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Twitter has set out its plans for US Inauguration Day 2021, next Wednesday, January 20, when president-elect Joe Biden will be sworn into office as the 46th US president and vice president-elect Kamala Harris will become VP.
“This year, multiple challenging circumstances will require that most people experience this historic ceremony virtually,” the social media firm writes in a blog post detailing how it will handle the transition of power on its platform as the Trump administration departs office.
“As Twitter will serve as both a venue for people to watch and talk about this political event, and play a key role in facilitating the transfer of official government communication channels, we want to be transparent and clear about what people should expect to see on the platform.”
The inauguration will of course be livestreamed via Twitter by multiple accounts (such as news outlets), as well as the official inauguration accounts, @JCCIC and @BidenInaugural.
Twitter will also be streaming the ceremony via its US Elections Hub, where it says it will share curated Moments, Lists and accounts to follow as well.
Once sworn into office, Biden and Harris will gain control of the @POTUS and @VP Twitter accounts. Other accounts that will transition to the new administration on the day include @WhiteHouse, @FLOTUS and @PressSec.
Twitter has also confirmed that Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, will use a new official account — called @SecondGentleman. (It’s not clear why not ‘SGOTUS’; aside from, well, the unloveliness of the acronym.)
As it did when president Obama left office, Twitter will transfer the current institutional accounts of the Trump administration to the National Archives and Records Administration (Nara) — meaning the outgoing administration’s tweets and account history will remain publicly available (with account usernames updated to reflect their archived status, e.g. @POTUS will be archived as @POTUS45).
However Trump’s personal account, which he frequently used as a political cudgel, yelling in ALL CAPS and/or spewing his customary self-pitying tweets, has already been wiped from public view after Twitter took the decision to permanently ban him last week for repeat violations of its rules of conduct. So there’s likely to be a major gap in Nara’s Trump archive.
Since late last year we’ve known the transitioning @POTUS and institutional accounts will not automatically retain followers from the prior administration. But Twitter still hasn’t confirmed why.
Today it just reiterated that the current (33.3M) followers of @POTUS and the other official accounts will receive a notification about the archival process which will include the “option” to follow the new holders of the accounts.
That’s another notable change from 2017 when Trump inherited the ~14M followers of president Obama’s @POTUS. Biden will instead have to start his presidential tweeting from scratch.
Given the chaotic events in the US capital last week, when supporters of the outgoing president broke through police lines to cause mayhem on the hill and in the House, there’s every reason for tech platforms to approach the 2021 transition with trepidation, lest their tools get used to livestream another historic insurrection (or worse).
Since then Trump has also continued to maintain his false claim that the election was stolen through voter fraud.
Although he avoided any new direct reference to this big lie when he circumvented Twitter’s ban on his personal account earlier this week, by posting a new video of himself speaking on the official @WhiteHouse account.
In the video he decried the “incursion at the US capital”, as he put it; claimed that he “unequivocally condemns the violence that we saw last week”; and called for unity. But Twitter has put tight limits on what Trump can say on its platform without having his posts removed (as well limiting him to the official @POTUS channel). So he remains on a very tight speech leash.
In the video Trump limits his verbal attacks to a few remarks — about what he describes as “the unprecedented assault on free speech we have seen in recent days” — dubbing tech platforms’ censorship “wrong” and “dangerous”, and adding that “what is needed now is for us to listen to one another, not to silence one another”.
There’s a lot going on here but it should not escape notice that Trump’s seeming contrition and quasi-concession and his very-last-minute calls for unity have only come when he actively feels power draining away from him.
Most notably, his call for unity has only come after powerful tech platforms acted to shut off his hate-megaphone — ending the years of special dispensation they granted Trump to ride roughshod over democratic convention and tear up the civic rulebook.
It’s very interesting to speculate how different the 2021 US inauguration might look and feel if platforms like Twitter had consistently enforced their rules against Trump from the get-go.
Instead we’re stuck in all sorts of lockdown, counting the days til Biden takes office — and above all hoping for a smooth transition of power.
So Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is quite right when he said this week that Twitter has failed in its mission to “promote healthy conversation”. His company ignored warnings about online toxicity for years. Trump is, in no small part, the divisive product of that.
That said, having to ban an account has real and significant ramifications. While there are clear and obvious exceptions, I feel a ban is a failure of ours ultimately to promote healthy conversation. And a time for us to reflect on our operations and the environment around us.
— jack (@jack) January 14, 2021
In a brief section of Twitter’s transition handling blog post, entitled “protecting the public conversation”, the company refers back to a post from earlier this week where it set out steps it’s taking to try to prevent its platform from being used to “incite violence, organize attacks, and share deliberately misleading information about the election outcome” in the coming days.
These measures include permanently suspending ~70,000 accounts it said were primarily dedicated to sharing content related to the QAnon conspiracy theory; aggressively beefing up its civic integrity policy; and applying interaction limits on labeled tweets plus blocking violative keywords from appearing in Trends and search.
“These efforts, including our open lines of communication with law enforcement, will continue through the inauguration and will adapt as needed if circumstances change in real-time,” it adds, preparing for the possibility of more unrest.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/15/how-twitter-is-handling-the-2021-us-presidential-transition/
After a troubled year that saw broadband satellite operator OneWeb file for bankruptcy, get rescue finance from the UK government and Bharti, and then emerge out of that with a launch of part of its fleet last month, the London-based company today announced that it’s closed $1.4 billion in funding — money that it says will be enough to (finally) get the rest of its first-generation fleet of 648 satellites off the ground.
The 36 new satellites OneWeb launched in December brought the total number in orbit to 110 satellites. This means there are still more than 500 left to launch in the first generation.
The company is continuing to whittle down its ambitions. Earlier this week, OneWeb announced that it had “streamlined its constellation” and as a result was reducing the request it was making to the U.S. regulators for licenses. Originally OneWeb had applied to the FCC for market access for 47,884 satellites; now the figure is down to 6,372.
SoftBank Group Corp. and Hughes Network Systems are providing the financing, the company said. The news comes about a month after OneWeb launched 36 satellites, its third launch to put more of its fleet into orbit. At the time, its executive chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said that it was on track to raise $400 million — so this represents a more-than threefold increase on that amount. This appears to confirm that.
“OneWeb’s mission is to connect everyone, everywhere. We have made rapid progress to re-start the business since emerging from Chapter 11 in November,” said Neil Masterson, CEO of OneWeb, in a statement. “We welcome the investments by SoftBank and Hughes as further proof of progress towards delivering our goal.”
A spokesperson for the company has confirmed to me that the company is not disclosing its valuation. Adding in this round, it looks like the company has raised around $4.5 billion to date, although the bankruptcy meant a significant recapitalization and revaluation of the business and that figure includes funding from before it was restructured.
SoftBank and Hughes are both past backers and partners in OneWeb, so this is something of an insurance policy to make sure that its previous investment doesn’t go completely to waste. (At least some of it has already been written down: SoftBank years ago posted an eye-watering loss of $24 billion due in part to that OneWeb bet.)
Hughes, meanwhile, invests via its parent company EchoStar and inked a deal with the company way back in 2017 to build the terrestrial infrastructure that would work with OneWeb’s satellites. Deals, building and rollouts in the world of satellite technology play out over a number of years, and often face delays, so being three years out — or even more — on seeing any fruits from that deal is not hugely surprising.
OneWeb acknowledged the long-time connection between the investors and confirmed that the ground network is still being built by Hughes.
“We are delighted to welcome the investment from SoftBank and Hughes. Both are deeply familiar with our business, share our vision for the future, and their commitment allows us to capitalise on the significant growth opportunity ahead for OneWeb,” said Mittal in a statement. “We gain from their experience and capabilities, as we deliver a unique LEO network for the world.”
Originally, Hughes had planned for the first services to start running in 2019 — although that was when OneWeb and its fleet of LEO (low-earth orbit) satellites was still a very shiny idea, backed by $1.7 billion in venture funding.
