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Jolted by a sweeping hack that may have revealed government and corporate secrets to Russia, U.S. officials are scrambling to reinforce the nation’s cyber defenses and recognizing that an agency created two years ago to protect America’s networks and infrastructure lacks the money, tools and authority to counter such sophisticated threats.The breach, which hijacked widely used software from Texas-based SolarWinds Inc., has exposed the profound vulnerability of civilian government networks and the limitations of efforts to detect threats.It’s also likely to unleash a wave of spending on technology modernization and cybersecurity.”It’s really highlighted the investments we need to make in cybersecurity to have the visibility to block these attacks in the future,” Anne Neuberger, the newly appointed deputy national security adviser for cyber and emergency technology, said Wednesday at a White House briefing. ‘Likely Russian’ hackersThe reaction reflects the severity of a hack that was disclosed only in December. The hackers, as yet unidentified but described by officials as “likely Russian,” had unfettered access to the data and email of at least nine U.S. government agencies and about 100 private companies, with the full extent of the compromise still unknown. And while this incident appeared to be aimed at stealing information, it heightened fears that future hackers could damage critical infrastructure, like electrical grids or water systems.President Joe Biden plans to release an executive order soon that Neuberger said would include about eight measures intended to address security gaps exposed by the hack. The administration has also proposed expanding by 30% the budget of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, or CISA, a little-known entity now under intense scrutiny because of the SolarWinds breach.President Joe Biden participates in a virtual event with the Munich Security Conference in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 19, 2021.Biden, making his first major international speech Friday to the Munich Security Conference, said that dealing with “Russian recklessness and hacking into computer networks in the United States and the world has become critical to protecting our collective security.”Republicans and Democrats in Congress have called for expanding the size and role of the agency, a component of the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in November 2018 amid a sense that U.S. adversaries were increasingly targeting civilian government and corporate networks as well as the critical infrastructure, such as the energy grid that is increasingly vulnerable in a wired world.Call for resourcesSpeaking at a recent hearing on cybersecurity, Representative John Katko, a Republican from New York, urged his colleagues to quickly “find a legislative vehicle to give CISA the resources it needs to fully respond and protect us.”Biden’s COVID-19 relief package called for $690 million more for CISA, as well as providing the agency with $9 billion to modernize IT across the government in partnership with the General Services Administration.That has been pulled from the latest version of the bill because some members didn’t see a connection to the pandemic. But Representative Jim Langevin, co-chair of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus, said additional funding for CISA was likely to reemerge with bipartisan support in upcoming legislation, perhaps an infrastructure bill.FILE – Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., prepares the dais after he was chosen as speaker pro tempore for the opening day of the 116th Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 3, 2019.”Our cyber infrastructure is every bit as important as our roads and bridges,” Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat, said in an interview. “It’s important to our economy. It’s important to protecting human life, and we need to make sure we have a modern and resilient cyber infrastructure.”CISA operates a threat-detection system known as Einstein that was unable to detect the SolarWinds breach. Brandon Wales, CISA’s acting director, said that was because the breach was hidden in a legitimate software update from SolarWinds to its customers. After it was able to identify the malicious activity, the system was able to scan federal networks and identify some government victims.”It was designed to work in concert with other security programs inside the agencies,” he said.The former head of CISA, Christopher Krebs, told the House Homeland Security Committee this month that the U.S. should increase support to the agency, in part so it can issue grants to state and local governments to improve their cybersecurity and accelerate IT modernization across the federal government, which is part of the Biden proposal.FILE – Then-U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs speaks to reporters at CISA’s Election Day Operation Center in Arlington, Va., March 3, 2020.”Are we going to stop every attack? No. But we can take care of the most common risks and make the bad guys work that much harder and limit their success,” said Krebs, who was ousted by then-President Donald Trump after the election and now co-owns a consulting company whose clients include SolarWinds.The breach was discovered in early December by the private security firm FireEye, a cause of concern for some officials.”It was pretty alarming that we found out about it through a private company as opposed to our being able to detect it ourselves to begin with,” Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, said at her January confirmation hearing.Right after the hack was announced, the Treasury Department bypassed its normal competitive contracting process to hire the private security firm CrowdStrike, U.S. contract records show. The department declined to comment. