Craig Timberg

Withholding technology can be a soft-power weapon to potentially turn a population against its leaders. Yet it also can be costly to the U.S. economy, slow to deliver results and scattershot in its impacts.

The tools of modern social media are almost certainly faster, more visual and more voluminous than in any previous major military conflict thanks to the proliferation of smartphones connected to speedy data links. They can also be confusing.

Surveillance company NSO Group offered to give representatives of an American mobile security firm “bags of cash” in exchange for access to global cellular networks, according to a whistleblower who has described the encounter in confidential disclosures to the Justice Department.

The House panel issued subpoenas to four social media companies that so far have provided an “inadequate response” to requests for information and records relating to the spread of misinformation and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Facebook announces new policy against 'coordinated social harm' that may lower the bar on who gets banned  The Washington Post

An international investigation found 23 Apple devices that were successfully hacked. “Zero-click” attacks, as they are called within the surveillance industry, can work on even the newest generations of iPhones, even after years of effort in which Apple attempted to close the door against unauthoriz…

How vulnerable are you to such spyware? Are there steps you can take to keep your phone safe? Here are some answers.

The move significantly expands an enforcement action in August that targeted more than 3,000 pages and groups but stopped short of a full ban. But the content morphed almost instantaneously, prompting Tuesday’s more sweeping action, the company said in an unsigned blog post.

It may take historians years to grasp the full implications of the social media hurricane that Trump conjured from the moment he announced his intention to run for president over five years ago. But it took a single week, underscored by a single remarkable day, to hear what happened when that storm headed out to sea.

Covid disinformation sites often use tools from Google, Facebook and Apple, report finds  The Washington Post