Tech Roundup: Facebook Under Scrutiny, Google Sustainability Updates & More

[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]

• Singapore passes new legislation that's aimed at countering foreign interference, enabling law enforcement authorities to compel Internet service providers and social media platforms to provide user information, block content, and remove applications used to spread content deemed hostile.
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rejects claims that the company prioritises profits over user safety, stating it "misrepresents our work and our motives" and that "the argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical"; addresses the six-hour-long outage that took down all of its services, noting "the deeper concern with an outage like this isn't how many people switch to competitive services or how much money we lose, but what it means for the people who rely on our services to communicate with loved ones, run their businesses, or support their communities."
• The statement comes following a series of explosive disclosures from whistleblower and former employee Frances Haugen about preferential disciplinary treatment for VIP users, and how its products are "riddled with flaws that cause harm" to young users, are used to "promote human trafficking and domestic servitude" and have a poor track record of actually identifying posts on topics such as COVID-19 misinformation and other inciting content, largely in part driven an algorithmic design that steers users toward high-engagement posts that in some cases can be toxic as opposed to encouraging meaningful social interactions, and that the company misled investors and advertisers about its "shrinking" teen and young-adult user bases and about the actual number of Facebook users.
• The European Parliament votes in favour to a resolution banning law enforcement from using facial recognition systems; argues the use of AI by law enforcement in applications such as facial recognition technologies "can have vastly varying degrees of reliability and accuracy and impact on the protection of fundamental rights and on the dynamics of criminal justice systems," that "the routine deployment of algorithms, even with a small false positive rate, can result in false alerts outnumbering correct alerts by far," and "must comply with the requirements of data minimisation, data accuracy, storage limitation, data security and accountability."

• Apple announces new requirements that mandate third-party apps to have a provision for users to delete their accounts starting January 31, 2022; to potentially face new antitrust case in the E.U. next year over Apple Pay terms and for blocking competitors from accessing the NFC chip in its devices, in a move that could force it to open its mobile payment system to rivals.
• Pinterest rolls out new promotion and advertising tools for brands, including slideshow ads for catalogues, to promote their products to users on its platform, as rival Snap adds Snapchat creator monetisation programs, including Spotlight Challenges, which pays over US$ 25,000 to creators using specific AR lenses, sounds, or topics.
• Twitter tests new prompts that gives users pointers for maintaining civility before they join a potentially controversial conversation; announces plans to offload MoPub, the mobile ad platform it bought back in 2013 for nearly US$ 350 million, to mobile game and marketing software maker AppLovin in a deal worth US$ 1.05 billion.
• Google rolls out new updates to Maps, Search, Shopping, Travel and Nest to help consumers save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by suggesting eco-friendly routes, highlight the carbon emissions associated with flights, and labelling hotels with sustainable practices; to invest US$ 1 billion to support "digital transformation" across Africa, including laying a subsea cable and offering low-interest loans for small businesses, and equity investments into startups in the region.
• U.K. media regulator Ofcom lays out new guidelines that require TikTok, Snapchat, OnlyFans, and other video platforms to verify ages and remove harmful matter — including terrorist content, child sexual abuse material, racism and xenophobia — swiftly or face fines.
• Amazon updates Alexa on Android and iOS with a new opt-in feature to wait longer for users to finish speaking, with an aim to help those with speech impediments.
• Yubico, the maker of hardware-based security keys, debuts YubiKey Bio (for US$ 80), the company’s first-ever fingerprint-based biometric security key, allowing passwordless multi-factor authentication (MFA) logins using fingerprints as a means to verify users' identity.