News of the Cyber World

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EU: Censorship Czar Resigns

EU Censorship Czar Resigns in Wake of Elon Musk Free Speech Battle, Citing ‘Questionable Governance’ in Brussels

Citing “questionable governance” in Brussels, Thierry Breton has resigned as European Commission’s top censorship czar in a surprise announcement in the wake of a public spat over his threats to ban Elon Musk’s X platform in the bloc.

In an explosive resignation letter posted on X, Frenchman Breton claimed that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had worked behind the scenes to replace him in his post as the EU’s Internal Market Commissioner as she seeks to build out her new government.

Breton, who spearheaded the bloc’s new draconian censorship law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), claimed that von der Leyen lobbied President Emmanuel Macron’s government in Paris to withdraw his nomination for a second term “for personal reasons” and that she had “in no instance” mentioned this to him.

“In light of these developments – further testimony to questionable governance – I have concluded that I can no longer exercise my duties in the College,” he wrote. “I am therefore resigning from my position as European Commissioner, effective immediately.”

According to Euronews, the Commission refused to confirm or deny whether von der Leyen had pushed for a replacement of Breton, merely saying that the EU chief “takes note and accepts the resignation” and “thanks him for his work.”

The surprise announcement from Breton also comes just weeks after he was accused by anonymous sources within Brussels of having gone rogue by publicly threatening an outright ban of Elon Musk’s X social media platform over so-called hate speech and supposed disinformation.
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Breton had also demanded that Musk censor his live interview with U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, warning against allowing “content that may incite violence, hate and racism in conjunction with major political – or societal – events around the world, including debates and interviews in the context of elections.”

The intervention from the top Eurocrat sparked accusations of “election interference” in the U.S. presidential race. The following day, EU sources briefed the press, claiming that Breton had not consulted with von der Leyen before making his threats of censorship against X.

“The EU is not in the business of electoral interference,” one EU official reportedly said at the time. “DSA implementation is too important to be misused by an attention-seeking politician in search of his next big job.”

The resignation of Breton will likely further complicate matters for von der Leyen as she seeks to form her new College of Commissioners, which serves as her effective cabinet in Brussels, already a tough task given the horse trading with various EU state governments needed to fill the posts.

Following his departure, French President Emmanuel Macron nominated former neo-liberal Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Stéphane Séjourné, who previously led Macron’s Renew Europe group in the European Parliament. Séjourné, currently serving as Macron’s Foreign Affairs minister, is also notable for previously being in a homosexual “civil union” partnership with former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.

Tesla Crisis: It's Hard to be a Firefighter

Green Inferno: Firefighters Used 50,000 Gallons of Water to Extinguish Tesla EV Big Rig Fire

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it took the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) 50,000 gallons of water to extinguish the flames sparked from an electric Tesla Semi crash.

The NTSB is investigating the cause of a Tesla Semi truck single-vehicle crash and fire that resulted in the closure of the eastbound lanes of California’s Interstate 80 for 15 hours last month.

Extinguishing the fire required 50,000 gallons of water, as well as aircraft overhead that dumped f ire retardant, according to a preliminary report released Friday by the NTSB.

“Traffic on I-80 was diverted as emergency responders worked to control the fire, using about 50,000 gallons of water to extinguish the flames and cool the vehicle’s batteries,” the NTSB said.

The truck was then transported to an open-air facility and monitored for 24 hours. The eclectic truck’s battery system did not reignite, a constant concern in Tesla fires due to “thermal runaway.”

The semi truck, driven by a Tesla employee, was traveling to a Tesla facility in Sparks, Nevada, on August 19 when it “struck a traffic delineator permanently mounted on a steel post, collided with a tree about 12.5 inches in diameter, and continued down an earthen slope to rest against several trees,” the NTSB said.
The truck’s “lithium-ion electric battery system ignited after the roadway departure, resulting in a post-crash fire,” the agency added. The driver was not injured.

CAL FIRE, along with the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), responded to the scene. Tesla also deployed a technical expert to the scene to help assess “high-voltage hazards and fire safety,” the NTSB noted.

