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Donald Trump pardons ex-Waymo, Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski
Anthony Levandowski, an engineer convicted of stealing information about self-driving car tech from Google/Waymo, has been pardoned by Donald Trump.
Snap permanently closes Donald Trump's account
Add Snapchat to the list of services that no longer allow Donald Trump as a poster.
Donald Trump is trying (and failing) to get around Twitter's ban
Donald Trump is banned from Twitter, so he's using other accounts to post. But now those accounts have been suspended as well.
Donald Trump has been kicked off of Twitter
Donald Trump's personal Twitter account is no longer active.
Twitter cuts off QAnon conspiracy accounts as employees push to ban Trump
Trump allies Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell and Ron Watkins have been banned as part of a Twitter push against Coordinated Harmful Activity. Meanwhile, Twitter employees are pressuring executives to permanently suspend Donald Trump's account.
Twitter will reset the @POTUS follower count to zero after Biden takes office
The White House and press secretary accounts will also lose their followers.
TikTok's deadline for a sale has moved to December 4th
Remember that deadline the Trump Administration imposed for TikTok to either sell or face being shut down in the US? It already shifted back to the 27th — after TikTok complained the government wasn't responding to inquiries — and it's now moved again. Bloomberg and Reuters report that TikTok mentioned a new date in recent court filings, saying a seven day extension has given it until December 4th.
Joe Biden's presidential transition launches with BuildBackBetter.gov
The Joe Biden - Kamala Harris administration now has federal government support to begin its transition, including millions in funding and the use of .gov domains.
Trump executive order seeks to ban TikTok, WeChat 'transactions' in 45 days
Donald Trump issued two executive orders stating a ban on transactions with Tencent and ByteDance, the Chinese parent companies of WeChat and TikTok.
Donald Trump claims he will ban TikTok in the US
The president told reporters on Air Force One that he will ban TikTok in the US.
Twitter marks a Trump tweet 'manipulated media' for the first time
The label Twitter applied to this Donald Trump tweet marks it as manipulated media, and links to the company's policies.
DOJ reportedly ends antitrust investigation over reducing car pollution
Last year the Trump Administration sought to roll back the Obama Administration's Clean Power Plan that pushed for higher fuel efficiency standards. It has also tried to stop states from like California from setting their own standards that exceed those of the federal government. Despite that, several automakers, including Ford, BMW, Volkswagen and Honda, voluntarily reached an agreement with the state of California on a slightly lower target. That was quickly followed by word of a Department of Justice antitrust investigation into the move, however today the New York Times reports it has come to an end, finding that the companies didn't break any laws by voluntarily agreeing to try to reduce the pollution created by their vehicles.
US Space Force logo unveiled with a clear Star Trek influence
The president has been pushing to create a new military branch, dubbed Space Force, since 2018 and today tweeted out a logo for the department. The most noticeable part of the logo is right in the center, where a design that closely resembles Star Trek's arrowhead-style Starfleet insignia sits.
US cancels plans for new penalty tariffs on Chinese-made products
This morning the president tweeted that "We have agreed to a very large Phase One Deal with China........The Penalty Tariffs set for December 15th will not be charged because of the fact that we made the deal." The 15 percent tariffs that would have raised prices on Chinese-made items --including consumer electronics products like iPhones and laptops -- had already been delayed during negotiations, and now won't go into effect at all.
NBC News: Zuckerberg had an undisclosed dinner with the president
Last month Mark Zuckerberg publicly made a trip to Capitol Hill as he testified in front of lawmakers about Facebook's Libra cyptocurrency plans. Tonight NBC News has revealed that Zuckerberg also made another stop that was not previously disclosed -- a dinner at the White House with Facebook board member Peter Thiel and Donald Trump. In a statement to NBC News, a Facebook spokesperson said "As is normal for a CEO of a major U.S. company, Mark accepted an invitation to have dinner with the President and First Lady at the White House," although there's no indication about why the meeting was, until now, a secret. Zuckerberg publicly met with Trump in the Oval Office earlier that month, and in the last day he toured the facility where Apple builds Mac Pros in Texas. The second meeting also occurred at the same time Zuckerberg repeatedly spoke out in favor of maintaining Facebook's policy to not fact check political advertising, a stance opposing candidates like Elizabeth Warren have claimed helps Trump.
