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How will the TikTok ban impact Americans?

A bill that would prohibit TikTok in the US unless it is sold was signed by Joe Biden on Wednesday.

Over 170 million Americans use TikTok, and for many of them, it is their primary source of income. But with the new law, the short-video platform’s US ban is only a matter of time.

The TikTok prohibition bill has finally received congressional approval and will no longer be signed by President Joe Biden, after years of attempts—including one by former President Donald Trump—to outlaw the Chinese-owned app.

As a result of the new regulation, Beijing-based parent company ByteDance must sell the company to a US corporation in nine months. The deadline may be extended by three months if a sale is already in progress or is covered by a national prohibition.

When does the ban come into effect?
The original proposal called for ByteDance to divest its US subsidiary within six months, but after negotiations, that deadline was extended to nine months. Should a sale be underway, the company will have an additional three months to complete the transaction.

What if one has already downloaded TikTok?

Although TikTok won’t likely disappear from users’ phones right once, it will be taken down from Google and Apple’s app stores. As a result, users won’t be able to download bug patches, security upgrades, or updates, which would eventually render the app useless.

Numerous tech enthusiasts, who are renowned for eluding social media limitations, might try to get around the prohibition by utilizing VPNs, alternate app stores, or SIM cards from other countries.

This is extremely improbable, though, and a lot of people might switch to other sites where comparable content is accessible, such YouTube or Instagram Reels.

“The TikTok bill relies heavily on Apple and Google’s control over their smartphone platforms because the bill’s primary mechanism is to direct Apple and Google to stop allowing the TikTok app on their respective app stores,” notes Dean Ball of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

“In the world many advocates of antitrust and aggressive regulation against the large tech firms envision, such a mechanism might be much less effective.”

What will the American creator do?

The chief of digital corporate advisory and partnerships at CAA, Andrew Graham, points out that while artists will not immediately lose access to TikTok, the likelihood of a U.S. ban “will immediately force dramatic talent platform diversification.”

According to Graham, creators are turning more and more to websites like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels in an attempt to “solve the impact of short-form content monetizing at rates much lower than long-form.” It is possible that TikTok’s most lasting impact is to erode long-form monetization on websites like YouTube.

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The US administration is worried about laws pertaining to national security in China compelling firms such as ByteDance to assist in gathering intelligence.

The risk of “date-thefting” remains, despite Bytedance’s denials that it is a tool of the Chinese government and that it does not share user data with the US government.

Data privacy experts point out that commercial data brokers are just one way the Chinese government might be able to get information about Americans.

In a $6.4 billion transaction, IBM will acquire HashiCorp to grow in the cloud.

April 24 (Reuters): Selecting a new tab, IBM.N, or International Business Machines, will buy In order to capitalize on an increase in demand driven by artificial intelligence, HashiCorp (HCP.O) announced on Wednesday that it has opened a new tab in a $6.4 billion deal, expanding its cloud-based software offerings.
IBM’s consulting business has seen success with software as businesses navigate rising loan rates and more frugal expenditures.
For $35 per share, or 42.6% more than Monday’s closing price, IBM intends to purchase HashiCorp. Shares of HashiCorp surged sharply after information about the deal talks was made public on Tuesday.

In extended trading on Wednesday, HashiCorp’s shares increased by more than 4%, while IBM’s sank by 7% after the latter company’s first-quarter revenue report came in slightly lower than expected.
Compared to LSEG expectations of $14.55 billion, the total revenue was $14.46 billion. Sales in the consulting segment were flat throughout the quarter.
“In this erratic macroeconomic climate, you’re seeing clients. “You are seeing clients that are tightening their discretionary spending,” CFO Jim Kavanaugh said to Reuters.

Accenture (ACN.N), opens new tab, said in March that a decline in client spending on its consulting services would cause it to lower its revenue forecast for the fiscal year 2024.

ibm


IBM’s software business grew by 5.5% in the first quarter. The business has focused more on the cloud as it becomes increasingly crucial to manage and store the massive amounts of data required in artificial intelligence systems.
The Big Blue’s “AI book of business” exceeded $1 billion in the first quarter thanks to its sequential growth. The book contains actual reservations and sales data from a variety of offerings.

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Moscow terror attack: US finds no proof of Ukrainian government complicity!