“Air quality measurements were conducted, and a thermal scanner monitored the batteries’ temperature,” the agency added.

The NTSB is currently investigating the matter, with the intent to issue safety recommendations to prevent similar events from transpiring.

Facebook Bans Russian Times (RT) & Others

Facebook Bans RT and Other Russian State Media

Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – said on Monday that Russian state media outlets have been banned from its platforms worldwide for “foreign interference activity.”

Meta said its expanded “enforcement against Russian state media outlets” was undertaken after “careful consideration.”

The ban specifically included RT, formerly known as “Russia Today,” and Rossiya Segodnya, which owns Sputnik News and RIA Novosti. Meta’s announcement said it would ban “other related entities” as well.

Meta first began taking action against Russian disinformation operations about two years ago. Monday’s action was a sharp escalation, possibly prompted by new sanctions against Russian state media announced by the U.S. State Department on Friday.

The State Department sanctions targeted RT, which Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused of maintaining “covert intelligence capabilities” and “longstanding propaganda disinformation efforts.”

Blinken said RT’s staff includes a “unit with cyber-operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence.”

“Our most powerful antidote to Russia’s lies is the truth. It’s shining a bright light on what the Kremlin is trying to do under the cover of darkness,” Blinken said.

Two weeks ago, the Department of Justice (DoJ) unsealed an indictment against two Russian nationals working for RT who allegedly funded several “covert projects” in the United States, including $10 million funneled to Tennessee-based Tenet Media.

RT had a sizable presence on Meta platforms before the ban, with about 7 million followers on Facebook and over a million on Instagram.

The Russians did not take their eviction from Facebook and Instagram well. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov furiously accused Meta’s platforms of “discrediting themselves” with “selective actions against Russian media.”

“We have an extremely negative attitude towards this. And this, of course, complicates the prospects for normalizing our relations with Meta,” Peskov fumed in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.

“It’s cute how there’s a competition in the West: who can try to spank RT the hardest, in order to make themselves look better,” RT said in response to its ban.

“Meta/Facebook already blocked RT in Europe two years ago. Now they’re censoring information flow to the rest of the world,” the statement said.

“Don’t worry, where they close a door, and then a window, our ‘partisans’ – or in your parlance, guerrilla fighters – will find the cracks to crawl through, as by [the] Biden administration’s admission, we are apt at doing,” RT taunted.

Other social media platforms have taken action to restrict or ban Russian state media in recent months. YouTube banned RT, Sputnik, and other Russian media outlets in March, for example.

DNA Website Hacked

DNA Service 23andMe Settles $30 Million Lawsuit over Massive Data Breach

Genetic testing company 23andMe has agreed to pay $30 million to settle a class action lawsuit stemming from a data breach that exposed the personal information of over 6.9 million customers.

The Verge reports that 23andMe, the popular genetic testing company, has reached a settlement agreement to resolve a class action lawsuit filed by customers affected by a massive data breach in 2023. The breach, which the company disclosed in October of that year, exposed sensitive information of more than 6.9 million users, including names, birth years, and ancestry data.

As part of the proposed settlement, 23andMe will compensate the affected customers and provide them with access to a three-year security monitoring program. The settlement, which still requires approval from the judge, aims to address the concerns raised by the plaintiffs regarding the company’s failure to adequately protect their privacy.

The data breach, attributed to a tactic known as credential stuffing, involved hackers using recycled login credentials from previous security breaches to gain unauthorized access to 23andMe accounts. However, it wasn’t until December that the company confirmed the full extent of the breach’s impact.

In January 2024, customers filed a class action lawsuit against 23andMe in a San Francisco court, alleging that the company had not only failed to safeguard their personal information but also neglected to properly notify customers with Chinese or Ashkenazi Jewish heritage that they had been specifically targeted by the hackers when their data was put up for sale on the dark web.

The breach dealt a significant blow to 23andMe, which was already struggling financially. CEO Anne Wojcicki’s attempt to take the company private earlier this year was rejected by the special committee last month. The settlement agreement acknowledges concerns about the company’s financial situation, stating, “Any litigated judgment significantly more than the Settlement is likely to be uncollectable.”

