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US Senator Demands Answers from Twitter Over Massive Bitcoin Hack Incident

US senator Josh Hawley has urged Twitter to cooperate with federal agencies and take necessary measures to secure the social media site before the cyber hacking accounts of celebrities, politicians, technology moguls, and major firms in an apparent Bitcoin scam expands further.

In a letter addressed to Twitter, Hawley stated that the social media giant should collaborate with the Justice Department and FBI after hackers took over the accounts of billionaires, democratic politicians, and celebrities, including rapper Kanye West, businessman Bill Gates, former vice president Joe Biden, former president Barrack Obama, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, including accounts of tech companies such as Uber and Apple.

Hawley sent a number of questions asking Twitter regarding an explanation of the incident and what security measures the company undertakes to prevent system-level hacks from breaching its userbase.

Bitcoin Scam Targeted Prominent Twitter Accounts

High-profile Twitter accounts were targeted for a widespread hacking attack to offer fake Bitcoin deals. The incident was one of the most serious security breaches in a social media site. Accounts of rapper Kanye West, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former president Barrack Obama, and both Apple and Uber posted similar tweets that instructed people to send cryptocurrency to the same Bitcoin address. Suspected Bitcoin scammers had control several of the accounts for more than two hours during the late afternoon.

The widespread nature of such an attack suggested unusual broad access to Twitter’s internal accounts. It was unclear how the attack originated or why the incident went for two hours. However, last night, Twitter support staff confirmed that the cyberattack was caused by “a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.”

Twitter clarified that the hackers used that access to take control of several highly-visible and verified accounts and posted tweets about Bitcoin deals. The company said that it is looking into what other malicious activities that hackers may have conducted or information they may have accessed. Twitter finally stated that they would share more information once they get to the bottom of the matter.

Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Sues Google and YouTube Over Fraudulent Bitcoin Scam Videos

Legal team for Steve Wozniak, co-founder of tech powerhouse Apple, announced a lawsuit against YouTube and their parent company Google, alleging that the media companies failed to take down fraudulent videos that impersonated Wozniak. The videos were created in the purpose of driving Bitcoin funds.

Apple Demands Justice

Wozniak mentioned that the videos were not only impersonating him, but also other key tech celebrity figures such as Elon Musk and Bill Gates in the efforts of accumulating Bitcoin (BTC) assets. The scam videos in question would illustrate images of Wozniak and misled YouTube subscribers to think that if they sent cryptocurrencies to a designated wallet address, they would receive twice the amount of BTC back. The Apple co-founder stated in his lawsuit that YouTube should have been the one responsible for removing the Bitcoin scam videos.

Wozniak filed the legal complaint under the pretense that YouTube and Google had repeatedly ignored requests to take down crypto scam videos, and that they knowingly promoted and made a profit of the fraudulent streams, by providing advertising on top of it. According to Joe Cotchett, who is part of the Apple co-founder’s legal team, presented this argument:

“When Twitter was hit with a massive hack of 130 celebrity accounts, they were quick to shut down the Bitcoin scam in a day. In a stark contrast, the Complaint alleges that YouTube knowingly allowed the Bitcoin scam to go on for months promoted it and profited from it by selling targeted advertising.”

YouTube Joins Twitter in BTC Scams

What Joe Cotchett was referring to is none other than the infamous Twiter hack attack that happened last week, and that ironically went viral. With investors hoping that the price of Bitcoin will surge on the crypto market, Bitcoin scams are becoming increasingly common.

Last week, Twitter suffered from a similar BTC scam that was so successful and invasive that it locked down the platform for a while. The hack attack was unlike anything Twitter has ever experienced and created quite a ripple, with multiple celebrity verified accounts being compromised. World-famous verified accounts that were ceased ranged from Kanye West’s to political figures Joe Biden and Barack Obama’s Twitter, and similar messages appeared on all platform.

The messages linked the hackers’ wallet address and was used to channel Bitcoin funds straight into the crypto scheme artists’ digital pockets.

Unfortunately, YouTube still appears to be dominating in terms of the platform which scam artists resort to the most. The video content platform has been receiving alot of backlash lately, not only from multimedia tech company Apple, but also from other digital ecosystems that have filed lawsuits for similar reasons.