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has said that dozens of email accounts of top officials at the agency were hacked.’Backdoor code’The Social Security Administration hired FireEye to do an independent forensic analysis of its network logs. The agency had a “backdoor code” installed like other SolarWinds customers, but “there were no indicators suggesting we were targeted or that a future attack occurred beyond the initial software installation,” spokesperson Mark Hinkle said.Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the hack has highlighted several failures at the federal level but not necessarily a lack of expertise by public sector employees. Still, “I doubt we will ever have all the capacity we’d need in-house,” he said.There have been some new cybersecurity measures taken in recent months. In the defense policy bill that passed in January, lawmakers created a national director of cybersecurity, replacing a position at the White House that had been cut under Trump, and granted CISA the power to issue administrative subpoenas as part of its efforts to identify vulnerable systems and notify operators.The legislation also granted CISA increased authority to hunt for threats across the networks of civilian government agencies, something Langevin said they were only previously able to do when invited.”In practical terms, what that meant is they weren’t invited in because no department or agency wants to look bad,” he said. “So you know what was happening? Everyone was sticking their heads in the sand and hoping that cyberthreats were going to go away.” 
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Alphabet Inc.’s Google fired staff scientist Margaret Mitchell on Friday, they both said, a move that fanned company divisions on academic freedom and diversity that were on display since its December dismissal of AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru.Google said in a statement that Mitchell violated the company’s code of conduct and security policies by moving electronic files outside the company. Mitchell, who announced her firing on Twitter, did not respond to a request for comment.Google’s ethics in artificial intelligence work has been under scrutiny since the firing of Gebru, a scientist who gained prominence for exposing bias in facial analysis systems. The dismissal prompted thousands of Google workers to protest. She and Mitchell had called for greater diversity and inclusion among Google’s research staff and expressed concern that the company was starting to censor papers critical of its products.Gebru said Google fired her after she questioned an order not to publish a study saying AI that mimics language could hurt marginalized populations. Mitchell, a co-author of the paper, publicly criticized the company for firing Gebru and undermining the credibility of her work.The pair for about two years had co-led the ethical AI team, started by Mitchell.Google AI research director Zoubin Ghahramani and a company lawyer informed Mitchell’s team of her firing on Friday in a meeting called at short notice, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person said little explanation was given for the dismissal. Google declined to comment.The company said Mitchell’s firing followed disciplinary recommendations by investigators and a review committee. It said her violations “included the exfiltration of confidential business-sensitive documents and private data of other employees.” The investigation began Jan. 19.Google employee Alex Hanna said on Twitter the company was running a “smear campaign” against Mitchell and Gebru, with whom she worked closely. Google declined to comment on Hanna’s remarks.Google has recruited top scientists with promises of research freedom, but the limits are tested as researchers increasingly write about the negative effects of technology and offer unflattering perspectives on their employer’s products.Reuters reported exclusively in December that Google introduced a new “sensitive topics” review last year to ensure that papers on topics such as the oil industry and content recommendation systems would not get the company into legal or regulatory trouble. Mitchell publicly expressed concern that the policy could lead to censorship.Google reiterated to researchers in a memo and meeting on Friday that it was working to improve pre-publication review of papers. It also announced new policies on Friday to handle sensitive departures and evaluate executives based on team diversity and inclusion.
