Elon Musk breaks Twitter silence with photo with Pope

France24 –AFP, 2 July 2022 

The location and details of the meeting were not specified Handout
ELON MUSK'S TWITTER ACCOUNT/AFP

Rome (AFP) – American billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday broke his silence on the Twitter social media site, which he plans to buy, posting a picture of himself with Pope Francis. 

"Honored to meet @Pontifex yesterday," Musk tweeted next to a photograph of him and four of his children with the Argentinian-born pontiff. 

The location and details of the meeting were not specified by the Tesla and SpaceX boss, while the Vatican did not comment on his private audience with Pope Francis. 

Last week Musk said that his $44-billion move to take over Twitter remained held up by "very significant" questions about the number of fake users on the social network. 

The richest man in the world added then that there were also questions about Twitter's debt and whether shareholders will vote for the deal.

Facebook reverses course, won't ban lab virus theory

Yahoo – AFP, Rob Lever, May 27, 2021 

Facebook has reversed its policy banning posts suggesting Covid-19 emerged from a laboratory amid renewed debate over the origins of the virus, raising fresh questions about social media's role in policing misinformation. 

The latest move by Facebook, announced late Wednesday on its website, highlights the challenge for the world's largest social network of rooting out false and potentially harmful content while remaining open for discourse. 

"In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of Covid-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps," the statement said. 

"We're continuing to work with health experts to keep pace with the evolving nature of the pandemic and regularly update our policies as new facts and trends emerge." 

The new statement updates guidance from Facebook in February when it said it would remove false or debunked claims about the novel coronavirus which created a global pandemic killing more than three million. 

The move followed President Joe Biden's directive to US intelligence agencies to investigate competing theories on how the virus first emerged -- through animal contact at a market in Wuhan, China, or through accidental release from a research laboratory in the same city. 

Biden's order signals an escalation in mounting controversy over the origins of the virus. 

The natural origin hypothesis holds that it emerged in bats then passed to humans, likely via an intermediary species. 

This theory was widely accepted at the start of the pandemic, but as time has worn on, scientists have not found a virus in either bats or another animal that matches the genetic signature of SARS-CoV-2. 

The lab-leak theory, meanwhile, is gaining increasing traction in the United States, where it was initially fueled by former president Donald Trump and his aides and dismissed by many as a political talking point. 

A recent Wall Street Journal report, citing US intelligence findings, said three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick in November 2019, a month before Beijing disclosed the existence of a mysterious pneumonia outbreak. 

Pushback from the right 

Facebook's move, which could impact what some three billion users of its family of apps see, highlights the controversy over social media's aggressive efforts to root out misinformation on topics where facts may be evolving. 

The reversal may be "another exhibit for the possibility that there will be a swing back against the more heavy-handed moderation," tweeted Evelyn Douek, a Harvard University lecturer and researcher of online speech regulation. 

"When the pandemic started, there were many arguments that 'what platforms are doing for health misinfo, they should do for all misinfo all the time.' It was over-simplified then, and strikes me as untenable now." 

Facebook uses independent third-party fact checkers, including AFP, to debunk misinformation. Although the origins of the virus remain unproven, the lab leak theory has been subject to fact-checking. 

One fact checking organization, PolitiFact, reported last September that public health authorities had "repeatedly said the coronavirus was not derived from a lab" but earlier this month revised its guidance, noting: "that assertion is now more widely disputed," and saying it would continue to review the matter. 

The abrupt Facebook reversal prompted angry responses from conservatives and Trump supporters. 

"Wow! But they did suppress the story for a year, defaming Trump and Republicans for a 'conspiracy theory' blacklisting conservative press and banning us," tweeted Kelly Sadler, a blogger and former Trump aide. 

But Rebekah Tromble, director of Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics at George Washington University, said Facebook "is doing the right thing" by updating its guidance. 

"Information changes over time, and responsible organizations -- social media outlets and fact-checkers alike -- make decisions based on the best information available but remain open and willing to change their evaluations as new information arises," Tromble told AFP. 

"Facebook will undoubtedly receive blowback for this decision, as will fact-checkers. But that blowback will come from the same people and groups that have always been critical." 