Ripple Also Rips at YouTube

In fact, earlier this week, cryptocurrency exchange Ripple’s legal team also filed a lawsuit against the video content platform for not taking down XRP crypto scam videos impersonating Ripple Labs Founder Brad Garlinghouse. The crypto exchange founder was even more angered by the fact that YouTube could benefit from paid ads that streamed on their platform and that was generated automatically with the scam videos.

‘Big Four’ Tech Amazon, Google, Apple & Facebook Grilled During US Antitrust Hearing

In an antitrust hearing with the Judiciary Committee of US Congress, the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google testified, as a continuation of an unfinished legal conversation with lawmakers.

Shots Fired By US Congress

Topics that were discussed ranged from data privacy breaches to investigations of the companies’ treatment of their competitors.

The CEO tech moguls have been on the watchlist of Capitol Hill for quite some time, as US law enforcement has been hoping to update regulatory policies revolving around the technology industry. The ‘Big Four’ tech firms have also been taking heat from US officials for a litany of legal concerns, that range from consumer privacy breaches to a failure to adequately regulating the content on their platforms.

Because of the ever-shifting nature of the tech sector and the heap of documents and interviews gathered to build this case, the interrogation played over the course of 6 hours. The CEOs were interrogated virtually due to the current pandemic and the logistics involved with it. The anti-trust hearing was deemed a rare occasion by many, making it one of the most anticipated tech-policy hearings of all times.

Lawsuits Against Tech Empires Pile Up

Commonly referred to as the “Big Four” in the tech industry, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google have been faced with heat from Capitol Hill on more than one occasion. In fact, US lawmakers have been looking to build a case pertaining to antitrust issues against them for quite some time.

The amount of lawsuits faced by the four tech multi-billion dollar companies have been heaping up and Congress can therefore no longer turn a blind eye. Complaints and lawsuits range from cryptocurrency ad breaches to abuse of their monopoly when dealing with competitors to putting their own personal gain over platform users’ rights. Earlier in the hearing, to defend his Facebook Company, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said:

“We compete hard. We compete fairly. We try to be the best.”

Facebook and Google Slapped With $600M Lawsuit

Earlier this month, Facebook and Google were served with a $600 million class-action lawsuit pertaining to a 2018 cryptocurrency ad ban. The lawsuit was filed by a group of cryptocurrency companies and individuals who claimed that the ban placed by these social media behemoths were hurting their businesses.

The lawsuit, which is a no-win-no-fee case, is currently awaiting funding for official filing as the companies and individuals that are allegedly affected are said to be expecting more firms to join their ranks in the legal battle.

Facebook Admitted to Regulatory Issues in 2019

This is just the first of many cases of regulatory issues that Facebook has encountered as it keeps on building its tech empire. Previously, when instilling Libra as a digital currency of their own, powered by a Facebook-created version of blockchain, the social media company had admitted that there were regulatory issues that needed to be addressed and that were preventing the progress of launching Libra officially.

In Facebook’s previous appeal with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, it mentioned that “there can be no assurance that Libra or our associated products and services will be made available in a timely manner.”

Amazon Admits

As for Amazon, the American multinational tech company has been accused of favoring their own products over that of third sellers on their website. They also faced accusations of misleading the committee.

Previously, the e-commerce behemoth had told law enforcement officials that it did not tap data from third-party sellers to boost their own products’ performance on the site. However, reports were brought up by Democratic Republican Pramila Jayapal that indicated the contrary.

This prompted Bezos to admit potential fault. It was reported that this was the first time he had ever testified in front of Congress. He said:

“What I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private label business. But I can’t guarantee you that policy has never been violated.”

Apple Packs Less Heat

As for CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, the business mogul faced less heat than his counterparts. However, he was grilled on how his company handled its App Store. Lawmakers repeatedly brought up Apple’s policy that enables them to get a 30 percent commission on its in-app sales and subscriptions, a fee that has negatively impacted Spotify.

Coinbase CEO Armstrong and Tech Giant Apple Butt Heads over Crypto and dApps

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has publicly voiced his disappointment over Apple’s seeming lack of flexibility over enabling decentralized application (dApp) browsers operating off its App store.

