For years, the European Union has been leading the fight to impose a global tax on technology multinationals. After years of resistance by the Trump administration, the Europeans now hope the incoming Biden administration will be willing to compromise – or face a possible digital tax.Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple: four companies dubbed as GAFA in France by those who criticize what they say are the multinationals’ avoidance of European taxes.The projected outcome of the presidential vote in the United States did not change Europeans’ eagerness to tackle the issue with a Biden administration after years of resistance by the Trump administration.Thierry Breton is the E.U.’s Internal Market Commissioner.He explains that Europe is not naive anymore in its expectations regarding its partnership with the United States. Europeans cannot afford to be naïve anymore, he said.The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, hosted the international talks over digital taxation. Members postponed a deadline for an agreement into 2021 after the U.S. pulled out of talks in June due to the coronavirus pandemic.French economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, said Washington is unlikely to drop what he called its confrontational stance on the issue no matter who is in the White House.”Digital giants are now the adversaries of governments,” Le Maire said, vowing that they would soon be taxed “at the same rate as French companies.” It is a position echoed by Commissioner Breton.He said that a discussion has been initiated by the OECD and even though the United States got out of it, he said this a negotiation and they can come back. Europeans set a deadline until June 2021 to complete this negotiation, Breton said. If all the other countries agree but the United States does not return to the negotiating table, Europe will take its responsibilities and we will impose a tax, Breton insists.Some in Europe warn that a Biden administration will still resist imposing a tax on U.S. technology companies. President-elect Biden and his vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, reportedly have as many connections with Silicon Valley as the Obama administration had between 2009 and 2017.Arno Pons is the head of Digital New Deal, a Paris research organization.Pons said Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s vice-president during an administration that was clearly pro-GAFA and probably has the same views now. As for Kamala Harris, originally from California, he sees her as having close ties to the executives of big technology firms. Pons cites as an example the recent nomination in the transition team of former employees from Apple and Facebook.Last month, the OECD warned that tensions over a digital tax could trigger a trade war that could wipe out one percent of global growth every year. 
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The U.S. Treasury Department and China-based ByteDance say they are focused on resolving a battle over U.S. security concerns that prompted President Donald Trump to order the company to divest its popular TikTok app by Thursday.Trump signed an Aug. 14 order setting a 90-day deadline as he alleged that if the app remains under the control of a Chinese company, then the Chinese government could spy on TikTok users.TikTok says it is not a security threat. It has been pursuing an agreement with Oracle and Walmart to shift TikTok’s U.S. operations to a new company, and earlier this week asked a court to authorize an extension after receiving “no substantive feedback” from the Trump administration about its proposed fix.”Facing continual new requests and no clarity on whether our proposed solutions would be accepted, we requested the 30-day extension that is expressly permitted in the August 14 order,” TikTok said in a statement Tuesday.The Treasury Department said Wednesday it “remains focused on reaching a resolution of the national security risks arising from ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly, in accordance with the August 14 order signed by the President, and we have been clear with ByteDance regarding the steps necessary to achieve that resolution.”TikTok has 100 million U.S. users.
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The U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday it wants a resolution of national security risks it has raised over ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition on Musical.ly, which it then merged into the TikTok video-sharing app. The statement came a day after China-based ByteDance filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington challenging a Trump administration order set to take effect on Thursday requiring it to divest TikTok. “The Treasury Department remains focused on reaching a resolution of the national security risks arising from ByteDance’s acquisition of Musical.ly,” Treasury spokeswoman Monica Crowley said. “We have been clear with ByteDance regarding the steps necessary to achieve that resolution.” TikTok did not immediately comment. President Donald Trump in an August 14 order directed ByteDance to divest the app within 90 days, which falls on Thursday. The Trump administration contends TikTok poses national security concerns as the personal data of U.S. users could be obtained by China’s government. TikTok, which has over 100 million U.S. users, denies the allegations. ByteDance, which has been in talks for a deal with Walmart Inc. and Oracle Corp. to shift TikTok’s U.S. assets into a new entity, said Tuesday it was requesting a 30-day extension so that it can finalize terms. “Facing continual new requests and no clarity on whether our proposed solutions would be accepted, we requested the 30-day extension that is expressly permitted in the August 14 order,” TikTok said in a statement. TikTok announced a preliminary deal in September for Walmart and Oracle to take stakes in a new company to oversee U.S. operations called TikTok Global. Trump has said the deal had his “blessing.” 
 
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As election misinformation raged online, Facebook Inc. said on Wednesday its post-election ban on political ads would likely last another month, raising concerns from campaigns and groups eager to reach voters for key Georgia Senate races in January.
 
The ban, one of Facebook’s measures to combat misinformation and other abuses on its site, was supposed to last about a week but could be extended. Alphabet Inc.’s Google also appeared to be sticking with its post-election political ad ban.
 
