A popular podcasting platform, Pocket Casts, has been removed from Apple’s app store in China at Beijing’s request, according to the company’s Twitter thread. Pocket Casts confirmed Wednesday on Twitter that the request was made by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), Beijing’s top internet watchdog agency that controls which apps can be accessed on iOS and other platforms in the country. “We were contacted by the CAC through Apple around 2 days before the app was removed from the store,” it said.Pocket Casts has been removed from the Chinese App store by Apple, at the request of the Cyberspace Administration of China. We believe podcasting is and should remain an open medium, free of government censorship. As such we won’t be censoring podcast content at their request.
— Pocket Casts (@pocketcasts) June 11, 2020Before Pocket Casts was removed, another podcast player for iPhone, Castro, said on June 4 that its app was also removed from the Chinese app store by Apple. Castro said about 10% of its user base is in China. Asked why its app was taken down, Castro said in a Twitter comment on June 6 that they think it might have been the company’s support of the protests in Hong Kong, but “we were not given specifics.”We think it might have been our support of the protests in the Discover tab. We were not given specifics.
— Castro Podcasts (@CastroPodcasts) June 7, 2020Pocket Casts, originally developed by an Austrian company, was acquired by a group of American public radio companies in 2018. It is currently ranked 82nd most popular in the podcast news app section on Apple’s U.S website, where the Twitter app is number one. The app was not searchable within Apple’s Chinese app store at the time of writing. Apple could not be immediately reached for comment. This is not the first time that Apple has removed an app from the app store following a request by the Chinese government. According to a Transparency Report released on Apple’s website, for the first six months of 2019, the company received 56 requests from the Chinese government seeking removal of a third-party application offered on the app store related to alleged or suspected legal violations. In comparison, it received only two requests from Vietnam and five from Russia. Apple, by its own account, took down 194 apps in mainland China, none in Vietnam and 16 in Russia. The podcast removal comes amid fresh criticism from U.S.-based Chinese activists who said that Zoom, a U.S. video communication company, censors video talks on Hong Kong protests and China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown.The video-chat app briefly blocked an account of a Chinese human rights leader and then later restored the account on Wednesday. According to The New York Times, Zoom said in a statement on Wednesday that it had been following local laws when it suspended the account. “It is not in Zoom’s power to change the laws of governments opposed to free speech,” Zoom said.
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Microsoft has become the third big tech company this week to say it won’t sell its facial recognition software to police, following similar moves by Amazon and IBM.Microsoft’s president and chief counsel, Brad Smith, announced the decision and called on Congress to regulate the technology during a Washington Post video event on Thursday.”We’ve decided we will not sell facial recognition technology to police departments in the United States until we have a national law in place, grounded in human rights, that will govern this technology,” Smith said.The trio of tech giants is stepping back from law-enforcement use of systems that have faced criticism for incorrectly identifying people with darker skin. Ongoing protests following the death of George Floyd have focused attention on racial injustice in the U.S. and how police use technology to track people.Amazon Bans Police Use of its Face Recognition for a Year Civil rights groups and Amazon’s own employees have pushed the company to stop selling its technology, called Rekognition, to government agencies, saying that it could be used to invade people’s privacy and target minoritiesBut while all three companies are known for their work in developing artificial intelligence, including face recognition software, none is a major player in selling such technology to police. Smith said Thursday that Microsoft currently doesn’t sell its face recognition software to any U.S. police departments. He didn’t say if that includes federal law enforcement agencies or police forces outside the U.S.Several other companies that are less well known dominate the market for government facial recognition contracts in the U.S., including Tokyo-based NEC and the European companies Idemia and Gemalto.Microsoft, Amazon and IBM are calling on Congress to set national rules over how police use facial recognition — something that’s now being considered as part of a police reform package sparked by the protests following Floyd’s death.”If all of the responsible companies in the country cede this market to those that are not prepared to take a stand, we won’t necessarily serve the national interest or the lives of the black and African American people of this nation well,” Smith said. “We need Congress to act, not just tech companies alone.”Microsoft has spent two years warning of the potential dangers of face-scanning technology being abused to enable oppressive mass surveillance, but the company has opposed outright bans on government use of the technology passed in San Francisco and other cities. That’s led to criticism from groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, which says Microsoft is lobbying for weak regulations that could end up legitimizing and expanding police use of facial recognition.”Congress and legislatures nationwide must swiftly stop law enforcement use of face recognition, and companies like Microsoft should work with the civil rights community — not against it — to make that happen,” said Matt Cagle, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, in a statement Thursday. 
