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A Maryland state official was fired Saturday after sharing social media posts supporting Kyle Rittenhouse, who prosecutors say killed two people and severely wounded a third last week during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.Arthur "Mac" Love IV had served as deputy director for the Governor's Office of Community Initiatives, which is responsible for outreach to diverse ethnic groups and faith communities. He had been in the role since January 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile.This is one of the FB posts by Governor Hogan's Deputy Director of Community Initiatives.Who oversees - I'm not kidding - the Commission on African American History and Culture.Fire him, @GovLarryHogan, and issue the Exec Order on use of force you should've issued months ago. pic.twitter.com/uNh62cAbtD— Delegate Eric Luedtke (@EricLuedtke) August 29, 2020 Maryland lawmaker Eric Luedtke, a Democratic state delegate, was among those who called for Love's firing. He tweeted Saturday that Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, should "make clear that such a viewpoint has no place in state government" and described the posts as "horrific."Luedtke tweeted a screenshot of one of Love's Facebook posts Saturday, a meme of a grinning white police officer holding two thumbs up with the words, "Don't be a thug if you can't take a slug!""This is one of the FB posts by Governor Hogan's Deputy Director of Community Initiatives. Who oversees — I'm not kidding — the Commission on African American History and Culture. Fire him, @GovLarryHogan, and issue the Exec Order on use of force you should've issued months ago," Luedtke tweeted.Love also reposted pictures that appear to show Rittenhouse cleaning graffiti, the Baltimore Sun reported. The original poster wrote: "I'm grateful that conservatives are rallying behind this kid. He genuinely seems like a good person," according to the newspaper.Steven McAdams, the executive director for the Governor's Office of…

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are donating $300 million to protect American elections. It is one of the couple’s largest-ever single gifts, meant to bolster democracy during a pandemic. But it’s also one that critics say is brimming with irony given Facebook’s past failures in protecting the integrity of elections. The Facebook chief said on Tuesday that he had sent the money to two civic organizations which in turn will direct it to state and local election officials so they can prepare for an unprecedented Election Day. The coronavirus pandemic has caused many states to radically shift — on short notice — how they will administer elections to ensure safety. A majority of Americans say they are anticipating that they will vote early or by mail this year. The majority of the gift, $250 million, will go to the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit popular with many tech philanthropists, which will then regrant the money to local election officials so they can recruit poll workers, supply them with personal protective equipment, and set up drive-through voting. Another $50 million heads to the Center for Election Innovation & Research to be distributed to Secretaries of State across the country. The money does not come from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, their joint philanthropy, but is a personal donation. “Election officials across the country are working hard to ensure that everyone can vote and every vote can be counted,” Zuckerberg said, “and we want to help make sure they have the resources they need to do this.” And while the money may be sorely needed, the announcement of the gift on Tuesday emerged as an immediate flashpoint in the simmering debate over billionaire philanthropy and whether donations are the best way to enact change. That’s because, to many…

Insynapse Entertainment, in conjunction with Vacaville Firefighters Association Local 3501, will hold a dance fundraiser Friday night for those impacted by the LNU Lightning Complex Fires. However, with the shelter-at-home order still in effect, the party will be hosted online so participants will be able to jam to current and classic grooves without even leaving their homes. Dancers are encouraged to put on their dancing shoes, grab some cocktails and turn their homes into a dance club for one night. DJs Ed Combong and Chriztian will be spinning two hours of dance favorites from the ’70s to today. Combong said the playlist would be an eclectic mix of hip-hop, country, Latin pop, Top 40 hits and a whole lot more. “It’s just upbeat, fun, uplifting stuff,” he said. Combong is a member of Young Professionals of Vacaville, a group of Millennials in the local business world who come together to empower the next generation of business leaders. The day after the fires, the group had talked about doing something to benefit the victims. “They were just mentioning the devastation that they had already learned (of) from the day before,” he said. “To hear of people that were affected, it really concerned me. I have two friends that I heard they lost their homes completely.” Since then, Combong has been volunteering in Solano County where he can. He talked with his social media team about doing a benefit concert. Combong has done fundraisers in the past. When a security guard at Rockin’ Jump Trampoline Park — where Insynapse are resident DJs — lost his wife in an accident, a smaller-scale benefit was held. “We donated our time,” Combong said. In addition to tunes, there will also be opportunities to donate to those in need. Vacaville Firefighters 3501 has set up a…

