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Maryland Governor Bans The Use Of TikTok On State-Owned Devices

(CTN NEWS) – Governor Larry Hogan announced on Tuesday that Maryland would ban the use of TikTok and some other platforms with Chinese or Russian roots in the state’s executive arm of government.
This makes Maryland the latest state to confront the cybersecurity threats posed by the platforms.
According to the Republican governor, the platforms might be used for cyberespionage, government monitoring, and the improper acquisition of sensitive personal data.
He, therefore, issued an emergency cybersecurity edict that forbade their usage.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan speaks at an annual leadership meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition on November 18, 2022.
Hogan stated that “the cyber vulnerabilities that enable our daily lives may be the greatest threat to our safety and national security”.
And that “we are issuing this emergency directive against foreign actors and groups that aim to weaken and divide us.”
We are taking this action to protect state systems from foreign actors and organizations that may be involved in cyber espionage.
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) December 6, 2022
The Maryland order comes a week after South Dakota’s Republican governor, Kristi Noem, forbade state workers and contractors from using TikTok on state-owned devices, citing the app’s connections to China.
Republican Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina requested on Monday that TikTok be removed from all state-owned devices from the state’s Department of Administration.
In August 2020, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts disabled TikTok on government-owned technology.
According to the U.S. armed forces, the app is also not allowed on military devices.
Today I took action to block access to TikTok on state government devices. Law enforcement and national security officials have warned us that TikTok poses a clear and present danger to its users, and this further protects our state’s critical cyber infrastructure. pic.twitter.com/yXzTyxXQWf
— Gov. Henry McMaster (@henrymcmaster) December 5, 2022
Holden Triplett, a former FBI government officer who worked in Beijing in counterintelligence, is a co-founder of Trenchcoat Advisors. “It is a risk that most governments are starting to understand it’s not worth taking,” he said.
Although there is a substantial discussion regarding whether the Chinese government is actively gathering data from TikTok, Triplett claimed that the programme has a glaring vulnerability.
ByteDance, the business that owns TikTok, must accede to any prospective requests by Chinese security and intelligence agencies for data handover because it is a Chinese corporation, he added.
This data may include the whereabouts and contacts of employees.
In 2020, ByteDance relocated its corporate headquarters there.
China’s government has ordered ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to censor all communications about the protests. The time has come for the US government to follow India‘s lead and ban TikTok in the United States. https://t.co/I8eiHoE7u4
— Jamie Metzl (@JamieMetzl) December 2, 2022
According to a recent analysis from the NGO Global Witness and the Cybersecurity for Democracy team at New York University, TikTok has struggled to identify advertising that contains blatantly false information about U.S. elections.
The worries regarding driving restrictions, according to TikTok spokeswoman Jamal Brown, “are mostly motivated by a misunderstanding about our firm.”
“To address our privacy and security procedures, we are always pleased to meet with state policymakers, according to Brown.”
“We are disappointed that many state offices, agencies, and colleges utilizing TikTok to create communities and communicate with their people will no longer have access to our platform.”
According to Los Angeles-based TikTok Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas, all American users’ data is protected by the company, and no one from the Chinese government can access it.
Tuesday also saw Republican lawmakers from Wisconsin ask Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to remove the video platform TikTok from all state-owned devices, citing a threat to national security.

Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers makes his acceptance speech on November 9, 2022.
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and U.S. Reps. Mike Gallagher, Tom Tiffany, Glenn Grothman, Bryan Steil, and Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a letter that:
“Wisconsinites expect their governor to be aware of the dangerous national security threats TikTok gestures and to defend them from this avenue for CCP intelligence operations.”
Last month, Gallagher collaborated with Florida’s U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio on an opinion post urging governments to outlaw TikTok.
Britt Cudaback, a spokesperson for Evers, said the administration “very seriously” considers cybersecurity issues.
And frequently works with counterintelligence experts, the FBI, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security when making decisions about state government equipment.
My favorite part about Wisconsin Republicans’ ~we want to work together~ narrative is when they send a formal, three-page letter that could’ve been a phone call just so they leak to press and get stories like this.
In the spirit of bipartisanship, of course! https://t.co/79nFGN82rb
— Britt Cudaback (@BrittCudaback) December 6, 2022
Regarding this and other developing cybersecurity issues, Cudaback said, “We will continue to defer to the judgement and advice of law enforcement, cybersecurity, and counterintelligence specialists.”
The White House under President Joe Biden has replaced the broad-based directives that former President Donald Trump issued against Chinese internet companies with a more focused strategy.
Officials from the United States and the corporation are negotiating a potential deal to allay American security worries.
Last month, a researcher with the conservative Heritage Foundation urged elected officials to forbid TikTok from ever again operating in the United States.
TikTok is effectively an arm of the Chinese Communist Party.
The amount of U.S. adults who get their news from TikTok has tripled in 2 years.
Nearly two-thirds of American teens are on the app.
An estimated 30 percent of PRE-teens use it.
Enough is enough. BAN TIKTOK. pic.twitter.com/lGgRgq8LOP
— Kara Frederick (@karaafrederick) December 6, 2022
Additionally, FBI Director Chris Wray stated last week that China might use the app to gather user data that could be utilized for conventional espionage activities.
However, other experts believe the threat is exaggerated.
James A. Lewis, a veteran diplomat and cybersecurity specialist, stated in a statement for the Strategic Technologies Program on November 14 that the harm to national security posed by TikTok is “easily overblown.”
According to Lewis, “intelligence organizations often trawl social media to gather biographical data; they are not required to own TikTok (or any other social media platform) to carry out this activity.”
“How much more does China get through access to TikTok data that is not made available to the general public? There may be some advantages, but it is probably minimal.”
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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Washington — Trump Media, The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.
The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.
The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.
Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.
Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.
The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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