Facebook in a separate statement said it was stepping up its efforts to curb misinformation by limiting the reach of users who "repeatedly" share false content. 

Until now, Facebook had only taken this action on individual posts, but now will clamp down on the users who are the largest spreaders of false content.

Related Articles:

Chinese citizen journalist jailed for Wuhan virus reporting

"Corona 1", Reykjavik, Iceland, Mar, 2020 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - 

(>13.46 Min - Reference to the Global Coronavirus crisis)

Chinese citizen journalist jailed for Wuhan virus reporting

Yahoo – AFP, 28 December 2020 

Authoroties said former Chinese lawyer and citizen journalist
Zhang Zhan had spread "False remarks" online.

A Chinese citizen journalist was jailed for four years Monday for her reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak began, her lawyer said, almost a year after details of an "unknown viral pneumonia" surfaced in the central China city. 

Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer who arrived at court in a wheelchair, was sentenced at a brief hearing in a Shanghai court for allegedly "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" during her reporting in the chaotic initial stages of the outbreak. 

Her live reports and essays were shared on social media platforms in February, grabbing the attention of authorities, who have punished eight virus whistleblowers so far as they curb criticism of the government's response to the outbreak. 

Beijing has congratulated itself for "extraordinary" success in controlling the virus inside its borders, with an economy on the rebound while much of the rest of the world stutters through painful lockdowns and surging caseloads a year on from the start of the pandemic in Wuhan. 

Controlling the information flow during an unprecedented global health crisis has been pivotal in allowing China's communist authorities to reframe the narrative in their favour, with President Xi Jinping being garlanded for his leadership by the country's ruling party. 

But that has come at a serious cost to anyone who has picked holes in the official storyline. 

The court said Zhang Zhan had spread "false remarks" online, according to one of her lawyers Zhang Keke, but the prosecution did not fully divulge its evidence in court. 

"We had no way of understanding what exactly Zhang Zhan was accused of doing," he added, describing it as "a speedy, rushed hearing." 

In return the defendant "didn't respond [to questions]... She refused to answer when the judge asked her to confirm her identity." 

The defendant's mother sobbed loudly as the verdict was read out, Ren Quanniu, another member of Zhang's defence team, told reporters who were barred from entering the court. 

Concerns are mounting over the health of 37-year-old Zhang, who began a hunger strike in June and has been force-fed via a nasal tube. 

Her legal team said her health was in decline and she suffered from headaches, dizziness and stomach pain, and that she had appeared in court in a wheelchair. 

"She said when I visited her (last week): 'If they give me a heavy sentence then I will refuse food until the very end.'... She thinks she will die in prison," Ren said before the trial. 

"It's an extreme method of protesting against this society and this environment." 

China's communist authorities have a history of putting dissidents on trial in opaque courts between Christmas and New Year in an effort to minimise Western scrutiny. 

Example made

The sentencing comes just weeks before an international team of World Health Organization experts is expected to arrive in China to investigate the origins of Covid-19. 

Zhang was critical of the early response in Wuhan, writing in a February essay that the government "didn't give people enough information, then simply locked down the city". 

"This is a great violation of human rights," she wrote. 

Rights groups and embassies have also drawn attention to her case, although diplomats from several countries were denied requests to monitor the hearing. 

"Zhang Zhan's case raises serious concerns about media freedom in China," the British embassy in Beijing said, urging "China to release all those detained for their reporting." 

Authorities "want to use her case as an example to scare off other dissidents from raising questions about the pandemic situation in Wuhan earlier this year", added Leo Lan, research and advocacy consultant at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders NGO. 

A United Nations official following the trial also expressed "deep concern" about the verdict. 

"We raised her case with the authorities throughout 2020 as an example of the excessive clampdown on freedom of expression linked to #COVID19 & continue to call for her release," the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a tweet. 

Zhang is the first of a group of four citizen journalists detained by authorities after reporting from Wuhan to face trial. 

Previous attempts by AFP to contact the other three -- Chen Qiushi, Fang Bin and Li Zehua -- were unsuccessful. 