“While multiple sources have projected a presidential winner, we still believe it’s important to help prevent confusion or abuse on our platform,” Facebook told advertisers in an email seen by Reuters. It said to expect the pause to last another month though there “may be an opportunity to resume these ads sooner.”
 
Facebook later confirmed the extension in a blog post.
 
Baseless claims about the election reverberated around social media this week as President Donald Trump challenged the validity of the outcome, even as state officials reported no significant irregularities, and legal experts cautioned he had little chance to overturn Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
 
In one Facebook group created on Sunday, which rapidly grew to nearly 400,000 members by Wednesday, members calling for a nationwide recount swapped unfounded accusations about alleged election fraud and shifting state vote counts every few seconds.
 
“The reality is right now that we are not through the danger zone,” said Vanita Gupta, chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
 
Google declined to answer questions about the length of its ad pause, although one advertiser said the company had floated the possibility of extending it through or after December. A Google spokeswoman previously said the company would lift its ban based on factors such as the time needed for votes to be counted and whether there was civil unrest.
 
The extensions mean that the top two digital advertising behemoths, which together control more than half the market, are not accepting election ads ahead of the two U.S. Senate runoff races in Georgia that could decide control of that chamber.
 
Democratic and Republican digital strategists who spoke to Reuters railed against those decisions, saying the ad bans were overly broad and failed to combat a much bigger problem on the platforms: the organic spread of viral lies in unpaid posts.
 
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, along with the Senate campaigns of Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, called for an exemption for the Georgia Senate run-offs so they could make voters aware of upcoming deadlines.
 
Ossoff faces incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue, and Warnock faces incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.
 
“It is driving us absolutely bonkers,” said Mark Jablonowski, managing partner of DSPolitical, a digital firm that works with Democratic causes.
 
“They’re essentially holding the rest of the political process hostage,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist, who said he thought the companies’ concerns about ads on the election outcome did not require a blanket ban. “This is something that deserves a scalpel and they’re using a rusty ax,” he added.
 
The companies declined to say when they would lift other “break-glass” election measures introduced for unpaid posts, like Facebook’s limits on the distribution of live videos and demotions of content that its systems predict may be misinformation.
 
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said those emergency measures would not be permanent, but that rollback was “not imminent.”
 
Google’s YouTube, which is labeling all election-related videos with information about the outcome, said it would stick with that approach “as long as it’s necessary.”
 
The video-sharing company bans “demonstrably false” claims about the election process, but has used the tool sparingly, saying hyperbolic statements about a political party “stealing” the election does not violate the policy.
 
However, Twitter Inc. has stopped using its most restrictive election-related warning labels, which hid and limited engagement on violating tweets. Instead, the company is now using lighter-touch labels that “provide additional context,” spokeswoman Katie Rosborough said.
 
Twitter placed a label reading “this claim about election fraud is disputed” on two of Trump’s tweets Tuesday morning, but each was retweeted more than 80,000 times by that evening.
 
Democratic strategists, including members of the Biden campaign who tweeted criticism of Facebook, said social media companies’ measures were not effectively curbing the spread of viral lies.
 
Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, said the ad pauses were needed but not sufficient for tackling false information.
 
“Clearly President Trump does not think the election is over, so I don’t think the platforms should treat it as if it is,” she said. 
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ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of video-sharing app TikTok, filed a petition late Tuesday with a U.S. Appeals Court challenging a Trump administration order set to take effect Thursday requiring it to divest TikTok. President Donald Trump in an Aug. 14 order directed ByteDance to divest the app within 90 days, which falls on Thursday. “Facing continual new requests and no clarity on whether our proposed solutions would be accepted, we requested the 30-day extension that is expressly permitted in the August 14 order,” TikTok said in a statement. “Without an extension in hand, we have no choice but to file a petition in court to defend our rights,” the company said. FILE – Women wearing masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus chat as they pass by the headquarters of ByteDance, owners of TikTok, in Beijing, China, Aug. 7, 2020.The White House and Treasury declined to comment. The Justice Department did not immediately comment. The Trump administration contends TikTok poses national security concerns as the personal data of U.S. users could be obtained by China’s government. TikTok, which has over 100 million U.S. users, denies the allegations. The petition names Trump, Attorney General William Barr, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the inter-agency panel that reviews certain transactions involving foreign investment on national security concerns. It says the CFIUS action and Trump order “seek to compel the wholesale divestment of TikTok, a multibillion-dollar business built on technology developed by” ByteDance “based on the government’s purported national security review of a three-year-old transaction that involved a different business.” That order was based on a government review of ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition of U.S. social media app Musical.ly, which ByteDance merged into TikTok. Separate restrictions on TikTok from the U.S. Commerce Department have been blocked by federal courts, including restrictions on transactions that were scheduled to take effect Thursday that TikTok warned could effectively ban the app’s use in the United States. Talks have been ongoing to finalize a preliminary deal for Walmart Inc and Oracle Corp to take stakes in a new company to oversee U.S. operations. Trump has said the deal had his “blessing.” 
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As severe weather events increase in frequency and intensity across the U.S. and around the world, scientists and forecasters are seeking more effective weather-mapping programs. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
Camera: Adam Greenbaum   Produced by: JulieTaboh/Adam Greenbaum
 
