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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Facebook Gave Data Access to Chinese Firm Flagged by U.S. Intelligence
The agreements, which date to at least 2010, gave private access to some user data to Huawei, a telecommunications equipment company that has been flagged by American intelligence officials as a national security threat, as well as to Lenovo, Oppo and TCL.
The four partnerships remain in effect, but Facebook officials said in an interview that the company would wind down the Huawei deal by the end of the week.
Facebook gave access to the Chinese device makers along with other manufacturers — including Amazon, Apple, Black Berry and Samsung — whose agreements were disclosed by The New York Times on Sunday.
The deals gave Facebook an early foothold in the mobile market starting in 2007, before stand-alone Facebook apps worked well on phones, and allowed device makers to offer some Facebook features, such as address books, “like” buttons and status updates.
Facebook officials said the agreements with the Chinese companies allowed them access similar to what was offered to Black Berry, which could retrieve detailed information on both device users and all of their friends — including work and education history, relationship status and likes.
Facebook officials said that the data shared with Huawei stayed on its phone, not the company’s servers.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia pointed out that concerns about Huawei were not new, citing a 2012 congressional report on the “close relationships between the Chinese Communist Party and equipment makers like Huawei.”
“I look forward to learning more about how Facebook ensured that information about their users was not sent to Chinese servers,” said Mr. Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.
“All Facebook’s integrations with Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo and TCL were controlled from the get-go — and Facebook approved everything that was built,” said Francisco Varela, a Facebook vice president. “Given the interest from Congress, we wanted to make clear that all the information from these integrations with Huawei was stored on the device, not on Huawei’s servers.”
Banned in China since 2009, Facebook in recent years has quietly sought to gain a foothold there. The company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has tried to cultivate a relationship with China’s president, Xi Jinping, and put in an appearance at one of the country’s top universities. Last year, Facebook released a photo-sharing app in China that was a near replica of its Moments app, but did not put its name to it. And the company has worked on a tool that allowed targeted censorship, prompting some employees to quit over the project.
Still, the company has struggled to gain momentum, and in January a Facebook executive in charge of courting China’s government left after spending three years on a charm campaign to get the social media service back in the country.
None of the Chinese device makers who have partnerships with Facebook responded to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Huawei was the recipient of billions of dollars in lines of credit from China’s massive state-owned policy banks, helping to fuel its overseas expansion in Africa, Europe and Latin America. Its founder, Ren Zhengfei, is a former engineer in the People’s Liberation Army.
By one measure it is now the world’s biggest telecom equipment maker, not only selling phones but also key pieces of network infrastructure.
Lawmakers in the United States have been wary of the company for years, and have recommended that American carriers avoid buying its network gear.
In January, The Times reported that AT&T had decided not to sell Huawei’s newest smartphone, the Mate 10.
The Trump administration has taken aim at Huawei and its rival ZTE in recent weeks, and in April the Federal Communications Commission advanced a plan to bar federally subsidized telecom companies from using suppliers that are considered national security threats.
These people operate on a strict binary world view of winners and losers. There is no such thing as mutually winning; if someone else is winning, they must be losing, and therefore it is not enough that they be winning, or merely winning more, or even winning by the most, everyone else has to be losing.
We need the completely inaccurate depiction of game theory in A Beautiful Mind to be shared with some people.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Polls are closing for the State Primaries in several states. There's also a special election for a State Senate seat in Missouri, and current projections have the Democrats flipping another seat; with 44% of the vote in, Democrat Lauren Arthur has 61% of the vote compared to Republican Kevin Corlew
. Previously held by Republican Ryan Silvey, who won the 2016 Election by 61%, this district also went for Trump by 5%.
Considering this is one of the last Special Elections before November, this is very positive news for Democrats who have been worrying about the much needed Bluewave.
edited 5th Jun '18 6:30:23 PM by DingoWalley1
edited 5th Jun '18 6:25:39 PM by tclittle
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."![]()
The Mail by Vote Tracking System finally confirmed they received my vote, though I received assurances from the Registrar office that my vote was received on 5/30.
That's one of the risks of voting by mail, especially when you work overseas on the other side of the planet.
Disgusted, but not surprised![]()
From a quick google search and an article in a Missouri newspaper, the area was considered to lean slightly Democratic, (despite going pretty strong for a Republican the last few times around) so it's not a winning Alabama or almost flipping Virginia's state government achievement, but it's certainly a good step.
In NJ's second district, where moderate Republican Frank LoBiondo stepped down after 24 years in Congress, a somewhat Conservative Democrat named Jeff Van Drew walked away with the race. Van Drew had the backing of the state politics, which is always a kingmaker in Jersey politics, and had managed not to attract negative media attention despite being called out on his positive NRA rating and some questionable votes such as voting against gay marriage.
The Republicans had to scramble to find candidates, with an engineer, a lawyer/former Atlantic City Councilman, and a former Assemblyman being the big three contenders. The vote was very tight earlier (less than 500 votes separating 1st from 3rd) but right now it looks like the lawyer is starting to pull away, despite the engineer having been the favorite of the state party.
In the NJ 7th, where Republican incumbent Leonard Lance is one of the biggest targets for Democrats in the whole country despite him bucking the Republican party on a number of occasions, Obama era Tom Malinkowsi, (former diplomat and Assistant Secretary of State) crushed everyone on the Democratic side, and still got a strong turnout despite his win being expected.
The 11th saw the Democrat's preferred candidate, a former Navy pilot and prosector, win easily. It's still somewhat up in the air for Republicans, although Assemblyman Jay Webber has a slight lead over the rest of the Republican pack.
edited 5th Jun '18 7:04:28 PM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |Once again, George Conway's Twitter
strikes me for how different it is from Kellyanne's.
He responded to someone's response to trump's appointment of a special counsel being unconsitutional tweet, and it's actually pretty good.
He even follows Renato Mariotti, and has been been retweeting people like Jake Tapper, and people like that, about Trump's legal jeopardy, and taking a knee.
edited 5th Jun '18 7:58:28 PM by megaeliz
It makes a lot more sense if you assume that both major parties are gonna have platforms that can be reasonably and morally supported, with all the clear dickweasels relegated to the voteless fringe. I find the naivete endearing, to be honest, though we'll see how I feel when the votes are counted.
Anyway, poll's just closed so I supposed that's that.
edited 5th Jun '18 8:01:57 PM by rikalous

During the NBA Finals press conferences, LeBron James and Stephen Curry said neither of the teams going to the NBA Finals, Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors, want an invite to the White House.
Government says Medicare reserves will be out by 2026, 3 years sooner than expected, and Social Security's reserves will be out by 2034, the same projection as last year.
edited 5th Jun '18 4:45:07 PM by tclittle
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."