Science, Technology, and Social Media

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly pushed back Tuesday against company employees who lashed out at him for not nixing a post on President Donald Trump’s profile calling rioters “THUGS.” Facebook’s adherence to free speech principles “show that the right action where we are right now is to leave this up,” he said during a question and answer session on a ...

Twitter and Reddit filed an amicus brief last week in support of a lawsuit challenging federal rules requiring visa applicants to register their social media handles with the United States government. The amicus brief supports a lawsuit the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed in 2019 after the State Department instituted the rule, which reportedly impacts roughly 14.7 million ...

After standing down from launch on Saturday, May 27 due to weather, SpaceX is now targeting Saturday, May 30 for Falcon 9’s launch of Crew Dragon’s second demonstration (Demo-2) mission from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This test flight with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on board the Dragon spacecraft will return ...

Twitter censored the White House’s official Twitter account after it shared and quoted a tweet from President Donald Trump Friday that the company’s moderators hit for “glorifying violence.” The account shared a tweet Trump composed early Friday morning in which he called people rioting and looting in Minneapolis, Minnesota “THUGS” and suggested that he will send in the military, adding ...

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took sole responsibility Wednesday night after his company applied a fact-check on a tweet from President Donald Trump suggesting California’s mail-in ballot move is “fraudulent.” Trump’s tweet Tuesday suggesting mail-in ballot votes are fraudulent could mislead people into believing they don’t have to register to get a ballot, Dorsey wrote on Twitter. He also asked people ...

SpaceX was targeting Wednesday, May 27 for Falcon 9’s launch of Crew Dragon’s second demonstration (Demo-2) mission from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The flight was scrubbed due to weather and will be rescheduled for May 30, 2020. The instantaneous launch window opens at 4:33 p.m. EDT, or 20:33 UTC, with backup instantaneous launch ...

Twitter fact-checked President Donald Trump Tuesday for suggesting California’s mail-in ballots are fraudulent, yet the company has declined to make the same move against a Chinese spokesman who suggested the U.S. inserted the coronavirus into China.  The company applied the fact check on Trump’s tweet only after media pundits lobbied Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to ban the president for supposedly ...

Youtube’s enforcement algorithm is automatically removing any comments that contain one of two Chinese-language phrases that are critical of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Any comment posted to YouTube, which is owned by Google, that contains the phrase “共匪,” which stands for “communist bandit,” or “五毛,” which translates to “wumao” and stands for “50-cent party”, is deleted within seconds without ...

President Donald Trump is considering forming a commission to review anti-conservative bias on social media platforms, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the idea. A potential White House-created commission would examine allegations of online bias and censorship, according to the report. The administration will also encourage the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Election Commission to conduct ...

Bob Holmes, Knowable Magazine The Covid-19 coronavirus has knocked our world off its axis. We won’t return to anything approaching normal — that is, life without social distancing, quarantines, masks, school closures and other control measures — until most of the world has been vaccinated against the virus. Everyone, therefore, has the same question on their mind: How fast will ...

Apple provided the Department of Justice investigators almost no help as they worked to collect cell phone data from the Pensacola, Florida shooter’s iPhone, federal law enforcement officials said Monday. Investigators needed a bit of luck to gain access to Second Lt. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani’s phone to collect cell phone data, which revealed his al-Qaida connections, Attorney General William Barr ...

Mission dedicated to front-line responders and those affected by COVID-19 Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., (May 17, 2020) – A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 501 rocket carrying the USSF-7 mission for the U.S. Space Force lifted off on May 17, 9:14 a.m. EDT, from Space Launch Complex-41. This marks the 84th successful launch of an Atlas V ...

Sometimes the most consequential events are little understood—or even noticed—as they unfold. For instance, on July 14, 1789, the day that French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille, King Louis XVI wrote in his diary, “rien” (nothing). That’s how disconnected Louis was from the tide of history. And soon, of course, he was disconnected from his head. In our era, on April ...

Facebook agreed to pay out a $52 million settlement to thousands of current and former content moderators who said they are suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome after viewing upsetting content on the job, The Verge reported Tuesday. Each moderator will receive a minimum of $1,000 and will be eligible for additional compensation if they are exhibiting other trauma due to ...

David Adam, Knowable Magazine For Peggy Whitson, what helped was a sense of purpose. Chris Hadfield advises focusing on the common threat and being aware of how your actions impinge on others. And John Rafferty says it’s crucial to shower and put on fresh clothes each day. The sense of isolation that these people felt when doing their jobs — ...