Politicians have been poking at Section 230 for months. The DoJ doesn’t typically weigh in on legislation, but now, Barr is asking Congress to roll back critical aspects of Section 230. Not only is that unusual, it could add to speculation that some politicians are attempting to “bully tech companies into political submission,” as Senator Brian Schatz previously put it.

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been looking for ways to alter Section 230 and better regulate Big Tech in general. But President Trump also seems to have a personal vendetta against social media platforms. In addition to accusing Facebook and Twitter of having an anti-conservative bias, Trump criticized Twitter after it flagged and hid one of his tweets “for making misleading health claims that could potentially dissuade people from participation in voting.” Earlier this year, shortly after Twitter hid another Trump tweet for glorifying violence, the President signed an executive order targeting social media platforms.

It’s unclear what the future holds for Section 230, but with a push from Barr and the DoJ, reform could arrive sooner rather than later.

Following a fraud accusation by a short firm and potential probe by the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), Nikola founder Trevor Milton is stepping down as executive chairman. “Nikola is truly in my blood and always will be, and the focus should be on the Company and its world-changing mission, not me,” Milton said in a statement (via the Financial Times). “So I made the difficult decision to approach the Board and volunteer to step aside as Executive Chairman.”

Former vice-chairman of General Motors and Nikola board member Stephen Girsky will take his place, the company said. GM recently sealed a billion-dollar deal with Nikola to supply it with batteries, fuel cells and other parts. GM will also build the “Badger” hydrogen-powered pickup truck for Nikola.

Different states reportedly have different reasons for signing on, and participating wouldn’t necessarily prevent them from pursuing other investigations. Democrat-led states may file their own lawsuit in the “coming months” over aspects the DOJ doesn’t cover, according to the sources.

We’ve asked Google for comment.

If these states (and potentially others) join the lawsuit, it could represent one of the largest antitrust actions since the case against Microsoft in 1998. That case ultimately involved 18 states and DC, and led to significant changes to Microsoft’s business. There’s no certainty Google will face a similar outcome, but the involvement of a dozen states suggests there’s a lot of pressure to limit the internet giant’s influence even without throwing Congress into the mix.

A report by the New York Times suggests that the Justice Department is close to presenting its antitrust case against Alphabet, the parent company of Google. The report also mentions that there’s disagreement among the team, as attorney general William Barr is described as wanting to announce the case in September to make it an an example of action taken by the Trump administration.

That push seems like an “arbitrary” decision that overrides the advice of career lawyers who think rushing things will strengthen Google’s case. Google, through a spokesman, is quoted saying it will continue to “engage” with the investigations, which have focused on its dominance in online search and advertising, and reportedly uncovered “powerful” evidence of anticompetitive behavior. A report in the Washington Post backed up the NYT findings, and mentioned that some state AGs are targeting Android as well.

The employee immediately informed Tesla, and the company contacted the FBI, which launched a sting operation. Agents arrested Kriuchkov in Los Angeles as he was attempting to leave the US. 

As Electrek points out, during the sting operation, FBI agents obtained info about previous attacks led by Kriuchkov’s associates. They didn’t confirm which companies were impacted, but a similar ransomware attack was carried out against CWT Group in July. That company paid a $4.5 million ransom. Tesla could have been in a similar situation if its employee had not acted quickly or thought to inform the company. 

Earlier this month, the cruise company Carnival and Garmin revealed that they suffered ransomware attacks. Travelex recently paid $2.3 million to resolve a ransomware attack, and of course, multiple cities — Atlanta, Baltimore and New Orleans — have been hit by similar cybercrimes. Dentist offices and DSLR cameras are not immune either.

According to another forfeiture complaint, al-Qaeda and affiliates used Telegram and other social media channels to solicit Bitcoin donations. In some cases, the groups allegedly pretended to act as charities. Agents uncovered 155 cryptocurrency accounts linked to that terrorism fundraising campaign.

As for ISIS, someone tied to the group allegedly ran a COVID-19 protective gear scam. Murat Cakar, who the DoJ describes as “an ISIS facilitator,” was selling phony N95 respirator masks and other protective equipment through a website, according to a complaint. One US-based customer tried to buy gear for hospitals, nursing homes and fire departments. Officials seized that site, along with four related Facebook pages.

In total, agents recouped about $2 million worth of cryptocurrency, according to the New York Times. Once the case is concluded, the Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund may receive some or all of the seized funds. Officials also blacklisted some private crypto wallets said to contain millions of dollars more in virtual currency, which will make it harder for account owners to cash out those funds through financial institutions.