Trump ‘opens’ Texas Apple plant that’s built Mac Pros since 2013
As planned, today Donald Trump took a tour of an Apple manufacturing facility in Texas alongside CEO Tim Cook. While impeachment hearings continued in D.C., the president tweeted that "Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America." While Apple did claim in September that exemptions from tariffs the Trump Administration put in place made it possible to produce the new Mac Pro in Texas, a company called Flex has been assembling its high-end desktop computer there since 2013. Apple also announced plans for a new 3 million square foot campus in Austin, that will not be a manufacturing plant, didn't open today and wasn't a part of the tour. It said production of the new Mac Pro is now under way, although it didn't narrow down the "December" release window announced last week. As far as any hopes for further tariff exemptions that could help Apple, Reuters reports Trump responded "We're looking at that" when asked about it.
Facebook, YouTube delete posts claiming to name Ukraine whistleblower
There's an impeachment inquiry taking place against Donald Trump, which started with a whistleblower complaint about conduct on a call with officials in the Ukraine. Outlets like Breitbart have published content claiming to name the person who initially filed the complaint claiming the president violated his oath of office. Now the latest free speech flashpoint for social networks is whether or not to allow the spread and amplification of the name, while lawyers for the whistleblower argue that publishing a potential name puts that person at risk. CNN reports that Facebook and YouTube have decided to remove posts with the name, while Twitter -- where US House Rep. Matt Gaetz and Donald Trump Jr. have shared posts with the name -- says it is not against the rules. With public hearings on the matter scheduled to start next week, this is unlikely to go away anytime soon.
Donald Trump is the newest Twitch streamer
The 2020 presidential campaigns are well under way, and Donald Trump has added another internet outlet to reach voters: Twitch. The campaign's first verified stream went live tonight from a rally in Minneapolis, as Trump followed Bernie Sanders' campaign in creating a presence on the site. While the primary use of Twitch is for live video game streams, as of this writing it's also hosting one of Amazon's Thursday Night Football feeds with about 41,000 viewers. The Trump stream counted 12,000 or so. As of last check, the Twitch TOS doesn't have any special carve-outs for politicians or political speech. Trump has frequently targeted its CEO Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post with criticism and comments, so if there's ever an issue of moderation on the channel it could be another flashpoint of controversy between those parties. Another odd element of Trump's use of Twitch is the administration's stance on gaming -- in May it hosted a meeting "to discuss violent video-game exposure and the correlation to aggression and desensitization in children." Now its campaign events are going live next to streams of Fortnite and Apex.
Google refutes Trump accusation over State of the Union links
After earlier tweeting, deleting and re-posting unsupported claims that Google is "suppressing voices of Conservatives," this afternoon the President's personal Twitter account posted a new attack video. It claimed that the company failed to promote his State of the Union address with a link on its homepage after doing so for President Barack Obama, but several things about it don't hold up. In a statement to the media, Google explained that isn't quite true, since a President's first address to Congress (like Donald Trump's this year) is not technically a State of the Union address, and explained that it did not promote Obama's speech in 2009 or Trump's in 2017. While the video claimed that it did not post a link for the 2018 speech, Google said it did. Buzzfeed News points to a Reddit post in the pro-Trump The_Donald section containing a screenshot showing the active link, posted during the speech earlier this year. Additionally, it points out that the video doesn't match Google's logo during the time in question. Meanwhile, Rob Graham points to an Internet archive page showing the link was active during the speech. Even if the video's claims were true, which all evidence available shows they are not, it's unclear why a link to a YouTube video -- which is also posted on the White House website -- would provide bias for or against a speech that also aired live on all major network and news TV channels. Google spokesperson: On January 30 2018, we highlighted the livestream of President Trump's State of the Union on the google.com homepage. We have historically not promoted the first address to Congress by a new President, which is technically not a State of the Union address. As a result, we didn't include a promotion on google.com for this address in either 2009 or 2017.
'Metal Wolf Chaos' is Michael Bay's brain in video game form
If the last 18 months have shown us anything, it's just how fragile our American democracy really is. But it's nothing compared to what Michael Wilson, the 47th President of the United States, will face during his tenure -- specifically a full-blown coup d'etat led by none other than his own brother and Vice President, Richard Hawk. Good thing the presidents of tomorrow come equipped with power armor.
