Month: September 2018

Enlarge / Conspiracy theorist and talk show host Alex Jones. (credit: InfoWars)

After weeks of controversy, Twitter officially banned conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his InfoWars site from its platform. The social media company tweeted out the decision from its Twitter Safety account Thursday afternoon, stating that it permanently suspended Alex Jones and InfoWars after both accounts posted tweets and videos that violated the company's abusive-behavior policy. Previous violations also contributed to the decision to ban both accounts.

Today, we permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope. We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts’ past violations. https://t.co/gckzUAV8GL

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) September 6, 2018

Both accounts show "account suspended" messages, so the tweets and videos that violated Twitter's policy are no longer available. However, according to a report by The Daily Beast, Twitter confirmed that one of the videos that violated its policy was an InfoWars video posted to Jones' Twitter account. It showed Jones verbally attacking CNN reporter Oliver Darcy, saying, among other things, "Those are the eyes of a rat."

Last month, Twitter gave Jones a small punishment for his inflammatory behavior on the platform—a one-week suspension that prevented Jones from tweeting or retweeting from his personal account. That came after users flagged a video that Jones posted to Twitter in which he encouraged his supporters to ready their weapons against the media and other groups.

Love to use Bookmarks and want it on web? Into scrolling through Explore to see what's happening?

We are testing out a new Twitter for web, which a small number of people will see today. Love it? Missing something? Reply and tell us. Don't have the new experience? Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/w4TiRrVFHU

— Twitter (@Twitter) September 6, 2018

Twitter is showing some users of its desktop website a new user interface that is designed to be faster and to feature support for the recently added bookmarks feature (supported in the iOS and Android clients but not, currently, the main website), a data-saver mode, and a night mode. These users have been selected at random and moved over to the new interface so they can test the interface and provide feedback.

The new interface isn't all that different from the old one: it's organized a little differently, with a two-column layout instead of the three columns currently used, but overall it will feel familiar to anyone who has used the microblogging platform before. What makes this move interesting isn't the specifics of the interface itself, but the technology it's built on.

The new interface isn't actually new at all. It has been available for some time now as mobile.twitter.com, Twitter's mobile-friendly Web interface. In turn, that same Web interface is used to drive the Windows 10 app, the KaiOS platform for "smart feature phones," and the recently released Twitter Lite app for Android. This is why it has the data-saver mode; it has been designed with an eye on those users who suffer from poor or expensive bandwidth or have underpowered devices.

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Today's list is headlined by a deal on Samsung's EVO Select microSD cards: the 128GB variant is down to $34, while the 64GB model is down to $18. Both of those prices are at least tied for the lowest we've seen.

We highlighted the EVO Select the last time it was discounted like this, but the short rundown is that both variants are U3-rated Class 10 cards that perform well for their relatively low cost. They're well suited for capturing 4K video, they're extremely well-reviewed on Amazon, and they both come with 10-year warranties. The 128GB model in particular gives a good chunk of space for those running out of room on their Nintendo Switch.

We also have deals on Anker charging equipment, Nokia's 6.1 phone, new Vizio 4K TVs, and more. Have a look for yourself below.

Enlarge / A 2016 Ford F-150 truck. (credit: Ford)

Ford is recalling two million of its popular F-150 pickup trucks after discovering that a seat belt component called the pretensioner has the potential to start a fire if the truck gets in an accident.

Ford says that it has received 17 reports of seatbelt-related smoke or fire in F-150s in the United States and six more in Canada. There have been no reports of injuries as a result.

What's a seatbelt pretensioner? Modern cars and trucks have sensors that can detect when a crash is underway and rapidly deploy the vehicle's safety features in a fraction of a second. In addition to deploying the airbags, a vehicle will also trigger seatbelt pretensioners that jerk the seatbelts a couple inches tighter, pulling passengers into their seats.

Enlarge / FCC Chairman Ajit Pai at The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research on May 5, 2017 in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla)

As chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai has focused on one goal above all others: eliminating rules previous administrations imposed on broadband providers such as Comcast, Charter, AT&T, and Verizon.

It turns out Pai is also in lockstep with the broadband industry on another project—convincing Congress to impose new regulations on Google, Facebook, and Twitter as ISPs try to compete against tech giants for advertising dollars.

Last week, telco lobby group USTelecom accidentally emailed internal documents containing draft talking points to Techdirt founder Mike Masnick. As Masnick detailed in a thorough summary and analysis, USTelecom claims that ISPs "have embraced strong consumer privacy policies" but that websites pose a grave privacy threat to consumers and should therefore face new regulations. USTelecom also argued that "net neutrality" rules should apply to the practices of websites, not just to ISPs.