Coinbase to Potentially Remove App from Apple

The American coin exchange CEO had previously announced to its users that Coinbase’s mobile wallet may potentially be removed from Apple’s App store. The Coinbase iOS compatible application enabled users to buy, sell and send cryptocurrencies, but due to Apple’s guidelines, the developers behind the Coinbase crypto wallet application were forced to revise the app’s features and amend it. Apple appeared to dislike the DApp browser feature that came with the crypto wallet application, and so Coinbase was forced to drop the functionality from its mobile wallet application that was offered on Apple’s App store.

CEO of Coinbase Armstrong publicly explained his stance and called out Apple’s reluctancy to embrace cryptocurrencies and dApps. He said:

“Apple has been very restrictive and hostile to cryptocurrency over the years. They’re still blocking some functionality right now, including the ability to earn money with cryptocurrency by completing tasks, and unrestricted dApp browsers.”

Coin exchange giant Coinbase had announced in December that it may potentially have to remove its dApp browser functionality, as Apple was not happy with it. and it did not respect the policy guidelines imposed by Apple. The news came after both Apple and Google had declared that they wanted to remove dApps entirely from their respective app store platforms. Google had carried out its wishes by taking down Ethereum-based decentralized application browser Metamask from Google Play Store.

Apple Grilled on App Store from US Congress

Tech giant Apple had recently come under fire for how it handled the App store. In an antitrust hearing that occurred in June, Apple along with its counterparts, Facebook, Google, and Amazon were subject to an antitrust hearing with US Congress. Capitol Hill had been meaning to update its regulatory policies revolving around the tech industry and had been building a case on the “Big Four” tech firms for quite a while, as many rival companies have complained about the unjust leverage of power that the four tech giants used to overturn competition in the industry.

For Apple, lawmakers grilled the company for the way it handled its App store and opposing firms that offered similar products. The Judiciary Committee also confronted Apple on its policy of taking a cut of 30% in commission for its in-app sales and subscriptions. This has greatly impacted Spotify, who appears to feel as if a large scale of its revenue is being surrendered to the American multinational tech company.

Algorand for Scalable Blockchain, DeFi & DApps

With the continuing growth of decentralized applications, a scalable blockchain is highly sought after by developers. Algorand Foundation recently launched a comprehensive smart contract protocol that enabled decentralized finance (DeFi) developers to create DeFi solutions and Dapps on a highly scalable blockchain. The base layer, Algorand protocol, boasts of high security and appears to be the first pure Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain protocol to be launched.

The rise of DeFi had led to many more decentralized applications (DApps) being created and innovatively integrated into blockchain ecosystems for general trading, storage use, and much more. In Coinbase CEO Armstrong’s opinion, the future is inevitably moving towards crypto adoption on a global scale. Coinbase’s Armstrong is a strong cryptocurrency advocate and thinks that with digital assets set in place, “basic economic rights” can finally be accessed by people worldwide, even those in poorer countries.

The debate between Coinbase and Apple continues, as Armstrong is very adamant that Apple is too restrictive over cryptocurrencies. To him, digital assets can only mean good things and are the step to take in order to revolutionize the economic landscape globally.

Coinbase Censored By Apple

Some features within the Coinbase app have been restricted for IOS users, sparking further discontent about the ‘pay-to-play’ model adopted by Apple.

Apple Inc. has received criticism over restrictions on the Coinbase “Earn” feature that allows users to earn free cryptocurrency by watching educational videos and answering questions correctly in a quiz.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong published a string of tweets last week, giving insight into some of the struggles with Apple’s App Store and in-app purchases as the discussion around Apple’s restrictions on app functionalities evolves.

Apple has prevented IOS users from earning money directly from the Coinbase app. Instead, users must log-in to Coinbase via the desktop app to earn rewards.

Further to this, Apple will not allow access to DeFi applications from within the Coinbase IOS app.

Armstrong criticized Apple for preventing users from earning money during a recession, pointing to the fact that so much of the global population is without access to basic financial instruments and services.

Armstrong added that Apple had also prevented Coinbase from providing a list of DeFi applications within the Coinbase app, despite merely serving as an aggregating service. The CEO announced plans to submit a formal request to remedy the situation.