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Videoconferencing company Zoom temporarily shut down the account of a U.S.-based activist group days after it held an event commemorating the 31st anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square protests. Humanitarian China, an organization focused on providing relief for political prisoners and activists, held the Zoom conference on May 31. A week later June 7, the account used for the conference displayed a message that it had been shut down.  The meeting was streamed by 4,000 people and joined by more than 250 participants worldwide, including organizers of the Hong Kong Candlelight Vigil, writers and scholars, former student leaders of the Tiananmen Square protests and the Tiananmen Mothers.  The Tiananmen Square student-led protest has long been a sensitive topic in China’s political history.  30 Years After Tiananmen, Remembering a Pivotal Night

        On June 4, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party ordered tanks and soldiers to fire at its own people gathered at Tiananmen Square, which is located in the heart of Beijing. Three decades later, the shots fired still reverberate today.The bravery of a lone man confronting a row of Chinese tanks became a symbol of the night of resistance between the people of China and the hard-liners of the Communist Party that ordered the army action. His identity remains unknown. 

On June 4, 1989, in what critics and activists call a “massacre,” the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ordered tanks and soldiers to fire at pro-democracy protesters. Humanitarian China is currently led by human rights activist Zhou Fengsuo, who was a student during the protests in 1989. The organization said it is “outraged” Zoom shut its account and that “it seems possible Zoom acted on pressure from the CCP.” Humanitarian China also mentioned that former Tiananmen Square protester Dong Shengkun, previously imprisoned by the Chinese government for 17 years, was detained for five days to prevent him from attending the conference live.  Zoom has since reactivated the account and released a statement explaining the shutdown. “When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws,” the company said in an emailed statement.  “We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local laws and continuously review and improve our process on these matters.”        
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Amazon on Wednesday banned police use of its face-recognition technology for a year, making it the latest tech giant to step back from law-enforcement use of systems that have faced criticism for incorrectly identifying people with darker skin.   The Seattle-based company did not say why it took action now. Ongoing protests following the death of George Floyd have focused attention on racial injustice in the U.S. and how police use technology to track people. Floyd died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into the handcuffed black man’s neck for several minutes even after Floyd stopped moving and pleading for air.  Law enforcement agencies use facial recognition to identify suspects, but critics say it can be misused. A number of U.S. cities have banned its use by police and other government agencies, led by San Francisco last year. On Tuesday, IBM said it would get out of the facial recognition business, noting concerns about how the technology can be used for mass surveillance and racial profiling. Civil rights groups and Amazon’s own employees have pushed the company to stop selling its technology, called Rekognition, to government agencies, saying that it could be used to invade people’s privacy and target minorities.   In a blog post Wednesday, Amazon said that it hoped Congress would put in place stronger regulations for facial recognition. “Amazon’s decision is an important symbolic step, but this doesn’t really change the face recognition landscape in the United States since it’s not a major player,” said Clare Garvie, a researcher at Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology. Her public records research found only two U.S. two agencies using or testing Rekognition. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon has been the most public about using it. The Orlando police department tested it, but chose not to implement it, she said.   