Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday rebuffed calls for the company to be broken up over competition concerns, disputing claims the firm has grown too dominant. From a report: During a call with reporters, Zuckerberg was pressed to address recent calls from Democratic officials and one Facebook co-founder for federal regulators to force the company to spin off WhatsApp and Instagram, previously acquired in two blockbuster deals. "I think it kind of almost goes without saying that we exist in a very competitive and dynamic environment where new services are constantly coming up," Zuckerberg said. He later disputed arguments that the company has grown too dominant as an advertising player as "a little stretched," noting the company controls just around a fifth of the global digital ad market. "I don't really think that the remedy of breaking up the company is going to address those," he said. "I actually think it's going to make it a lot harder." Further reading: Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg: Chinese Tech Companies Are Also Powerful, and Will Not Be Broken Up.

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Reports have emerged that three clerics face execution in Saudi Arabia after Ramadan.

Julian Assange was charged Thursday in an 18-count superseding indictment for his role in orchestrating the 2010 WikiLeaks disclosures, described by the U.S. government as "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States." From a report: According to the Justice Department, the new charges from a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia allege that "Assange's actions risked serious harm to United States national security to the benefit of our adversaries." According to the DOJ announcement, Assange faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on each charge with the exception of one charge related to conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Assange was previously indicted in April on a single-count conspiracy to commit computer intrusion charge for his role in Chelsea Manning's disclosure of classified materials made public by WikiLeaks in 2010, which the government has called "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States."

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Collecting biometric data such as facial scans in mass surveillance schemes undermines human rights, say activists.

Rushing the country into an early election would be a major mistake.

War monitor says at least eight people were killed, including two children, as government intensifies air campaign.

Several departments inside social media giant Snap have dedicated tools for accessing user data, and multiple employees have abused their privileged access to spy on Snapchat users, Motherboard reported on Thursday. From the report: Two former employees said multiple Snap employees abused their access to Snapchat user data several years ago. Those sources, as well as an additional two former employees, a current employee, and a cache of internal company emails obtained by Motherboard, described internal tools that allowed Snap employees at the time to access user data, including in some cases location information, their own saved Snaps and personal information such as phone numbers and email addresses. Snaps are photos or videos that, if not saved, typically disappear after being received (or after 24 hours if posted to a user's Story). [...] Although Snap has introduced strict access controls to user data and takes abuse and user privacy very seriously according to several sources, the news highlights something that many users may forget: behind the products we use everyday there are people with access to highly sensitive customer data, who need it to perform essential work on the service. But, without proper protections in place, those same people may abuse it to spy on user's private information or profiles.

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War rhetoric ratchets up again as Iranian president says his people will never give up the fight for their independence.

Hindu nationalist BJP storms back to power with thumping majority winning more than 300 of the 542 seats.

Google's Duplex reservations might be more widely available, but that doesn't mean the AI is ready to handle every call. From a report: The company has confirmed to the New York Times that about 25 percent of the Assistant-based calls start with a human in a call center, while 15 percent require human intervention. In the newspaper's tests, the ratio was higher -- real people completed three out of four of their successful bookings. There are multiple reasons for relying on the human touch. In one case, Duplex didn't appear to pick up the cues that reservations were available. It may also need training on more real-world calls before it can handle every situation. More importantly, the company argued that it was taking a cautious approach. It wants to treat businesses with respect, and that means gradually transitioning to the AI as it becomes better-suited to dealing with staff.

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Online free speech has been given a victory, with a federal court ruling that a Redditor can remain anonymous in a copyright lawsuit. From a report: This means anyone from around the globe who posts on Reddit can still rely on First Amendment protections for anonymous free speech, because Reddit is a US platform with a US audience. The Electronic Frontier Foundation fought on behalf of Reddit commenter Darkspilver, a Jehovah's Witness who posted public and internal documents from The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society online. Watch Tower subpoenaed Reddit to provide identity information on Darkspilver for the court case, but the EFF filed a motion to quash this, citing "deep concerns that disclosure of their identity would cause them to be disfellowshipped by their community." In February 2019, Darkspilver posted an advertisement by the Jehovah's Witness organization that asks for donations, as well as a chart showing what personal data the organization keeps. Watch Tower said both of these were copyrighted items. The Redditor argued it was fair use, because he posted the ad for commentary and criticism purposes.

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Suren Enfiajyan writes: An Arch Linux based distribution, Antergos, has been discontinued. The project's primary goal was to make Arch Linux available to a wider audience of users by providing a streamlined, user friendly experience including a safe place for users to communicate, learn, and help one another. There have been 931,439 unique downloads of Antergos Linux since 2014. The primary reason for ending support for it was that the developers no longer have enough free time to properly maintain the distribution. They came to this decision because they believe that continuing to neglect the project would be a huge disservice to the community. Taking this action now, while the project's code still works, provides an opportunity for interested developers to take what they find useful and start their own projects. For existing Antergos users: there is no need to worry about installed systems as they will continue to receive updates directly from Arch. Soon, an update will be released that will remove the Antergos repos from system along with any Antergos-specific packages that no longer serve a purpose due to the project ending. Once that is completed, any packages installed from the Antergos repo that are in the AUR will begin to receive updates from there. The Antergos Forum and Wiki will continue to be available until such time it becomes clear that users have moved on to other projects.

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Ghassan Salame says between 'six and 10 countries are permanently interfering in Libya's problem'.

Protesters say the government in Tirana has failed to crack down on criminal gangs.