Coinbase is just the latest in a string of companies at odds with the tech giant, after Epic Games, maker of the popular game Fortnite, recently challenged the Apple App Store payment rules.

The App Store rules impose a 30% cut of all in-app purchases. Epic filed a lawsuit against Apple to challenge the monopoly held over in-app payments processors following the removal of Fortnite from the App Store last month.

Broadly speaking, these restrictions may serve to protect users. However, by imposing censorship of this nature, Apple not only eliminates competition but also limits the opportunity and potential for millions of users at a time when people are most in need.

Market Watch: Stock vs Crypto Performance, Tesla, Apple, Bitcoin and Ethereum Compared

In this article, we compare the performance of the stock market and crypto market to date since the announcement of unlimited quantitative easing (QE) by the Federal Reserve. We research and compare the performance of some leading stocks and cryptocurrencies: Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The Corrections after the Close of the US stock market on 24 September

A correction is a 10 percent or more drop in stocks from their most recent peak.

S&P 500 rose 0.3%, down 9.3% from Sept. 2 high of 3580.84.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2%, down nearly 12% from its Sept. 2 record highs
Nasdaq Composite rosed 0.37%, around 12% off its Sept. 2 all-time high.
Tesla stock rose by 1.95% to $387.79 close, it corrected 22.83%. It corrected 30% compared to the low on Sept 24.
Apple rose 1.03%, down 21.57% from the record high and down 25.28% compared to the low on Sept 21.
Microsoft (MSFT) rose by 1.3%, down 12.74% from the record high, and down 15.72% compared to the low on Sept 21.
Bitcoin rose around 3.6% over the last 24 hours, it was down around 15.5% from Sept. 1. Bitcoin reached around $12,470 of 1-year high on Aug 17. Bitcoin reached around $14,000 of 2-year high on June 24, 2019.
Ethereum rosed around 7% over the last 24 hours, it was down 35% from its two-year high before 24-hours.

During this period, the Ethereum price dropped more significantly than Bitcoin. We will analyze why below.

Lows of this year

S&P 500 reached 2,191.86 of one-year low on March 23.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached 19,094.27 of one-year low on March 20.
Nasdaq reached 6,686.36 of one-year low on March 18.
Tesla stock reached $70.10 of this year low on March 20.
Apple stock reached $53.15 of this year low on March 23.
Microsoft stock reached $132.52 of this year low on March 23.
Bitcoin reached $3,800 of one-year low on March 13.
Ethereum reached $86 of one-year low on March 13.

It seems Bitcoin and Ethereum are more fragile than the stock market.

Record high and Yearly high

S&P 500 reached 3,588.11 of record high on Sept 2.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached 29,199.35 of record high on Sept 3.
Nasdaq reached 12,074.06 of record high on Sept 2.
Tesla stock reached $502.49 of the record high on Sept 1.
Apple stock reached $137.98 of the record high on Sept 2.
Microsoft stock reached $232.86 of the record high on Sept 2.
Bitcoin reached around $12,470 of 1-year high on Aug 17.
Ethereum reached around $490 of 2-year high on Sept 1.

On September 2, S&P 500, Dow Jones, Nasdaq, Apple, Microsoft all reached record highs, while on September 1, Tesla and Ethereum reached their own price high, which are stock and crypto market lead separately in the half-year bull market. It seems Ethereum has a correlation with Tesla.

Maximum gain

S&P 500, 1.64 times.
The Dow, 1.53 times.
Nasdaq, 1.806 times.
Tesla: 7.17 time from $70.10 to $502.49 USD.
Apple: 2.6 times from 53.15 to 137.98 USD.
Microsoft: 1.76 times from 132.52 to 232.86 USD.
Bitcoin, 3.28 times from 3,800 to 12470 USD.
Ethereum: 5.7 times from $86 to $490 USD.

Tesla was the major giant lead for the stock market which and performed even better than Ethereum.

Insights:

(1) As always, monetary policies have the most important and direct impact on asset prices. On March 23, Federal Reserve announced unlimited QE and sets up several new lending programs, which meant enough money provision into the market without limits. Since then, both the stock market and the crypto market started a bull run. The monetary policies are the most important factor to watch for market performance, or there is no overall bull market for both the stock market and the crypto market in the short term.

