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      Biden to unveil Russia sanctions over SolarWinds hack and election meddling

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      The US is set to announce new sanctions against Russia as soon as Thursday in retaliation for Moscow’s elections interference, alleged bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan, and cyber-espionage campaigns such as the SolarWinds hack, according to reports in US and international media.Ten Russian diplomatic officials are to be expelled from the US and up to 30 entities will be blacklisted, officials said, in the largest sanctions action against Russia of Joe Biden’s presidency.Additionally, the White House may issue an executive order barring US financial institutions from purchasing rouble bonds issued by Russia’s government, targeting the country’s sovereign debt and its broader economy. That could begin as soon as June, according to some reports.Q&AWhat was the SolarWinds hack?ShowIn early 2020, malicious code was sneaked into updates to a popular piece of software called Orion, made in the US by the company SolarWinds, which monitors the computer networks of businesses and governments for outages.That malware gave hackers remote access to an organisation’s networks so they could steal information. Among the most high-profile users of the software were US government departments including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the state department, and the justice department.Described by the Microsoft president, Brad Smith, as “the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen”, US intelligence agencies have accused Russia of launching the attack.SolarWinds, of Austin, Texas, provides network monitoring and other technical services to hundreds of thousands of organisations around the world, including most Fortune 500 companies and government agencies in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.Its compromised product, Orion, is a centralised monitoring tool that looks for problems in an organisation’s computer network, which means that breaking in gave the attackers a “God view” of those networks.Neither SolarWinds nor US cybersecurity authorities have publicly identified which organisations were breached. Just because a company or agency uses SolarWinds as a vendor does not necessarily mean it was vulnerable to the hack.Kari Paul and Martin BelamUnnamed officials told the New York Times the new sanctions were meant to cut deeper than previous attempts to punish Moscow for its attacks on US institutions and allies. Some Russian officials have laughed off being added to the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions lists, comparing it to being elevated to an elite club. The threat of the ban on purchasing Russian debt has already depressed prices on the rouble and rouble-denominated OFZ treasury bonds.The sanctions will add tension to an already strained relationship between Russia and the US. Since last month, Moscow has been engaged in the largest troop buildup on its border with Ukraine since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, provoking fears of an invasion. Biden called Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to urge him to de-escalate tensions with Ukraine and proposed a summit in a third country. The Kremlin gave a frosty account of the telephone call, and did not say whether Putin had agreed to the meeting.Earlier this year, Biden had agreed with a reporter when asked if Putin was “a killer”. Those remarks were replayed widely on Russian television. Putin responded by wryly wishing Biden “good health”, which was seen as a nod to Biden’s age.The US president’s tough approach differs considerably from that of the Trump administration, which largely sought to avoid confronting Russia over a CIA assessment that Moscow had offered and paid bounties for foreign fighters to kill US troops in Afghanistan. Trump said he doubted the evidence behind the reports.He similarly sided with Putin over an FBI assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 elections during a summit in Helsinki two years later.The planned sanctions were said to be retaliation for Russian interference in the 2020 elections, during which US intelligence agencies concluded that the Kremlin had backed Trump over Biden.Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterThe sanctions would also be a response to a massive and sophisticated cybersecurity breach against SolarWinds Corp that affected software used by US government agencies. The US has blamed Russia for the attack.Peskov this week said that “the hostility and unpredictability of America’s actions force us in general to be prepared for the worst scenarios”. More

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      National Archives won’t be allowed to restore Trump’s tweets on the platform

