It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, June 24, 2023
Kenyan president slams 'unfair' global lending system
"We don't want to say 'the North is the one which brought about this problem, They are the emitters'. That is also true, but we don't want to go there. Today we are all in shit."
Benjamin LEGENDRE Fri, June 23, 2023 President of Kenya William Ruto told AFP Africans are 'tired' of being painted as victims 'looking for favours' (JOEL SAGET)
Kenyan President William Ruto does not hold back when describing the global lending system: it is "unfair, it's punitive, it doesn't give everybody a fair chance".
Ruto made his blunt assessment in an interview with AFP on the sidelines of a two-day summit in Paris seeking to revamp the international financial order to better help developing nations combat poverty and climate change.
Currently, poorer countries have to pay as much as eight times more in interest rates than rich nations "because they are profiled as risky", Ruto said.
But the Kenyan leader said his country is not looking for handouts.
"Some people do not want a mechanism where people are equal, they want us to continue this conversation where we are looking for help," Ruto said.
"We are tired of this story" painting Africans as "victims of climate change" who are "looking for favours" and "complaining", he said.
"We do not want to look for help. We want to participate in the solution," Ruto said late Thursday, on the eve of the summit's final day.
He wants to attract private investment more than development aid for his eastern African nation, but he is also calling for reform of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
He also backs a rethink of debt management of developing nations and the deployment of international taxes on shipping, aviation and financial transactions.
Kenya pays $10 billion a year to service its debt.
"If we use it instead for development of the country, it will be immediate, it will be big resources and it will have huge impact," Ruto said.
He said this could be achieved if the debt owed to international lenders, including the World Bank and IMF, were converted into a 50-year loan facility with a 20-year grace period.
This way, Kenya would "not run away" from its debt, which would have "just been rescheduled."
French President Emmanuel Macron told the summit, which ends Friday, that the global financial system needs a jolt as "countries shouldn't ever have to choose between reducing poverty and protecting the planet". - 'Avoiding the blame game' -
Western nations have so far failed to meet their pledge to provide $100 billion in annual aid by 2020 to help developing countries green their economies and build resilience against future climate change.
Such broken promises have undermined trust between developing and wealthy nations as they head into the COP28 climate summit in Dubai later this year.
Ruto is keen to show a strong African climate response and Kenya is hosting a key regional meeting, the Africa Climate Summit, in early September.
Some African leaders have noted that Western powers were quick to provide billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine following Russia's invasion, while dragging their feet on climate change.
"Ukraine is nothing compared to the problem we face with climate change" which poses an "existential threat to everybody", Ruto said.
"We must set aside all these other issues and deal with climate change together."
But Ruto said it was not only up rich nations to pay the world's climate bill.
"We want to pay, all of us," he said. "As we continue the tension and the finger pointing, the world is burning."
"We want to repair (trust) by avoiding the blame game," he added.
Ruto used some salty language to drive home his point.
"We don't want to say 'the North is the one which brought about this problem, They are the emitters'. That is also true, but we don't want to go there. Today we are all in shit."
How a family's racial history made this journalist rethink racial justice
And why social justice movements have so often "fizzled out."
CNN Fri, June 23, 2023 CNN's John Blake became "pretty jaded and almost cynical" about the state of race relations in America, but writing about his own family history made him more hopeful. (John Nowak/CNN)
Journalist John Blake has witnessed and written about civil rights for more than three decades, but it wasn’t until he explored his own personal history that he concluded that today’s racial justice movements are missing a key ingredient.
“From my personal experience covering all these racial issues, I have covered one racial reckoning after another that just fizzled out,” said Blake, a senior writer for CNN.
“We write a lot about policy and law and changes in law, and we need to do that,” Blake said in an interview with Yahoo News. “But I think we have forgotten how important it is to create these communities” where people of different races forge friendships and have regular interactions.
“I think that is also an indispensable part of fighting racism, and I think we’ve forgotten that,” he said.
Blake, whose father was African American, said he was a “closeted biracial” kid, who began to mark his mother’s race as Black on school forms even though she was white. That’s because his mom disappeared when he was very young, and he was told that her family didn’t like Black people.
He developed a hostility toward white people, which began to change when Blake met his mother at age 17 and found she had been institutionalized for mental illness for years.
