James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
Excel spreadsheet issue blamed for missing COVID-19 cases in UK
A total of 15,841 COVID-19 cases were recently not reported in the U.K., Public Health England announced Sunday, and it seems Microsoft Excel was to blame — along with a dash of human error. PHE said that from Sept. 25 to Oct. 2, those cases were not reported in the daily figures announced to the public. ...
New EU regulations aim to address power of US big tech monopolies
The European Union has drafted rules that could result in profound changes to big tech’s hold on power in Europe, according to a report today. Under the “Digital Services Act,” companies such as Google LLC, Facebook Inc., Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. might have to start sharing data they’ve collected on Europeans with EU companies. ...
TikTok launches US elections app to fight misinformation
In an effort to fight misinformation, TikTok announced today that it’s launching an in-app guide for the 2020 U.S. election. The guide will be available today to all users inside the U.S. and will be accessible either on TikTok’s Discover page or will appear with various search results related to the election. The company said ...
Leaked data indicate Trump 2016 campaign used targeted ads to suppress Black votes
The 2016 Trump presidential campaign used ads to try to persuade millions of Black Americans not to vote, according to a Channel 4 report published today. Channel 4 reported that it had exclusively obtained a 5-terabyte cache of data used by Trump’s campaign. It included information on more than 200 million Americans and included 5,000 ...
Facebook and Twitter take down fake Russian accounts ahead of US election
As the U.S. election season enters its stretch run, Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. announced today that they have removed hundreds of accounts linked to so-called bad actors in Russia. Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, said in the blog post that coordinated inauthentic behavior had been discovered on the platform. The accounts were ...
Facebook says it won’t pull out of EU after all but insists something must change
After a court document this week suggested Facebook Inc. might be forced to close its business in the EU, the company now says it’s not going to happen. Earlier this month, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission stated that its investigation found that Facebook wasn’t substantially protecting EU users’ data from the prying eyes of the U.S. ...
YouTube to exploit artificial intelligence to enforce age restrictions
Google LLC-owned video site YouTube announced today that it will introduce more advanced AI to ensure younger people aren’t watching videos designed for an older audience. Up until now, the company has asked creators to put age restrictions on their videos, with some content being flagged by the algorithm only if it is found to ...
Facebook says it could be forced to leave EU over data regulation
Facebook Inc. says it might have to pull its services from countries in the European Union if it can’t transfer data to the U.S. Earlier this month, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission announced that after an investigation it found that Facebook users in Europe did not have substantial protection from U.S. government surveillance. It said the ...
Facebook to impose restrictions on staff talking about politics and social issues
Facebook Inc. told employees today that it will introduce new restrictions on what social and political issues staff can discuss. According to reports, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told staff during a weekly employee Q&A session that new rules will be introduced, although the exact nature of those rules won’t be announced until next week. The move ...
Amazon to open 1,000 delivery hubs in the US
Amazon.com Inc. is setting itself up to challenge competitor Wal-Mart Stores Inc. even more by opening small delivery hubs throughout the U.S. Bloomberg reported today that people with familiar with the matter say the company at first will open 1,000 stores in cities dotted all over the country, but that number will increase to 1,500. The aim ...