Tesla, Volvo, Ford and Mercedes sue US over ‘unlawful’ tariffs on Chinese parts

Tesla, Volvo, Ford and Mercedes-Benz have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, aiming to end what Elon Musk’s electric car manufacturer called “unlawful” tariffs imposed on certain parts imported from China. The lawsuits, filed in New York this week, target the 25% tariffs imposed by the US trade representative on a list of products including […]

TikTok hits back at ‘misinformation’ about its ties to China in submission to Senate inquiry

Video messaging app TikTok has hit back at what it says is “misinformation” about its connection to China, characterising itself as a global platform with “strict controls around security and data access”. The hugely popular platform has used a submission to the Senate inquiry into foreign interference through social media to note “and welcome” Scott […]

Facebook removes fake accounts with links to China and Philippines

Facebook says it has removed hundreds of coordinated fake accounts with links to individuals in China and in the Filipino military that were interfering in the politics of the Philippines and the US. The company said all the accounts – in two distinct networks based in China and the Philippines – were removed for violating […]

The old telly that brought down a Welsh village’s broadband

For 18 months, at precisely 7am every day, the broadband signal in the tiny Welsh village of Aberhosan simply vanished. Engineers were sent to the remote settlement in mid Wales, which has a population of just 400, to investigate the problem. They spent days testing connections and replacing cables until they finally got to the […]

Facebook says it may quit Europe over ban on sharing data with US

Facebook has warned that it may pull out of Europe if the Irish data protection commissioner enforces a ban on sharing data with the US, after a landmark ruling by the European court of justice found in July that there were insufficient safeguards against snooping by US intelligence agencies. In a court filing in Dublin, […]

‘Dark web’ responsible for TikTok suicide video, says company

A graphic suicide video that went viral on TikTok in early September was “the result of a coordinated raid from the dark web”, the company has told MPs. Giving evidence to the Commons committee for digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS), Theo Bertram, TikTok’s European director of public policy, said the video, which was originally […]

BPM: Bullets Per Minute review – Doom meets Rock Band in a pulsing retro blaster

Shooter games have always had a sneaking love affair with rhythm. Players of classics such as Halo operate as much by ear as eye, internalising the cadences of fire rates and reload times. Awe Interactive’s BPM: Bullets Per Minute borrows from actual music games by having you perform every action besides movement to a background […]

TikTok: why it is being sold and who will own it

Why is TikTok for sale? Donald Trump has accused the video-sharing social networking service, which is wildly popular in the US, of being a threat to national security. He claims its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, would give the Chinese government access to user data upon request. TikTok denies the accusation. The US president has demanded […]

Facebook suspends environmental groups despite vow to fight misinformation

Facebook has suspended the accounts of several environmental organizations less than a week after launching an initiative it said would counter a tide of misinformation over climate science on the platform. Groups such as Greenpeace USA, Climate Hawks Vote and Rainforest Action Network were among those blocked from posting or sending messages on Facebook over […]

‘Video games are a great place for politics’: meet India’s modern magical realists

In Gujarat, a tiny independent studio is drawing on India’s rich literary history to create surreal games that flow like visual poems, evoking decades of colonial literature and folk theatre to draw attention to the politics of today. Through fantastical environments where buildings and oversized monuments are made of rubber sandals and toothpaste tubes, Studio […]