“All these things that I had been taught about white people — all these assumptions — she shattered that within the first 15 minutes of meeting her. She didn’t have to say a word,” he told Yahoo News.
“So I tell people, there are things you can only learn when you’re meeting people, when you’re in contact with people, when you’re in relationship with people. You can’t read a book. You can’t put a Black Lives Matter protest sign on your lawn. You can’t go to diversity workshop. You have to be in a relationship. And once I entered that relationship with my white mom, everything began to change.” Michael Brown Sr., right of center, father of Michael Brown, who was killed by a Ferguson, Mo., police officer in 2014, prays with family members before a protest march in Ferguson in 2015.
(Rick Wilking/Reuters)
Blake said he had become “pretty jaded and almost cynical” about the issue of race in America after decades of firsthand experience as a journalist writing about big moments. “The topic will exhaust you. I mean, Ferguson, Charlottesville, all these things I’ve covered, been there. Rodney King protest, I’ve covered it,” he said.
“I do think facts are important, but what I have seen in my life is that facts don’t change people. Relationships do,” Blake said. He said his relationships over time — with relatives from his mother’s family and with white people in racially diverse Christian church congregations — “not only changed me, but it changed white people in a way I never expected.” Why the George Floyd protests 'fizzled'
“I think we have forgotten that it can’t just be policy, it just can’t be protest. And I think that’s one of the big reasons that the George Floyd protest fizzled,” Blake said. “You got to have people of different races and different points of view coming together and having relationships. I mean, that’s what changed me and my family.”
There are some groups that try to facilitate these kinds of interactions. Braver Angels is one of the best-known organizations. It brings together people of political, class and racial differences, with the goal of helping them discuss their disagreements constructively and of seeing one another’s humanity.
Braver Angels’ national convention next month will feature Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican; Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn.; and former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins.
But some experts think modern protest movements lose momentum because society has forgotten how to build effective political movements.
The civil rights march in Washington D.C., Aug. 28, 1963.
(Library of Congress/Reuters)
“Expression is not the same as civic action and political action,” said Yuval Levin, director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
“When people want to express a strong political view now ... there’s a tendency to re-create the appearance of a protest movement, but without the underlying institutional infrastructure of a protest movement. So you just show up on the street with signs, and then it all dissipates and goes nowhere,” Levin said in a recent speech.
“But you know, the civil rights movement was not fundamentally about holding up signs. Bringing a million people to Washington in the summer of ’63 was a way of saying, ‘We can bring a million people to the voting booth in November of ’64,’” Levin said. “And it was understood that way. It was a way of showing organizational power, not a way of expressing opinion.”
“The ability to use digital tools to rapidly amass large numbers of protesters with a common goal empowers movements,” Tufekci wrote. “Once this large group is formed, however, it struggles because it has sidestepped some of the traditional tasks of organizing.”
U$A Progressives launch their own campaign to flip school board seats nationwide
BRITTANY SHEPHERD Fri, June 23, 2023
A progressive group plans to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into an effort to elect hundreds of left-leaning school board members across the country -- underscoring how those local races are increasingly drawing the attention of noted advocacy groups and politicians.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) on Friday launched the "Save Our School Boards" campaign to boost more than 200 aligned school board candidates in the upcoming cycle. The group hopes to raise $450,000 to assist with collecting signatures to get on ballots, budgeting, sustaining grassroots support and so on.
Missy Zombor, a PCCC-endorsed and recently elected school board member in Milwaukee, said the support of the organization can be make-or-break for many would-be members, in part because of the scrutiny and competition the races are currently attracting.
"School Board campaigns are some of the most polarizing and difficult political campaigns right now and they are often run by brand-new candidates with little to no campaigning experience. Learning how to build a budget, obtain your voter file, communicate with the media, and prepare for everything else along the way can be daunting," Zombor said in a statement to ABC News.
Educational issues have become more central to political discourse on the national level, especially on the right, since COVID-19-era restrictions upended schooling after 2020. That includes conversations about what topics are appropriate for which grade levels -- particularly lessons around race and LGBTQ issues -- and the best balance between the government's authority in schools versus parents' ability to decide how their kids are taught.