Related Article:

"Corona 1", Reykjavik, Iceland, Mar, 2020 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - 

(>13.46 Min - Reference to the Global Coronavirus crisis)

Private psychotherapy notes leaked in major Finnish hack

Yahoo – AFP, 26 October 2020

The confidential treatment records of tens of thousands of psychotherapy patients in Finland have been hacked and some leaked online, in what the interior minister said Monday was "a shocking act." 

Many victims of the hack reported receiving emails with a demand for 200 euros
($236) in bitcoin to prevent the contents of their discussions with therapists
being made public. (Nicolas Asfouri)

Distressed patients flooded victim support services over the weekend as Finnish police revealed hackers accessed records belonging to private company Vastaamo, which runs 25 therapy centres across Finland. 

Thousands have filed police complaints over the breach, they added. 

Many patients reported receiving emails with a demand for 200 euros ($236) in bitcoin to prevent the contents of their discussions with therapists being made public. 

"The Vastaamo data breach is a shocking act which hits all of us deep down," Interior Minister Maria Ohisalo wrote on her website on Monday. 

Finland must be a country where "help for mental health issues is available and it can be accessed without fear." 

Ministers met for crisis talks this weekend, with further emergency discussions tabled for the coming week over the unprecedented data breach. 

"We are investigating an aggravated security breach and aggravated extortion, among other charges," Robin Lardot, the director of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation, told a news conference at the weekend. 

Lardot added that they believed the number of patients whose records had been compromised numbered in the tens of thousands. 

On Monday evening, Vastaamo said it had fired its CEO, Ville Tapio, after an internal enquiry discovered that he had concealed a March 2019 data breach from the board and the firm's parent company. 

The firm admitted flaws in the security of its customer data, "which allowed criminals to break into the database up until March 2019," Vastaamo said in a statement. 

The company's owner, PTK Midco Oy, on Monday launched court proceedings "in relation to its May 2019 purchase of Vastaamo," the statement added. 

'Justifiably worried' 

Security experts reported that a 10-gigabyte data file containing private notes between at least 2,000 patients and their therapists had appeared on websites on the so-called dark web. 

The hack, which targeted some of society's most vulnerable including children, has caused widespread shock in the Nordic country of 5.5 million, with ministers gathering on Sunday to discuss how to support the patients whose sensitive data had been leaked. 

"It is absolutely clear that people are justifiably worried not only about their own security and health but that of their close ones, too," Ohisalo told reporters late on Sunday. 

On Monday, authorities launched a website for victims of the cyberattack, offering advice and telling them not to pay the ransom demand. 

"Do not communicate with the extortionist, the data have most likely already been leaked elsewhere," the "Data Leak Help" site said. 

Mental health and victim support charities reported being overwhelmed with calls from distressed people fearing that their intimate conversations with their therapists would be publicly released. 

Nothing 'to be ashamed of' 

One of the recipients of a blackmail threat, the former MP Kirsi Piha, tweeted a screenshot of the ransom message along with a defiant reply to the hackers. 

"Up yours! Seeking help is never something to be ashamed of," Piha wrote. 

"I've seen a lot, but I haven't seen this," Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at data security firm F-Secure said in a statement. 

"I don't think there's a crime in our criminal history which would have more victims than this one." 

Hypponen, an internationally renowned cybersecurity specialist, said the perpetrator used the alias "ransom_man", and said he was only aware of one other patient blackmail case, where a cosmetic surgery clinic in Florida had a smaller amount of data stolen in 2019. 

On Monday, Finland's social care regulator said in a statement it was investigating Vastaamo's practices, including how well patients were kept informed of the breach. 

Meanwhile, the head of the state digital services agency DVV, Kimmo Rousku, said that the cyberattack could have been avoided if Vastaamo had used better encryption. 

DVV published a checklist on Monday for firms to make sure their digital security is in order. 

"Management needs to wake up," Rousku told public broadcaster Yle. 

A phone line offering legal advice had also been set up, the country's consumer authority announced.

EncroChat messages reveal at least ten cases of ‘bent coppers’ leaking info

DutchNews, September 17, 2020 

The investigation into millions of messages between criminals via encrypted service provider EncroChat has also yielded proof of police corruption and a special team has been tasked with the prosecution of the officers involved, police havesaid. 