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For a brief time before Beijing banned the audio chat app Clubhouse, tech-savvy Chinese joined global discussions on taboo topics — Beijing’s placement of Uighurs in concentration camps in Xinjiang, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests — absorbing perspectives and information far outside the lines drawn by the Communist Party.Unlike Twitter posts, there was no public record of the app’s audio messages, which may complicate official monitoring efforts, according to In this file illustration photo taken on Jan. 25, 2021, shows the application Clubhouse on a smartphone in Berlin.Yu Ping, the former China country director of the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative, told VOA that while only a few people with access to iPhones registered outside China can access Clubhouse, they are often members of “China’s intellectual class, and for the authorities these are people who need to be more controlled” than ordinary citizens.Ping pointed out that any authoritarian government like China’s wants to control information and public opinion. In China, if information is not effectively manipulated and public opinion is not well-directed, authorities see an intolerable existential threat to the regime.Banning Clubhouse and the virtual private networks (VPNs) that give users the ability to surmount the Great Firewall manifests Beijing’s fear, he said.June Dreyer, professor of political science at the University of Miami, said Chinese authorities removed Clubhouse because audio content is harder to control compared with text content. Dreyer said although Chinese people used the app to comment on current affairs and even criticize the government, authorities shouldn’t have blocked the app even though they can.Users are going to get angry because they enjoyed Clubhouse, she said. Blocking it will upset people even more and then they will “seek more ways to vent their grievances. Sometimes it’s just better to let people who want to complain, complain.” Dreyer said the damage that banning Clubhouse causes to people who want to voice their opinion is limited. “As I say, people who have things that they want to talk about will always find ways to talk about them,” she said. “They can be repressed or suppressed, but there are always ways around that.” There are also concerns that the app has security flaws that could provide Chinese authorities access to user information. The Stanford Internet Observatory believes Clubhouse chatroom metadata are relayed to servers hosted in China, so the Chinese government potentially has access to users’ raw audio.  In addition, the Stanford Internet Observatory blog confirmed that the software that supplies back-end infrastructure to Clubhouse is based in China and because a user’s unique Clubhouse ID number and chatroom ID are transmitted in plain text, it is possible to connect Clubhouse IDs with user profiles. Clubhouse told the Stanford Internet Observatory blog that it is “deeply committed to data protection and user privacy.”The app told the blog that when it launched, it was available to every country worldwide except China. Some people in China found a workaround to download the app, which meant that the conversations they were a part of could be transmitted via Chinese servers.“With the help of researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory, we have identified a few areas where we can further strengthen our data protection.” 
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An international backlash was growing Thursday to Facebook blocking users of its platform in Australia from viewing or sharing links to domestic and international news stories, with the social media giant accused of behaving like a “bully.”
Facebook’s move to block the content ahead of Australian lawmakers approving a new measure forcing the company to pay media organizations is prompting widespread condemnation from politicians in Europe and North America.
They say the social media giant is being disrespectful of democracy and shamelessly exploiting its monopolistic commercial power.Campbell Brown, head of Facebook’s news partnerships team, introduces Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Paley Center, Oct. 25, 2019 in New York.”What the proposed law introduced in Australia fails to recognize is the fundamental nature of the relationship between our platform and publishers,” Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of global news partnerships, wrote in a post Wednesday. “I hope in the future, we can include news for people in Australia once again.”
Rights groups also joined in with scathing criticism. Amnesty International said it was “extremely concerning that a private company is willing to control access to information that people rely on.”
It added, “Facebook’s willingness to block credible news sources also stands in sharp distinction to the company’s poor track record in addressing the spread of hateful content and disinformation on the platform.”The ABC News Facebook page is seen on a screen in Canberra, Australia, Feb. 18, 2021.Access cut
Facebook’s action means that users located outside Australia are unable to access via the platform news produced by Australian broadcasters and newspapers, and people inside Australia cannot access any news content via Facebook at all.
Facebook’s move is not deterring the Australian Parliament from approving the new law — the world’s first to require social media companies to pay media outlets for using their content.FILE – Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is pictured in Tokyo, Nov. 17, 2020.The law will likely come into force next week. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Facebook had “unfriended Australia.” He described the company as arrogant and bullying and warned that Facebook was stoking international fears about oversized technology companies.
