HELENA: Montana became the first state in the US to enact a complete ban on TikTok on Wednesday when Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed a measure that’s more sweeping than any other state’s attempts to curtail the social media app, which is owned by a Chinese tech company.
The measure, scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2024, is expected to be challenged legally and will serve as a testing ground for the TikTok-free America that many national lawmakers have envisioned. Cybersecurity experts say it could be difficult to enforce the ban.
“Today, Montana takes the most decisive action of any state to protect Montanans’ private data and sensitive personal information from being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party,” Gianforte said in a statement.
TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter argued that the law infringes on people’s First Amendment rights and is unlawful. She declined to say whether the company will file a lawsuit.
“We want to reassure Montanans that they can continue using TikTok to express themselves, earn a living, and find community as we continue working to defend the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana,” Oberwetter said in a statement.
The American Civil Liberties of Montana and NetChoice, a trade group that counts Google and TikTok as its members, also called the law unconstitutional. Keegan Medrano, policy director for the ACLU of Montana, said the Legislature “trampled on the free speech of hundreds of thousands of Montanans who use the app to express themselves, gather information and run their small business, in the name of anti-Chinese sentiment.”
Some lawmakers, the FBI and officials at other agencies are concerned the video-sharing app, owned by ByteDance, could be used to allow the Chinese government to access information on US citizens or push pro-Beijing misinformation that could influence the public. TikTok says none of this has ever happened.
A former executive at ByteDance alleges the tech giant has served as a “propaganda tool” for the Chinese government, a claim ByteDance says is baseless.
When Montana banned the app on government-owned devices in late December, Gianforte said TikTok posed a “significant risk” to sensitive state data. More than half of US states and the federal government have a similar ban.
On Wednesday, Gianforte also announced he was prohibiting the use of all social media applications tied to foreign adversaries on state equipment and for state businesses in Montana effective on June 1. Among the apps he listed are WeChat, whose parent company is headquartered in China; and Telegram Messenger, which was founded in Russia.
The legislation, drafted by the attorney general’s office, easily passed through Montana’s GOP-controlled Legislature.
Gianforte had wanted to expand the TikTok bill to include apps tied to foreign adversaries, but lawmakers did not send him the bill until after the session ended this month, preventing him from offering any amendments.
Montana’s new law prohibits downloads of TikTok in the state and would fine any “entity” — an app store or TikTok — $10,000 per day for each time someone “is offered the ability” to access the social media platform or download the app. The penalties would not apply to users.
Opponents say Montana residents could easily circumvent the ban by using a virtual private network, a service that shields Internet users by encrypting their data traffic, preventing others from observing their web browsing. Montana state officials say geofencing technology is used with online sports gambling apps, which are deactivated in states where online gambling is illegal.
Though many lawmakers in Montana have been enthusiastic about a ban, experts who followed the bill closely said the state will likely have to defend the legislation in court.
Officials are also bound to receive criticism from advocacy groups and TikTok users who don’t want their favorite app to be taken away. The app’s fun, goofy videos and ease of use has made it immensely popular, and US tech giants like Snapchat and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, see it as a competitive threat.
TikTok has been recruiting so-called influencers and small businesses who use the platform to push back on a ban. But others who haven’t been part of an official campaign coordinated by the company are also worried about what lawmakers are doing.
Adam Botkin, a former football player and recent graduate at the University of Montana, said it was a scary time for him as a content creator in Montana. The 22-year-old has nearly 170,000 followers on TikTok, where he mostly posts short videos of himself performing football kicks.
He says he sometimes makes “tens of thousands” of dollars per month from brands looking to market their products on his social media accounts, including Instagram, where he has roughly 44,000 followers.
Botkin says most of his income comes from Instagram, which is believed to be more lucrative for content creators. But he has to grow his following on that platform — and others — to have the same level of popularity that he does on TikTok. He says he’s trying to do that and won’t try to circumvent the TikTok ban by using a VPN.
“You got to adapt and evolve with how things move,” Botkin said. “So, if I have to adapt and move, I’ll adapt.”
Chatter about a TikTok ban has been around since 2020, when then-President Donald Trump attempted to bar the company from operating in the US through an executive order that was halted in federal courts. President Joe Biden’s administration initially shelved those plans, but more recently threatened to ban the app if the company’s Chinese owners don’t sell their stakes.
TikTok doesn’t want either option and has been clamoring to prove it’s free of any Chinese government interference. It’s also touting a data safety plan it calls “Project Texas” to assuage bipartisan concerns in Washington.