Last year, for example, San Francisco voters ejected three members of the city school board regarding COVID-19 and virtual learning protocols, marking the first time in the city's history that members of the board had been recalled.
Focusing on these issues was seen by experts as contributing to the victory of conservatives like Virginia Gov. Glen Youngkin, elected in 2021.
PHOTO: In this Feb. 12, 2022, file photo, supporters of the San Francisco School Board recall hold signs at Carl Larsen Park during a rally in the Sunset District of San Francisco. (San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images, FILE)
"We were able to take school boards that had leftist majorities .... We were able to replace them all across the state," he said then.
DeSantis championed "parents' rights" through his Legislature, backing a sweeping and controversial ban on classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for most K-12 students.
Some high-profile Democrats are mounting their own campaign from the other side of the spectrum, as seen with Illinois' Gov. J.B. Pritzker's recent outlaw of book bans.
PCCC's fundraising launch on Friday comes just a week before conservative nonprofit group Moms for Liberty holds its annual meeting in Philadelphia, where several Republican 2024 hopefuls, and Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are slated to speak.
Hannah Riddle, director of PCCC's candidate services, told ABC News that she sees efforts from the right as "really serious and not theoretical threats."
PCCC will be focusing its efforts in battlegrounds like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas, as well as Illinois and Virginia, where several school boards seats will see vacancies, Riddle said.
Riddle said that pushing local races can have an impact on broader voter interest and turnout.
"It's not only training candidates to run for office this year. But it's also creating infrastructure that exists locally and allows us to build vertically," she said. "Local races are going to drag a lot of people out to vote next year."
"A lot of folks are feeling disillusioned by the inflammatory federal messaging that we're seeing every day in the media," she argued.
Simon Hunt Fri, 23 June 2023 Founded in London in 2004, WorldFirst was acquired by Jack Ma’s Ant Group in 2019 in a deal thought to be worth more than $700 million (£550 million). (AFP via Getty Images)
London fintech WorldFirst has seen a mass board exodus as billionaire Jack Ma tightens his grip on the management of the payments company, the Standard has learnt.
A suite of senior leaders have left the firm over the past year, including CEO Jeff Parker, finance director Stephen Gregson and managing director Danny Howe.
Senior members of the company’s risk and legal team have also left, including its head of risk, chief information security officer, and group general counsel and compliance officer.
Staff at the fintech’s parent company, Ant Financial, as well as its sister company, Chinese payments platform Alipay, have been among those brought in to replace the departing execs and managers.
Founded in London in 2004, WorldFirst was acquired by Jack Ma’s Ant Group in 2019 in a deal thought to be worth more than $700 million (£550 million).
The company processes billions of pounds of international payments and reported revenues of £47 million in 2021.
Before Ant Financial acquired WorldFirst, it made a bid to acquire US-based rival MoneyGram as part of Ant’s international expansion plans. But in 2018 the planned $1.2 billion deal was rejected by the committee on foreign investment in the United States (CFIUS) over national security concerns.
Jack Ma, who co-founded Chinese tech conglomerate Alibaba in 1999, is the fifth richest person in China and the 63rd richest in the world with a fortune of $23.9 billion (£18.8 billion), according to Forbes.
WorldFirst did not return calls or respond to an emailed request for comment.
The company’s move to shift management away from London comes at a turbulent period for the capital’s fintech sector amid a spate of layoffs, falling valuations and dwindling investment.
UK fintech investment fell 56% to $17.39 billion in 2022, according to a study by KPMG, while global fintech layoffs since the start of last year have topped 24,000, according to layoffs.fyi.
Last month, founder of mortgage platform LendInvest, Christian Faes said he was leaving London to start his next fintech venture in the US because “The UK has been a very tough place to build a business the last five to six years.”
“We had the endless distraction of Brexit, Boris and the Liz Truss debacle and it’s hard to see it getting better any time soon,” he added.
How will AI change the world of scamming? | The Crypto Mile
Cybercriminals will leverage artificial intelligence to enhance the malicious bots used in hacks to create "sophisticated actors that can effectively impersonate family members to fraudulently extract value," a leading VC founder has claimed.
