SCI-TECH
Vol 2, Issue 11, June 16-31, 2022
Musk to pay $1 bn as deal termination fee to Twitter
New Delhi, July 9 (IANS): Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has cancelled the $44 billion Twitter buyout deal, will have to pay $1 billion in termination fee to the micro-blogging platform. As per an earlier filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), “Musk will be required to pay Twitter a termination
fee of $1 billion”, if he cancels the deal. Musk was expected to provide equity financing of approximately $21 billion on his own. The Tesla CEO had said that Twitter is violating the terms of his $54.20-per-share offer by refusing to give him more information about
how much of the platform’s traffic is driven by fake accounts. He then threatened to blow up the deal over the issue. With him terminating the deal, Tesla shares went up more than 14 per cent in after-hours trading on Friday, as investors reacted positively to Musk’s move. Tesla shares rose 14.51 per cent to close at $752.29. Musk in May committed to provide an additional $6.25 billion in equity financing for his $44 billion Twitter takeover, bringing his total equity commitment to $33.5 billion and bringing relief for Tesla investors. Tesla stock had nosedived more than 30 per cent after Musk announced to fund his Twitter buyout by borrowing against his Tesla ownership stake. Twitter on Saturday announced to sue Musk over terminating the deal.
Twitter to sue Musk for terminating $44 bn takeover deal San Francisco, July 9 (IANS): Micro-blogging platform Twitter on Saturday announced it was going to sue Tesla CEO Elon Musk for terminating the $44 billion takeover deal. In a surprising move, Musk’s legal team said in a US Securities and Exchange (SEC) filing that he is terminating the deal because Twitter was in “material breach” of their agreement and had made “false and misleading” statements during negotiations. In a following tweet, Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor said that the “board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement”. “We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery,” he added. Musk had put the deal on hold over the actual number of spammy/fake
accounts and bots on the platform, and sought a reply from Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. On Thursday, Twitter claimed it is suspending more than 1 million spam accounts a day. “That is indeed the real question,” Musk replied on Friday. The new figure doubled the previous update from Agrawal who said that the platform removes 500,000 spam accounts a day. “We suspend over half a million spam accounts every day, usually before any of you even see them on Twitter. We also lock millions of accounts each week that we suspect may be spam -- if they can’t pass human verification challenges (captchas, phone verification, etc),” Agrawal had tweeted in May. In an internal memo to Twitter employees sent Friday and obtained by The Verge, the company’s general counsel, Sean Edgett, told staffers to “refrain from Tweeting, Slacking,
or sharing any commentary about the merger,” and that management would be “very limited on what we can share”. “I know this is an uncertain time, and we appreciate your patience and ongoing commitment to the important work we have underway,” Edgett wrote.
Samsung Galaxy S23 could likely use Twitter tells employees to ‘refrain’ Qualcomm processor worldwide
from posting on Musk deal
San Francisco, July 9 (IANS): Amid the high voltage drama happening ever since Elon Musk officially tried to pull out of his $44 billion agreement to buy Twitter, the microblogging site’s general counsel has told employees to not publicly comment on the deal. In an internal memo to Twitter employees sent on Friday and obtained by The Verge, the company’s general counsel, Sean Edgett, told employees to “refrain from
Tweeting, Slacking, or sharing any commentary about the merger”, and that management would be “very limited on what we can share”. “I know this is an uncertain time, and we appreciate your patience and ongoing commitment to the important work we have underway,” Edgett wrote. As per the website, the notice cites the fact that the merger is an ongoing legal matter. “The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery,” Edgett said. In a surprising move, Musk’s legal team said in a US Securities and Exchange (SEC) filing that he is terminating the deal because Twitter was in “material breach” of their
agreement and had made “false and misleading” statements during negotiations. Meanwhile, Twitter, in response, said that it was going to sue Musk for terminating the $44 billion takeover deal. In the following tweet, Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor said that the “board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement”. “We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery,” he added. Musk had put the deal on hold over the actual number of spammy/ fake accounts and bots on the platform, and sought a reply from Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. On Thursday, Twitter claimed it is suspending more than 1 million spam accounts a day.