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      The National Archives will not be allowed to resurrect Donald Trump’s tweets on the social network, Twitter said on Wednesday, even in its official capacity as a record-keeping organization. However the archive is working to create a separate record of the former president’s tweets on his official library website.The former president has been permanently banned from Twitter since January, when the company became the first major social media platform to eject Trump after his behavior during the Capitol insurrection.The confirmation that Trump’s tweets cannot be revived for archival purposes, first reported by Politico, highlights the ongoing debate on what should become of Trump’s digital legacy. In the weeks and months after, many free speech advocates have argued there should be a public record of what the president has said – even if it is no longer allowed on the platforms where he frequently posted controversial and hateful rhetoric.In the past the National Archives, an independent agency charged with preserving government and historical records, has maintained living records of other significant Twitter accounts by linking back to the accounts themselves from its presidential websites. That means users can interact with them, including retweeting and favoriting them.For example, National Archives maintains the Twitter account of the former first lady Melania Trump, @flotus45, as well as the former Trump administration account @whitehouse45.This will not be the case with Trump, according to the Politico report, though the National Archives is in the process of preserving tweets from the @realDonaldTrump “as is standard with any administration transition”, said Twitter spokesperson Trenton Kennedy, according to Politico.“Given that we permanently suspended @realDonaldTrump, the content from the account will not appear on Twitter as it did previously or as archived administration accounts do currently, regardless of how Nara decides to display the data it has preserved,” Kennedy said. “Administration accounts that are archived on the service are accounts that were not in violation of the Twitter Rules.”The National Archives will still be making Trump’s tweets visible, including those that Twitter has taken action against. It is working out the best way to do so, said the Nara spokesperson James Pritchett. It is possible the tweets could be saved by screenshot rather than by linking to a live account.“Twitter is solely responsible for the decision of what content is available on their platform,” Pritchett said. “Nara works closely with Twitter and other social media platforms to maintain archived social accounts from each presidential administration, but ultimately the platform owners can decline to host these accounts. Nara preserves platform independent copies of social media records and is working to make that content available to the public.”Facebook and YouTube also banned Trump after the Capitol attack. YouTube has said it would reinstate Trump after the “risk of violence has passed” and Facebook’s third-party review board is debating whether and when the former president can return. More

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      Who needs Twitter? Trump wishes happy Easter to 'radical left crazies'

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      Donald Trump is reportedly working on a social media platform of his own, after being banned from Twitter and Facebook for inciting the Capitol riot.He has also launched a new website, which presents a highly selective history of his single term in power and offers the chance to book appearances or personal greetings.But Trump has also said he may not need his new platform, because the short, often tweet-length statements he now propels into journalists’ inboxes from Mar-a-Lago in Florida communicate his views as effectively as any tweet ever could.On Sunday the former president seemed to test the theory, mimicking world leaders including Pope Francis, if not echoing their sense of dignity and appeals for peace on a major religious holiday, by releasing a statement to mark Easter Sunday.“Happy Easter to ALL,” Trump said, “including the Radical Left CRAZIES who rigged our Presidential Election, and want to destroy our Country!”The presidential election was not rigged, however often Trump repeats a lie repeatedly thrown out of court. Joe Biden beat him by more than 7m votes and by 306-232 in the electoral college.But for Trump supporters, the statement may have carried a raucous echo of what were for them happier times, when he regularly tweeted diplomatic communiqués such as: “Sorry losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest – and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.”Tellingly, Trump’s Easter statement did not set off the kind of explosions in the news media his tweets once did. Instead of prompting deadline scrambles and front-page headlines, it seemed to engender a sort of mild ennui.“Jesus couldn’t have said it any better,” wrote Ken Vogel of the New York Times.The writer Robert Schlesinger asked: “What is the phrase my religious friends use when in doubt? What would Jesus whine?”David Frum, once a speechwriter for George W Bush, now a prominent Trump critic on the American right, called it “an Easter Sunday message of resentment and rage”. “It’s an enduring good joke,” he added, “that Donald Trump has zero understanding of Christian faith – and that if he ever did understand it, he would 100% oppose and reject it.”A few hours later, Trump tried again. This time, his statement simply said: “Happy Easter!” More

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      Biden plans to spend $100bn to bring affordable internet to all Americans