In July 2019, Alaphia Zoyab was on a video call with Facebook employees in India, discussing some 180 posts by users in the country that Avaaz, the watchdog group where she worked, said violated Facebook’s hate speech rules. But half way through the hour-long meeting, Shivnath Thukral, the most senior Facebook official on the call, got up and walked out of the room, Zoyab says, saying he had other important things to do. Among the posts was one by Shiladitya Dev, a lawmaker in the state of Assam for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He had shared a news report about a girl being allegedly drugged and raped by a Muslim man, and added his own comment: “This is how Bangladeshi Muslims target our in 2019.” But rather than removing it, Facebook allowed the post to remain online for more than a year after the meeting, until TIME contacted Facebook to ask about it on Aug. 21. “We looked into this when Avaaz first flagged it to us, and our records show that we assessed it as a hate speech violation,” Facebook said in a statement to TIME. “We failed to remove upon initial review, which was a mistake on our part.” Thukral was Facebook’s public policy director for India and South Asia at the time. Part of his job was lobbying the Indian government, but he was also involved in discussions about how to act when posts by politicians were flagged as hate speech by moderators, former employees tell TIME. Facebook acknowledges that Thukral left the meeting, but says he never intended to stay for its entirety, and joined only to introduce Zoyab, whom he knew from a past job, to his team. “Shivnath did not leave because the issues were not…

Business|Facebook to Pay More Than $110 Million in Back Taxes in FranceAug. 24, 2020Updated 9:33 a.m. ETPARIS — Facebook's French subsidiary has agreed to pay more than 100 million euros ($118 million) in back taxes, including a penalty, after a ten-year audit of its accounts by French tax authorities, the company said on Monday. France, which is pushing hard to overhaul international tax rules on digital companies such as Facebook, Alphabet's Google, Apple and Amazon, has said the big tech groups pay too little tax in the country where they have significant sales.Current international tax rules legally allow companies to funnel sales generated in local markets in Europe to their regional headquarters. Some of the tech companies, including Facebook, have European or international headquarters based in countries with comparatively low corporate tax rates, such as Ireland. A Facebook spokesman said French tax authorities carried out an audit on Facebook's accounts over 2009-2018 period, which resulted in an agreement by the subsidiary to pay a total 106 million euros. The Facebook spokesman did not elaborate further on the details of the agreement. France's tax administration also did not give more details. Facebook's spokesman also said that since 2018 the company had decided to include its advertising sales in France in its annual accounts covering France.As a result, Facebook's total net revenue almost doubled in 2019 from a year earlier to 747 million euros, a copy of Facebook France's 2019 annual accounts, filed with France's companies registry and seen by Reuters, showed. Facebook France, which employs 208 people, refers to the French tax audit report in its 2019 annual accounts, saying it amounted to a tax adjustment of about 105 million euros. This includes a penalty of about 22 million, the annual accounts showed.French magazine Capital was first to report the payment…

FILE PHOTO: A 3D-printed Facebook logo is seen placed on a keyboard in this illustrationBy Mathieu RosemainPARIS (Reuters) - Facebook's French subsidiary has agreed to pay more than 100 million euros ($118 million) in back taxes, including a penalty, after a ten-year audit of its accounts by French tax authorities, the company said on Monday.France, which is pushing hard to overhaul international tax rules on digital companies such as Facebook, Alphabet's Google, Apple and Amazon, has said the big tech groups pay too little tax in the country where they have significant sales.Current international tax rules legally allow companies to funnel sales generated in local markets in Europe to their regional headquarters. Some of the tech companies, including Facebook, have European or international headquarters based in countries with comparatively low corporate tax rates, such as Ireland.A Facebook spokesman said French tax authorities carried out an audit on Facebook's accounts over 2009-2018 period, which resulted in an agreement by the subsidiary to pay a total 106 million euros.The Facebook spokesman did not elaborate further on the details of the agreement. France's tax administration also did not give more details.Facebook's spokesman also said that since 2018 the company had decided to include its advertising sales in France in its annual accounts covering France.As a result, Facebook's total net revenue almost doubled in 2019 from a year earlier to 747 million euros, a copy of Facebook France's 2019 annual accounts, filed with France's companies registry and seen by Reuters, showed.Facebook France, which employs 208 people, refers to the French tax audit report in its 2019 annual accounts, saying it amounted to a tax adjustment of about 105 million euros. This includes a penalty of about 22 million, the annual accounts showed.French magazine Capital was first to report the payment of back taxes.Facebook's spokesman…

Dark mode is one of the most significant additions Facebook By David Cohen 5 hours ago The thorough overhaul of Facebook’s desktop experience, initially introduced at F8 2019 last May, will become the only option sometime next month.Some users began seeing notifications alerting them to the imminent demise of “classic” Facebook, and the social network said on a Help Center page, “If you’re using the new Facebook.com, you can switch back to the classic Facebook temporarily. Starting in September, everyone will have the new design.”CEO Mark Zuckerberg debuted the new look at F8 2019, calling it FB5 and saying that there had been four major versions of Facebook up to that point, and this was the fifth.Changes in the new layout include: dark mode; faster load times and transitions between pages; larger fonts; a more simplified layout; and easier access to sections such as events, Facebook Watch, groups and Stories.