The “heinous” terrorist attack carried out by ISIS at the Crocus City Hall music venue near Moscow has been harshly denounced by the US

Moscow terror attack: The United States reiterated that there is no proof linking the Ukrainian government to the terrorist incident at the Moscow music hall, which was carried out by ISIS at Crocus.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is aware that ISIS carried out this terrorist assault, according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s statement on Tuesday.

“ISIS was the group that carried out this terrorist attack. Mr. Putin is aware of that. He is fully aware of that. Furthermore, she stated, “There is not a shred of proof linking the Ukrainian government to this attack.”

Karine Jean-Pierre expressed her condolences, saying that she wanted to take a moment to reflect and send her sincere sympathies to everyone who was harmed in this awful attack as well as to the families of those who lost loved ones.

“We continue to strongly condemn the heinous terrorist attack in Moscow,” she said.

“We make that extremely apparent. To be more precise, we conducted a public advisory and notified Americans residing in Russia on March 7. And here, Pierre stated, ISIS is the only one to blame.

The music hall terror attack claimed the lives of at least 133 people.

The “heinous” terrorist act carried out by ISIS at the Crocus City Hall music venue outside Moscow has been harshly condemned by the United States, which has also sent its sympathies to the families of the deceased.

ISIS must be vanquished globally, according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jeane-Pierre, who referred to the group as a “common terrorist enemy” in a statement.

“The horrific terrorist attack that occurred in Moscow is strongly denounced by the United States.” Our heartfelt sympathies go out to everyone impacted by these heinous assaults on defenseless civilians, as well as to those who lost loved ones. “ISIS is a global terrorist threat that needs to be vanquished,” the statement said.

Additionally, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that the US condones with Russia for the deaths caused by the terrorist assault in Moscow.

Blinken wrote on X, “The terrorist attack in Moscow on March 22 is strongly condemned by the United States.” We are in sympathy with the Russian people as they mourn the lives lost in this terrible incident.”

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Love-bombs, use of AI: Indian woman “Shreya Datta” in US loses crores to scammer

The con — which drained Shreya Datta, 37, of her savings and retirement funds while saddling her with debt -– involved the use of digitally altered deepfake videos and a script so sophisticated that she felt her “brain was hacked.”

Shreya Datta

In Short

  • Indian woman in US loses Rs 3.73 crore in cryptocurrency romance scam
  • The scam is commonly known as “pig butchering”
  • The scam involved use of digitally altered deepfake videos, tricking into fake crypto investment.

The “wine trader” wooed her online for months with his flirtatious smile and emoji-sprinkled texts. Then he went for the kill, defrauding the Philadelphia-based tech professional out of $450,000 in a cryptocurrency romance scam.

The con — which drained Shreya Datta, 37, of her savings and retirement funds while saddling her with debt -– involved the use of digitally altered deepfake videos and a script so sophisticated that she felt her “brain was hacked.”

The scam is commonly known as “pig butchering,” with victims likened to hogs fattened up by fraudsters with feigned love and affection before the proverbial slaughter — tricking them into a fake crypto investment.

The rapid growth of this fraud, thought to be run by crime syndicates in Southeast Asia, has resulted in losses worth billions of dollars in the United States, with victims saying there is little recourse to recover money.

As it has for many victims, Datta’s experience began on a dating app — Hinge, in her case, where last January she met “Ancel,” who introduced himself as a French wine trader based in Philadelphia.

Datta said she was “charisma bombed” as the conversation quickly moved to WhatsApp. The gym buff with a dreamy smile deleted his Hinge profile to give her “focused attention,” a refreshing experience in the age of fleeting online relationships.

They exchanged selfies, flirty emoticons and did brief video calls in which the suave but “shy” man posed with a dog, later determined to be AI deepfakes.

They texted daily, with “Ancel” enquiring about little things like whether she had eaten, preying on Datta’s desire for a caring companion after her divorce.

Plans to physically meet kept getting pushed back, but Datta was not immediately suspicious. On Valentine’s Day last year, she received a bouquet from “Ancel” sent from a Philadelphia flower shop, with the card addressing her as “Honey Cream.”

When she sent him a selfie, posing with the flowers, he sprayed her with red kiss mark emojis, according to WhatsApp exchanges seen by AFP.