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      Joe Biden’s massive infrastructure bill will prioritize broadband expansion as a top goal, earmarking $100bn to bring affordable internet to “all Americans” by 2029.The plan, details of which the White House released in a fact sheet on Wednesday afternoon, seeks to reach “100% high-speed broadband coverage” across the US. It will do so while prioritizing broadband networks “owned, operated by, or affiliated with local governments, non-profits, and cooperatives” in a clear rejection of partnerships with big tech firms.After Covid-19 forced many Americans to work and attend school from home, the disparities between Americans with and without reliable access to internet have become more visible, the Biden administration said, citing “a stark digital divide”.“The last year made painfully clear the cost of these disparities, particularly for students who struggled to connect while learning remotely, compounding learning loss and social isolation for those students,” the administration wrote.Biden’s $2tn plan addresses four major categories: transportation and utility grids, broadband systems, community care for seniors, and innovation research and development. The proposal would be paid for by permanently raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, according to sources cited by Politico.The administration seeks to bring broadband to the 35% of rural Americans who lack access to internet at minimally acceptable speeds, calling it the “electricity of the 21st century” and comparing it to the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, which sought to bring electricity to every home in the US.The billions in broadband funds include money set aside for building internet infrastructure on tribal lands, which will be created in consultation with tribal communities, the administration said. Civil rights and internet freedom advocates celebrated the announcement on Wednesday.“The President’s broadband announcement is a win for every family and business in America, in every part of the country,” said James P Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense, a nonprofit digital advocacy group. “Broadband for all is a policy whose time has come.”The $100bn dedicated to broadband dwarfs funds proposed in other bills addressing the digital divide. Earlier in March, James E Clyburn of South Carolina and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota announced their own bill that would invest $94bn to close the digital divide. That bill was widely endorsed by human rights groups.In a statement on Wednesday, House speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the bill’s “significant” investment plan for broadband access and said she was hopeful the bill would see support from Democrats and Republicans.“Investments in infrastructure have long been bipartisan, and in that spirit, we hope to craft and pass a historic package to Build Back Better: creating jobs, justice and opportunity for all,” she said. More

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      Donald Trump uses new website to rewrite history of his presidency

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      Donald Trump has launched a new website celebrating his time as US president that includes a very selective retelling of the history of his time in office.45office.com is billed as a platform for his supporters to stay in touch and a place where Trump will continue his “America first” campaign.The centrepiece of the site is an 885-word history of the Trump presidency, listing the achievements of what it describes as “the most extraordinary political movement in history”.In a hyperbolic opening paragraph, it says he dethroned political dynasties, defeated “the Washington establishment” and “overcame virtually every entrenched power structure”.The history does, however, omit several significant moments from Trump’s presidency.On the economy, the site says: “President Trump ushered in a period of unprecedented economic growth, job creation, soaring wages, and booming incomes.” Trump frequently described his administration as building “the greatest economy in the history of our country”, a claim repeatedly debunked. It also fails to note that during the pandemic last year the US economy suffered one of its worst financial crashes.The US recorded the world’s largest coronavirus death toll on Trump’s watch, but the website describes his handling of the pandemic as a success, saying: “When the coronavirus plague arrived from China, afflicting every nation around the globe, President Trump acted early and decisively.” It neglects to mention that Trump had in fact described coronavirus as a problem that’s “going to go away” five times in March 2020, even as case numbers rose.Also absent is that Trump became the first US president in history to twice face impeachment trials in Congress. And that he was the first US president in over one hundred years to lose the popular vote twice. Hillary Clinton secured 2.8m more votes than Trump in 2016, and Joe Biden’s 2020 margin of victory was even larger, at 7m votes.Nor does it mention that he became the first major world leader to be banned from social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter while in office after they deemed he had used their sites to cite an insurrection. The Capitol riot, which led to the loss of five lives, also does not warrant a mention.The website’s homepage boasts that “the office of Donald J Trump is committed to preserving the magnificent legacy of the Trump administration, while at the same time advancing the America first agenda”.It also promises that “through civic engagement and public activism, the office of Donald J Trump will strive to inform, educate, and inspire Americans from all walks of life as we seek to build a truly great American future”.Trump retains significant influence over the Republican party despite his loss in the 2020 election and has hinted at a possible presidential run in 2024. He has also started actively backing Republican candidates who may be able to unseat fellow party members Trump feels were disloyal to him by failing to back his baseless claims of election fraud last year.In an interview with Fox News this month, Jason Miller, a former Trump campaign spokesperson, said that following his bans from Twitter and Facebook, Trump would launch his own social media platform in the next few months. More

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      'Your business model is the problem': tech CEOs grilled over role in Capitol attack