We are not ashamed of running yet another story, an update, on the situation with Ellen Kessler, the animal activist who has been appointed to the Colorado State Board of Veterinary Medicine.Our efforts to stop this appointment are so important especially as now she has targeted 4-H youth, saying that 4-H clubs, “teach children that animal lives don’t matter.”I just read a story on AgDaily about Victoria Banks, a member of a 4-H club in Michigan who started a Facebook page to share her 4-H projects and activities with others.The page is called Victoria’s 4-H Page and recently one of her friends shared a photo of Victoria and her hog Tequila to a group called Vegan Revolution.As you can imagine Victoria’s page was flooded with negative comments, which Victoria’s mother described as “aggressive, demeaning, vulgar, hateful and disgusting.”In other words, the animal activists were bullying a 14-year-old at a time when bullying is being blamed for many pre-teen and teen suicides.Luckily they messed with the wrong person this time.Although her parents were skeptical, Victoria decided to keep her page pubic because she respects others opinions and is not ashamed about anything that she does and has nothing to hide.“Everyone has different opinions, and I never said that anyone’s opinion is wrong because it is not like mine. Not allowing people to express them is wrong,” Victoria said in the AgDairy article. “I respect everyone for their opinion but was never rude to those who believe differently than I do.”So just as all of you supported our #showingup for rural Colorado campaign, let’s share that support for Victoria on her Facebook page Victoria’s 4-H Page.Let’s let her know that she is not alone and that her courage and convictions in the face of this onslaught from animal activists is appreciated.In other…

Chris Jordan, Asbury Park Press Published 11:19 p.m. ET Aug. 18, 2020 | Updated 12:54 a.m. ET Aug. 19, 2020CLOSE On the day of his 70th birthday, staff at the Monmouth County Historical Society in Freehold prepare for their 'Springsteen: My Hometown' exhibit. Asbury Park PressOops. Facebook flagged Bruce Springsteen for spreading "false information" on Tuesday, Aug. 18, but FB says it was all a mistake.  The Democratic National Convention video of the Bruce Springsteen song “The Rising,” in which Springsteen and wife Patti Scialfa make an appearance, was removed from Springsteen’s verified Facebook page at approximately 9:30 p.m. EST, Tuesday, Aug. 18.“Facebook found this post repeats information about COVID-19 that multiple independent fact-checkers say is false,” read an explanation superimposed over a faded image of the video.About two and a half hours later, the label was removed and the video was viewable."The label was applied by mistake and was quickly removed once we became aware of the issue," said Facebook's spokesperson Katie Derkits to the USA Today Network New Jersey via email.    The video features Springsteen's 2002 song “The Rising” framed as a message of resiliency against the Donald Trump presidency. Scenes of a COVID-19 ravaged  America, including an empty subway and football stadium, are shown as “The Rising” begins. That's contrasted with the march of neo-Nazis with torches in Charlottesville, Virginia and Trump throwing paper towels to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico.After that, first responders, George Floyd protesters, Black Lives Matter sign makers, mask wearers and more who are dedicated to the Rising  are shown.More: Bruce Springsteen 'The Rising' video takes on Donald Trump at Democratic ConventionMore: Why the concept of time is different for Bruce Springsteen than it is for you and meA Facebook “Science Feedback” explanation of the video removal, accessible by a click on the label, said that “SARS-CoV-2 is a novel…

The “From Facebook” part of virtual reality unit Oculus From Facebook will soon be emphasized a bit more when it come to logging into its VR devices.Starting in October, people using Oculus devices for the first time must login with a Facebook account.Existing users can choose to login with Facebook and merge their Oculus and Facebook accounts, or continue using their Oculus accounts until Jan. 1, 2023, at which point support for Oculus accounts will cease.Oculus said in a blog post that people can continue using their devices after Jan. 1, 2023, but they will not be able to take advantage of their full functionality without a Facebook account.The VR unit explained, “We will take steps to allow you to keep using content you have purchased, although we expect some games and applications may no longer work. This could be because they include features that require a Facebook account or because a developer has chosen to no longer support the app or game you purchased. All future unreleased Oculus devices will require a Facebook account, even if you already have an Oculus account.”Oculus said giving people a single way to login will make it easier for them to find, connect and play with friends in VR and allow it to introduce more Facebook-powered multiplayer and social experiences, such as social VR world Facebook Horizon, where people can explore, play and create worlds.The VR unit pointed out that the majority of its users already login to Oculus with Facebook accounts in order to use features including chats, parties and events and to tune into live experience in Oculus Venues.Oculus users will soon be able to use their VR avatars on other Facebook apps and technologies.People who login via Facebook accounts can still create and maintain unique VR profiles and make their…