According to the indictment, the hackers were working both for the Chinese government’s Ministry of State Security and for their own personal gain. At the moment, there’s no indication that they obtained any COVID-19 research.

“China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea, in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cyber criminals in exchange for those criminals being ‘on call’ to work for the benefit of the state, here to feed the Chinese Communist party’s insatiable hunger for American and other non-Chinese companies’ hard-earned intellectual property, including COVID-19 research,” John C. Demers, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement.

In addition to targeting COVID-19 research, the cyberattacks allegedly targeted robotics, aircraft and marine engineering, clean energy engineering, biotechnology, non-governmental organizations and human rights activists. According to the Justice Department, the hackers stole trade secrets, technologies, data and personal information from the computer systems of businesses, individuals and agencies throughout the world.

The other major concern opponents of the EARN IT Act raise has to do with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says that companies are not liable for much of the content that users post. Originally, the EARN IT Act proposed requiring that companies “earn” Section 230 protections by following recommended practices outlined by a Department of Justice (DoJ) commission. Without those protections, companies like Twitter or Facebook might be compelled to remove anything that might prompt a legal challenge, which could threaten freedom of speech.

The amendments passed today strip the DoJ commission of any legal authority and will not require companies to earn Section 230 protections by following recommended practices. But the amended bill would change Section 230 to allow lawsuits from states, and state legislatures could restrict or outlaw encryption technologies. Plus, that could lead to inconsistent laws that vary state-by-state.

“The drafters of this bill obviously want to address real harms from abusive materials, but the amended bill creates an enormous opening for state-level liability,” said Gaurav Laroia, Free Press Action senior policy counsel, in a statement. “Even as amended today, it invites states to begin passing all sorts of laws under the guise of protecting against abuse, but replicating the problems with the original EARN IT Act’s text.”

The ACLU, which says the bill does little to “meaningfully address” the issue of child abuse,” also opposes the new amendments.

“While there are significant changes made in the amended version, these changes do not alleviate the concerns that the EARN IT Act will undermine the privacy of every single American, stifle our ability to communicate freely online, and harm LGBTQ people, sex workers, and protesters,” the ACLU wrote in a statement.

According to the Department of Justice, in 2019, after the newsletter published an article about litigation involving eBay, executive leadership sent messages that it was time to “take down” the newsletter’s editor. That kicked off a three-part harassment campaign. First, the former employees began sending ominous items to the newsletter editor and her husband, who served as publisher. They also sent porn addressed to the editor to neighboring homes, allegedly harassed the couple on Twitter and planned to dox them. 

According to the DOJ a few of the former employees registered for a software development conference in Boston and then drove to the victims’ home in nearby Natick, Massachusetts. They allegedly intended to break into the victims’ garage and install a GPS tracking device on their car, but the victims noticed the surveillance and notified the Natick police. The eBay employees allegedly tried to interfere with the investigation that followed.

In a statement published today, eBay says it was notified by law enforcement of suspicious behavior in August 2019 and began its own investigation. By September 2019, it terminated all involved employees, including its former chief communications officer. eBay’s former CEO Devin Wenig left the company the same month.

“The internal investigation found that, while Mr. Wenig’s communications were inappropriate, there was no evidence that he knew in advance about or authorized the actions that were later directed toward the blogger and her husband,” eBay said. “However, as the Company previously announced, there were a number of considerations leading to his departure from the Company.”

The charges would be significant if they incriminated a group of rogue mid-level staffers, but the fact that the cyberstalking and harassment was allegedly carried out by senior-level staff make the charges that much more disturbing.

“eBay does not tolerate this kind of behavior,” the company said in its statement. “eBay apologizes to the affected individuals and is sorry that they were subjected to this.

The document, Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, includes 11 principles. It covers themes like targeting online grooming, preventing searches of child sexual abuse material and responding to evolving threats. According to a statement published by the DOJ, the principles are “intended to have sufficient flexibility to ensure effective implementation.”

“We hope the Voluntary Principles will spur collective action on the part of industry to stop one of the most horrendous crimes impacting some of the most vulnerable members of society,” said US Attorney General William Barr.

Many tech companies already have at least some measures to combat child exploitation. Recently, Facebook made its algorithms for flagging harmful photos and videos open-source and available on GitHub. Microsoft has shared its tool for reviewing chat-based conversations and detecting online grooming. Still, online child exploitation is a widespread and devastating problem.