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      The CEOs of America’s biggest technology companies faced a grilling from Congress about the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol, as protesters outside the hearing denounced the platforms for playing a role in fueling the violence.Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter on Thursday were called to testify before two committees of the House of Representatives on social media’s role in promoting extremism and misinformation.Protesters who had gathered outside the Capitol building ahead of the hearing portrayed the tech executives as the violent insurrectionists whose images went viral in the days after the 6 January riots. One cutout erected on the grounds showed Zuckerberg as the “QAnon Shaman”, a part-time actor with a horned furry hat who participated in the riot.“The platforms’ inability to deal with the violence, hate and disinformation they promote on their platforms shows that these companies are failing to regulate themselves,” said Emma Ruby-Sachs, the executive director of SumofUs, the human rights organization behind the protests. “After the past five years of manipulation, data harvesting and surveillance, the time has come to rein in big tech.”Lawmakers opened the hearing with video testimonies, criticizing the platforms for their role in the 6 January violence, as well as in the spread of medical misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine.“You failed to meaningfully change after your platform has played a role in fomenting insurrection and abetting the spread of the virus and trampling American civil liberties,” said the Democratic representative Frank Pallone, the chair of the energy and commerce committee. “Your business model itself has become the problem and the time for self-regulation is over. It’s time we legislate to hold you accountable,” he added.“You’re not passive bystanders – you are not non-profits or religious organizations that are trying to do a good job for humanity – you’re making money,” Pallone later said. “The point we’re trying to make today is that when you spread misinformation, when extremists are actively promoted and amplified, you do it because you make more money.”“The witnesses here today have demonstrated time and time again, that self-regulation has not worked,” echoed Jan Schakowsky, a Democratic representative from Illinois. “They must be held accountable for allowing disinformation and misinformation to spread.”Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers quickly turned to the topic of “cancel culture” and perceived, but unproven, bias against conservatives on social media.In his opening statement, Facebook’s Zuckerberg, argued that the tech companies should not be making the decisions around what is allowed online, and stressed Facebook’s efforts to combat misinformation and its spread of vaccine information.Google’s Pichai, too, sought to highlight his company’s role in connecting users with vaccine information and other Covid-19 resources.Thursday’s session is the latest in a record number of hearings for the big technology players in the past year, as executives have repeatedly been called to the Hill to testify on antitrust issues, misinformation and hate speech.The hearing, which was titled “Disinformation nation: social media’s role in promoting extremism and misinformation”, was held by the House of Representatives’ energy and commerce committee.Lawmakers repeatedly pressed the CEOs on how their platforms were tackling hate speech and misinformation more widely.The Democratic representative Doris Matsui, of California, raised the issue of anti-Asian hate speech and directly asked Dorsey and Zuckerberg what they are doing to address it. She also asked why they took so long to remove racist hashtags that promoted blame for the coronavirus pandemic on Asian Americans, citing the recent attack on Asian women in Atlanta as a consequence of these policies.“The issues we are discussing here are not abstract,” she said. “They have real world consequences and implications that are too often measured in human lives.”She also cited a study that showed a substantial rise in hate speech the week after Donald Trump first used the term “China flu” in a tweet.Dorsey countered by saying he will not ban the racist hashtags outright because “a lot of these hashtags contain counter speech”, or posts refuting the racism the hashtags initiated. Zuckerberg similarly said that hate speech policies at Facebook are “nuanced” and that they have an obligation to protect free speech.Congressman Tony Cárdenas of California has asked Zuckerberg how the company addresses the major problem of misinformation that targets Latino users, noting that studies have shown Facebook catches less false content in Spanish than in English.Zuckerberg responded that Facebook has an international factchecking program with workers in more than 80 countries speaking “a bunch of languages” including Spanish. He also said Facebook translates accurate information about Covid-19 vaccines and other issues from English into a number of languages.Cárdenas noted the example of his Spanish-speaking mother-in-law saying she did not want to get a vaccine because she heard on social media it would place a microchip in her arm.“For God’s sake, that to me is unbelievable, that she got that information on social media platforms,” he said. “Clearly Spanish language misinformation is an issue.” More

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      Amazon's denial of workers urinating in bottles puts the pee in PR fiasco

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      To paraphrase one of the most iconic tweets of the past 10 years, Amazon’s recent denial about employees not being forced to urinate in bottles at work has people asking a lot of questions already answered by the denial.

