Technology News (Reuters)

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's campaign published an open letter to Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday, calling for the company to fact-check politicians' ads in the two weeks ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

Twitter on Thursday said it was removing hundreds of thousands of accounts tied to a Beijing-backed influence operation that deceptively spread messages favorable to the Chinese government, including about the coronavirus.

Jim Keller, a prominent executive who helped design chips at Apple Inc and Tesla Inc before joining Intel Corp two years ago, left the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker effective June 11, Intel said in a news post.

ByteDance, parent company of the short video app TikTok, has more than tripled its U.S. employees in the past 12 months, the company said in response to a Reuters inquiry.

A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators on Thursday introduced legislation that would require Republican President Donald Trump to more systematically punish China for stealing U.S. technology.

Microsoft Corp on Thursday said it would await federal regulation before selling facial recognition to police departments, making it the latest big firm to back away from the surveillance business following protests against police brutality.

Alphabet Inc's Google said on Thursday it was tackling unlawful discrimination by barring housing, employment and credit ads from being targeted to users based on their postal code, gender, age, parental status or marital status.

Facebook Inc's former chief product officer, Chris Cox, is returning to his role, according to his post https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10105509261342903&set=a.692319249513&type=3&theater on the social media platform.

Drivers working for ride-hailing services such as Uber Technologies Inc and Lyft Inc will be considered employees under California's new gig worker law, the state's leading industry regulator said on Thursday.

Comcast Corp said on Thursday it reached a content carriage deal with comedian-turned media mogul Byron Allen, who withdrew a lawsuit about racial bias against channels owned by African Americans.

Snap Inc on Thursday announced a slate of new features for its photo messaging app Snapchat, such as new original shows and ways for outside developers to create products that will entice users to spend more time using the app.

Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it would not sell its facial-recognition technology to police departments until there is a federal law regulating the technology.

Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook said on Thursday the iPhone maker will increase spending with black-owned partners in its supply chain and seek to increase minority representation among the firms it does business with.

France plans to hold its 5G spectrum auction at the end of September after repeated delays, the country's telecoms watchdog Arcep said on Thursday.

Amazon may face EU antitrust charges in the coming weeks over its use of data from merchants with whom it competes on its platform, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday, putting it at risk of a hefty fine.

Microsoft Corp will not sell its facial-recognition technology to police departments until there is a federal law regulating the tech, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing the software maker's president, Brad Smith.

Instacart said on Thursday it had raised $225 million in a new funding round, valuing it at $13.7 billion, as the grocery delivery company cashes in on a surge in online shopping due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Thursday that it ordered Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc to stop selling a wide range of pesticide products on their platforms, including those that are falsely marketed as being effective against the novel coronavirus.

The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as it has prompted millions of people to turn to cashless payments, central bank officials said on Thursday.

Zoom Video Communications temporarily shut the account belonging to a group of U.S.-based Chinese activists after they held an event to commemorate the 31st anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square crackdown, the activists said on Thursday.