In the latest episode of The Crypto Mile, Yahoo Finance UK chatted with Jamie Burke, founder of Outlier Ventures, the world's leading Web3 accelerator by the volume of investments.
Burke discussed the evolution and impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it could be a particularly effective tool for cybercriminals.
"If we just look at the statistics of it, in a hack you need to catch out just one person in a hundred thousand, this requires lots of attempts, so malicious actors are going to be levelling up their level of sophistication of their bots into more intelligent actors, using artificial intelligence," Burke warned.
He highlighted the growing concern about rogue AI bots being used for malicious purposes, altering the landscape of the internet, or as he referred to it "The Agent-verse".
“The majority of traffic on the web are bots, and a growing proportion are malicious bots. Hackers generally aren't manually doing things, the art of the hack is automated as much as possible,” Burke said.
As these malicious bots level up their sophistication, the line between human and AI might become almost indistinguishable.
An AI-powered bot could mimic a real person to such an extent that they could participate in a video call without arousing suspicion.
The implications of such technology are far-reaching. It could open up new avenues for scams and fraud, with cybercriminals exploiting the capabilities of AI to trick unsuspecting individuals or corporations into sharing sensitive information or transferring funds.
Burke said: "Instead of receiving an email saying 'can you transfer some money', a person could get a zoom call booked in their diary, from a digital replication that looks like a friend, sounds like them, and says the same things that they would say, and it tricks the recipient by saying that they're stuck for money and can they please get some wired over."
In this scenario, proof of personhood systems would become critical to verify the real identities of individuals in digital interactions.
Burke said this could trigger a virtual arms race with different AI platforms – commercial, malicious, and governmental – battling for influence over internet users.
"In this AI war you're going to have platforms that will have their own AI, and will largely be there to help serve you in return for something, but you will also have malicious AI trying to exploit gaps in your interactions with friends and colleague to try and extract value," Burke said.
He said it could become vital to ensure that people have a "sovereign agent" that serves their interests and helps them navigate an increasingly complex online environment.
These agents would act as a person's representative in virtual environments, defending them against potential threats and securing their presence in the digital world.
Burke said AI could become an autonomous actor influencing decisions and actions and ensuring our security and integrity in the "Agent-verse" will become an increasingly pressing challenge.
Google’s DeepMind unveils AI robot that can teach itself without supervision
Anthony Cuthbertson Fri, 23 June 2023 DeepMind described its AI robot RoboCat as a ‘self-improving robotic agent’ (DeepMind)
Google’s AI division DeepMind has unveiled a self-improving robot agent capable of teaching itself new tasks without human supervision.
DeepMind claims that its RoboCat AI model is the first in the world to be able to learn and solve a variety of problems using various real-world robots like robotic arms.
Data generated from the robot’s actions allows the AI to improve its technique, which can then be transferred to other robotic systems.
The London-based company, which Google acquired in 2014, said the technology marks significant progress towards building general-purpose robots that can perform everyday tasks.
“RoboCat learns much faster than other state-of-the-art models,” DeepMind researchers wrote in a blog post detailing its latest artificial intelligence.
“It can pick up a new task with as few as 100 demonstrations because it draws from a large and diverse dataset. This capability will help accelerate robotics research, as it reduces the need for human-supervised training, and is an important step towards creating a general-purpose robot.”
RoboCat was inspired by DeepMind’s AI model Gato, which learns by analysing text, images and events.
Researchers trained RoboCat by showing demonstrations of a human-controlled robot arm performing tasks, such as fitting shapes through holes and picking up pieces of fruit.
RoboCat was then left to train by itself, steadily improving as it performed the task an average of 10,000 times without supervision.
The AI-powered robot trained itself to perform 253 tasks during DeepMind’s experiments, across four different types of robots. It was also able to adapt its self-improvement training to transition from a two-fingered to a three-fingered robot arm.
Further development could see the AI learn previously unseen tasks, the researchers claimed.
“RoboCat has a virtuous cycle of training: the more new tasks it learns, the better it gets at learning additional new tasks,” the blog post stated.
“These improvements were due to RoboCat’s growing breadth of experience, similar to how people develop a more diverse range of skills as they deepen their learning in a given domain.”
The research follows a growing trend of self-teaching robotic systems, which hold the promise of realising the long-envisioned sci-fi trope of domesticated robots.