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European Union regulators have filed antitrust charges against Amazon, accusing the e-commerce giant of using data to gain an unfair advantage over merchants using its platform.
The EU’s executive commission, the bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, said Tuesday that the charges have been sent to the company.
The commission said it takes issue with Amazon’s systematic use of non-public business data to avoid “the normal risks of competition and to leverage its dominance” for e-commerce services in France and Germany, the company’s two biggest markets in the EU.
The EU started looking into Amazon in 2018 and has been focusing on its dual role as a marketplace and retailer.
In addition to selling its own products, the U.S. company allows third-party retailers to sell their own goods through its site. Last year, more than half of the items sold on Amazon worldwide were from these outside merchants.
Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager, the EU commissioner in charge of competition, said it’s not a problem that Amazon is a successful business but “our concern is very specific business conduct which appears to distort genuine competition.”
Amazon faces a possible fine of up to 10% of its annual worldwide revenue, which could amount to billions of dollars. The company rejected the accusations.
“We disagree with the preliminary assertions of the European Commission and will continue to make every effort to ensure it has an accurate understanding of the facts,” the company said in a statement.
The company can, under EU rules, reply to the charges in writing and present its case in an oral hearing.
Vestager also opened a second investigation into Amazon over whether it favors its own products and those from third-party merchants that use its logistics and delivery services.
It’s the EU’s latest effort to curb the power of big technology companies, following a series of multi-billion-dollar antitrust fines against Google in previous years.
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Twitter says it could strip President Donald Trump’s account of certain privileges when projected election winner Joe Biden takes office on January 20.
 
Trump’s recent tweets alleging voter fraud in the November 3 election have been tagged by Twitter, with notices that say for example, “This claim about voter fraud is disputed.”
 
Ordinarily, Twitter would remove such tweets, but affords world leaders some further latitude.
 
“A critical function of our service is providing a place where people can openly and publicly respond to their leaders and hold them accountable,” a Twitter spokesman told the Bloomberg news agency. “With this in mind, there are certain cases where it may be in the public’s interest to have access to certain tweets, even if they would otherwise be in violation of our rules.”
 
This policy, however, does not apparently extend to former leaders, Twitter told the Reuters news organization.
 
“This policy framework applies to current world leaders and candidates for office, and not private citizens when they no longer hold these positions,” a Twitter spokesman told Reuters in a statement.
 
Trump is refusing to concede the election, alleging voter fraud. He is suing various states over what he says are irregularities.  
 
Media organizations, including VOA, have projected Biden as the winner of the election, with 279 electoral votes.
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Richard Branson’s Virgin Hyperloop has completed the world’s first passenger ride on a super high-speed levitating pod system, the company said on Sunday, a key safety test for technology it hopes will transform human and cargo transportation. Virgin Hyperloop executives Josh Giegel, its Chief Technology Officer, and Sara Luchian, Director of Passenger Experience, reached speeds of up to 107 miles per hour (172 km per hour) at the company’s DevLoop test site in Las Vegas, Nevada, the company said. “I had the true pleasure of seeing history made before my very eyes,” said Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Chairman of Virgin Hyperloop and Group Chairman and Chief Executive of DP World. Los Angeles-based Hyperloop envisions a future where floating pods packed with passengers and cargo hurtle through vacuum tubes at 600 miles an hour (966 kph) or faster.Virgin Hyperloop test in Las Vegas, Nevada, Nov. 9, 2020.In a hyperloop system, which uses magnetic levitation to allow near-silent travel, a trip between New York and Washington would take just 30 minutes. That would be twice as fast as a commercial jet flight and four times faster than a high-speed train. The company has previously run over 400 tests without human passengers at the Nevada site. The test comes a month after Reuters first reported that Virgin Hyperloop picked the U.S. state of West Virginia to host a $500 million certification center and test track that will serve as a proving ground for its technology. The company is working toward safety certification by 2025 and commercial operations by 2030, it has said.  Canada’s Transpod and Spain’s Zeleros also aim to upend traditional passenger and freight networks with similar technology they say will slash travel times, congestion and environmental harm linked with petroleum-fueled machines. 
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