Newsom Bans Deepfakes

Newsom Signs Bills Banning ‘Deepfakes’ and ‘Disinformation’ in Elections

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed two bills on Tuesday aimed at banning “deepfakes” — digitally manipulated video or images — of candidates before elections, as well as at prohibiting digital “disinformation” during elections.

The controversial legislation has been described as a direct response to X owner Elon Musk, who shared a deepfake parody of Vice President Kamala Harris, which combined real quotes with a fake but convincing Harris voiceover.

(Breitbart News may be legally prohibited from sharing the video, lest it run afoul of the law — pending inevitable First Amendment challenges.)

The two bills, AB 2655 and AB 2839, are related. The first requires “large online platforms” to “block the posting of materially deceptive content related to elections in California, during specified periods before and after an election.”

It also bars “materially deceptive content,” which is defined as “audio or visual media that is digitally created or modified, and that includes, but is not limited to, deepfakes.” That could, in theory, include a broad range of political speech — such as Kamala Harris’s false claims that former President Donald Trump once praised neo-Nazis, a claim known as the “very fine people hoax.”

The second bill targets deepfakes,  which show “[a] candidate for any federal, state, or local elected office in California portrayed as doing or saying something that the candidate did not do or say if the content is reasonably likely to harm the reputation or electoral prospects of a candidate.” There are exceptions for satire, parody, and news reporting, as long as the “deepfake” is accompanied by a disclaimer.

Musk About to Sue FAA

Elon Musk Vows to Sue FAA over Agency’s ‘Lawfare’ Against SpaceX

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced that his company will file a lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in response to a proposed $633,009 fine related to unapproved launches last year, which Musk calls “lawfare.”

Quartz reports that the FAA has proposed a substantial fine of $633,009 against Elon Musk’s SpaceX, citing the company’s use of unapproved plans during two separate launches in 2023. The aerospace firm, which currently dominates the commercial space launch market, is now facing legal consequences for what the government claims is non-compliance with safety requirements.
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According to the FAA, SpaceX submitted a request in May 2023 to revise a plan related to its license to launch rockets from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The revisions included the addition of a new launch control room and the removal of a readiness poll from its procedures. However, in June 2023, SpaceX proceeded to use the unapproved launch control room for a mission and failed to conduct the required poll. As a result, the FAA is proposing a $175,000 fine for each of these violations. Furthermore, the FAA is seeking an additional $283,009 penalty in connection with SpaceX’s unapproved use of a rocket propellant farm in July 2023.

In response to the proposed fines, Elon Musk took to social media platform X, which he owns, to announce that SpaceX will be filing a lawsuit against the FAA for what he termed “regulatory overreach.” Musk characterized the proposed fines as “lawfare,” a term often used to describe the use of legal systems and institutions to delegitimize an opponent.
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This development comes on the heels of SpaceX’s recent criticism of the FAA, claiming that regulations were hindering its ability to fly rockets. The company cited fines and inquiries from government agencies as obstacles to its operations. Additionally, SpaceX claimed that the FAA had delayed its fifth test of the Starship megarocket from September to November due to “superfluous environmental analysis.”

Breitbart News previously reported that the FAA had grounded the Falcon 9 rocket after a landing mishap:

In a statement released on Wednesday, the FAA announced that while no public injuries or property damage were reported, they are requiring an investigation into the incident. This marks the second time in less than two months that the FAA has grounded SpaceX rockets, with a similar declaration made following a Falcon 9 upper-stage failure on July 12 during the Starlink 9-3 mission, resulting in the loss of 20 satellites.

Jon Edwards, SpaceX vice president of Falcon Launch Vehicles, expressed sadness over the loss of the booster in a social media post, stating, “Losing a booster is always sad. Each one of them has a unique history and character. Thankfully this doesn’t happen often, due to the robust design and vigilance of the team.” He further added that SpaceX is working diligently to understand the root cause and implement corrective actions as soon as possible, emphasizing that the incident was purely a recovery issue and posed no threat to the primary mission or public safety.