At the same time, some lawmakers have emerged as allies, arguing efforts to restrict data harvesting practices need to include all social media companies, not just one. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky blocked a bill in March that would ban TikTok nationally, saying such a move would violate the Constitution and anger the millions of voters who use the app.
Montana’s TikTok ban also comes amid a growing movement to limit social media use among kids and teens and, in some cases, impose bans. Several bills circulating in Congress aim to get at the issue, including one that would prohibit all children under the age of 13 from using social media and require permission from a guardian for users under 18 to create an account.
Some states, including Utah and Arkansas, have already enacted laws that would hinge social media use on parental consent. Similar bills are in the works in other states. Last year, California enacted a law requiring companies to beef up data protection practices for children and offer them the highest privacy settings.
Montana says 1st-in-nation TikTok ban protects people. TikTok says it violates their rights
https://arab.news/br6bc
Montana says 1st-in-nation TikTok ban protects people. TikTok says it violates their rights
- Measure due to take effect on Jan. 1, 2024 is expected to be challenged in court
- Governor also announced ban of all social media applications tied to foreign adversaries on state devices
CNN defamation trial comes at a rough time for legacy media — and for the struggling network
- US Navy veteran Zachary Young blames CNN for destroying his business when it displayed his face onscreen during a story that discussed a “black market” in smuggling out Afghans for high fees at the time of the Taliban takeover
NEW YORK: At a particularly inopportune time for legacy media and CNN, the news outlet is on trial in Florida this week, accused of defaming a Navy veteran involved in rescuing endangered Afghans from that country when the US ended its involvement there in 2021.
The veteran, Zachary Young, blames CNN for destroying his business when it displayed his face onscreen during a story that discussed a “black market” in smuggling out Afghans for high fees at the time of the Taliban takeover.
In a broader sense, the case puts the news media on the stand in journalism critic Donald Trump’s home state weeks before he’s due to begin his second term as president, and on the same day Facebook’s parent introduced a Trump-friendly policy of backing off fact checks. Young’s attorney, Kyle Roche, leaned into the press’ unpopularity in his opening arguments on Tuesday.
“You’re going to have an opportunity to do something significant in this trial,” Roche told jurors in Florida’s 14th Judicial Circuit Courts in Panama City on Tuesday. “You’re going to have an opportunity to send a message to mainstream media. You’re going to have an opportunity to change an industry.”
That’s the fear. Said Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and the Law at the University of Minnesota: “Everybody in the news media is on trial in this case.”
Actual defamation trials are rare in this country
Defamation trials are actually rare in the United States, in part because strong constitutional protections for the press make proving libel difficult. From the media’s standpoint, taking a case to a judge or jury is a risk many executives don’t want to take.
Rather than defend statements that George Stephanopoulos made about Trump last spring, ABC News last month agreed to make the former president’s libel lawsuit go away by paying him $15 million toward his presidential library. In the end, ABC parent Walt Disney Co. concluded an ongoing fight against Trump wasn’t worth it, win or lose.
In the most high-profile libel case in recent years, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787 million on the day the trial was due to start in 2023 to settle the company’s claims of inaccurate reporting in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.
The Young case concerns a segment that first aired on Jake Tapper’s program on Nov. 11, 2021, about extraction efforts in Afghanistan. Young had built a business helping such efforts, and advertised his services on LinkedIn to sponsors with funding who could pay for such evacuation.
He subsequently helped four separate organizations — Audible, Bloomberg, a charity called H.E.R.O. Inc. and a Berlin-based NGO called CivilFleet Support eV — get more than a dozen people out of Afghanistan, according to court papers. He said he did not market to — or take money from — individual Afghans.
Yet Young’s picture was shown as part of CNN story that talked about a “black market” where Afghans were charged $10,000 or more to get family members out of danger.
The plaintiff says the story’s reference to ‘black market’ damaged him
To Young, the “black market” label implied some sort of criminality, and he did nothing illegal. “It’s devastating if you’re labeled a criminal all over the world,” Young testified on Tuesday.
CNN said in court papers that Young’s case amounts to “defamation by implication,” and that he hadn’t actually been accused of nefarious acts. The initial story he complained about didn’t even mention Young until three minutes in, CNN lawyer David Axelrod argued on Tuesday.
Five months after the story aired, Young complained about it, and CNN issued an on-air statement that its use of the phrase “black market” was wrong. “We did not intend to suggest that Mr. Young participated in a black market. We regret the error. And to Mr. Young, we apologize.”
That didn’t prevent a defamation lawsuit, and the presiding judge, William S. Henry, denied CNN’s request that it be dismissed. CNN, in a statement, said that “when all the facts come to light, we are confident we will have a verdict in our favor.”