Officials have not yet said how many police officers are involved and at what level, but at least two have been arrested following the EncroChat operation. 

Sources cited by the Telegraaf  say 10 serious cases involving the leak of information to criminals are currently being investigated. The search also yielded information about a network of lawyers, real estate brokers and notaries whose services helped criminals launder money, they said. 

Police did confirm information had been leaked to criminals but would not say more for operational reasons.  The sheer volume of messages – over 20 million – that have to be followed up must be dealt with meticulously to avoid false claims of corruption, police said. 

However, the first signs are serious enough to warrant a special team, police chief Henk van Essen said. ‘We have started a number of prosecutions and more will follow. The information on drug deals and money laundering as well as the corruption in the force have been given the highest priority.’ 

Van Essen said that there have always been ‘bent coppers’ but the fact that their number is increasing is worrying. 

‘A policeman can become corrupt through blackmail but can also simply be bought,’ Van Essen said. ‘Information is a goldmine for criminals. It can be anything from information on current investigations and people to addresses and cars. They are always on the lookout for people with access to this type of information, not only in the force but in companies as well.’ 

Software to flag up suspicious search behaviour by officers will be introduced next year, Van Essen said. ‘But we don’t want to check each and every email or app. We want a system built on trust but we must be realistic. There is corruption and we want to stamp it out. And an operation like EncroChat shows that no one is beyond the reach of the law.’

Realted Article

Dutch detectives unravel 3.6 million encrypted emailssent by criminals

Unilever to stop advertising on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in US

Yahoo – AFP, June 26, 2020

Consumer products giant Unilever said it would pause ads on Facebook,
Instagram and Twitter through 2020 (AFP Photo/LEX VAN LIESHOUT)

The Hague (AFP) - Consumer giant Unilever, home to brands including Ben and Jerry's and Marmite, said Friday it will stop advertising on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in the US until the end of 2020 due to the "polarized election period" there.

The Anglo-Dutch firm joined a growing list of brands set to stop buying ads on Facebook over the social media titan's perceived failure to crack down on hate speech and incitements to violence.

"We have taken the decision to stop advertising on @Facebook , @Instagram & @Twitter in the US," Unilever said in a post on Twitter.

"The polarized atmosphere places an increased responsibility on brands to build a trusted & safe digital ecosystem. Our action starts now until the end of 2020."

A Unilever spokeswoman said that the company had committed to engage with internet companies "but there is much more to be done, especially in the areas of divisiveness and hate speech during this polarized election period in the U.S."

"Continuing to advertise on these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society. We will be monitoring ongoing and will revisit our current position if necessary," the spokeswoman told AFP.

US Telecoms giant Verizon announced on Thursday that it was "pausing" its advertising on Facebook, the latest company to do so after the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called for the boycott as part of the "Stop the Hate for Profit" campaign.

The Unilever move however goes beyond Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram to take in Twitter.

Related Article:

Dutch brands talk to Facebook about hate speech, but none have yet pulled ads

Wrongful arrest based on face recognition system, complaint says

Yahoo – AFP, Rob Lever, June 24, 2020

Amid rising concerns over facial recognition technology used by law enforcement,
a black man in Detroit alleges he was wrongfully arrested on the basis of a flawed
algorithm (AFP Photo/SAUL LOEB)

Washington (AFP) - A flawed facial recognition algorithm led to the wrongful arrest of an African-American man in Detroit, according to a complaint filed Wednesday in a case highlighting concerns over the technology which critics say reinforces racial bias.

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing Robert Williams, said Wednesday it was the first known case of an unlawful arrest based on face recognition technology, which according to critics is often inaccurate in distinguishing faces of black people.

"Though Robert Williams may be the first known case, he is likely not the first person who was wrongfully arrested and interrogated based off a bogus face recognition hit," the ACLU said on Twitter.

"There are likely many people who just don't know that it was flawed technology that made them a target."

Williams wrote in the Washington Post that he was arrested in January outside his home and held for 30 hours, later learning he was wrongly identified based on surveillance footage from a robbery at a watch store.