Studies led by MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini found racial and gender disparities in facial recognition software. Those findings spurred Microsoft and IBM to improve their systems, but irked Amazon, which last year publicly attacked her research methods. A group of artificial intelligence scholars, including a winner of computer science’s top prize, last year launched a spirited defense of her work and called on Amazon to stop selling its facial recognition software to police. A study last year by a U.S. agency affirmed the concerns about the technology’s flaws. The National Institute of Standards and Technology tested leading facial recognition systems — though not Amazon’s, which didn’t submit its algorithms — and found that they often performed unevenly based on a person’s race, gender or age.   Buolamwini on Wednesday called Amazon’s announcement a “welcomed though unexpected announcement.”  “Microsoft also needs to take a stand,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “More importantly our lawmakers need to step up” to rein in harmful deployments of the technologies.   Microsoft has been vocal about the need to regulate facial recognition to prevent human rights abuses but hasn’t said it wouldn’t sell it to law enforcement. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Amazon began attracting attention from the American Civil Liberties Union and privacy advocates after it introduced Rekognition in 2016 and began pitching it to law enforcement. But experts like Garvie say many U.S. agencies rely on facial recognition technology built by companies that are not as well known, such as Tokyo-based NEC, Chicago-based Motorola Solutions or the European companies Idemia, Gemalto and Cognitec. Amazon isn’t abandoning facial recognition altogether. The company said organizations, such as those that use Rekognition to help find missing children, will still have access to the technology.   This week’s announcements by Amazon and IBM follow a push by Democratic lawmakers to pass a sweeping police reform package in Congress that could include restrictions on the use of facial recognition, especially in police body cameras. Though not commonly used in the U.S., the possibility of cameras that could monitor crowds and identify people in real time have attracted bipartisan concern.   The tech industry has fought against outright bans of facial recognition, but some companies have called for federal laws that could set guidelines for responsible use of the technology.   “It is becoming clear that the absence of consistent national rules will delay getting this valuable technology into the hands of law enforcement, slowing down investigations and making communities less safe,” said Daniel Castro, vice president of the industry-backed Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which has advocated for facial recognition providers.   Ángel Díaz, an attorney at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, said he welcomed Amazon’s moratorium but it “should have come sooner given numerous studies showing that the technology is racially biased.” “We agree that Congress needs to act, but local communities should also be empowered to voice their concerns and decide if and how they want this technology deployed at all,” he said. 
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Four Republican U.S. senators on Tuesday urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to review whether to revise liability protections for internet companies after President Donald Trump urged action.Trump said last month he wants to “remove or change” a provision of a law that shields social media companies from liability for content posted by their users and directed a U.S. Commerce Department agency to petition the FCC to take action within 60 days.Senators Marco Rubio, Kelly Loeffler, Kevin Cramer and Josh Hawley asked the FCC to review Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and “clearly define the criteria for which companies can receive protections under the statute.”FILE – FCC Chairman Ajit Pai testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 5, 2019.Last week, an advocacy group backed by the tech industry sued, asking a judge to block the executive order.FCC Chairman Ajit Pai — who in 2018 said he did not see a role for the agency to regulate websites like Facebook Inc , Alphabet Inc’s Google and Twitter — declined to comment on potential actions in response to Trump’s executive order. He told reporters on Tuesday it would not be appropriate to “prejudge a petition that I haven’t seen.”FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said on Tuesday the order poses a lot “of very complex issues.”O’Rielly tweeted earlier “as a conservative, I’m troubled voices are stifled by liberal tech leaders. At same time, I’m extremely dedicated to the First Amendment which governs much here.” 