Under Australia’s new media code, social media companies will be required to reach a payment deal for news content linked or shared on their platforms. If an agreement proves elusive, an independent arbitrator can set pricing.
Facebook’s block took effect overnight Wednesday, with the digital giant preventing the sharing of news, including content from the country’s public broadcasters, as well as government pages featuring weather and emergency service warnings. Sharing or linking to community, women’s health and domestic violence pages also disappeared.
Elaine Pearson, Australia director at Human Rights Watch, said it was a “dangerous turn of events. Cutting off access to vital information to an entire country in the dead of the night is unconscionable.”
“We will not be intimidated by this act of bullying by Big Tech,” Morrison said in a statement.
He added, “These actions will only confirm the concerns that an increasing number of countries are expressing about the behavior of Big Tech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them. They may be changing the world, but that doesn’t mean they should run it.”
Morrison’s remarks were echoed elsewhere.
In Britain, Facebook’s action was described by Conservative lawmaker Julian Knight, chairman of a parliamentary culture and media committee, as “one of the most idiotic but also deeply disturbing corporate moves of our lifetimes.
“Australia’s democratically elected government is democratically elected. And they have the right to make laws and legislation. And it’s really disrespecting democracy to act in this fashion,” he told British broadcaster Sky News.
In 2019, a British government review found that Facebook and Google had a damaging impact on Britain’s news media because they attracted the lion’s share of online advertising revenue, starving private sector broadcasters and newspapers of income. Researchers found that 61% of British media advertising goes to either Facebook or Google.
Google threatened to take similar action, but last week it began signing preemptive payment deals. Google also has been striking voluntary deals in Britain and some European countries.
Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s competition commissioner, said Facebook and Google, owner of the world’s most used search engine, act like “a de facto duopoly.”
In a post, Facebook told Australia’s 18 million users that it had acted reluctantly and argued the new law misunderstood the relationship between Facebook and publishers who use it to share news content.Facebook advocates
But Facebook also has defenders in the tech industry.
Mike Masnick, founder of the California-based blog Techdirt.com, said users are not being blocked from accessing news. “Contrary to the idea that this is an ‘attack’ on journalism or news in Australia, it’s not. The news still exists in Australia. News companies still have websites. People can still visit those websites,” he said in a blog post.
Australia’s move to tax links is alarming, Masnick adds. “This is fundamentally against the principles of an open internet. The government saying that you can’t link to a news site unless you pay a tax should be seen as inherently problematic for a long list of reasons. At a most basic level, it’s demanding payment for traffic.”
On Thursday, the tech giant started to allow access via its platform from public health websites.
Facebook’s move to block media content in Australia was lambasted by Britain’s News Media Association. Henry Faure Walker, chairman of the group, said the action showed why countries need to coordinate robust regulation. He said the action was “a classic example” of a monopoly power “trying to protect its dominant position with scant regard for the citizens and customers it supposedly serves.”
Facebook’s British critics also highlighted emerging news that the tech giant has accepted funding from China’s state-controlled media organizations, including the China Daily newspaper and China Global Television Network (CGTN), to promote Chinese government denials that Beijing has been targeting ethnic Uighur Muslims and other minorities in the northwest region of Xinjiang in what the U.S. government has labeled a “genocide.”
An investigation this week by Britain’s trade journal the Press Gazette unearthed details of payments being made by Chinese state-controlled media to Facebook to advertise and promote the stories dismissing international concerns over the plight of the Uighurs as Western “disinformation.” 