Between the mushy exchanges, “Ancel” sold her a dream.

“The dream was, ‘I’m retiring early, I’m well off. What is your plan?'” Datta, an immigrant from India, told AFP.

“He’s like, ‘I’ve made all this money investing. Do you really want to work till you’re 65?'”

He sent her a link to download a crypto-trading app — which came with two-factor authentication to make it appear legitimate — and showed her what he called money-making trades through annotated screenshots seen by AFP.

Datta converted some of her savings into cryptocurrency on the US-based exchange Coinbase and the fake app initially allowed her to withdraw her early gains, boosting her confidence to invest more.

“As you make astronomical amounts of money trading, it messes with your normal risk perception,” Datta said in hindsight.

“You feel like, ‘Wow, I can do even more.'”

“Ancel” egged her on to invest more savings, take out loans and, despite her reluctance, liquidate her retirement fund.

By March, Datta’s nearly $450,000 investment had more than doubled on paper, but alarm bells went off when she tried to withdraw the amount and the app demanded a personal “tax.”

She turned to her London-based brother, who did a reverse image search of the pictures “Ancel” had sent her and found they were of a German fitness influencer.

“When I realized it was all a scam and all the money was gone, I had proper PTSD symptoms — I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t function,” Datta said.

“It was very traumatizing.”

Dating sites are rife with disinformation, with Facebook groups such as “Tinder swindler dating scams” and “Are we dating the same guy?” cropping up, and researchers calling out the growing use of AI-generated profile pictures.

But the use of romance as a hook to commit financial fraud is provoking new alarm.

The FBI told AFP that last year more than 40,000 people reported losses totaling well over $3.5 billion from cryptocurrency fraud, including pig butchering, to the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

But that estimate is likely low, as many victims tend not to report the crime out of shame.

“What’s horrific about this crime is it is meant to take every last penny from its victim,” Erin West, a California-based prosecutor, told AFP, adding that she is “deluged with victims every day.”

Self-harm among victims is a common concern, campaigners say, with most unable to recover their losses and some falling prey to another breed of scammers — fake recovery agents.

Datta, who is in therapy and has moved to a smaller apartment to manage her debt, said she had little hope of recovery after reporting the crime to the FBI and Secret Service.

Neither body responded to AFP’s queries about her particular case. Nor did Coinbase, which informed Datta in an email –- after she was conned — that she “may have sent cryptocurrency to a fraudulent investment platform.”

More agonizing, Datta said, was dealing with public judgments such as, “How could you be so stupid?”

“There should be no shame in becoming a victim of this absolutely masterful psychological scam,” West said.

“Victims are truly brainwashed.”

This Article Was Originally Published On India Today.

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US to impose sanctions on 500 targets in Russia to mark Ukraine war anniversary

The United States will impose sanctions on over 500 targets on Friday in action marking the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Deputy US Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

US
The new penalties come as the US and its allies look to maintain pressure on Russia.

In Short

  • US to impose sanctions on over 500 targets on Friday
  • The action marks second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
  • The new penalties come as the US and its allies look to maintain pressure on Russia

The United States will impose sanctions on over 500 targets on Friday in action marking the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Deputy US Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

The action, taken in partnership with other countries, will target Russia’s military industrial complex and companies in third countries that facilitate Russia’s access to goods it wants, Adeyemo said, as Washington seeks to hold Russia to account over the war and the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Alexei Navalny

“Tomorrow we’ll release hundreds of sanctions just here in the United States, but it’s important to step back and remember that it’s not just America taking these actions,” Adeyemo said.

The package will be the latest of thousands of sanctions targeting Moscow announced by the United States and its allies following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which has killed tens of thousands and destroyed cities.

The new penalties come as the US and its allies look to maintain pressure on Russia, despite doubts over whether the US Congress will approve additional security assistance for Kyiv.

President Joe Biden’s administration has exhausted money previously approved for Ukraine, and a request for additional funds is languishing in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

“Sanctions and export controls are geared towards slowing Russia down, making it harder for them to fight their war of choice in Ukraine,” Adeyemo said.

“But ultimately, in order to speed Ukraine up, to give them the ability to defend themselves, Congress needs to act to give Ukraine the resources that they need and the weapons they need.”

Experts have warned that the sanctions are not enough to stop Moscow’s attacks.