The company’s original idea was always great but (no pun intended) also something of a moonshot: LEO satellites have already been proven to be a strong and useful complement to terrestrial networks for providing broadband connectivity to more remote areas that couldn’t be reached in other ways. The idea with OneWeb was to make that service something useful and used by a much bigger group of on-the-ground users, with the promise being 400Mbps for everyone.
While broadband usage has certainly exploded in the interim, what OneWeb perhaps didn’t bank on was that those building non-satellite systems for providing connectivity would also be progressing in their network advances; nor how long it might take, or the financing needed, to get its fleet off the ground on the timelines it was promising.
These days, OneWeb says that growing ubiquity of 5G, Internet of Things and connectivity needs overall still present a strong use case for its approach — which it says “includes a network of global gateway stations and a range of user terminals for different customer markets capable of delivering affordable, fast, high-bandwidth and low-latency communications services.”
Secretary of State, BEIS, The Rt. Hon. Kwasi Kwarteng, said in a statement: “Our investment in OneWeb is part of our continued commitment to the UK’s space sector, putting Britain at the forefront of the latest technological advances. Today’s investment brings the company one step closer to delivering its mission to provide global broadband connectivity for people, businesses and governments, while potentially unlocking new research, development and manufacturing opportunities in the UK.”
SoftBank is getting a seat on OneWeb’s board with this deal.
“We are excited to support OneWeb as it increases capacity and accelerates towards commercialisation,” said Masayoshi Son, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank, in a statement. “We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Bharti, the UK Government and Hughes to help OneWeb deliver on its mission to transform internet access around the world.”
Pradman Kaul, President of Hughes, added: “OneWeb continues to inspire the industry and attract the best players in the business to come together to bring its LEO constellation to fruition. The investments made today by Hughes and SoftBank will help realise the full potential of OneWeb in connecting enterprise, government and mobility customers, especially with multi-transport services that complement our own geostationary offerings in meeting and accelerating demand for broadband around the world.”
Updated to clarify that the $1.4 billion includes $400 million announced today, plus previous funding.
After a troubled year that saw broadband satellite operator OneWeb file for bankruptcy, get rescue finance from the UK government and Bharti, and then emerge out of that with a launch of part of its fleet last month, the London-based company today announced a another $1.4 billion in funding — money that it says will be enough to (finally) get the rest of its first-generation fleet of 648 satellites off the ground.
The 36 new satellites OneWeb launched in December brought the total number in orbit to 110 satellites, so there are still more than 500 left to launch.
SoftBank Group Corp. and Hughes Network Systems are providing the financing, the company said. The news comes about a month after OneWeb launched 36 satellites, its third launch to put more of its fleet into orbit. At the time, its executive chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said that it was on track to raise $400 million — so this represents a more-than threefold increase on that amount.
“OneWeb’s mission is to connect everyone, everywhere. We have made rapid progress to re-start the business since emerging from Chapter 11 in November,” said Neil Masterson, CEO of OneWeb, in a statement. “We welcome the investments by SoftBank and Hughes as further proof of progress towards delivering our goal.”
SoftBank and Hughes are both past backers and partners in OneWeb, so this is something of an insurance policy to make sure that its previous investment doesn’t go completely to waste. (At least some of it has already been written down: SoftBank years ago posted an eye-watering loss of $24 billion due in part to that OneWeb bet.)
Hughes, meanwhile, invests via its parent company EchoStar and inked a deal with the company way back in 2017 to build the terrestrial infrastructure that would work with OneWeb’s satellites. Deals, building and rollouts in the world of satellite technology play out over a number of years, and often face delays, so being three years out — or even more — on seeing any fruits from that deal is not hugely surprising.
OneWeb acknowledged the long-time connection between the investors and confirmed that the ground network is still being built by Hughes.
“We are delighted to welcome the investment from SoftBank and Hughes. Both are deeply familiar with our business, share our vision for the future, and their commitment allows us to capitalise on the significant growth opportunity ahead for OneWeb,” said Mittal in a statement. “We gain from their experience and capabilities, as we deliver a unique LEO network for the world.”
