Social media companies step up battle against militant propaganda

By Joseph Menn SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook, Google and Twitter are stepping up efforts to combat online propaganda and recruiting by Islamic militants, but the Internet companies are doing it quietly to avoid the perception that they are helping the authorities police the Web. On Friday, Facebook Inc said it took down a profile that the company believed belonged to San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband is accused of killing 14 people in a mass shooting that the FBI is investigating as an “act of terrorism.” Just a day earlier, the French prime minister and European Commission officials met separately with Facebook, Google, Twitter Inc and other companies to demand faster action on what the commission called “online terrorism incitement and hate speech.” The Internet companies described their policies as straightforward: they ban certain types of content in accordance with their own terms of service, and require court orders to remove or block anything beyond that.

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U.S. appeals court hears challenge to net neutrality rules

By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court heard arguments on Friday over the legality of the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules, in a case that may ultimately determine how consumers get access to content on the Internet. The fight is the latest battle over Obama administration rules requiring broadband providers to treat all data equally, rather than giving or selling access to a so-called Web “fast lane.” A three-judge panel, in a hearing that lasted over three hours, questioned lawyers for the FCC and broadband backers about whether the FCC properly extended the sweeping authority it has to regulate telecommunications to Internet service providers

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Florida woman charged with felony for allegedly riding sea turtle

Stephanie Moore, of Melbourne, faces a felony charge of possessing, selling, or molesting a marine turtle or eggs nest, a violation of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission rules, according to a statement by the Melbourne Police Department. Moore was one of two young women whose photos showed up on Facebook in early July, in which they appeared to be riding a turtle on the beach, police said.

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India’s Modi set to woo tech companies in Silicon Valley

By Yasmeen Abutaleb SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has documented his push to bring U.S. investments and jobs back to India on his Facebook and Twitter pages since landing in the United States this week, posting photos with the likes of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and group shots with Fortune 500 CEOs.

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BlackBerry devices future rides on fortunes of new Android phone: CEO

By Euan Rocha WATERLOO, Ontario (Reuters) – BlackBerry Ltd’s decision to roll out a smartphone powered by Google’s Android platform was hotly debated internally but the gamble is necessary to test whether the company’s handset business is viable, Chief Executive John Chen said on Friday. Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry confirmed it planned to introduce an Android smartphone later this year, even as it also reported weaker-than-expected quarterly results.

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Apple hack exposes flaws in building apps behind ‘Great Firewall’

By Paul Carsten BEIJING (Reuters) – China's “Great Firewall” may have been partly to blame for the first major attack on Apple Inc's App Store, but experts also point the finger at lax security procedures of some big-name Chinese tech firms and how Apple itself supports developers in its second biggest market. A malicious program, dubbed XcodeGhost, hit hundreds – possibly thousands – of Apple iOS apps, including products from some of China's most successful tech companies used by hundreds of millions of people. The hackers targeted the App Store via a counterfeit version of Apple's Xcode “toolkit” – the software used to build apps to run on its iOS operating system – which Chinese developers used because they could download it faster.

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Google rejects ‘unfounded’ EU antitrust charges of market abuse

By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Google, the world's most popular Internet search engine, rejected on Thursday European Union antitrust charges that it abused its market power, saying they lacked any economic or legal basis. “Economic data spanning more than a decade, an array of documents and statements from complainants all confirm that product search is robustly competitive,” Kent Walker, Google's general counsel, wrote in a blog

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FCC sued by broadband companies over net neutrality rules

By Alina Selyukh WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. broadband providers on Monday filed lawsuits against the Federal Communications Commission's recently approved net neutrality rules, launching what is a expected to be a series of legal challenges. Broadband industry trade group USTelecom filed a lawsuit against the FCC in the U.S.

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