Secret Service on Musk

Secret Service Probes Elon Musk’s ‘Joke’ About Assassination Attempts

The U.S. Secret Service is reportedly probing Elon Musk’s X post pointing out that “no one” is “trying to assassinate” President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris following two attempted assassinations on former President Donald Trump’s life. Musk later deleted his post, claiming it was a joke.

On Sunday, after Trump survived the second assassination attempt on his life within the span of two months, an X account asked, “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?” to which Musk replied, “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala ????”
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After facing backlash, Musk deleted his X post and said that it had been intended as a joke.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the Secret Service told Bloomberg that the records the agency has regarding Musk’s X post were “compiled for law enforcement purposes” and are being withheld because “disclosure could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.”

Secret Service spokesperson Nate Herring told the outlet that the agency “is aware of the social media post made by Elon Musk.”

“As a matter of practice, we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence. We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees,” Herring added.

Bloomberg reporter Jason Leopold, who said he is no stranger to reporting on “prominent public figures who landed on the Secret Service’s radar,” predicted “The worst that will likely happen if the Secret Service pays a visit to Musk is he’ll be inconvenienced and he’ll have to prove he doesn’t pose an imminent threat” to Biden and Harris.

Leopold also suggested that Musk “may never even hear from the Secret Service, which was the case when former Dukes of Hazzard star John Schneider called for Biden and his son, Hunter, to be hanged in a post on X last year.”

“The Secret Service determined Schneider’s post was only a ‘veiled threat’ and declined to take any action,” Leopold recalled.

The Bloomberg reporter also noted a 2018 incident in which rapper Eminem was investigated by the Secret Service over some of his song lyrics, and began to “rap along” with agents as they read him his own lyrics during the interview.

For his part, Musk took to X on Monday to write, “Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X.”

FTC on Biden Admin Overreach

FTC Commissioner Warns Biden-Harris Overreach Could Target Conservatives on Tech Platforms

Republican FTC Commissioner Melissa Holyoak published a statement on Thursday expressing concern with Big Tech facilitating content harmful to children, but also warning that the Biden-Harris FTC could take actions that result in the censorship of Americans’ online speech.

“How social media companies view and treat users increasingly shapes civic discourse and determines the extent of Americans’ freedoms to participate in the modern public square,” Holyoak said.

In 2020, during the Trump administration, the FTC issued orders to nine tech companies — Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, WhatsApp, Snap, Discord, Reddit, Twitter, and Amazon — seeking to examine their data practices and how they operate.

Some of the key findings in the FTC report include revelations that “Companies’ deletion practices varied and may not reflect what consumers expect.” That is, while some companies claim to delete data, they don’t actually follow through with it.

Users might assume that “deletion” means a social media platform has permanently erased their data, but companies have instead been found to “de-identify” data, meaning the data was made anonymous. However, the data could potentially be subject to “re-identification,” the report points out.

Another problematic finding is that companies may have the technical capacity to detect users under age 13, and they often treated teens as adults.

Moreover, kids’ and teen’s data were generally not differentiated from adults’ when shared, and most companies reported that they would not fulfill a parent or legal guardian’s request to delete a teen user’s data.

Other key findings involved companies having difficulty describing the extent of their data collection, and sharing data with foreign entities, which could mean exposing user data to foreign governments.

The report also found that companies have commonly used automated systems (or increasingly AI) to drive users’ experiences on social media, and that their revenues have relied heavily on advertising, which means that consumers are likely paying for zero-price services with their data and information.

Holyoak stressed that she doesn’t support the current administration’s analysis, as it may lead to censorship and the suppression of Americans’ online speech.

Cuba: Memes Are Illegal

Cuba Sentences Man to 2.5 Years in Prison for Sharing Memes

Cuba’s communist regime sentenced dissident José Manuel Barreiro Rouco to two and a half years in prison for having privately shared anti-regime memes with his family, Martí Noticias reported on Wednesday.

Barreiro Rouco is a 52-year-old barber who lives in the city of Cienfuegos and has been a member of Cuba’s Citizens’ Movement for Reflection and Conciliation (MCRR), a local dissident group, since 2010.

