| Internet Governance State Department Announces Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy: The first-of-its-kind bureau will focus on topics like national security, economic developments, and digital technologies from a policy perspective. |
| Privacy EU Proposal Would Create One of the World’s Largest Facial Recognition Databases: The proposal, which has been criticized by privacy professionals, would give police officers in countries that have adopted the plan access to photo banks compiled by police forces across the continent. European police forces already share information like fingerprints and DNA data. |
| Information Security and Cyberthreats Russian Hackers Send Out Fake Claims of Ukrainian Surrender: Since the beginning of the invasion, Russian hackers have breached trusted social media accounts and broadcasting systems to share the news of Ukrainian surrender. While the fake messages likely aren’t fooling anyone, they are part of a broader mission to erode confidence in Ukrainian media and government officials. |
| Intellectual Property Hackers Take Over YouTube Channels of Popular Musicians: The hackers, who took credit for the breaches on a Twitter account using the name Los Pelaos, uploaded unauthorized videos onto the accounts of artists including Taylor Swift, Justin Beiber, Lil Nas X, Harry Styles, Drake, Michael Jackson, and The Weeknd. |
| Freedom of Expression and Censorship Proposed Amazon Worker Chat App Would Ban Words Related to Labor Organizing: Internal company documents express a plan to create a worker chat app that would block words pertaining to labor unions and flag employees who use offending keywords. The proposal, which was made public in the days following the unionization of an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island, would also allow for the blocking of words that could represent critiques of working conditions. Twitter Takes a Harder Line on Content Related to the Russia-Ukraine Conflict: The social media company announced that it will “require the removal of Tweets posted by government or state-affiliated media accounts” that show photos or videos of prisoners of war from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it will reduce the chances of users seeing posts from Russian government accounts; it will still allow prisoner-of-war content that is particularly compelling or newsworthy. The decision is meant to ensure that Twitter complies with provisions of the Geneva Convention that relate to prisoners of war. |
| On the Lighter Side TikTok-Viral Unofficial Bridgerton Musical Wins Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album: The 15-song album based on the hit Netflix series, which was composed with help from TikTok users, is the first Grammy win for a project that began on the popular platform. |
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| Ron Lazebnik Academic Director, Fordham CLIP Tom Norton Executive Director, Fordham CLIP Elyssa Diamond Editorial Fellow |