Facebook has shut down about 30,000 fake accounts in France to combat fake news

Image: Reuters

Facebook Inc said on Thursday it suspended 30,000 accounts in France as the social network giant steps up efforts to stop the spread of fake news, misinformation and spam. The move, which comes 10 days before the first round of a hotly contested French presidential election, is among the most aggressive yet by Facebook to move against accounts that violate its terms of service, rather than simply respond to complaints.

Facebook is under intense pressure in Europe as governments across the continent threaten new laws and fines unless the company moves quickly to remove extremist propaganda or other content that violates local laws. The pressure on social media sites including Twitter, Google’s YouTube and Facebook has intensified in the run-up to the elections in France and Germany.

Facebook already has a program in France to use outside fact-checkers to combat fake news in users’ feeds. Also on Thursday, Facebook took out full-page ads in Germany’s best-selling newspapers to educate readers on how to spot fake news. U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that the Russian government interfered with the U.S. election last year in order to help Donald Trump win the presidency. Officials say a similar campaign is under way in Europe to promote right-wing, nationalist parties and undermine the European Union.

In a blog post, Facebook said it was acting against 30,000 fake accounts in France. It said its priority was to remove suspect accounts with high volumes of posting activity and the biggest audiences. Two people familiar with Facebook’s process said the company had strengthened its formula for detecting deceptive accounts being run by automated means. As an example, the new process considers accounts that have smaller circles of friends and that therefore had been less of a priority previously.

A key motivator was the need to get tougher on misinformation ahead of the French elections, the people said, although the move also targets accounts that generated spam for financial gain. “We’ve made improvements to recognize these inauthentic accounts more easily by identifying patterns of activity — without assessing the content itself,” Shabnam Shaik, a Facebook security team manager, wrote in an official blog post.

The company is using automated pattern-recognition to identify repeated posting of the same content and increases in messaging. Thursday’s action follows other moves by Facebook to make it easier for users to report potential fraud and hoaxes.

Reuters

Publish date: April 14, 2017 1:20 pm| Modified date: April 14, 2017 1:20 pm

Nissan agrees to takeover Mitsubishi with a $2.29 billion investment; Masuka to stay

Image Credit: REUTERS

  20 Oct 2016 , 17:22

Nissan Motor Co Ltd said on Thursday it had completed a deal to take a controlling stake in Mitsubishi Motors Corp, and would be retaining the embattled automaker’s chief executive to ensure its recovery from a mileage cheating scandal. Japan’s No. 2 automaker has agreed to make a 237 billion yen ($2.29 billion) investment to acquire a 34 percent stake in Mitsubishi Motors, making it the single largest shareholder in its smaller peer.

The deal will make Mitsubishi Motors a member of an alliance between Nissan and French automaker Renault. The two companies said that the partnership would generate significant synergies in areas including purchasing and

French company Arianespace successfully puts Indian communication satellite GSAT-18 in orbit

Representational Image

  06 Oct 2016 , 10:49

An Indian communication satellite GSAT-18 was successfully put into orbit by Ariane 5 rocket belonging to French company Arianespace on Thursday, Indian space agency said. The rocket lifted off from its spaceport in Kourou (French Guiana). According to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) its Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka took control of GSAT-18 and performed the initial orbit raising activities by firing the motors onboard the satellite.

The satellite was placed in a circular geostationary orbit, ISRO said. GSAT-18 is India’s latest communication satellite with 48 transponders that receive and transmit communication signals. The 3,404 kg satellite will provide services in normal C-band, upper extended C-band and Ku-bands of the frequency spectrum.

The satellite carries Ku-band beacon as well to help in accurately pointing ground antennas towards the satellite. Its designed in-orbit operational life is about 15 years. “It is now the

Microsoft follows AWS into France with plan for new Azure data center

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke at a company event in Dublin on Oct. 3, 2016. Credit: Microsoft via IDG News Service


Peter Sayer
IDG News Service
Oct 3, 2016 9:22 AM
French businesses will be able to access Office 365, Dynamics 365 and Azure services from local servers, Nadella says

Microsoft is adding to its European cloud infrastructure, with plans to open new data centers in France next year, CEO Satya Nadella said Monday.

The company has already spent US$3 billion growing its European cloud capabilities. These include data centers in the U.K. hosting Azure and Office 365 services, and in Germany hosting Azure.

The French data centers will host Dynamics 365, Microsoft's new ERP and CRM offering, in addition to Azure and Office 365.

The company has already won over the the U.K.'s Ministry of Defence and German auto parts manufacturer ZF to its cloud services. Ireland's Health Service Executive and the Franco-Japanese car-making partnership Renault-Nissan Alliance are also customers, it said.

Key to winning European customers is the issue of "data sovereignty," according to Microsoft.

Data sovereignty is typically about ensuring data remains under the control of local laws, and in Europe those come at two levels.

Government rules on secrecy typically require that government data remain within national borders -- so data centers in the U.K. are vital if the U.K. government is to remain a customer, for example.

The storage and processing of personal information about European Union citizens faces other restrictions: It must only be done in jurisdictions offering the same level of privacy protection as EU law. While it's possible to export such data to the U.S. using legal mechanisms such as Privacy Shield, many companies are opting to keep things simple and keep the data within the EU.

The UK's recent "Brexit" referendum vote to leave the EU threatens to halve Microsoft's EU data center capacity, though, by putting UK servers outside the boundary if and when the exit happens. Adding more locations inside the EU will give Microsoft diversity.

"Trust and scale are some of the most important elements of our design plan for Microsoft cloud," CEO Satya Nadella said at a Microsoft event in Dublin on Monday.

Microsoft is not the only cloud company thinking of such things: Amazon.com last week announced that it will add a French location to its Amazon Web Services offering next year to increase geographic diversity. The company already has two data centers in the EU, in Ireland and Germany, and, in anticipation of Brexit, is building one in the U.K.

Mindful of recent attempts by U.S. authorities to subpoena email messages stored on its servers in Ireland, Microsoft has taken a hands-off approach to customer data in Germany, placing it under the control of a data trustee, T-Systems International, owned by German telco Deutsche Telekom.

Customer smashes iPhones and Macs in Apple Store in France

#APPLE

Image Credit: REUTER

By tech2 News Staff /  30 Sep 2016 , 21:14

An angry Apple customer smashed at least 14 iPhones, 4 Macs and 1 MacBook Air inside an Apple Store in France. The agitated customer went on a clear rampage inside the Apple store in Dijon, France. According to the reports by The Verge and the video posted on YouTube, the customer was calmly going around the store and smashing the Apple devices using an iron ball.

The video showing the destruction of Apple devices is uploaded by user “kekess _______” on YouTube, presumably only to upload videos related to this incident.  This video is one of the three where the angry customer is talking about his rights to return the device and refund. Other videos show him casually exiting the store on encountering security guards and attempting to avoid them outside the store.

Two mall security guards seem to be trying to pacifying and bring him under control while he was trying to escape the guards in the final video.  According to reports by French media website “Le Bien Republic,” the customer is in police custody at the time of writing the story. The reason, identity or the number of devices destroyed could not be confirmed at the time of writing but it sure is troubling. This comes right after the report where it is predicted thatiPhone sales can go further down in India.