Microsoft now allows up to 10 ‘co-organisers’ on Teams
New Delhi, July 8: With an aim to make hybrid work easy and simple for users, tech giant Microsoft on Friday introduced four new features to Teams, including a new “co-organiser” role. The company said that organisers can share control by assigning the new “co-organiser” role to up to 10 meeting attendees. “Co-organisers have most of the same capabilities
as the organiser, including management of Meeting Options,” the company said in a statement. Limitations of the co-organiser role include an inability to create and manage breakout rooms, manage meeting recordings, and view or download attendance reports. Organisers can add co-organisers through Meeting Options. Only invitees within the same tenant as the organiser are eligible for the co-organiser role. Other new features let users customise meeting invites with multi-language support. With this feature, you can customise meeting invites to include the languages with which your users are most familiar and comfortable. Customise meeting invites with multi-language support’ enables administrators to display the join
information in meeting invitations in up to two languages across all email platforms. With the new update, IT administrators can now disable chat write access for non-federated users and unauthenticated users who join Teams meetings through a shared link. “This provides an added layer of security, for all organisations. Disable the chat write access via PowerShell,” the company said. “You can also do this through the admin portal under - Chat in Meetings - policy - Turn it on for everyone but anonymous users. This setting can be applied to a subset or all tenant users,” it added. Once this is set by an IT administrator, a meeting organiser cannot override this setting through meeting options.
Most Indian businesses now investing in risk management capabilities: Report
New Delhi, July 12: In the current turbulent business environment, nearly eight in 10 business executives in India say that keeping up with the speed of digital and other transformations is a significant risk management challenge, a new report said on Tuesday. Six in 10 executives also feel the need to actively seek external insights to assess and monitor risks in the increasingly disruptive business environment, according to
www.indianabroad.news
the report by global consulting firm PwC. While 88 per cent of business leaders are increasing their spending on technology and digital capabilities in the risk function workforce in the country, 64 per cent of business executives report that their risk function is actively seeking external insights to assess and monitor risks. “In an environment where change is constant, risk management capabilities provide the greatest value to board members and business leaders when they are embedded within the organisation’s strategic planning and decision-making processes,” said Sivarama Krishnan, Partner and Risk Consulting Leader, PwC India. The changing work environment brought on by the pandemic continues to disrupt talent and labour markets. Supply shortages, sanctions and rising raw material costs are heightening risks within supply
chains as organisations deal with upstream supply chain risks related to subcontractors and other fourth parties that further complicate risks. Many executives find the need to revise and adapt their strategies and operating models at a rapid pace, mentioned the report. “Investment in risk processes, frameworks and enabling systems is needed to help an organisation deploy a standardised and consistent approach to risk management,” the findings showed. When organisations embrace risk management capabilities as a strategic organisational capability, they are five times more likely to be very confident in delivering stakeholder confidence, a growth-minded risk culture, increased resilience, and business outcomes, the report noted. “They’re almost twice as likely to project revenue growth of 11% or more over the next 12 months,” it added.
Seoul, July 10 (IANS): South Korean tech giant Samsung is likely to single-source the processor for its Galaxy S23 series flagship from the US-based chip maker company Qualcomm. According to noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Qualcomm will likely be the sole supplier of chipsets (model number SM8550) for the Galaxy S23 series. “S23 may not adopt Exynos 2300 made by Samsung 4nm because it cannot compete with SM8550 in all aspects,” the analyst wrote on the platform. “SM8550 is optimised for TSMC’s design rule, so it has obvious advantages over SM8450/SM8475
in computing power and power efficiency,” Kuo added. A recent report said that Samsung Galaxy S23 series will not come with an under-display camera (UDC) technology, which also means that users may have to wait until the Galaxy S24 for the UDC technology. The report does not state the exact reason Samsung is holding off on introducing an under-display camera on its upcoming flagship S-series. The technology is available only on a few smartphones these days including the Xiaomi Mi Mix 4, ZTE Axon 30 5G, and the Galaxy Z Fold 3. Another report said that the Galaxy S23 series will come with an
upgraded 12MP selfie camera. Both the Galaxy S23 and the Galaxy S23+ are likely to use the same 10 MP resolution for the telephoto camera as the S22 and S22+.
