List of All Articles with Tag 'east asia'

Billionaire Elon Musk's Twitter rebranded 'X' has been reportedly blocked in Indonesia because of the country's laws on online pornography and gambling. Mr Musk announced on Sunday that Twitter has been rebranded to X as part of his plan to create an “everything app”. The Tesla CEO, who took over the platform in October 2022, replaced the famous blue bird with the new logo on Monday after crowdsourcing ideas from users over the weekend. The domain X.com which he previously used for PayPal will redirect to Twitter.com, Mr Musk said. Subsequently, millions of Indonesians were unable to access the social media platform, Al Jazeera reported. Indonesia’s ministry of communication and informatics said the site was restricted as the domain was previously used by sites that did not adhere to the country’s laws against "negative" content. The Indonesian government has been in contact with X to clarify the nature of the site, according to Usman Kansong, the director-general of information and public communication at the ministry. “Earlier today, we spoke with representatives from Twitter and they will send a letter to us to say that X.com will be used by Twitter,” Mr Kansong said. Twitter users trying to access the social media platform allegedly received a message on the screen saying that the website had been blocked by the ministry for violating local laws and regulations. Gatria Priyandita, a cyber policy analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told Al Jazeera, that Indonesia tends to block websites that are considered to be “offensive, criminal, or dangerous to social harmony". “These may include pornographic materials, sites that violate intellectual property laws, those that incite hate or are filled with false information.” “Given that Twitter can be freely used in Indonesia, I doubt removing X.com from the list of banned sites would be a great challenge, so long as Twitter can demonstrate that the domain name truly does direct to Twitter." Indonesia in 2022 threatened to block popular sites including Netflix, Google, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter if they did not make a submission to the ministry “detailing the content that appears on their platforms”. Read More Elon Musk takes control of @X account from user who had held it for 16 years Elon Musk’s ‘X’ already trademarked by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta for ‘social networking services’ Elon Musk wants to turn tweets into 'X's'. But changing language is not quite so simple Typhoon Doksuri heads towards China after causing destruction in Philippines Singapore prepares to execute first woman in 20 years Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi ‘moved to house arrest’ after more than a year in jail

Fugitive cryptocurrency chief Do Kwon, the entrepreneur sought by the US and South Korea in connection with a $40bn crash, was sentenced to four months in prison by a court in Montenegro. The 31-year-old South Korean national and Terraform Labs founder was found guilty of attempting to travel with a forged passport. He was arrested by the Montenegrin police in March as he tried to board a flight to Dubai at Podgorica Airport. Han Chang-joon, the former chief financial officer of Terraform Labs, was convicted of the same crime and handed a four-month sentence. The two were charged with forging official documents and placed in 30-day pre-trial detention. Police said they recovered doctored Costa Rican passports and a separate set of Belgian passports. Kwon and Chang-joon had pleaded not guilty at their first court hearing in May. The crypto boss reportedly told the court last week that he obtained the documents in Singapore through an agency selling citizenships of various countries and believed the passports to be genuine. Time spent in detention is included in the prison terms, and the pair can appeal the verdict, the Basic Court in Podgorica said. “Once we receive the verdict in writing, we will consult with our clients about possible appeal,” defence lawyer Goran Rodic told Bloomberg. The court has up to 30 days to officially notify the defence as well as the prosecutor’s office, the lawyer added. Both South Korea and the US have requested his extradition from Montenegro, while the courts in the country are yet to decide on those requests in separate proceedings. Kwon and five others connected to Terraform Labs are wanted due to allegations of fraud and financial crimes in relation to the implosion of its digital currencies in May 2022. The TerraUSD was designed as a “stablecoin", which are pegged to stable assets like the US dollar to prevent drastic fluctuations in prices. However, around $40bn in market value was erased for the holders of TerraUSD and its floating sister currency, Luna, after the stablecoin plunged far below its $1 peg in May. South Korea asked Interpol in September to circulate a “red notice” for Kwon across the agency’s 195 member nations to find and apprehend him. US regulators in February charged Kwon and his company Terraform Labs with “orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud”. Read More Crackdown on firms marketing cryptoassets to be introduced by City regulator Singapore punishes state fund managers who invested in FTX Police: Crypto firm founder Do Kwon arrested in Montenegro North Korea ‘bitterly criticised’ officials for failed spy satellite launch Families in North Korea ‘starving to death’ due to lack of supplies – report MeToo: Taiwan rocked by wave of sexual harassment allegations sparked by Netflix show