 
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As tension grows between China and the United States, there is worry in Beijing that the conflict could end up further restricting Chinese access to American technology.Of foremost concern is that despite decades of effort, China has yet to build a homegrown operating system good enough to replace Microsoft Windows. “Our operating system market is dominated by U.S. companies such as Microsoft, Google and Apple,” a recent report by state-run Xinhua News Agency said. “To fundamentally solve the problem of ‘being choked in [the] neck’, creating a domestic operating system and supporting software and hardware ecosystem is a must.” To be fair, China is not alone. Other countries including Russia, Germany and South Korea have been trying to develop their own operating systems. But none of them have gotten very far yet. Washington has already targeted China’s technology vulnerabilities. The U.S. Commerce Department has banned FILE – In this June 19, 2017, file photo, President Donald Trump, from left, and Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, listen as Jeff Bezos, Chief Executive Officer of Amazon, speaks during an American Technology Council roundtable.Decoupling fallout          Economists now talk about “decoupling” the Chinese and U.S. economies, severing supply chains and business relationships that account for trillions of dollars in trade, because of the political tensions between Washington and Beijing. “Some decoupling in the high-tech area seems inevitable and already in process,” said Doug Barry, the spokesman for communications and publications at the US-China Business Council. Driven by the U.S. campaign to restrict China’s technology giants because of threats to U.S. national security, experts say the U.S.-China decoupling could widen to include desktop computers as well.  “To keep China from using Windows would be devastating to China,” Dr. Feng Chongyi, associate professor in China Studies at Australia’s University of Technology Sydney, wrote in an email to VOA. “I am afraid this is a logical step when the Cold War II escalates to a higher level.”  China’s vulnerability Like the rest of the world, China is heavily dependent on American technology companies that design microchips and the most popular computer operating systems.According to a market report released last July by a Chinese research firm, Microsoft enjoys a dominant position in desktop and server operating systems, with nearly 90% of the market share in China. “Domestic desktop and mobile operating systems are still in their infancy, accounting for less than 1% of the domestic market share,” said the report by FILE – Edward Snowden speaks via video link as he takes part in a round table on the protection of whistleblowers at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, March 15, 2019.The need for a homegrown operating system took on new urgency inside China in 2013 after Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who leaked evidence showing secret U.S. surveillance programs, revealed he had avoided using commercial operating systems like Windows to hide his communications from the National Security Agency (NSA). FILE – People use computers at an Internet cafe in Hefei, Anhui province, September 26, 2010.Dream of homegrown OS Building its own operating system has been one of China’s largest and longest-running technical challenges. The effort can be traced back to the late 1970s when China first began to use the Unix operating system and tried to develop its own Unix-based operating system. Creating this operating system was formally approved as a critical mission in the country’s top-level policy blueprint, the 1992 Five-Year Plan.   But almost three decades later, there’s been little success.   Over the years China has developed more than 20 operating systems with some of them being installed on computers used by the military and other sensitive government agencies. None of them has made much of a dent in the consumer market.  One of the biggest reasons, experts say, is the country does not have a so-called software ecosystem of developers creating programs to run on a new homegrown operating system. “These systems have never been accepted by a large base of software developers,” Qin Peng, a former Chinese IT consultant told VOA. “It is actually impossible for China to be in a position to have an ecosystem that is on par with the one in the U.S,” said Qin, who left China in 2014 and is now living in the U.S. where he is an independent commentator focusing mainly on IT issues. Developers are selective on which projects they spend their time and money on, and most of the time their decisions are based on how big the user base is for a particular system.   “Chinese companies have not yet built up a library of premier applications, as many of them rely on Microsoft and Google for all kinds of functions,” Qin told VOA. Liu Xinhuan, general manager of Tongxin Software Technology Co., Ltd., one of China’s major operating system makers, said in an interview with a Chinese media outlet that it could take up to 10 years before China can really compete with foreign operating systems, and the key to shorten the process “is to have a large ecosystem” of developers. All of which means if the Chinese and U.S. economies do further decouple, Beijing could be stuck with few options for replacing the operating systems they have relied on for decades.    