      In a tweet sent last night, the official Amazon News account for the behemoth corporation, whose CEO, Jeff Bezos, saw his personal net worth increase by $70bn during the pandemic, wrote: “You don’t really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you? If that were true, nobody would work for us. The truth is that we have over a million incredible employees around the world who are proud of what they do, and have great wages and health care from day one.”
      In under 12 hours the tweet has been quote-tweeted 9,000 times. (For those unversed in the dark Twitter metric arts that’s … not good.)

      Molly Jong-Fast🏡
      (@MollyJongFast)
      This tweet has absolutely completely convinced that the peeing in bottles thing happened and probably worse. https://t.co/mnjYAOkwbe

      March 25, 2021

      The thousands of gleeful and mocking rejoinders to Amazon’s post came with good reason. The company is currently in the midst of a public relations battle with a group of workers in Alabama attempting to unionize. In an attempt to forestall such a historic move, Amazon has been on a campaign to illustrate just how well, in fact, they treat their workers. It doesn’t seem to be working! Numerous high-profile labor organizers, celebrities and politicians like Bernie Sanders have joined the side of the striking workers. The Vermont senator is set to travel to Alabama on Friday to meet with them.
      The botched PR response in question in this case came as a reply to a tweet from another lawmaker, the Wisconsin congressman Mark Pocan, who himself was responding to jabs thrown by another Amazon executive, Dave Clark. Clark had attempted to draw a snarky analogy between his company and the success record of Sanders in his home state, saying: “I often say we are the Bernie Sanders of employers, but that’s not quite right because we actually deliver a progressive workplace.”
      So far, so utterly not convincing – as was picked up on swiftly. “I was the person who found the pee in the bottle. Trust me, it happened,” tweeted author James Bloodworth, who worked undercover at Amazon for his book Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain.

      James Bloodworth
      (@J_Bloodworth)
      I was the person who found the pee in the bottle. Trust me, it happened. https://t.co/U76UlDRWSO

      March 25, 2021

      Some likened the tweet to a form of corporate gaslighting akin to an abusive relationship – while others mocked pity for the person who sent it out. “Sending thoughts and prayers to the Amazon News account manager being forced to swallow Jeff Bezos’ entire boot with every tweet,” one person chipped in.
      While the $15 an hour paid by Amazon in the US is better than some other companies, workers have long spoken out about brutal conditions, a dangerous, high-paced job, and, in fact, having to urinate into bottles for fear of being seen as wasting too much time on the clock.

      Wagatwe Wanjuki 🇰🇪 🇧🇸
      (@wagatwe)
      “if I were REALLY abusive, she wouldn’t stay.” https://t.co/ZxBbb7rjyt

      March 25, 2021

      “We broke this news,” tweeted the Business Insider editor-in-chief, Nicholas Carlson – pointing out that Amazon’s excuse, that it was contractors (rather than employees) forced to pee in bottles made the story even worse than it looked.
      But why believe them – or the many outlets that reported on this story? – others joked, after all, who wouldn’t trust information about Amazon’s work practices to be impartial when written by … Amazon News?
      Some have pointed out the irony of the tweet falling so close to the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

      Dan Olson
      (@FoldableHuman)
      You don’t really believe that people burn to death in textile factories, do you? If that were true then no one would work for The Triangle Waist Company! The truth is we have over a million incredible workers who are proud of what they do. https://t.co/p6gzShSnDJ

      March 25, 2021

      Perhaps all is not lost here for Amazon, though. There may end up being an upside when the fracas has subsided.

      Jeet Heer
      (@HeerJeet)
      Amazon corporate bosses are reading this tweet and torn between 1) we gotta fire this social media person and 2) We need to make sure we’ve cornered the market on cheap pee bottles, that’s a lucrative market. https://t.co/vIJK0OOfVy

      March 25, 2021

      Bezos’s Washington DC mansion has been reported to have 25 bathrooms for his own use. More