Originally, Hughes had planned for the first services to start running in 2019 — although that was when OneWeb and its fleet of LEO (low-earth orbit) satellites was still a very shiny idea, backed by $1.7 billion in venture funding.
The company’s original idea was always great but (no pun intended) also something of a moonshot: LEO satellites have already been proven to be a strong and useful complement to terrestrial networks for providing broadband connectivity to more remote areas that couldn’t be reached in other ways. The idea with OneWeb was to make that service something useful and used by a much bigger group of on-the-ground users, with the promise being 400Mbps for everyone.
While broadband usage has certainly exploded in the interim, what OneWeb perhaps didn’t bank on was that those building non-satellite systems for providing connectivity would also be progressing in their network advances; nor how long it might take, or the financing needed, to get its fleet off the ground on the timelines it was promising.
These days, OneWeb says that growing ubiquity of 5G, Internet of Things and connectivity needs overall still present a strong use case for its approach — which it says “includes a network of global gateway stations and a range of user terminals for different customer markets capable of delivering affordable, fast, high-bandwidth and low-latency communications services.”
Secretary of State, BEIS, The Rt. Hon. Kwasi Kwarteng, said in a statement: “Our investment in OneWeb is part of our continued commitment to the UK’s space sector, putting Britain at the forefront of the latest technological advances. Today’s investment brings the company one step closer to delivering its mission to provide global broadband connectivity for people, businesses and governments, while potentially unlocking new research, development and manufacturing opportunities in the UK.”
SoftBank is getting a seat on OneWeb’s board with this deal.
“We are excited to support OneWeb as it increases capacity and accelerates towards commercialisation,” said Masayoshi Son, Representative Director, Corporate Officer, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank, in a statement. “We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Bharti, the UK Government and Hughes to help OneWeb deliver on its mission to transform internet access around the world.”
Pradman Kaul, President of Hughes, added: “OneWeb continues to inspire the industry and attract the best players in the business to come together to bring its LEO constellation to fruition. The investments made today by Hughes and SoftBank will help realise the full potential of OneWeb in connecting enterprise, government and mobility customers, especially with multi-transport services that complement our own geostationary offerings in meeting and accelerating demand for broadband around the world.”
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is the latest to be added to the Trump Administration’s military blacklist. On Thursday, the Department of Defense added nine more companies to its list of alleged Chinese military companies, including Xiaomi.
Xiaomi was the world’s third-largest smartphone maker as of Q3 last year, coming ahead of Apple and trailing behind Samsung and Huawei, according to market researcher IDC.
In November, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, which was set to take effect in January, to bar investment in companies designated as supporting efforts of China’s military, intelligence and security apparatuses. Huawei, China’s major chipmaker SMIC, and the country’s three largest telecoms operators are among the targets of the list.
The military blacklist is different from the Commerce Department’s entity list, which famously cuts Huawei, DJI, SenseTime and other Chinese tech firms off their U.S. suppliers over national security concerns.
Xiaomi “confirms that it is not owned, controlled or affiliated with the Chinese military, and is not a ‘Communist Chinese Military Company’ defined under the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act]. The company will take appropriate course of actions to protect the interests of the company and its shareholders,” a Xiaomi spokesperson said in a statement.
Like the entity list, the U.S. government’s military blacklist has caused confusion around compliance. In response to the sanctions on China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, the New York Stock Exchange made three moves. It first announced to delist the three Chinese telcos, then decided not to after consultation with regulators, but eventually reversed its reversal and said it would delist them, after all, upon further evaluation.
Xiaomi is listed in Hong Kong, and the executive order could force American investors to divest their holdings in the phone maker, whose shares tumbled more than 11% to $29 apiece on the blacklist announcement.
“The company is reviewing the potential consequences of this to develop a fuller understanding of its impact on the group. The company will make further announcements as and when appropriate,” the Xiaomi representative said.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/14/xiaomi-us-blacklist/