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IBM is getting out of the facial recognition business, saying it’s concerned about how the technology can be used for mass surveillance and racial profiling. Ongoing protests responding to the death of George Floyd have sparked a broader reckoning over racial injustice and a closer look at the use of police technology to track demonstrators and monitor American neighborhoods. IBM is one of several big tech firms that had earlier sought to improve the accuracy of their face-scanning software after research found racial and gender disparities. But its new CEO is now questioning whether it should be used by police at all. “We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies,” wrote CEO Arvind Krishna in a letter sent Monday to U.S. lawmakers. People stand in front of facial recognition software before entering the Icon Siam luxury shopping mall as it reopened after restrictions to halt the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus were lifted in Bangkok on May 17, 2020.IBM’s decision to stop building and selling facial recognition software is unlikely to affect its bottom line, since the tech giant is increasingly focused on cloud computing while an array of lesser-known firms have cornered the market for government facial recognition contracts. “But the symbolic nature of this is important,” said Mutale Nkonde, a research fellow at Harvard and Stanford universities who directs the nonprofit AI For the People. Nkonde said IBM shutting down a business “under the guise of advancing anti-racist business practices” shows that it can be done and makes it “socially unacceptable for companies who tweet Black Lives Matter to do so while contracting with the police.” Software engineers work on a facial recognition program that identifies people when they wear a face mask at the development lab of the Chinese electronics manufacturer Hanwang (Hanvon) Technology in Beijing.Krishna’s letter was addressed to a group of Democrats who have been working on police reform legislation in Congress fueled by the mass protests over Floyd’s death. The sweeping reform package could include restrictions on police use of facial recognition.  The practice of using a form of artificial intelligence to identify individuals in photo databases or video feeds has come under heightened scrutiny after researchers found racial and gender disparities in systems built by companies including IBM, Microsoft and Amazon. IBM had previously tested its facial recognition software with the New York Police Department, although the department has more recently used other vendors. It’s not clear if IBM has existing contracts with other government agencies.  Many U.S. law enforcement agencies rely on facial recognition software built by companies less well known to the public, such as Tokyo-based NEC or the European companies Idemia and Cognitec, according to Clare Garvie, a researcher at Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology. A smaller number have partnered with Amazon, which has attracted the most opposition from privacy advocates since it introduced its Rekognition software in 2016. Krishna’s letter called for police reforms and noted that “IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling” and human rights violations. Civil liberties advocates have raised concerns in recent weeks about the use of surveillance technology to monitor protesters or to enforce rules set to curb the coronavirus pandemic.  Even before the protests, U.S. senators this year had been scrutinizing New York facial recognition startup Clearview AI  following investigative reports about its practice of harvesting billions of photos from social media and other internet services to identify people. Joy Buolamwini, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose research on facial recognition bias helped spur IBM’s re-examination of the technology, said Tuesday she commends the congressional police reform package for seeking restrictions on the use of police body cameras to scan people’s faces in real time. But she said lawmakers can go further to protect people from having governments scan their faces on social media posts or in public spaces without their knowledge. “Regardless of the accuracy of these systems, mass surveillance enabled by facial recognition can lead to chilling effects and the silencing of dissent,” Buolamwini wrote in an email sent from Boston’s city hall, where she was testifying in support of a proposed ban on facial recognition use by municipal agencies. San Francisco and several other U.S. cities have enacted similar bans over the past year.  
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A South Korean Court has rejected an arrest warrant for the heir to the legendary Samsung Group conglomerate in connection with a controversial merger.   Prosecutors have accused Lee Jae-yong, the vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, of stock manipulation and illegal trading involving the 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates, Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, of which Lee is the largest shareholder.  He allegedly sought to inflate the value of Cheil Industries and lower the value of Samsung C&T to give him a bigger stake in the merged company, a move that would give him increasing control of South Korea’s largest conglomerate and smooth the transition from his ailing father, Lee Kun-hee, who suffered a heart attack in 2014.    But the Seoul Central District Court ruled Tuesday that while prosecutors had amassed enough evidence against Lee in their investigation, there was not enough to justify detaining him.   The 51-year-old Lee arrived at the courthouse Monday for the hearing, which lasted nine hours, and awaited the decision at a detention center.      Samsung released a statement last week denying the allegations against Lee, who prosecutors have also accused of inflating the value of Samsung Biologics, a subsidiary of Cheil Industries.    Lee is also awaiting a retrial on his original 2017 conviction for bribing a confidante of then-President Park Geun-hye in return for Park’s support for the 2015 merger, a scandal that forced Park out of office and eventually landed her in prison. Lee served a year in prison before an appeals court suspended his sentence, but South Korea’s Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s decision last year.   