Axelrod argued on Tuesday that CNN’s reporting was tough, fair and accurate. He told the jury that they will hear no witnesses who will say they thought less of Young or wouldn’t hire him because of the story — in other words, no one to back up his contention that it was so damaging to his business and life.
Yet much like Fox was publicly hurt in the Dominion case by internal communications about Trump and the network’s coverage, some unflattering revelations about CNN’s operations will likely become part of the trial. They include internal messages where CNN’s reporter, Alex Marquardt, says unflattering and profane things about Young. A CNN editor was also revealed on messages to suggest that a Marquardt story on the topic was “full of holes,” Roche said.
“At the end of the day, there was no one at CNN who was willing to stand up for the truth,” Roche said. “Theater prevailed.”
Axelrod, who shares a name with a longtime Democratic political operative and CNN commentator, contended that the give and take was part of a rigorous journalistic process putting the video segment and subsequent printed stories together. “Many experienced journalists put eyes on these stories,” he said.
It’s still going to be difficult for CNN to go through. The network, with television ratings at historic lows, doesn’t need the trouble.
“At a moment of wider vilification and disparagement of the press, there is every reason to believe this will be weaponized, even if CNN prevails,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor at the University of Utah law school and expert on libel law.
The case is putting a media organization and its key players on the stand in a very public way, which is something people don’t usually see.
“I always dread any kind of libel cases because the likelihood that something bad will come out of it is very high,” Minnesota’s Kirtley said. “This is not a great time to be a libel defendant if you’re in the news media. If we ever did have the support of the public, it has seriously eroded over the past few years.”
‘Offensive’ Muslim fintech ads banned in UK for showing burning banknotes
- Posters by Wahed Invest were banned by Advertising Standards Authority after agency received 75 complaints
LONDON: Adverts by Muslim fintech company Wahed Invest have been banned in the UK for featuring burning banknotes, which the country’s advertising watchdog deemed “offensive.”
The New York-based investment platform, which targets the Muslim community, ran a series of posters across London’s transport system in September and October.
The ads showed US dollar and euro banknotes on fire alongside slogans such as “Join the money revolution” and “Withdraw from Riba” — a term referring to the Islamic prohibition of interest.
The Advertising Standards Authority said it received 75 complaints that the ads were offensive.
“The ads represented the expression that viewers’ money was ‘going up in flames’ and that images of burning money were commonly encountered,” the ASA said in a statement.
“However, regardless of whether viewers would have understood that message or understood it as a defiant act designed to show a challenge to financial institutions, the currencies which were burned in all of the ads were clearly visible as US dollar and euro banknotes.”
The advert also featured images of Muslim preacher Ismail ibn Musa Menk and Russian former professional mixed martial artist Khabib Abdulmanapovich Nurmagomedov.
Three of the posters showed Menk holding an open briefcase filled with US dollar and euro banknotes on fire, with two of them stating “Withdraw from Exploitation.”
Wahed defended the campaign, explaining that the burning banknotes symbolized money “going up in flames” due to inflation outpacing savings growth.
The company, which describe itself as an investment platform allowing consumers who were predominantly Muslim to invest in a manner which aligned with their faith and values, launched in the US in 2017 and is backed by the oil company Saudi Aramco and the French footballer Paul Pogba.
Wahed acknowledged that the currencies depicted in the ads could be viewed as symbols of national identity but argued that the imagery of burning money was a powerful reference to hyperinflation, a concept often depicted in popular culture through film and television.
A spokesperson added: “We understand that visuals like those included in our campaign can elicit strong reactions.
“While our intention was to spark thought and awareness, we recognize the importance of ensuring that messaging resonates positively with the diverse audiences that may consume them.”
The ASA said that the adverts would have been seen by many people, including people from the US and eurozone countries, who “would have viewed their nation’s currency as being culturally significant.
“Although we acknowledged Wahed Invest’s view that they had not directly criticized a specific group, and that depictions of burning banknotes were commonly encountered, we considered the burning of banknotes would have caused serious offense to some viewers,” the regulator said.
“We therefore concluded that the ads were likely to cause serious offense.”
Jailed Italian reporter in Tehran freed, says Italy
ROME: An Italian journalist arrested in Iran and jailed for three weeks has been freed and is returning to Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said on Wednesday.
“The plane taking journalist Cecilia Sala home took off from Tehran a few minutes ago” following “intense work through diplomatic and intelligence channels,” Meloni’s office said in a statement.
