreading around Myanmar on Facebook Messenger last year,” it notes. “One warned of an imminent attack by Muslims on 11 September.”
  • Samsung Reports Strong Q1
    Samsung reported strong first-quarter earnings on Friday, Reuters reports. Additionally, the Korean tech giant “forecast January-March profit to leap 57.6 percent from a year earlier to 15.6 trillion won ($14.7 billion), beating an average forecast of 14.5 trillion won from a Thomson Reuters survey of 21 analysts."
  • Will Twitter Cripple Third-Party Apps?
    Third-party Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Twitterrific are apparently afraid that users could soon lose features like push notifications and auto-refresh timelines, The Verge reports. “The problem is that after June 19th, Twitter will be removing the ‘streaming services’ that have enabled developers to implement these functions in their apps,” it writes.
  • Twitter Has Suspended More Than 1 Million 'Terrorist' Accounts
    Twitter now says it has suspended more than 1.2 million accounts because of terrorism content since mid-2015. For what it’s worth, Twitter said that “the volume of suspensions is down 8.4 percent from the previous reporting period and that it was the second consecutive decline,” CNet notes. More broadly, “Twitter has vowed to do better, and has sought the public’s input on how to fix the toxic environment.”
  • President Likely Wrong About Amazon Hurting USPS
    Challenging the president’s half-baked position that Amazon is bad for the United States Postal Service, a body of evidence suggests that the opposite is true. While the postal service has experienced a steady decline in the amount of mail it ships, “its business of package shipping, including Amazon orders,” is booming, The New York Times reports. Indeed, the USPS shipped 5.7 billion packages, last year, which was up from 3.3 billion in 2008.
  • Policy-Makers Plan To 'Fix' Facebook
    Around the world, political powerbrokers are reportedly discussing ways to “fix” Facebook. “Over the years, Congress and federal regulators have largely left Facebook to police itself,” The Atlantic reports. “Now, lawmakers around the world are calling for it to be regulated.” Among other options, the policy makers are apparently considering imposing fines for future data breaches, policing political ads, making tech companies liable for objectionable content that appears on their platforms, and installing ethics review boards.
  • Amazon Adding 'Parent Dashboard' To Control Kids' Media
    Amazon is adding a “parent dashboard” that will track and control the activity of children across services and devices. “The moves come as Apple and Google are expected to invest more in this area,” Recode notes. Meanwhile, “Amazon already lets parents set time limits for different types of content, whitelist specific apps or videos and create kids-only environments on a shared phone or tablet.”
  • Zuckerberg To Testify Before Congress On April 11
    Mark Zuckerberg is now scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill on April 11 before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, NPR reports. “Multiple congressional committees have asked Zuckerberg to testify in light of reporting about Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data to target American voters in the 2016 election,” it writes. “This is the first confirmation that Zuckerberg will take questions from members of Congress.”
  • Apple Eying 'Touchless' Control For Future IPhones
    Apple reportedly thinks there might be a place for touchless gesture control and curved screens in forthcoming iPhones. “A display that ‘gradually’ curves inward from top to bottom is still at least two to three years away, while the touch-free tech ‘likely won't be ready for consumers for at least two years,’” Endadget writes, citing a report in Bloomberg.
  • Google Employees Oppose Pentagon Partnership
    Internally, thousands of Google employees are reportedly protesting the search giant’s involvement in a Pentagon program that uses artificial intelligence to interpret video imagery, The New York Times reports. A letter has so far received more than 3,100 employee signatures, it writes. The program in question could reportedly be used to improve the targeting of drone strikes.
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