Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou loses the first challenge in her extradition case, Twitter fact checks one of President Donald Trump’s tweets, and new reports suggest Facebook knew its algorithms divided users but the tech giant didn’t care.
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The British Columbia Supreme Court has ruled that the extradition process for Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is also the daughter of Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei, will move forward. The decision Wednesday by says the U.S. allegation of fraud would also be considered a crime if committed in Canada, and therefore her extradition process should continue. Wanzhou was arrested on December 1, 2018, at the Vancouver International airport under the allegations of fraud and violating a U.S. trade sanction. This no doubt complicates Canada’s relationship with China, which has vigorously objected to Meng’s detention. It also complicates our relationship with the U.S., which has been pressuring Canada to stop its wireless carriers from buying 5G networking equipment from China.
Trump is threatening to shut down social media companies after Twitter fact-checked one of Trump’s recent tweets about mail-in voting ballots. Bloomberg correctly stated that there’s no evidence that Trump actually has the ability to shut down social media networks, which are, of course, run by publicly traded companies and used by billions of people all over the world – including the president himself, who is arguably Twitter’s most active user.
And lastly, Reddit is buzzing about reporting from the Wall Street Journal that suggests Facebook had evidence that its algorithms encourage polarization and conflict, but top executives including CEO Mark Zuckerberg killed or weakened proposed solutions. One 2016 report found that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools,” with most people joining at the suggestion of Facebook’s “Groups You Should Join” and “Discover” algorithms. Researchers told the Wall Street Journal that Facebook’s recommendation systems, much like YouTube’s, make the problem worse. In response to a pitch about limiting the spread of hyperactive users’ posts, Zuckerberg apparently agreed to a diluted version and asked the team to not bring something like that to him again, according to The Journal.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. I’m Alex Coop, thanks for listening.