“What Congress does to pass additional military assistance to Ukraine is going to matter far, far more than anything else they could do on the sanctions front,” Peter Harrell, a former National Security Council official, said.

The Treasury Department in December said Russia’s economy had been hit by the sanctions, contracting by 2.1% in 2022.

Putin

Russia’s economy is over 5% smaller than had been predicted prior, Rachel Lyngaas, the Chief Sanctions Economist, said on Treasury’s website, opens new tab.

Still, Russia’s economy has performed above expectations, with the International Monetary Fund in January forecasting, opens new tab 2.6% GDP growth for 2024 – a 1.5 percentage point upgrade from an October estimate – after solid 3.0% growth in 2023.

But IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said on Thursday it was “clear that Russia is now in a war economy,” with military expenditures boosting weapons production, government social transfers propping up consumption and inflation that is rising, despite declines elsewhere.

This article was published on India today.

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Donald Trump Wins 1st Republican Contest Of US Presidential Race!

Donald Trump swept to victory in Iowa’s caucuses — the first vote in the US presidential race — cementing his status as the presumptive Republican standard-bearer to challenge President Joe Biden in November’s election.

Donald Trump
Donald Trump was up against Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis

Donald Trump swept to victory Monday in Iowa’s caucuses — the first vote in the US presidential race — cementing his status as the presumptive Republican standard-bearer to challenge President Joe Biden in November’s election.

The former president has led polling for more than a year, but the Iowa contest was seen as the clearest insight yet into whether he can convert his advantage into a stunning White House return.

In the end, major US networks took just half an hour from the opening of polls to project the winner, with Trump securing almost three quarters of the early vote.

There had been questions as to whether Trump’s legal problems — he faces multiple civil and criminal trials in multiple jurisdictions — may have dampened his support.

But the Iowa victory would suggest the 77-year-old, who left Washington under a cloud following the 2021 assault on the US Capitol by his supporters, has succeeded in turning those prosecutions into a rallying cry to galvanize his followers.

The opening vote in the primary season, Iowa is considered crucial for winnowing the field and giving those left standing a springboard for the rest of the race.

As he takes his momentum into New Hampshire in eight days, the former reality TV star has a commanding lead that his rivals have been unable to blunt.

Bundled up Iowa residents shuffled into more than 1,600 voting locations across the state, braving sub-zero temperatures in a winter storm that forcing candidates to cancel events at the last minute — and aides to fret over turnout.  

With voting barely underway as Trump was declared the winner, it was not immediately clear how his closest rivals — former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis were faring.

The margin of the ex-president’s victory could be well in excess of the 12-point win his aides said would have made for a good night. 

Iowa accounts for less than two percent of the delegates awarded nationwide in the process to pick a party’s candidates, so a big night by no means guarantees success in the rest of the nominating season. 

But a strong showing is essential for candidates hoping for a boost before New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

The Trump machine was better organized than when he lost Iowa in 2016, with boots on the ground across the state.

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The candidate himself was off the trail in the final week, however, as he made voluntary appearances in some of the many court cases making his tilt at the White House a campaign like no other in history.

The Iowa result is critical for DeSantis, who shifted significant resources to the state and spent months wooing voters in all 99 counties.

Analysts say anything short of a second-place finish would be disastrous for the hard-line conservative, and Haley looked to be narrowly ahead in the first hour of caucusing.

Haley had tried to downplay expectations in Iowa and said she is looking simply for a strong performance ahead of the primary next Tuesday in her preferred state of New Hampshire. 

She has repeatedly touted her electability over Trump, pointing to the “chaos” of his criminal cases and reminding Iowans that Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections.

“I think we’ve always had a target on our back because we’ve been the one moving up, everybody else is going down and that’s a great thing,” Haley told Fox News.

Caucuses — a quirk of the US election calendar — are town hall-style meetings involving speeches and debate that only a handful of states stage.

Armies of volunteers have fanned out through Iowa in recent weeks, knocking on doors or manning phone banks, while candidates dominated the air waves with talk show appearances and a barrage of campaign ads.

The caucuses feature some low-polling candidates too, including biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson.

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Caucuses also are being held by Iowa’s Democrats, along with voting by mail until March, with President Joe Biden facing two challengers but no serious threat.

This Article was originally published on ndtv.com!

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