Social Media

The United Arab Emirates on Sunday approved the establishment of a new national cybersecurity council, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Prime Minister and Vice-President and ruler of Dubai, said on Twitter. The cabinet of the UAE government also appointed Industry and Advanced Technology Minister and head of Abu …

A Pakistani minister on Sunday withdrew comments she made earlier that President Emmanuel Macron was treating Muslims like Nazis had treated Jews in World War Two. France’s foreign minister had demanded Pakistan authorities withdraw the comments posted on Twitter by Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari. She posted …

President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired top cybersecurity official Chris Krebs in a message on Twitter, accusing him without evidence of making a “highly inaccurate” statement affirming the Nov. 3 election was secure and rejecting claims of fraud. Trump has made debunked allegations that the election was “rigged” and has …

A group led by privacy activist Max Schrems on Monday filed complaints with German and Spanish data protection authorities over Apple’s online tracking tool, alleging that it allows iPhones to store users’ data without their consent in breach of European law. It is the first such major action against the …

With the spike in the number of podcast listeners this year, there has been an increase in podcasters as well. “Mo Show” is one such podcast, with just one goal: “To set the narrative about Saudi Arabia straight.” The “Mo Show” is a way to show Saudis and the outside …

Asharq News, the multi-platform service and business news partner of Bloomberg, has secured a show for Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef ahead of its official launch. However, Youssef will not be returning as the quick-witted political satirist the Arab world was used to seeing on his hit show “Al-Bernameg” (The Program). …

Facebook FB.O on Friday said it has dismantled seven separate networks of fake accounts and pages on its platform that were active in Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Myanmar, Georgia, and Ukraine due to “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”. The social media platform announced it had taken down the new networks as …

Facebook Inc removed on Thursday a fast-growing group in which supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump posted violent rhetoric, as it and other companies tackled baseless claims and potential violence after a contentious election. The “Stop the Steal” group, which called for “boots on the ground to protect the integrity …

At least nine popular YouTube channels were promoting on Thursday debunked accusations about voting fraud in the U.S. presidential race, conspiratorial content that could jeopardize advertising and memberships revenue they get from the video service. Reuters found the channels, ranging from ones with 1,000 followers to more than 629,000, endorsing …

As U.S. President Donald Trump and his allies flooded social media on Wednesday with false claims of victory and unsupported allegations of voter fraud, social media companies warned users the presidential election had yet to be decided. The posts on Twitter TWTR.N, Facebook FB.O and other sites are imposing a …

Netflix Inc will on Thursday debut its first Egyptian television series “Paranormal,” a major step in the streaming service’s Middle Eastern strategy. The series is based on Egyptian novelist Ahmed Khaled Tawfik’s books about a doctor whose lifelong scientific convictions are suddenly called into question. His critically acclaimed novels in …

Twitter TWTR.N and Facebook FB.O late on Monday both flagged posts by President Donald Trump that claimed a U.S. Supreme Court decision on mail-in voting in Pennsylvania would lead to “rampant” fraud and was “very dangerous.” Twitter hid the president’s tweet, sent the day before the U.S. presidential election, behind …

U.S. officials said late Friday that the Iranian hackers behind a wave of threatening emails sent to thousands of Americans earlier this month successfully accessed voter data. The statement, issued jointly by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), partially confirms the authenticity …

The group of Russian hackers accused of meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election earlier this year targeted the email accounts of Democratic state parties in California and Indiana, and influential think tanks in Washington and New York, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The attempted intrusions, many …

Pakistan’s prime minister has appealed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to ban Islamophobic content on the site, warning of an increase in radicalisation amongst Muslims, the government said on Sunday. In a letter, which the Pakistani government posted on Twitter, Imran Khan said that “growing Islamophobia” was encouraging extremism and …

Government analysts and private sector investigators were able to rapidly attribute to Iranian hackers a wave of thousands of threatening emails aimed at U.S. voters because of mistakes made in a video attached to some of the messages, according to four people familiar with the matter. Those failures provided a …

Pakistan on Friday blocked social media app TikTok for failing to filter out “immoral and indecent” content, the country’s telecommunication authority said in a statement. “In view of number of complaints from different segments of the society against immoral and indecent content on the video sharing application TikTok, Pakistan Telecommunication …

U.S. prosecutors have seized a network of web domains which they said were used in a campaign by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to spread political disinformation around the world. In a statement released late on Wednesday, the Justice Department said it had taken control of 92 domains used by …

President Donald Trump deflected an opportunity to condemn white supremacists during Tuesday’s presidential debate, briefly telling one group to “stand back and stand by” before pivoting to attacking left-wing activists. During a segment on race relations, moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he was willing to denounce “white supremacists and …

Author JK Rowling, who has come under fire for statements about trans activism that many have called transphobic, promoted an online store that sells items with offensive, anti-trans phrases. The website, called Wild Womyn Workshop, advertises pins with quotes including the phrases “Transwomen are men,” “Transmen are my sisters,” “Transition = conversion therapy,” …

US President Donald Trump has expressed his approval of a deal that would allow Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok to continue operating in the US. Mr Trump told reporters he had given his “blessing” to a partnership between TikTok and US firms Oracle and Walmart. The president had ordered the app …

A lawyer for Julian Assange told a London court on Friday that she was present when an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump offered to arrange a pardon for the WikiLeaks founder in return for information that would “benefit President Trump politically”. Australian-born Assange, 49, is fighting to avoid being …