"I never thought I'd have to explain to my daughters why daddy got arrested," Williams wrote. "How does one explain to two little girls that a computer got it wrong, but the police listened to it anyway?"

The news comes amid rising tensions over police misconduct following the deaths of several African Americans at the hands of law enforcement, and concerns that some technologies such as facial recognition may exacerbate discrimination.

Various studies show facial recognition systems used in the United States may be wildly inaccurate in attempting to identify blacks.

Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, an activist group, said the Williams case highlights how artificial intelligence technology can be abused to reinforce discrimination.

"This example cannot be reduced to a case of one bad algorithm," she said. "Instead what we are seeing is just a glimpse of how systemic racism can be encoded and reflected in AI systems."

Amid the recent unrest, some firms including IBM, Amazon and Microsoft said they would not be selling facial recognition technology to police departments until regulations are passed to ensure against misuse. But many other systems are widely used.

Seeking apology

In a formal complaint to the police department, ACLU attorney Phil Mayor asked for a dismissal of the charges, an expungement of the arrest record, and a public apology to Williams.

The lawyer said Williams has not waived his right to pursue further action in court.

The ACLU also said the police should stop using facial recognition technology as an investigatory tool, and that any photos of Williams should be removed from the agency's database.

Williams wrote of the harrowing experience of being handcuffed in front of his family and spending the night "on the floor of a filthy, overcrowded cell."

"As any other person would be, I was angry that this was happening to me," he said. "As any other black man would be, I had to consider what could happen if I asked too many questions or displayed my anger openly -- even though I knew I had done nothing wrong."

In a related move Wednesday, Boston's city council voted to ban the use of face recognition technology by law enforcement.

"This is a crucial victory for our privacy rights and for people like Robert Williams, who have been arrested for crimes they didn't commit because of a technology law enforcement shouldn't be using," said Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts.

Amazon vows to act on price-gouging on coronavirus goods

Yahoo – AFP, March 5, 2020

About half of Amazon sales come from third-party vendors as part of the
company's online "marketplace."

Amazon pledged Thursday to take steps to fight price gouging after a US senator complained of "unjustifiably high prices" on hand sanitizers and surgical masks to protect against coronavirus infections.

The US retail giant responded to a letter from Senator Ed Markey, who wrote that Amazon appeared to be profiting from panic buying related to the epidemic.

"We agree with Senator Markey -- there is no place for price gouging on Amazon and that's why our teams are monitoring our store 24/7 and have already removed tens of thousands of offers for attempted price gouging," an Amazon spokesperson said in an email.

"We are disappointed that bad actors are attempting to take advantage of this global health crisis and, in addition to removing these offers, we are terminating accounts."

About half of Amazon sales come from third-party vendors as part of the company's online "marketplace."

Markey questioned Amazon's vigilance after a series of media reports highlighted markups on some items of as much as 2,000 percent, with one report indicating the company's enforcement of its fair-pricing policy as "haphazard."

"No one should be allowed to reap a windfall from fear and human suffering," Markey said Wednesday. "I'm calling on Amazon to stop and prevent coronavirus-inspired price gouging."

Dutch tennis association fined €525,000 for selling members’ information

DutchNews, March 3, 2020 

Photo: Depositphotos.com

The Dutch tennis association KNLTB has been fined €525,000 by the Dutch privacy watchdog Autoriteit Persoonsgevens for infringing on the privacy of its members. 

The complaint dates back to 2018 when dozens of the organisation’s members complained about being emailed and phoned by companies with links to the KNLTB even though they had never agreed that their information should be sold. 

Under EU privacy legislation (GDPR), everyone should have been asked to agree. Nevertheless one sponsor was given the names and addresses of 50,000 members, another at least 300,000, the AP said in its ruling. 

The KNLTB, which says it plans to appeal against the fine, said it is extremely careful about what it does with members’ private information. 

In addition, the organisation says the size of the fine will have a major impact on its finances.

