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SCOTUS nixes injunction that limited Biden admin contacts with social networks

26 June 2024 at 14:38
SCOTUS nixes injunction that limited Biden admin contacts with social networks

Enlarge (credit: Christopher Furlong / Staff | Getty Images News)

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court tossed out claims that the Biden administration coerced social media platforms into censoring users by removing COVID-19 and election-related content.

Complaints alleging that high-ranking government officials were censoring conservatives had previously convinced a lower court to order an injunction limiting the Biden administration's contacts with platforms. But now that injunction has been overturned, re-opening lines of communication just ahead of the 2024 electionsβ€”when officials will once again be closely monitoring the spread of misinformation online targeted at voters.

In a 6–3 vote, the majority ruled that none of the plaintiffs suingβ€”including five social media users and Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouriβ€”had standing. They had alleged that the government had "pressured the platforms to censor their speech in violation of the First Amendment," demanding an injunction to stop any future censorship.

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14 June 2024 at 13:56
Reuters: Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic 'The U.S. military launched a clandestine program [that started under former President Donald Trump and continued months into Joe Biden's presidency] amid the COVID crisis to discredit China's Sinovac inoculation – payback for Beijing's efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public. Health experts say the gambit was indefensible and put innocent lives at risk.' (ungated)

The Justice Department Took Down the 911 S5 Botnet

7 June 2024 at 07:04

The US Justice Department has dismantled an enormous botnet:

According to an indictment unsealed on May 24, from 2014 through July 2022, Wang and others are alleged to have created and disseminated malware to compromise and amass a network of millions of residential Windows computers worldwide. These devices were associated with more than 19 million unique IP addresses, including 613,841 IP addresses located in the United States. Wang then generated millions of dollars by offering cybercriminals access to these infected IP addresses for a fee.

[…]

This operation was a coordinated multiagency effort led by law enforcement in the United States, Singapore, Thailand, and Germany. Agents and officers searched residences, seized assets valued at approximately $30 million, and identified additional forfeitable property valued at approximately $30 million. The operation also seized 23 domains and over 70 servers constituting the backbone of Wang’s prior residential proxy service and the recent incarnation of the service. By seizing multiple domains tied to the historical 911 S5, as well as several new domains and services directly linked to an effort to reconstitute the service, the government has successfully terminated Wang’s efforts to further victimize individuals through his newly formed service Clourouter.io and closed the existing malicious backdoors.

The creator and operator of the botnet, YunHe Wang, was arrested in Singapore.

Three news articles.

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