Technology

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge New Jersey’s Essex County Prosecutor’s Office is moving to dismiss the harassment charges against five people who tweeted or retweeted a police officer’s photo. Asbury Park Press reported the news on Friday afternoon, quoting spokesperson Katherine Carter saying that “after reviewing the cases, we concluded there was insufficient evidence to sustain our burden of proof.” The Nutley Police Department filed a criminal complaint in July against protester Kevin Alfaro, who tweeted a photograph of Detective Peter Sandomenico during a Nutley For Black Lives demonstration in June. Alfaro’s tweet asked “if anyone knows who this bitch is throw his info under this tweet,” something Sandomenico said caused him to fear for the safety of his family…. Contin...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge President Trump’s executive order banning WeChat could have far-reaching consequences for almost the entire technology industry, thanks to the app’s parent company, Tencent, having investments in companies like Riot Games and other US-based brands. But the ban could also have a big impact on Apple, which is deeply entrenched in China. Apple has a significant Chinese customer base, and nearly all of its critical manufacturing and assembly partners are based there. Trump’s ban might not only force Apple to remove WeChat from its App Store — which would destroy Apple’s Chinese smartphone business — it could existentially change how Apple is able to build and sell new products in the future. It’s hard to emphasize the prominence of WeChat… Continue...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge President Trump’s advisors got into a “knockdown, drag-out” fight in the Oval Office late last week during discussions about a TikTok ban, the Washington Post reported. Trade advisor Peter Navarro accused Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin of being soft on China, as Navarro pushed for an outright ban of the Chinese-owned video-sharing app, according to the Post, as Mnuchin had been arguing for a TikTok sale to a US company. Navarro told the Post in a statement that President Trump relies on “strong, often opposing views,” when making decisions. “Because this is true, it is critical for a strong America that ‘what happens in the Oval Office, should stay in the Oval Office’ so I have no comment on what is clearly a malicious leak riddled… Continue...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook removed dozens of accounts it says were part of a troll farm pretending to be African-Americans in support of President Donald Trump and QAnon supporters, the company said, for violating its policies against coordinated inauthentic behavior. According to a report on its July enforcement activity, Facebook removed 35 Facebook accounts, three pages and 88 Instagram accounts for “violating our policy against foreign interference, which is coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a foreign entity.” Activity by the pro-Trump network originated in Romania, Facebook said, and posted on Instagram using hashtags such as “BlackPeopleVoteForTrump.” The pages had about 1,600 followers on Facebook, and about 7,200 people followed the… Continue...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has described the company’s potential TikTok deal as a “poison chalice.” In a wide-ranging interview with Wired, Gates makes it clear that Microsoft acquiring parts of TikTok won’t be easy or simple. “Who knows what’s going to happen with that deal,” says Gates. “But yes, it’s a poison chalice.” He also notes that being a big player in the social media business “is no simple game,” as Microsoft will have to contend with a whole new level of content moderation. Asked if Gates is wary of Microsoft getting into the social media game, he suggests that Facebook having some more competition is “probably a good thing” but that “having Trump kill off the only competitor, it’s pretty bizarre.” Gates seems as… Continue rea...

Facebook has removed one of the largest public QAnon groups for violating the company’s policies on misinformation, bullying, hate speech, and harassment, Reuters reported. The group, called Official Q/Qanon had almost 200,000 members, was deleted after numerous posts were taken down. A Facebook spokesperson told Reuters that the company was monitoring other QAnon groups as well. QAnon is a conspiracy theory that claims, among other things, that President Donald Trump is secretly planning to arrest high-profile Democratic politicians and celebrities for pedophilia or cannibalism. It’s become widespread across several social media platforms, and about a dozen Republican candidates for office have expressed support for QAnon’s views…. Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Money ...

A volunteer gets a vaccine on August 7, 2020 | Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images This week started with a whole lot of people getting very angry about someone being wrong on the internet. This time, it was computer scientist Steven Salzberg, who wrote a blog post on Forbes arguing that people should start vaccinating now — phase 3 clinical trials had just started. They seemed to be going well. Why not start passing out doses to willing, informed volunteers? Well, a whole bunch of reasons, most of which boil down to some variation of that’s what the trials are there for. The evidence that’s needed to move something into the third level of human testing is pretty high — but not high enough to justify use on the broader population, as biostatistician Natalie Dean pointed out in a New York Time...

Photo by JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images Capital One will pay an $80 million civil penalty for its role in a 2019 security breach that exposed the personal data of more than 100 million customers, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a scathing report on its investigation into the breach, the Office of the Comptroller of Currency, part of the US Treasury. said Capital One was aware its security practices were woefully insufficient, and that the company’s board of directors “failed to take effective actions to hold management accountable.” The breach happened in March and April of 2019, but Capital One was apparently not aware of the problem until mid-July. That’s when someone tipped the company to a public GitHub page where private Capital One data was available. That led… Conti...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A number of subreddits were taken over and vandalized on Friday, possibly as part of a coordinated campaign. Hackers reportedly posted messages or changed a subreddit’s design in support of President Donald Trump. “An investigation is underway related to a series of vandalized communities,” a Reddit spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. “It appears the source of the attacks were compromised moderator accounts. We are working to lock down those accounts and restore impacted communities.” Image: r/JapanWhat r/Japan looked like when it was vandalized. It’s unclear right now how the accounts were compromised. A post on r/subredditdrama listed dozens of subreddits that were affected, and many were quite… Continue reading… You Deserve...

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying satellites for the U.S. Air Force launches on June 25, 2019. | Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images The US Department of Defense has selected its two primary rocket companies for getting satellites into orbit in the years ahead: long-time military launch provider United Launch Alliance (ULA) and SpaceX. ULA will receive 60 percent of the department’s satellite launch contracts, while SpaceX will receive 40 percent. The two companies beat out rivals Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin to launch DoD missions between fiscal years 2022 and 2027. This is a big prize, as each individual launch can cost over $100 million. The DoD hasn’t committed to an exact number of launches over that five-year period, but they have awarded $316 million to SpaceX a...

Danielle Levitt/August Images Ava DuVernay is partnering with HBO Max and the team behind Twitter’s popular One Perfect Shot account to create a half-hour documentary series of the same name, the company announced today. One Perfect Shot will look at an iconic shot from different films, with the directors of those films walking viewers through a detailed breakdown of how it came to be. Each episode will feature a different director “walking through the scene in 360 moments that allow viewers to join an immersive exploration of moviemaking,” according to a press release. Essentially, think of the show as a celebration of cinematography. DuVernay, who directed A Wrinkle in Time, Selma, 13th, and created Netflix’s When They See Us, is set to narrate and executive… Continue reading&helli...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A new website tries to streamline the process of signing up to vote by mail. VoteByMail.io is a new service created by volunteers with work experience at several prominent companies, including Google, Intel, Dropbox, and Nike, that aims to help registered voters sign up for a mail-in ballot. The site is available in nine languages, and VoteByMail has partnered with multiple state and national organizations, including Vote.org, to support the launch. The site asks for your information, including your full address and name, and uses that information to locate your local election official and create a letter requesting a vote-by-mail ballot. After you fill it out, VoteByMail sends a copy of the request to the election official but also… Continue r...