politics

The US government is slowly but very surely tightening the noose around Huawei and even ZTE. Its latest move was to make sure that the embattled Chinese company's products will not be granted any exception from the FCC when it comes to the country's Internet infrastructure and industry. Before that, however, Huawei had already been having trouble keeping its consumer mobile business afloat because it had no access to most of the components needed to make smartphones. Now there are reports that the company will be employing a new strategy to get around at least one ban, but it might end up causing it more trouble in the long run.

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Although Huawei's mobile business has learned to survive without Google, Qualcomm, and some of the usual pieces that have come from the US, the company's profits don't revolve only around smartphones. It's arguable that its biggest revenues might actually come from networking technology and hardware, like those used by Internet service providers or ISPs. That has always hung in the balance ever since the US and its allies started pushing Huawei out of their networks. Now the Biden administration has just imposed an even bigger limitation on Huawei, ZTE, and other suspected companies that will practically keep them out of the country completely.

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Twitter has published the results from a study that analyzed its algorithms to explore potential political bias. The company notes that users who have an algorithmically sorted home timeline will see a combination of tweets from people they follow and recommended tweets based on their Twitter activity. This initial study compared the political content users see in their timeline when it is sorted by an algorithm rather than chronologically.

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A pair of studies from sociologists with West Virginia University dive into some of the biggest factors fueling US vaccine problems, including denial of their efficacy and skepticism over their safety. Not surprisingly, one of the studies found that factors driving skepticism related to the COVID-19 virus and pandemic are also linked to wider skepticism toward other aspects of science, including everything from evolution to climate change.

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Not all smartphones are available in all markets, but it isn't exactly difficult to purchase those via online retailers these days. Network compatibility and local regulations aside, it's definitely possible to get phones working in unsupported territories. That goes the same for territories where there might be legal restrictions in where certain companies can export to. Xiaomi, however, might be taking a more proactive stance on that front by blocking phones that have been activated in markets where it has an export ban.

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The Texas Right to Life group's abortion 'whistleblower' website is down again, this time redirecting to the group's website. This is the second time the website's tips platform has been shut down, each amid an onslaught of fake reports from all over the country. The website will return, the group claims, but the timeline for this return hasn't been revealed.

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The Texas Right to Life group's abortion whistleblower website has been inaccessible for many users today; instead of displaying its anonymous tip page, the website is instead showing a 503 error and telling users they've been blocked. The message given explaining the reason for the block varies based on whether the user is out of state or using a VPN.

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Ride-sharing service Lyft has announced the creation of its new Driver Legal Defense Fund, which is intended for drivers who may find themselves facing a lawsuit under Texas's newly imposed abortion law. The company vows to cover all of a driver's legal fees should they find themselves in this unfortunate position.

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The so-called Texas abortion 'whistleblower' website may go dark in the near future if it doesn't find a new host. The website's current host, GoDaddy, has warned Texas Right to Life that it has 24 hours to find a new host before its services are cut off. This won't be the first time GoDaddy has shut down a controversial website for violating its rules.

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China has announced a new set of rules to restrict the amount of time minors spend playing video games each week. The new rules restrict children under 18 from playing video games for more than three hours a week. Those rules define three separate hour-long windows during which minors can play, with the Chinese government saying that the restrictions are necessary to curb gaming addiction.

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Former US President Donald Trump tried to finish as many pending tasks before his term ended but there were still many that were left unresolved. In the tech industry, one of the biggest was the fate of TikTok and its forced sale to a US company. Although the parties involved, including Oracle and Walmart, have already come into an agreement, they're still waiting for the US government approval that won't be coming anytime soon because the matter is now being reviewed again by the Biden administration.

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The change in the US political landscape will naturally send ripples through all aspects of the country's life and business, especially those more contentious policies and views that Donald Trump left behind. Some of those have already been reversed while others remained. Naturally, that also gave some companies recently added to the country's dreaded Entity List a bit of hope for a reprieve. Unfortunately for Huawei and other Chinese company's on that list, President Joe Biden's pick for the Commerce Department isn't that keen on changing the status quo.

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