India needs clearer personal data protection law to tame Twitter, others New Delhi, July 9 (IANS): The latest Centre-Twitter legal battle over repeated content blocking orders by the IT Ministry has brought an old debate to the fore -- is the country finally ready to penalise foreign intermediaries and social media platforms for not obeying the law of the land or is there still a long way to go? Unlike the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR), and tougher cyber laws in countries like Singapore, South Korea and Australia, the Indian government is using several agencies to tame social media platforms in the absence of a nodal cyber regulator that separately deals with Big Tech. In India, Twitter is in the eye of storm for not complying often with the new IT (intermediary) Rules, 2021. The micro-blogging platform even witnessed a police raid on its offices in Delhi and Gurugram related to the alleged Congress toolkit controversy last year. Twitter was at loggerheads with the Indian government last year over removal of certain posts and being compliant with the intermediary guidelines under the IT Act. As and when the government sends stern notices to Twitter, Google, YouTube and Meta (formerly Facebook) under the available laws (like Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000) to remove controversial content, the platforms immediately knock at the door of the courts, resulting in zero action. The tussle between Twitter, WhatsApp/Facebook and the government has reached its nadir, and the fact is that an absence of a stricter personal data protection law is forcing the concerned authorities to take routes like writing heaps of notices that have resulted in zero action to date, while social networking giants continue to take the country for a ride. According to experts, while the government can initiate action for suspension or blocking of intermediary apps or websites if they fail to comply with its directions over various issues under current laws, a strong data protection law is what
/IndianAbroadNews
can tame the social media platforms, the way the GDPR in the EU has achieved. In case Twitter fails to comply with the government directions, the latter has the powers to resort to penal consequences. “In that direction, appropriate FIRs can be registered against intermediaries and service providers and their top management can also be made liable for the said contravention under Section 85 of the IT Act, 2000,” Pavan Duggal, one of the country’s top cyber law experts, noted. The government can exercise its power under Section 69(A)(1). In case, any service provider or intermediary fails to comply with the provisions of the same, there are penal consequences prescribed under Section 69A(3) too. Non-compliance with directions for blocking is a non-bailable serious offence punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years and shall also be liable to fine. India has to learn from the EU when it comes to formulating a legal framework to secure data and tackle hateful or abusive online content, the experts said. The EU GDPR has been designed to harmonise data privacy laws across Europe -- to protect and empower all EU citizens’ data privacy and to reshape the way organisations across the region approach data privacy. The Indian government, time and again, has told Internet intermediaries and social media platforms to comply with the law of the land. Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a tweet that all foreign intermediaries and platforms have a right to approach the court and judicial review in India. “But equally, all intermediary/ platforms operating here have an unambiguous obligation to comply with our laws and rules,” Chandrasekhar posted last week, as Twitter moved the Karnataka High Court against the government’s order to take down some content on its platform.
/indianabroadnews
IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that “be it any company, in any sector, they should abide by the laws of India”. Twitter has clearly said that these blocking orders are being challenged on the basis that “they are procedurally and substantially deficient of the Section 69A requirements”. The micro-blogging platform last year clearly stated that they will listen to the Indian government’s content removal demands seriously only when the Personal Data Protection Bill is firmly in place. The proposed Personal Data Protection Bill also has provisions that impose heavy penalties on companies for non-compliance. It has also proposed to term social media companies as publishers, which will make them liable for the content on their platforms. The moot question is: Once the global tech giants respond to government notices, the matter ends and according to leading experts, data of crores of Indians are still being misused in the absence of a robust mechanism. “As of today, India does not have a dedicated law on privacy or on cyber security,” Duggal pointed out. “It does not have a legal framework in place for protecting all kinds of data. The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 is pending consideration before the Joint Parliamentary Committee. Further, India does not have a dedicated policy on data localisation.” According to legal experts, India must fight social media biggies with a strong data protection law in place.
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