The team demonstrated a robot that was able to open drawers and pick up knives in order to chop fruit, with each household task taking just 25 minutes to learn.
Harvard’s new computer science teacher is a chatbot
Anthony Cuthbertson Fri, 23 June 2023 Students enrolled in Harvard University’s Introduction to Computer Science will be encouraged to use the CS50 bot from Fall Semester 2023 (iStock/ Getty Images)
Harvard University plans to use an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT as an instructor on its flagship coding course.
Students enrolled on the Computer Science 50: Introduction to Computer Science (CS50) programme will be encouraged to use the artificial intelligence tool when classes begin in September.
The AI teacher will likely be based on OpenAI’s GPT 3.5 or GPT 4 models, according to course instructors.
“Our own hope is that, through AI, we can eventually approximate a 1:1 teacher:student ratio for every student in CS50, as by providing them with software-based tools that, 24/7, can support their learning at a pace and in a style that works best for them individually,” CS50 professor David Malan told The Harvard Crimson.
“Providing support that’s tailored to students’ specific questions has long been a challenge at scale via edX and OpenCourseWare more generally, with so many students online, so these features will benefit students both on campus and off.”
The AI teaching bot will offer feedback to students, helping to find bugs in their code or give feedback on their work, Professor Malan said.
Its arrival comes amid a huge surge in popularity of AI tools, with OpenAI’s ChatGPT becoming the fastest growing app of all time since its launch in November 2022.
The chatbot reached 100 million active users within two months of being unveiled, with users enticed by its ability to perform a range of tasks – from writing poetry and essays, to generating computer code.
Artificial Intelligence The Courts (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press)
Other AI tools that have since launched to compete with ChatGPT include Google’s Bard, which features similar capabilities to its rival.
A recent update for Bard has allowed it to not just write code but also execute it by itself, which Google claims allows it to figure out problems on a far deeper level than current generative AI systems.
Accuracy and AI “hallucinations” remain a significant issue with such technology, with Google warning that Bard “won’t always be right” despite the upgrade.
Professor Malan said students would be warned of the pitfalls of the AI, saying they should “always think critically” when presented with information.
“But the tools will only get better through feedback from students and teachers alike,” he said. “So they, too, will be very much part of the process.”
Facebook and Instagram block news over payment to publishers law
Gareth Corfield Fri, 23 June 2023 Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook and Instagram have blocked news from being shared in Canada after a new law was passed forcing Big Tech companies to pay publishers for using their content.
Canada’s new Online News Act means social media and search giants such as Facebook parent Meta, Google, TikTok and others will have to pay publishers for reproducing news stories or snippets from them.
The law, which received royal assent on Thursday, is the latest move by countries which believe Big Tech’s near-monopoly on online advertising harms news publishers and starves the public of important information.
Justin Trudeau said earlier this month that Meta’s promised ban on news content being shared across Facebook and Instagram was “a real problem”.
Its Canadian press office issued a statement, saying: “We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada.
Pablo Rodriguez, Canada’s heritage minister, said the new law “levels the playing field by putting the power of Big Tech in check and ensuring that even our smallest news business can benefit through this regime and receive fair compensation for their work”.
News publishers worldwide have long accused the likes of Google and Meta of unfairly profiting from their content by displaying it on their websites while keeping the lion’s share of advertising revenues to themselves.
Google recorded sales of $258bn (£202bn) during 2022, while Meta made revenues of $117bn over the same period.
Mr Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, said earlier this month: “The fact that these internet giants would rather cut off Canadians’ access to local news than pay their fair share is a real problem”, predicting: “It’s not going to work.”
An initial ban on news sharing by Facebook in Australia crumbled after the Australian government made key concessions.
Ministers promised not to enforce a legal bargaining code if Facebook voluntarily signed content licensing deals with a large enough number of publishers.
Rod Sims, the architect of Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code, has said the resulting cash-for-content deals were worth more than A$200m (£105m) to the country’s A$2.5bn newspaper industry.
Independent blames Facebook for drop in audience numbers amid falling profits
James Warrington Fri, 23 June 2023 Lord Lebedev part-owns The Independent - JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP
The Left-leaning title, which is part-owned by Lord Lebedev, suffered a 6pc fall in global page views last year.