Apple, Broadcom ordered to pay $1.1bn for patent infringement

Yahoo – AFP, January 30, 2020

Both Apple and Broadcom indicated they planned to appeal the verdict finding
they infringed on a California university's patent (AFP Photo/Loic VENANCE,
JUSTIN SULLIVAN)

Los Angeles (AFP) - A Los Angeles jury on Wednesday ordered Apple and Broadcom to pay $1.1 billion to a California university for infringing wifi technology patents in what is thought to be one of the largest patent verdicts ever.

Apple was ordered to pay $837 million and Broadcom must pay $270 million to the California Institute of Technology.

Caltech had sued both tech giants in 2016, alleging that Apple products including iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches used Broadcom components that infringed on its patents related to wireless data transmissions.

While Broadcom made the chips at issue in the trial, jurors may have hit Apple with a bigger tab by because it makes billions of dollars selling iPhones and other devices that incorporate the technology.

"Think of the patented technology as a piece of property that was stolen and sold to someone else," said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group.

"It doesn't matter if they had a go-between steal it for them, they were not allowed to benefit from a theft even if they were downstream."

Tangled past

The analyst, who did not attend the trial, wondered whether an Apple relationship with Broadcom strengthened years ago during legal brawling with US chip giant Qualcomm played into the jury's decision.

Some industry insiders believe Apple supported Broadcom's failed bid to buy Qualcomm in a hostile takeover campaign.

Broadcom in 2018 abandoned efforts to take over US smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm after its bid was blocked by President Donald Trump over national security concerns.

Qualcomm had rejected the unsolicited offer from Broadcom, which makes an array of chips for wireless communications, set-top boxes and electronic displays.

Broadcom last year moved its headquarters from Singapore to California.

Meanwhile, Apple and Qualcomm agreed in early 2019 to "dismiss all litigation" against each other worldwide in what had been a sprawling battle over royalty payments.

Repercussions?

Both Apple and Broadcom planned to appeal the verdict.

"While we thank the members of the jury for their service, we disagree with the factual and legal bases for the verdict and intend to appeal," Broadcom said in response to an AFP inquiry.

In court documents, Apple and Broadcom had said Caltech's claims "are based solely on the incorporation of allegedly infringing Broadcom chips in Apple's iPhone, Mac, and other devices."

"Broadcom manufactures the accused chips, while Apple is merely an indirect downstream party whose products incorporate the accused chips," court filings argued.

Broadcom was the main target of the lawsuit but Apple was also named as it is one of Broadcom's biggest customers.

Caltech welcomed the ruling.

"As a nonprofit institution of higher education, Caltech is committed to protecting its intellectual property in furtherance of its mission to expand human knowledge and benefit society through research integrated with education," the institute said.

Analyst Enderle expected repercussions from the ruling to go beyond Apple to other Broadcom customers who used the chips at issue.

"Caltech will go down the list of Broadcom customers and look for out-of-court settlements with anyone who used the compromised technology," Enderle said.

The analyst wondered whether the jury award signaled a new onslaught of patent battles in the tech industry.

"Typically, we go through waves of patent wars," Enderle said.

"I think it's a case where, after a period of time, people age out or forget that there are significant penalties for this stuff."

Hundreds of Amazon employees criticize firm's climate stance

Yahoo – AFP, January 27, 2020

Amazon is frequently criticized over its carbon footprint due to its road transport
network and server farms for its cloud computing activities (AFP Photo/INA FASSBENDER)

San Francisco (AFP) - Hundreds of Amazon employees Sunday openly criticized the online retail giant's environmental record, defying the company's communications policy.

More than 300 signed a Medium blog post by Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ), which is pushing the company to go further in its climate change mitigation plan announced in September.

Group members have publicly criticized the company, and some have been warned that they could be fired.

"The protest is the largest action by employees since Amazon began threatening to fire workers for speaking out about Amazon's role in the climate crisis," the AECJ said.

"As Amazon workers, we are responsible for not only the success of the company, but its impact as well," said Sarah Tracy, a software development engineer at Amazon.

"It's our moral responsibility to speak up, and the changes to the communications policy are censoring us from exercising that responsibility."

It is common for companies to demand restraint from employees when it comes to publicly discussing the firm's activities and even more so when openly questioning them.

While the environment and climate change was the focus of many of the posts on Sunday, Amazon was also criticized for other activities such as providing artificial intelligence capabilities to companies in the oil sector.

