SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 19, 2023--

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 21, 2023--

TikTok has uncovered and shut down a secretive operation to influence Irish users and whip up social conflict. The covert influence operation (CIO) network comprised 72 accounts with a total following of almost 95,000 users. The video sharing platform’s work to find and remove the accounts was detailed in a report to the European Commission. TikTok is a signatory of an EU code of practice aimed at combatting disinformation and misinformation online. Ireland from March to June 2023" data-source=""> The latest report covered the timespan from January to June this year. “The network targeted Irish audiences,” TikTok said of the CIO in Ireland. “The individuals behind this network created inauthentic accounts; hyper-posted content with divisive views related to nationalism in Ireland, Japan, Russia, and Taiwan; and hyper-posted comments with similar low-quality content in an attempt to redirect TikTok users off-platform and to intensify social conflict.” TikTok moved against similar covert influence operations in Russia, Poland and Germany. The report also revealed that from March to June 2023, TikTok removed 67,013 fake accounts in Ireland. Those accounts were followed by 296,274 users. In the first half of the year, TikTok removed 218,158 fake followers on accounts in Ireland and prevented 26,034,349 fake follow attempts. There were also 144 accounts banned under TikTok’s impersonation policies. A total of 2,165 videos were removed in Ireland because of violation of harmful misinformation policy. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Spotify will not ban all AI-powered music, says boss of streaming giant Vehicle scam reports surged by 74% in the first half of 2023, says Lloyds Bank Standard Life confirms plans for pensions dashboard

Marie-Laure de Decker, the French model who stepped behind the camera to become an internationally recognised war photographer, has died at the age of...

Check out the Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 5 launch times for all regions before Fortnite OG drops on Friday, Nov. 3, with the Chapter 1 Season 5 map.

Sport dominates the lives of millions of people around the world, and fortunately most of

A new Vondel Gulag is coming to Warzone Season 4 Reloaded that is hidden underground in a more medieval part of the map.

MUNICH Continental will integrate Google Cloud services into its vehicle cockpit system, the company said on Monday, enabling

A mysterious golden object has been found at the bottom of the ocean by scientists exploring the Pacific Ocean and it has left them baffled. The discovery was made on 30 August when a team of experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were taking a closer look at an underwater volcano 250 miles off the coast of Alaska. Experts, and members of the public viewing the live stream, caught a glimpse of the unusual gold orb two miles beneath the surface lodged into the side of the volcano and were left puzzled over what it could be. It was found thanks to the NOAA’s Seascape Alaska 5 expedition that is currently mapping the seafloor of the Gulf of Alaska. Those who made the discovery at the foot of the volcano also noted there was a mysterious hole in the side of the orb, with one researcher suggesting on the live stream that “Something tried to get in...or to get out”. Scientists bantered back and forth about what the egg-like object could be and ultimately decided to take a sample that could be analysed. The texture of the orb was not as they had expected and was more of a silky, delicate consistency. An arm from the robotic vehicle was used to suction the orb in order for scientists to determine its origins with laboratory testing. The NOAA Seascape Alaska 5 expedition is due to end in mid-September and aims to fill the gaps that experts have about the sea beds off the USA’s west coast. It began on 24 August in Kodiak, Alaska and will come to an end in Seward, Alaska on 16 September. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

TAUNTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 25, 2023--

Elon Musk may face legal difficulties after rebranding Twitter to X, trademark experts have warned, with tech rivals Meta and Microsoft both owning intellectual property rights for the letter. The tech billionaire renamed the social network on Monday, nine months after taking over the company in a $44 billion deal. The name change forms part of his plan to turn the platform into an “everything app”, which will offer services akin to China’s WeChat and India’s PayTM. X chief executive Linda Yaccarino said the company wanted to “transform the global town square” to integrate payments, banking and create a “global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities”. Before achieving this goal, however, IP lawyers claim Mr Musk’s firm may face challenges from its competitors. “There’s a 100 per cent chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody,” US trademark lawyer Josh Gerben told Reuters, noting that there are nearly 900 active US trademark registrations that already cover the letter X. These include Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which owns a federal trademark for a blue-and-white letter ‘X’ relating to “social networking services in the fields of entertainment, gaming and application development”. Microsoft also has registered trademarks for the letter ‘X’ relating to its Xbox video game console. Neither company responded to a request for comment. Mr Musk first owned the X.com domain in 1999, when he founded a financial services company that later went on to become PayPal. He reacquired the domain in 2017 after making a deal with his former company, before tweeting in October 2022 that buying Twitter was “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app”. It is not clear whether Mr Musk has applied for a trademark for X, but if he succeeds he may still face difficulties in protecting the registered rights against other brands using the letter. “The very essence of trade mark registration is obtaining an exclusive right to the brand that is registered,” Matthew Harris, a trademark lawyer with Pinsent Masons, told The Independent. “It may be difficult to obtain for Elon Musk under the ‘X’ rebrand, not to mention the difficulty, should he obtain registered protection, in trying to enforce any registered rights in ‘X’ against other brands using a similar name.” Read More What is Elon Musk’s ‘everything app’ X? Twitter to X: Why Elon Musk rebranded the social networking platform Twitter rebrands to X as Elon Musk loses iconic bird logo What is Elon Musk’s ‘everything app’ X?

Elon Musk has unveiled a new black and white “X” logo to replace Twitter’s famous blue bird as he follows through with a major rebranding of the the social media platform he bought for $44 billion last year