In its latest accounts, the Independent said Facebook’s decision last summer to de-prioritise posts from publishers had a “detrimental impact on article views”.
It also blamed the declining audience on a slower US news cycle after attracting more readers the previous year thanks to coverage of Donald Trump, the US election, the Capital riots and Black Lives Matter.
In the UK, monthly article views dropped by 4.4pc owing to declining interest in topics such as Covid, Brexit and Boris Johnson. This was partially offset by the Russia-Ukraine war, Queen Elizabeth II’s Jubilee and her death.
The Independent shut down its print edition in 2016 and shifted to an online and app-only model. Its pre-tax profits tumbled by two thirds from £5.5m to just £1.9m in the year to October 2022.
Bosses blamed this on higher investment in its international expansion, as well as its reporting and documentary production from Ukraine.
However, revenues rose 12pc to a record £46.3m, marking the sixth year of profitable growth since the newspaper went digital-only.
Despite the fall in page views, the digital title also hit the milestone of five million registered readers.
It is also looking to expand in areas such as TV, radio and e-commerce in an effort to diversify its revenues.
John Paton, chairman of Independent Digital News Media, said:
“We regard Facebook as an important distribution channel for our journalism, but we also see the importance on diversifying our revenue streams.
“This is the sixth consecutive year of profit, and we have achieved record revenue with 12pc growth as a result of our focus on investing deeper in the areas of international expansion, eCommerce and TV.”
The title has faced a tougher time since the end of its financial year as the digital advertising market went into decline.
While its editorial team in the US has expanded, the company cut around 30 roles in the UK at the end of last year.
The Independent was sold to the Lebedev family in 2010, initially owned by Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev before ownership was transferred to his son, Lord Lebedev.
The newspaper has also faced scrutiny over its links to Saudi Arabia after it sold a 30pc stake to offshore companies fronted by a Saudi businessman in 2018.
Justin Byam Shaw, a British media entrepreneur, also holds a significant stake in the business, with the remainder made up by minor shareholders.
American TikTok user data stored in China, video app admits
Gareth Corfield Fri, 23 June 2023 TikTok China
TikTok has admitted that some of its US users’ data is stored in China, despite previously suggesting it was all on servers within America.
The Chinese-owned company, which is one of the world’s fastest-growing social media apps, admitted in a letter on Thursday that “certain creator data” is stored in China.
TikTok said in a letter that it defined creators as users “who enter into a commercial relationship” with it such as influencers who make paid content for the video streaming app.
Those people’s contracts and “related documents” are held outside the US, the company said in a letter to two US senators.
Information on creators such as tax forms and social security numbers are stored in China, Forbes magazine reported on Thursday, citing internal sources.
A company spokesman said: “TikTok has not been asked for this data by the Chinese government or the [Chinese Communist Party]. TikTok has not provided such data to the Chinese government or CCP, nor would TikTok do so.”
Fears over Chinese government access to data have arisen because of the country’s national security laws, which allow any Chinese company to be forced to spy on its customers at the request of local authorities.
US senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal said in a statement: “We are extremely concerned that TikTok is storing Americans’ personal, private data within the reach of the Chinese government.
“TikTok’s response makes it crystal clear that Americans’ data is still exposed to Beijing’s draconian and pervasive spying regimes – despite the claims of TikTok’s misleading public relations campaign.”
Western governments fear that data gathered by TikTok from their citizens’ devices can be sifted through at will by Chinese agents looking for valuable targets to spy on.
Similarly, foreign affairs committee chairman Alicia Kearns, who is subject to Chinese sanctions for speaking out about the country’s human rights abuses, has warned that TikTok could let Beijing “capitalise on our vulnerabilities”.
TikTok has repeatedly insisted it is not working with Beijing.
The unprecedented ban, which is currently set to come into force next year, breaches Americans’ rights to freedom of speech, according to TikTok’s legal filings. TikTok said recent bans were based on “misguided and based on fundamental misconceptions”.
Five influencers have also sued, saying Governor Greg Gianforte’s prohibition on TikTok is an unlawful “prior restraint on expression that violates the First Amendment” of the US constitution.