Amazon, which in December said its workforce had hit 750,000, is often criticized over its carbon footprint because of the high energy consumption of its huge server farms for its lucrative cloud computing activities.

And it has built its success on the back of a huge road transport logistics network to ensure speedy deliveries, which generates a lot of greenhouse gases, the main culprit in climate change.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on September 19 last year made public environmental commitments, promising in particular that the firm would be carbon neutral by 2040.

The AECJ said this was insufficient and that Amazon should be aiming for a 2030 target.

"This is not the time for silencing voices. We need policies that welcome more open discourse, more problem-solving, and more urgent and concerted action about climate change and its causes," said Mark Hiew, a senior marketing manager at Amazon.

Responding to the letter, an Amazon spokesperson defended its policy on public statements about the company.

"While all employees are welcome to engage constructively with any of the many teams inside Amazon that work on sustainability and other topics, we do enforce our external communications policy and will not allow employees to publicly disparage or misrepresent the company or the hard work of their colleagues who are developing solutions to these hard problems," the company said.

Swiss minister says Facebook's Libra has 'failed' in current form

Yahoo – AFP, Julie JAMMOT, December 28, 2019

Swiss president and finance minister Ueli Maurer, pictured September 2019, has
called Facebook's planned Libra cryptocurrency a "failed" project (AFP Photo/
Johannes EISELE)

San Francisco (AFP) - The Swiss president and finance minister has delivered the latest blow to Facebook's planned Libra cryptocurrency, saying it has "failed in its current form," Swiss network SRF reported Friday.

"The central banks are not going to accept the basket of currencies" that Libra is supposed to be based on, Ueli Maurer, who is in his final days in the rotating presidency of the Swiss Confederation, Switzerland's federal council, told SRF.

Libra, a high-profile project of social network giant Facebook, is tentatively scheduled for a 2020 launch but has faced months of severe criticism from some of the world's most influential financial authorities.

In theory, Libra will be managed by a Geneva-based independent association linking several companies and non-profit groups.

But since early October, the online payment companies PayPal and Stripe, as well as Visa, Mastercard and others, have withdrawn from the project amid growing pressure from American and other regulators.

They have cited the potential for illicit uses of the currency and have underscored the battered reputation of California-based Facebook in matters of privacy and data protection.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, pictured October 2019, has expressed 

serious concerns about Facebook's Libra project (AFP Photo/Andrew 

CABALLERO-REYNOLDS)

Loss of 'sovereignty'

Countries and central banks -- for now the only entities legally permitted to issue currency -- have also expressed concern about a blow to their sovereignty.

In October, French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire bluntly expressed his concerns, saying, "Libra is not welcome on European soil."

"We will take steps with the Italians and Germans, because our sovereignty is at stake," he said, speaking in Washington on the sidelines of the fall meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Earlier this month, a US Federal Reserve official expressed American reservations.

"Without requisite safeguards, stablecoin networks at global scale may put consumers at risk," Fed Governor Lael Brainard said in a speech in Frankfurt.

Cryptocurrencies to date have suffered from "staggering" losses due to fraud and theft, Brainard said.

Facebook chairman Mark Zuckerberg, pictured October 2019, has said the Libra 

cryptocurrency will not be launched until it receives all needed approvals (AFP Photo/

MANDEL NGAN)

'Serious concerns'

Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency designed to provide stability -- avoiding the wild swings of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies -- by being pegged to relatively stable assets or currencies.

Libra is designed to make it easy for users of WhatsApp, a Facebook-owned messaging platform, to instantly send funds to friends or family.

The size of Facebook -- 2.2 billion people worldwide connect on at least one of its platforms, which also include Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger -- would give it the potential to disrupt the global financial system, making it far harder for central banks to manage, Fed chairman Jerome Powell told US lawmakers in July. He expressed "serious concerns."

The Libra association declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

But in October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before a congressional committee that Libra would not be launched until it received all necessary authorizations from the authorities.

In response to regulators' resistance, Zuckerberg last month opened the door to scaling back plans for Libra if it cannot win the needed approvals.