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Google is adding features on its Maps service to alert users about COVID-19-related travel restrictions to help them plan their trips better, the Alphabet Inc unit said Monday. The update would allow users to check how crowded a train station might be at a particular time, or if buses on a certain route are running on a limited schedule, Google said.The transit alerts would be rolled out in Argentina, France, India, Netherlands, the United States and United Kingdom among other countries, the company said in a blog post.The new features would also include details on COVID-19 checkpoints and restrictions on crossing national borders, starting with Canada, Mexico and the United States.In recent months, the company has analyzed location data from billions of Google users’ phones in 131 countries to examine mobility under lockdowns and help health authorities assess if people were abiding with social-distancing and other orders issued to rein in the virus.Google has invested billions of dollars from its search ads business to digitally map the world, drawing 1 billion users on average every month to its free navigation app. 
 
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The heir to South Korea’s Samsung empire appeared in a Seoul court Monday for a hearing to decide whether he will be arrested and jailed in connection with a controversial merger.   Lee Jae-yong was silent as he walked through an army of shouting reporters when he arrived at the courthouse. If the court approves the warrant, Lee could be detained and taken into custody. A final decision is expected late Monday night or early Tuesday morning. Prosecutors have accused Lee, the current vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, of stock manipulation and illegal trading during the 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates, Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, of which Lee is the largest shareholder. He allegedly sought to inflate the value of Cheil Industries and lower the value of Samsung C&T to give him a bigger stake in the merged company, a move that would give him increasing control of South Korea’s largest conglomerate and smooth the transition from his ailing father, Lee Kun-hee, who suffered a heart attack in 2014.   Lee is also accused of inflating the value of Samsung Biologics, which is a subsidiary of Cheil Industries. Samsung released a statement last week denying the allegations against Lee. Lee was convicted in 2017 for bribing a confidante of then-President Park Geun-hye in return for Park’s support for the 2015 merger, a scandal that forced Park out of office and eventually landed her in prison.  Lee served a year before an appeals court suspended his sentence. South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered a retrial on the original charges. 
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A Virginia NGO called Computer CORE helps low-income immigrants master using computers in order to help them find jobs. However, the coronavirus pandemic has made life hard for the organization because so few of the students have computers or an internet connection at home. VOA’s Maxim Moskalkov has the story. Camera: Sergey Sokolov      
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Protesters are using a variety of technology tools to organize rallies, record police violence and communicate during the marches sweeping the U.S. and other countries following the death of George Floyd. Some of that involves secure messaging services like Signal, which can encrypt messages to thwart spies. Those apps, along with others for listening to police scanners and recording video, are enjoying an uptick in popularity. But experts say convenience and reach remain key, which favors standbys like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. White nationalists, however, are also turning to apps like Telegram to blast disruptive messages to their supporters, hoping to wreak havoc on demonstrations.When a friend shared a Facebook post with Michelle Burris inviting her to protest in downtown Washington, D.C., last Saturday, she knew she had to go. So she bought a Black Lives Matter mask from a street vendor before marching the streets of the district with a “No Justice, No Peace” sign.After that march ended, she pulled up details on Instagram for a car caravan demonstration just a few blocks away. “It was extremely powerful, not only Facebook but Instagram,” Burris said. “It was very easy to mobilize.”Protesters are using a variety of technology tools to organize rallies, record police violence and communicate during the marches sweeping the U.S. and other countries following the death of George Floyd. Some of that