The Cuban dissident was initially arrested on June 15, 2023, in the Cienfuegos municipality of Aguada de Pasajeros. At the time, Castro regime officials charged him with crimes against the security of the state and relationships with alleged “counter-revolutionary” groups.

The dissident’s nephew, Jam Pérez Aguiar, explained in a Facebook post on Saturday that the Castro regime tried to fabricate other crimes the courts did not recognize after his uncle proved “his innocence to the point of exhaustion,” but he remained in prison for six months until December 30, when he was placed under house arrest.

Barreiro Rouco maintained a private WhatsApp group chat titled “Family” in which he and other relatives privately exchanged memes criticizing Castro regime officials, including the regime’s figurehead president, Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Martí Noticias explained that Barreiro Rouco was tried and sentenced on Monday by a Castro regime court that found him guilty of “carrying out denigrating and offensive actions that affect the honor and integrity of relevant figures of the Cuban Revolution,” including Díaz-Canel.

According to the regime prosecutors, Barreiro Rouco shared “images in which degrading epithets” were attributed to Díaz-Canel, nonagenarian communist dictator Raúl Castro, and his brother, late murderous dictator Fidel Castro, to the messaging group.

“That was a family WhatsApp, and they [police investigators] knew about it after they seized the phone. The memes are not public; the memes were exchanged between brothers, cousins, families, uncles,” MCRR president Juan Alberto De la Nuez told Martí Noticias.

“In the trial, they could not prove that the memes were public. It is an injustice,” he added.

Cuban journalist José Raúl Gallego, who resides in Mexico, told Martí Noticias that Barreiro Rouco’s case is an example of the extreme human rights violations that exist in Cuba.

“We are talking about a person who is being asked to serve two and a half years in prison for sharing images that alluded to leaders of the regime in a private group of his family of 11 people,” Gallego said.

“In other words, how extreme is the persecution, the abuses, the paranoia, that they can imprison a person for what he shares with his family in a closed environment that has no reach whatsoever?” he questioned.

Gallego, in a Facebook post, stressed that there is no need to go to Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, or “anywhere else to exemplify what it means to live in flagrant violation of the most basic human rights” and to show “the extremes to which dictatorships go.”

The Cuban journalist stated that Barreiro Rouco’s case is not an exception “but the norm that has been applied for 65 years.”

“Tens of thousands of people have been imprisoned, expelled, punished, beaten, and intimidated for a simple comment, a joke, or for saying out loud or in a half-voice what many people think,” he observed.

UK: Chinese EV's Weaponised by Beijing

Chinese Electric Vehicles Could Be ‘Weaponised’ by Beijing, Report Warns

The British government’s open-doors approach to electric vehicles from Communist China threatens to undercut domestic manufacturing and expose the country to national security risks, with a think tank warning that EVs could be “weaponised” by Beijing.

A report from the China Strategic Risks Institute (CSRI) warned that the growing market share of and dependency on Chinese-made electric vehicles in Britain presents both “economic and security risks” to the United Kingdom.

The report noted that the UK’s domestic car industry is responsible for 198,000 manufacturing jobs, representing 2.5 per cent of the country’s entire GDP.

However, given Communist China’s subsidization of its burgeoning EV sector, producing an excess of five to ten million cheaply-produced cars per year, the failure by Westminster to impose import restrictions will threaten the future of British car manufacturing.

This process has already begun to have major impacts, with the CSRI claiming that Chinese-made EVs have increased their UK market share from just 2 per cent in 2019 to 33.4 per cent in the first half of 2023.

The think tank warned that London’s refusal to levy tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, as opposed to the neighbouring European Union, could result in Britain becoming a “dumping ground and a potential backdoor into the European market” for Beijing. This could represent a point of friction between the UK and its allies in Europe as well as in the United States, potentially threatening trade with its closest partners, the CSRI said.

Yet, the threats posed by flooding the UK with cars made in China are not merely contained to the economic realm, with the CSRI warning that components within the foreign EVs could be “weaponised” by the communist nation.