Facebook on Tuesday launched a climate science information center to elevate credible sources on climate change, as critics question its role in the spread of misinformation on the issue. Facebook said the project is modeled on its COVID-19 Information Center, and launched a similar feature last month on voting in …

The U.S. Commerce Department plans to issue an order Friday that will bar people in the United States from downloading Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat and video-sharing app TikTok starting on September 20, three officials told Reuters. The officials said the ban on new U.S. downloads of TikTok could be still …

A Saudi children’s hair stylist has become the first woman to break into the profession, which has long been an exclusively male domain. Wafaa Sakr, who appeared in a viral video inside a barber shop in Taif, said she styles children’s hair, but does not cut men’s hair. She said …

The man who leaked the “Pentagon Papers” about the Vietnam War defended Julian Assange at his London extradition hearing on Wednesday, saying WikiLeaks had acted in the public interest and warning Assange would not get a fair trial in the United States. Australian-born Assange, 49, is fighting to stop being …

A campaign waged against Netflix over “Cuties” and the film’s sexualized portrayal of children produced a surge in U.S. subscription cancellations over the weekend, according to research company YipitData. Netflix subscriber churn rates began to rise Sept. 10, the day after the release of “Cuties” on Netflix, when the hashtag …

Dear Christina “DZA” Marie,   First off all let me thank you on behalf of all the readers of The Levant newspaper in the Middle East and elsewhere. It’s not every day we get to talk to a distinguished author and, better yet, someone who teach authors how to write. …

Two years after agreeing to a self-regulatory code of practice to tackle disinformation, Facebook, Alphabet’s Google, Twitter and other tech rivals must try harder to be more effective, the European Commission said on Thursday. Fake news related to COVID-19 has accelerated calls for social media to be more proactive in …

A senior aide to the Connecticut federal prosecutor in charge of investigating the origins of the FBI’s probe into contacts between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia has resigned from the Justice Department, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said. Nora Dannehy, who had been working with Connecticut U.S. attorney …

Russia and China dismissed on Friday allegations by Microsoft Corp MSFT.O that hackers linked to Moscow and Beijing were trying to spy on people tied to both U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden. Advisers to both presidential campaigns are assessing risks from digital spies around the globe, …

Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) recently alerted one of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s main election campaign advisory firms that it had been targeted by suspected Russian state-backed hackers, according to three people briefed on the matter. The hacking attempts targeted staff at Washington-based SKDKnickerbocker, a campaign strategy and communications firm working …

Saudi Arabia is developing a secure alternative to the short messaging service WhatsApp that will help ensure protection of confidential data. The local messaging service will limit the Kingdom’s reliance on foreign companies and ensure that any confidential or sensitive data is safe on local servers. A dedicated team of …

Julian Assange resumes his battle in a London court on Monday to avoid extradition to the United States to face criminal charges over the activities of his WikiLeaks website, after months of delay due to the coronavirus lockdown. The U.S. authorities accuse Australian-born Assange, 49, of conspiring to hack government …

The Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee on Sunday accused U.S. Attorney General William Barr of lying when he said China posed a bigger threat to November’s U.S. election than Russia. “That’s just a plain false statement by the attorney general,” Adam Schiff told CNN. “What Bill …

Saudi children’s increasing use of tablets and computers has parents questioning how safe their kids are online, even on something as seemingly innocent as a game app. In a viral video, American parents of a 7-year-old girl described how she was exposed to an “inappropriate” ad for a mobile game …

Facebook Inc’s (FB.O) final policy changes in the lead-up to U.S. elections in November are unlikely to stem a flood of disinformation around the vote, which could suppress turnout and sow confusion about results, election experts said on Friday. Restrictions on paid messaging were a net positive, experts said, but …

After exposing two major sexual assaults in her first two months as an Instagram activist, and spurring Egypt to bring in a law to protect victims’ identities, Nadeen Ashraf has bigger plans. The 22-year-old student wants to turn her #MeToo-style Instagram account Assault Police, which has emboldened hundreds of Egyptian …

Seven years after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans’ telephone records, an appeals court has found the program was unlawful – and that the U.S. intelligence leaders who publicly defended it were not telling the truth. In a ruling handed …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD   CONTINUED from yesterday…   A Parting of Genders, a Meeting of Minds? When I began to dream up this article some time ago I’d stumbled onto a fan of MD’s on Twitter, a fellow Arab, Nayli Yasmeen (@nayli_yasmeen), and we got to talking about …

Facebook made a mistake in not removing a militia group’s page earlier this week that called for armed civilians to enter Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid violent protests after police shot Jacob Blake, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says. The page for the “Kenosha Guard” violated Facebook’s policies and had been flagged by “a …

Egyptian public prosecutors ordered the detention of a man suspected of being involved in an alleged gang rape at a luxury Cairo hotel in 2014 for four days pending investigation, they said in a statement on Thursday. The man, who is also a suspect in other similar cases, was arrested …

TikTok Chief Executive Officer Kevin Mayer has left short video app firm just three months since joining – and days after TikTok sued the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump over an executive order banning transactions with it in the country. He will be replaced by U.S. General Manager Vanessa …

Seven suspects in an alleged gang rape at a luxury Cairo hotel in 2014 that is at the centre of an online campaign against sexual assault in Egypt have fled the country, the public prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday. The men left Egypt between July 27 and July 29 after …