(2) The stock market is led by the tech-giants, particularly Tesla, then FANG. although there is Bitcoin dominance rising in May, the crypto market has been mainly led by the Ethereum and DeFi boom. In DeFi, especially Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs) created many requirements and use cases for Ethers. Bitcoin got more and more attention from institutional investors, MicroStrategy is among them which bought twice a total of 38,250 bitcoins for $425 million. When the stock market starting correction overlapped the SushiSwap’s Sushi token launching and collapsing simultaneously, the Ethereum price crashed immediately.

Source: TradingView

(3) The crypto market seems more sensitive than the stock market in the response to bad news. Both the Bitcoin and Ethereum plunged earlier than Tesla and Apple.

(4) The Bitcoin and crypto market are highly correlated to the stock market currently. The major reason is that the half-year bull markets of the stock market and crypto market are mainly driven by monetary policies and new money supply expectations.

(5) The US national debt is around $26.8 trillion. There are not much more space for monetary policies. It is necessary to keep a very low or even 0 interest rate to avoid the problem caused by the high volume interest of the national debt and market panic. The current monetary system seems to be collapsing.

(6) The Covid-19 pandemic continues without apparent signs of reversal. The UK even hit highest daily COVID-19 cases at 6,634 today. The upcoming US presidential election is very likely to cause more market chaos.

(7) At this point, it seems very unlikely that the downtrend of the stock market is finished. As for the crypto market, it appears even less optimistic than the stock market.

With additional reporting by Lucas Cacioli

US Congress’ Attack on Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook Continues, Can Blockchain Benefit?

As the antitrust hearing with tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google (Alphabet) continues, the question of whether decentralization will subsequently rise as a result of the legal tech-policy hearing has been brought up.

Why Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook are subject to Congress’ grilling

This week, the Antitrust Subcommittee has released a legal report that involved the Big Tech – Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook. US Congressmen have been grilling the tech giants for quite some time, as the tech industry continues to undergo extensive digital transformation.

US Congress has been aiming to sanction the Big Tech for quite some time, as lawsuit complaints directed towards them from competing tech companies have been piling up.

Concerns ranging from consumer privacy breaches to lack of content regulation have been brought up and laid out in the continued antitrust hearing. They include cryptocurrency ad breaches, an abuse of monopoly to crush existing competitors in the industry, and more.

Firms have on numerous occasions complained that the Big Four have leveraged their dominance in many instances to trample existent competition. As a result, the US Congress have been actively working to come up with regulations for Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook.

The released report, entitled Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets, reads:

“Although these firms have delivered clear benefits to society, the dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google has come at a price. These firms typically run the marketplace while also competing in it—a position that enables them to write one set of rules for others, while they play by another, or to engage in a form of their own private quasi regulation that is unaccountable to anyone but themselves.”

Can blockchain benefit from the antitrust hearing?

With the US Judiciary Committee actively working on imposing rules for Big Tech, the blockchain sector may stand to benefit. The proposed sanctions by US Congress will most certainly put a reign on Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook’s monopoly if passed, making way for blockchain technology’s rise in popularity.

The concentration of power on distributed ledger technology is technologically impossible, as all transactions are recorded on the block and can be accessed by at any time, removing the need for a third-party entity. Furthermore, most chains follow a decentralized principle.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had previously backed the blockchain industry and hinted that Twitter may be moving towards an open-source media protocol, where the security of content would be in the hands of individuals. He also backed Bitcoin and its underlying infrastructure and said:

“Blockchain and Bitcoin point to a world where content exists forever, where it’s permanent, doesn’t go away and exists forever on every single node that’s connected to it.”

Apple and Google ban Fortnite

At the time of writing, Apple and Google are both involved in a legal battle with Fortnite’s parent company Epic Games. The tech giants hold a 30% commission rate over Fortnite transactions operating on their platforms, a technicality that Epic Games has tried to loophole by employing a currency of its own.

Following this event, Apple and Google have both banned Fortnite from their respective app stores.