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Facebook is blocking Australian users from sharing or viewing news content amid a dispute over a proposed law.  Australia wants tech giants like Facebook and Google to pay for the content reposted from news outlets.“A bombshell decision” is how Facebook’s move is being reported in Australia.  The social media giant said it was banning Australians from sharing and reading news stories on its platform with a “heavy heart.”   The government in Canberra, though, has said it won’t back down.  Ministers have said the Facebook ban highlighted the “immense market power of these digital social giants.”  About 17 million Australians visit Facebook every month.The media bargaining code legislation has already been passed by the lower house of the Australian parliament and is expected to receive final approval by the upper chamber, the Senate, next week.  It would make Australia the first country to force big tech firms to pay for news content.  Communications Minister Paul Fletcher is scathing about Facebook’s actions.“Facebook needs to think very carefully about what this means for its reputation and standing,” Fletcher said. “They are effectively saying on our platform there will not be any information from organizations which employ paid journalists.  They are effectively saying any information that is available on our site does not come from these reliable sources.”The progress of Australia’s social media laws is reportedly being closely followed in other parts of the world, including Canada and the European Union.Facebook said the legislation “fundamentally misunderstands” the relationship between itself and publishers.  Large technology companies, including Google, have argued that by using stories from other publishers they generate more internet traffic and revenue for the websites run by traditional media outlets.   They have complained that as their advertising revenues have collapsed, social media platforms have benefited from their quality journalism without paying for it.  In contrast to Facebook, Google has this week signed multi-million dollar deals with three major Australian broadcasters and publishers.
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For two decades, global news outlets have complained internet companies are getting rich at their expense, selling advertising linked to their reports without sharing revenue.
Now, Australia is joining France and other governments in pushing Google, Facebook and other internet giants to pay. That might channel more money to a news industry that is cutting coverage as revenue shrinks. But it also sets up a clash with some of the tech industry’s biggest names.
Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., has announced agreements to pay publishers in Australia while Facebook said Thursday it has blocked users in the country from viewing or sharing news.  What Is Happening in Australia?  
Facing a proposed law to compel internet companies to pay news organizations, Google has announced deals with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and Seven West Media. No financial details were released. The Australian Broadcasting Corp. is in negotiations.  
Google accounts for 53% percent of Australian online advertising revenue and Facebook 23%, according to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.  
Google had threatened to make its search engine unavailable in Australia in response to the legislation, which would create a panel to make pricing decisions on news.  
On Thursday, Facebook responded by blocking users from accessing and sharing Australian news.
Facebook said the proposed law “ignores the realities” of its relationship with publishers that use its service to “share news content.” That was despite Frydenberg saying this week Google and Facebook “do want to enter into these commercial arrangements.”  What Is Happening in Other Countries?  
Australia’s proposed law would be the first of its kind, but other governments also are pressuring Google, Facebook and other internet companies to pay news outlets and other publishers for material.  
In Europe, Google had to negotiate with French publishers after a court last year upheld an order saying such agreements were required by a 2019 European Union copyright directive.
France is the first government to enforce the rules, but the decision suggests Google, Facebook and other companies will face similar requirements in other parts of the 27-nation trade bloc.
 
Google and a group of French publishers have announced a framework agreement for the American company to negotiate licensing deals with individual publishers. The company has deals with outlets including the newspaper Le Monde and the weekly magazine l’Obs.  
Last year, Facebook announced it would pay U.S. news organizations including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and USA Today for headlines. No financial details were released.  
In Spain, Google shut down its news website after a 2014 law required it to pay publishers.  Why Does This Matter?  
Developments in Australia and Europe suggest the financial balance between multibillion-dollar internet companies and news organizations might be shifting.
Australia is responding to complaints internet companies should share advertising and other revenue connected to news reports, magazine articles and other content that appears on their websites or is shared by users.  
The government acted after its competition regulator tried and failed to negotiate a voluntary payment plan with Google. The proposed law would create a panel to make binding decisions on the price of news reports to help give individual publishers more negotiating leverage with global internet companies.What Does This Mean for The Public?
Google’s agreement means a new revenue stream for news outfits, but whether that translates into more coverage for readers, viewers and listeners is unclear.
The union for Australian journalists is calling on media companies to make sure online revenue goes into news gathering.