“Our compatriot has been released by the Iranian authorities and is on her way back to Italy. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expresses her gratitude to all those who helped make Cecilia’s return possible, allowing her to re-embrace her family and colleagues,” her office said.
Meloni personally informed Sala’s parents of her release by telephone, it added.
Sala, 29, was arrested on December 19, soon after the United States and Italy arrested two Iranian nationals over export violations linked to a deadly attack on American servicemen.
The journalist, who writes for the Italian daily Il Foglio and is the host of a news podcast produced by Chora Media, was kept in isolation in Tehran’s Evin prison.
Sala told her family she was forced to sleep on the floor in a cell with the lights permanently on.
Italy and Iran summoned each other’s ambassadors last week after Rome warned that efforts to secure her release were complicated.
Sala traveled to Iran on December 13 on a journalist’s visa. She was arrested six days later for “violating the law of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said the country’s culture ministry, which oversees and accredits foreign journalists.
She had been due to return home the following day.
On Monday, Iran denied any link between Sala’s arrest and that of Iranian national Mohammad Abedini, detained in Italy in December at the behest of the United States over export violations linked to a deadly attack on US servicemen.
Surge in Telegram user data passed to French authorities
- Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris in August, where he was held for four days before being charged with various crimes, mostly linked to control of criminal content on Telegram
PARIS: Messaging service Telegram passed vastly more data on its users to French authorities in the second half of 2024 following founder Pavel Durov’s arrest in Paris, figures published by the platform showed.
The company said it handed over IP addresses or telephone numbers that Paris asked for in 210 cases in July-September and 673 in October-December.
That was up from just four in the first quarter and six in the second.
Some 2,072 users were affected by French requests for user data — again massively weighted toward the second half of 2024, with more than half in the fourth quarter alone.
Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris in August, where he was held for four days before being charged with various crimes, mostly linked to control of criminal content on Telegram.
He and his supporters have claimed that most French and European authorities’ requests for user data were simply not being sent to the right department at the company and therefore received no response.
Durov, who holds Russian, French and United Arab Emirates passports, has been barred from leaving French soil since he was charged.
That has not stopped Telegram from issuing updates to its moderation rules supposed to boost cooperation with investigators.
A source familiar with Durov’s case told AFP in December that the platform was responding more frequently to requests from the judicial system from both France and other countries.
Getty Images, Shutterstock gear up for AI challenge with $3.7bn merger
- Deal faces potential antitrust scrutiny
- Merger aims to cut costs and unlock new revenue streams as companies grapple with the rise of generative AI tools
LONDON: Getty Images said on Tuesday it would merge with rival Shutterstock to create a $3.7 billion stock-image powerhouse geared for the artificial intelligence era, in a deal likely to draw antitrust scrutiny.
The companies, two of the largest players in the licensed visual content industry, are betting that the combination will help them cut costs and grow their business by unlocking more revenue opportunities at a time when the growing use of generative AI tools such as Midjourney poses a threat to the industry.
Shutterstock shareholders can opt to receive either $28.80 per share in cash, or 13.67 shares of Getty, or a combination of 9.17 shares of Getty and $9.50 in cash for each Shutterstock share they own. The offer represents a deal value of more than $1 billion, according to Reuters calculations.
Shutterstock’s shares jumped 22.7 percent, while Getty was up 39.7 percent. Stocks of both companies have declined for at least the past four years, as the rising use of mobile cameras drives down demand for stock photography.
Getty CEO Craig Peters will lead the combined company, which will have annual revenues of nearly $2 billion and stands to benefit from Getty’s large library of visual content and the strong community on Shutterstock’s platform.
Peters downplayed the impact of AI on Tuesday and said that he was confident the merger would receive antitrust approval both in the United States and Europe.
“We don’t control the timing of (the approval), but we have a high confidence. This has been a situation where customers have not had choice. They’ve always had choice,” he said.
Some experts say US President-elect Donald Trump’s recent appointments to the Department of Justice Antitrust Division signal that there would be little change to the tough scrutiny that has come to define the regulator in recent years.
“With Gail Slater at the helm, the antitrust division is going to be a lot more aggressive under this Trump administration than it was under the first one,” said John Newman, professor of law at the University of Miami.
Regulators will examine how the deal impacts the old-school business model of selling images to legacy media customers, as well as the new business model of offering copyright-compliant generative-AI applications to the public.
The deal is expected to generate up to $200 million in cost savings three years after its close. Getty investors will own about 54.7 percent of the combined company, while Shutterstock stockholders will own the rest.
Getty competes with Reuters and the Associated Press in providing photos and videos for editorial use.