US Congress attempts to regulate Big Tech

In an attempt to update antitrust legislation and to lower the market dominance of the ‘Big Four Tech’ companies, legislators have proposed to label future acquisitions by “dominant platforms” as illegal, unless proven otherwise. The report reads:

“Subcommittee staff recommends that Congress consider shifting presumptions for future acquisitions by the dominant platforms. Under this change, any acquisition by a dominant platform would be presumed anticompetitive unless the merging parties could show that the transaction was necessary for serving the public interest and that similar benefits could not be achieved through internal growth and expansion.”

Apple Demands that Telegram Block Channels Officiated by Belarus Protestors

Apple tech giant has told cloud-based messaging service Telegram to shut down three channels related to the Belarus political protests.

Apple forces Telegram to shut down channels

The three messaging channels in question are hosted by protestors against the allegedly rigged elections in Belarus that saw President Alexander Lukashenko re-elected. The channels have been flagged by Apple, as the social media streams reportedly name official members of Belarus’ authoritarian regime.

Under the pretext that the channels promote violence and are a threat to government officials’ safety as their names are revealed through the social media streams, Apple has demanded that Telegram delete the social channels.

On his end, Telegram founder Pavel Durov has expressed his disappointment, as he preferred not to hinder user activity on the messaging app. He said:

“I think this situation is not black and white, and would rather leave the channels be, but typically Apple doesn’t offer much choice for apps like Telegram in such situations.”

As shared by news outlet Meduza, the founder explained that despite Apple’s request, the channels will keep operating on other platforms. He said:

“My guess is that, unfortunately, these channels will end up being blocked on iOS, but will remain available on other platforms.”

Belarus demands dissident names, crypto exchange balks

The delicate situation comes at a time when Belarus’ political atmosphere is heavy, as the country is operating under Lukashenko, who is known as one of the last dictators of Europe.

Recently, Belarus government officials have demanded that crypto exchange Kuna.io name potential dissidents that have leveraged their services.

This request has been denied by the Ukraine-based coin exchange, as Kuna.io founder Mikhail Chobanyan has made his stance clear, despite running the possibility of never being able to enter Belarus again. He said:

“KUNA’s mission is an open and decentralized financial system. We, just like the civilized world, don’t support violence and refuse to hold dialogue with the opponents.”

Is decentralization the answer?

The forced shutdown of Telegram channels imposed by Apple has begged the question of whether decentralized alternatives would be a better solution for the future of digital innovation.

Decentralized alternatives could enable individuals such as Belarus protestors to voice their opinions without fear of a third-party intervention – in this case, the entity being Apple.

On decentralized applications, content can only be removed by the person who posted it in the first place. An example of an application that is based on a decentralized protocol is Voice, which leverages blockchain technology to provide a user interaction free of hidden algorithms.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates on Big Tech Antitrust Hearing – Government Scrunity Inevitable with Tech Success

Bill Gates discussed the regulatory policies that were brought up in the antitrust hearing opposing US Congress and Big Tech – Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google (Alphabet).

Bill Gates on antitrust Big Tech hearing

In an interview with CNBC, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft Bill Gates stated that during his leadership at the tech giant, he had been naïve in thinking that the company would not be scrutinized by the US government. He then disclosed that the chances of the outcome of the Big Tech antitrust hearing resulting in established regulations inhibiting Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google’s movements were “pretty high.” The multibillionaire said:

“Whenever you get to be a super-valuable company, affecting the way people communicate and even political discourse being mediated through your system and higher percentage of commerce — through your system — you’re going to expect a lot of government attention.”

Referencing the antitrust challenges that Microsoft experienced twenty years ago, Gates added:

“I was naive at Microsoft and didn’t realize that our success would lead to government attention.”

The Microsoft founder stated that currently, it appears as though “we’re in uncharted territory here,” as rules regarding Big Tech and emerging technology giants seem to be changing. Future regulation appears to be looming close and seems to be an inevitability, according to Gates.

Whether or not regulation would drive down technological innovation was also addressed by Gates. Many tech moguls have considered that as a concern, as anti-competitive killer acquisition clauses are currently being assessed by the House subcommittee.

How blockchain can benefit from the antitrust hearing

Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google have been facing heat by the US Congress in ongoing antitrust talks, as the US Judiciary Committee would like to see regulatory policies established for the Big Tech.

Topics that were discussed ranged from data privacy breaches to investigations pertaining to the companies’ treatment of their competitors. The Big Tech have been accused of strong-arming tech rival companies and driving down competition by leveraging their dominance in the sector.