involves secure messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram, which can encrypt messages to thwart spies. Those apps, along with others for listening to police scanners and recording video, are enjoying an uptick in popularity.But experts say convenience and reach are key. “Reaching as many people as possible is the number one criterion for which platform someone is going to use,” said Steve Jones, a University of Illinois at Chicago media researcher who studies communication technology.That means Twitter, Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram remain the easiest ways for people to organize and document the mass protests. Facebook’s tools remain popular despite a barrage of criticism over the platform’s inaction after President Donald Trump posted a message that suggested protesters in Minneapolis could be shot.”I don’t want to support or be a part of something that is possibly supporting Trump and his racist, hate filed spew,” said Sarah Wildman, who’s been to three protests in Atlanta and has used Instagram exclusively to locate and to document the demonstrations she attended. But she said she feels that, at this point, “the benefits of Instagram outweigh not using it.”  Half a century ago during the civil rights protests, Jones said, it was almost impossible to know what was going on during a protest. “There was a lot of rumor, a lot of hearsay,” he said. “Now you can reach everyone almost instantaneously.”Wildman said she uses Instagram’s “live” function to find out what is happening during protests, especially when protesters in the back might not know what’s happening at the front. At one, she said, people started yelling that police were using tear gas — but it wasn’t true, which she learned by checking Instagram.Organizers are also using Telegram, an app that allows private messages to be sent to thousands of people at once, creating channels for specific cities to give updates on protest times and locations, as well as updates on where police are making arrests or staging. One New York City Telegram channel for the protests grew from just under 300 subscribers on Monday to nearly 2,500 by Friday.  During a peaceful rally in Providence, Rhode Island, on Friday, Anjel Newmann, 32, said that while she’s mostly using Instagram and Facebook to organize, younger people are using Snapchat. The main problem: It’s hard to tell which online flyers are legitimate. “That’s one of the things we haven’t figured out yet,” she said. “There was a flyer going around saying this was canceled today.”The simplicity of shooting and sharing video has also made possible recordings of violence that can spread to millions within moments. A smartphone video of Floyd’s death helped spark the broad outrage that led to the protests.  Apps like Signal are seeing an uptick in downloads according to Apptopia, which tracks such data. Signal was downloaded 37,000 times over the weekend in the U.S., it said, more than at any other point since it launched in 2014. Other private messaging apps, such as Telegram and Wickr, have not seen a similar uptick.One new user is Toby Anderson, 30, who also attended the Providence rally on Friday. Anderson, who is biracial, said he downloaded the encrypted Signal app several days earlier at the request of his mom. “She’s a black woman in America,” he said, worried about his safety and eager to grasp any additional measure of security she could.Meanwhile, apps like Police Scanner and 5-0 Police Scanner, which allow anyone to listen to live police dispatch chatter — and may be illegal in some states — racked up 213,000 downloads over the weekend, Apptopia said. That is 125% more than the weekend before and a record for the category. Citizen, which sends real-time alerts and lets users post live video of protests and crime scenes, was downloaded 49,000 times.  On the down side, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism said in a blog post this week that it has found white nationalists using Telegram to try to wreak havoc during the protests.  “Some, especially those in the accelerationist camp, are celebrating the prospect of increased violence, which they hope will lead to a long-promised ‘race war,'” the ADL said Monday. “They are extremely active online, urging other white supremacists to take full advantage of the moment.”  In one Telegram channel, the ADL found, participants suggested murdering protesters, then spreading rumors to blame the deaths on police snipers.Others want to further exacerbate racial tensions. “Good time to stroke race relations” and “post black live’s don’t matter stickers,” a user posted — with misspellings — to the Reformthestates Telegram channel, according to the ADL.
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