“Any monies from these deals need to end up in the newsroom, not the boardroom,” said Marcus Strom, president of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. “We will be pressing the case for transparency on how these funds are spent.”
In the meantime, access occasionally could suffer: Facebook’s move Thursday initially blocked some Australian commercial and government communications pages.
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Facebook has blocked Australian account holders from viewing or sharing all news content over a dispute with a government proposal to make digital giants pay domestic news outlets for their content.Thursday’s move by the U.S.-based social media company was made despite ongoing negotiations between Facebook and rival Google with Australian media companies.Facebook regional director Will Easton said in a written statement that the proposed law “fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content.”Easton said the proposal left Facebook “facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter.”The websites of several public agencies and emergency services were also blocked on Facebook, including pages that include up-to-date information on COVID-19 outbreaks, brushfires and other natural disasters.Treasurer Josh Frydenberg tweeted Thursday that he and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg had “a constructive discussion” in which Zuckerberg “raised a few remaining issues” with the government’s news media bargaining code.Australian media companies have seen their advertising revenue increasingly siphoned off by big tech firms like Google and Facebook in recent years.Google had also threatened to block news content if the law were passed, even warning last August that Australians’ personal information could be “at risk” if digital giants had to pay for news content.But the company has already signed a number of separate agreements with such Australian media giants as the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp, Nine Entertainment and Seven West Media.
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Facebook announced Thursday it has blocked Australians from viewing and sharing news on the platform because of proposed laws in the country to make digital giants pay for journalism.Australian publishers can continue to publish news content on Facebook, but links and posts can’t be viewed or shared by Australian audiences, the U.S.-based company said in a statement.Australian users cannot share Australian or international news.International users outside Australia also cannot share Australian news.”The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content,” Facebook regional managing director William Easton said.”It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter,” Easton added.The announcement comes a day after Treasurer Josh Frydenberg described as “very promising” negotiations between Facebook and Google with Australian media companies.Frydenberg said after weekend talks with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google, he was convinced that the platforms “do want to enter into these commercial arrangements.”Frydenberg said he had had a “a constructive discussion” with Zuckerberg after Facebook blocked Australian news.”He raised a few remaining issues with the Government’s news media bargaining code and we agreed to continue our conversation to try to find a pathway forward,” Frydenberg tweeted.But communications Minister Paul Fletcher said the government would not back down on its legislative agenda.”This announcement from Facebook, if they were to maintain this position, of course would call into question the credibility of the platform in terms of the news on it,” Fletcher told Australian Broadcasting Corp.”Effectively Facebook is saying to Australians, ‘Information that you see on our platforms does not come from organizations that have editorial policies or fact-checking processes or journalists who are paid to do the work they do,’” Fletcher added.The Australian Parliament is debating proposed laws that would make the two platforms strike deals to pay for Australian news.The Senate will consider the draft laws after they were passed by the House of Representatives late Wednesday.Both platforms have condemned the proposed laws as unworkable. Google has also threatened to remove its search engine from the country.But Google is striking pay deals with Australian news media companies under its own News Showcase model.Seven West Media on Monday became the largest Australian news media business to strike a deal with Google to pay for journalism.Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has since announced a wide-ranging deal.Rival Nine Entertainment is reportedly close to its own pact and ABC is also in negotiations.News plays a larger part in Google’s business model than it does in Facebook’s.Easton said the public would ask why the platforms were responding differently to the proposed law that would create an arbitration panel to set a price for news in cases where the platforms and news businesses failed to agree.”The answer is because our platforms have fundamentally different relationships with news,” Easton said.Peter Lewis, director of the Australia Institute’s Center for Responsible Technology think tank, said Facebook’s decision “will make it a weaker social network.””Facebook actions mean the company’s failures in privacy, disinformation, and data protection will require a bigger push for stronger government regulation,” Lewis said. “Without fact-based news to anchor it, Facebook will become little more than cute cats and conspiracy theories.”  
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