With the US Judiciary Committee actively working on imposing rules for Big Tech, the blockchain sector may stand to benefit. The concentration of power on distributed ledger technology is technologically impossible, as all transactions are recorded on the block and can be accessed by at any time, removing the need for a third-party entity.

Trump Outraged: Jack Dorsey Faces Senate Subpoena After Twitter Blocks Biden Ukraine Scandal

The US Senate has announced that Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey will be called upon to testify about the recent incident in which the social media platform blocked users from sharing a NY Post story disclosing sensitive information on Joe Biden and his son’s alleged scandal in Ukraine.

Facebook and Twitter block Biden ‘fake news,’ Trump is furious

On top of Twitter restricting the New York Post article, Facebook also took action and said that it would “reduce the distribution of the article,” in an attempt to slow the spread of the news as the social network needed to fact-check the information. President Trump and the Republican party reacted with outrage, calling it an “election interference,” as the move comes 19 days before the US 2020 presidential election set for November 3.

The US Senate is planning to vote to subpoena Jack Dorsey, summoning his presence in front of the US Judiciary committee to explain social media companies’ logic behind locking users’ account, such as that of President Donald Trump.

Senator Ted Cruz said:

“We have seen big tech, we’ve seen Twitter and Facebook actively interfering in this election in a way that has no precedent in the history of our country.”

Numerous platforms including the Trump campaign account were blocked from re-tweeting the links pertaining to Biden and the Ukraine scandal his son and he was part of, as Facebook and Twitter both appealed to policies that said hacked material and personal information were at play.

According to people familiar with the talks, the information disclosed by NY Post was uncovered through Hunter Biden’s old computer.

Senator Cruz added that the vote will happen next Tuesday, to decide on whether CEO Dorsey needed to testify at the end of the week. Cruz added that it was to “explain why Twitter is abusing corporate power to silence the press.”

Following the censorship from Twitter, President Trump had made his anger explicitly known, as the article was related to his opponent Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s involvement in a Ukrainian company. The US president expressed his fury through his twitter and said:

“So terrible that Facebook and Twitter took down the story of ‘Smoking Gun’ emails related to Sleepy Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in the @NYPost. It is only the beginning for them. There is nothing worse than a corrupt politician. REPEAL SECTION 230!!!”

Referencing Section 230 of a communications law, President Trump called out Twitter’s move in taking down the story as a terrible one and threatened to cancel a bill that served to protect companies from being held responsible for content posted by users on their sites.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apologizes

Following the political commotion that was caused by Twitter’s move, CEO Jack Dorsey publicly apologized for his company’s actions, saying that it lacked adequate justification at the time of the deed. He explained that Twitter operated in a way in which fake news and hacked materials were immediately flagged, as the article was deliberated to be fake news, having information provided by Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, which may have contained misinformation. He explained his actions by linking Twitter’s official Safety Department’s statement, which read:

“The images contained in the articles include personal and private information – like email addresses and phone numbers – which violate our rules.”

Twitter Safety added an update this morning, which disclosed:

“We also currently view materials included in the articles as violations of our Hacked Materials Policy.”

Big Tech – Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook – have been facing ongoing heat from the US Congress for quite some time, as the Judiciary Committee is threatening to break up the monopoly and dominance the tech giants hold over the industry by coming up with regulatory policies aimed at anti-competitive practices.

Is decentralization the answer for Twitter and tech?

The way in which the incident was handled begs the question of whether social platforms as huge as Twitter could benefit from a blockchain and decentralized protocol

Jack Dorsey has long expressed his support of blockchain technology and the mainstream cryptocurrency which revolutionized it – Bitcoin – hinting that Twitter was also making its way in becoming decentralized, as “the more we’re giving the individual the keys, the safer we’re going to be.”

If that were to happen, censorship resistance would happen on Twitter, as the underlying infrastructure would run on distributed ledger technology (DLT). A DLT system has crucial aspects which include “persistence, transparency, standardization, and censorship resistance.”

In other words, once a user uploads content onto a platform, the move will essentially be irreversible on the chain, making censorship potentially obsolete and giving more power to individuals to regulate the platform, as opposed to a fully centralized entity.