Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Los Angeles explosion: 16 injured -- 3 seriously -- after cache of illegal fireworks explodes

06/30/21 11:14 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Jaw-dropping ruling in Britney Spears conservatorship case, reports reveal

06/30/21 6:46 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Bill Cosby reacts to newfound freedom in eye-opening tweet

06/30/21 3:16 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

NCAA agrees to allow college athletes to capitalize on fame for the first time

06/30/21 2:55 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

WATCH LIVE: Bill Cosby addresses media after prison release

06/30/21 1:44 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dead at 88

06/30/21 12:49 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Bill Cosby walks out of prison after sex assault conviction overturned

06/30/21 11:43 AM

New story in Technology from Time: How The Extreme Heat in the Pacific Northwest Is Taxing Electric Grids (and People’s Air Conditioners)

A version of this story first appeared in the Climate is Everything newsletter. If you’d like sign up to receive this free once-a-week email, click here.

---

Portland General Electric (PGE) Vice President Larry Bekkedahl seemed remarkably cool considering the 110°F temperatures outside the window of his Portland office—and the unprecedented energy demand his system is facing. “We were at over 4,225 megawatts yesterday,” said the three-decade utility veteran, speaking on Monday afternoon. “As we speak right now we’re over 4,445 megawatts.” The Oregon-area utility’s previous electricity demand record came in 1998, when 4,078 megawatts of power coursed through its more than 27,000 miles of distribution wire.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

That unprecedented demand came as a result of unusual record-breaking heat, which baked the Pacific Northwest over the weekend and has continued into this week. As millions of residents blasted air conditioners in an effort to stay cool, local utilities have had to pull out all the stops to keep power flowing. PGE, which serves about 2 million people throughout the state, says it is able to bring in clean power across state lines through energy imbalance markets. It has also used other methods to prevent a shortfall, like bringing local generators online, texting customers with requests to reduce their power usage at critical times, and automatically raising temperatures on smart thermostats whose owners have opted into an energy-use management program. But as more energy spikes occur nationwide through the summer, utilities’ efforts to keep up are expected to bring serious climate consequences—some power companies burn their dirtiest fuel sources in dormant “peaker plants” that come online only during times of ultra-high demand, for instance.

All things being equal, Portland’s heat surge came at a good time, Bekkedahl says. Water levels tend to be high in June thanks to snow runoff, which means plenty of hydroelectric capacity at regional dams. If the same heat came in August, the utility might have to find its power somewhere else. But even though this surge hasn’t disabled local generation capacity like the devastating winter storms that hit Texas in February, it’s another worrying example in a trend of utilities being forced to deal with more frequent and severe extreme weather events that push systems to their limits.

“In the past 12 months, we’ve seen a one-in-50-year firestorm over Labor Day weekend last spring, and in February we had a one-in-40-year ice storm,” says Bekkedahl. “I don’t know that I trust one-in-40 anymore.”

Some utilities are working on solutions, attempting to wean themselves off fossil fuels and harden their grids against demand spikes caused by extreme weather. Tech companies in California announced a project late last year to connect home smart appliances into the U.S.’s largest “virtual power plant,” allowing utilities to reduce the devices’ power demand at critical times to minimize overloading risk. (Such systems have the same net effect on the grid of booting up a physical power plant, hence the term “virtual power plant.”) Another project undertaken last year by solar installer Sunrun in partnership with Southern California Edison will tie home storage batteries into a virtual power plant that can pump energy directly into the grid when necessary, one of many such projects around the country, including one being deployed by PGE.

Still, the current extreme heat and massive energy demand in the Pacific Northwest may be proving out dire predictions about an especially hot summer pushing utilities to the edge—and of worsening problems as the climate warms. In the long term, Bekkedahl says power companies will have to start using hydrogen plants in order to provide extra power during critical times without resorting to fossil fuels, though most of those projects are still in the pilot stage. In the near term, PGE is bringing on a new, sophisticated distribution management system in September, which it says will help it manage demand spikes.

“That [network] will see farther into the distribution system,” says Bekkedahl. “It can’t come soon enough.”

New story in Technology from Time: Amazon Seeks to Have FTC Chair Lina Khan Recused on Company Actions Due to Past Criticism

Amazon.com Inc. wants Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan recused from any matters involving the company because of her history criticizing the online retailer as a threat to competition.

Amazon filed a request with the agency on Wednesday, arguing that Khan should be barred from handling enforcement decisions involving the company, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg News.

Khan “has on numerous occasions argued that Amazon is guilty of antitrust violations and should be broken up,” Amazon said in its petition. “These statements convey to any reasonable observer the clear impression that she has already made up her mind about many material facts relevant to Amazon’s antitrust culpability as well as about the ultimate issue of culpability itself.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The move comes as the FTC is reviewing Amazon’s proposed $8.45 billion acquisition of movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The proposed acquisition has been criticized by those worried about the growth of tech companies, but antitrust experts have said it will be difficult for regulators to stop.

An FTC spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday asked Khan to conduct a “broad and meticulous review” of the MGM deal, saying the deal could have anticompetitive effects on video streaming and broader impacts on workers and small businesses.

“The FTC should disfavor approving deals involving parties with a known pattern of inhibiting competition and harming consumers and workers,” Warren said. “Allowing such firms to continue buying up competitors would only exacerbate these abuses of market power.”

Khan rose to prominence in the antitrust world with a 2017 paper she wrote as a law student about Amazon’s dominance. Titled “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” it traced how the online retailer came to control key infrastructure of the digital economy and how traditional antitrust analysis fails to consider the danger to competition posed by the company.

In its petition to the FTC, Amazon said that companies subject to investigations are entitled to fair consideration by impartial commissioners who have not appeared to have prejudged the matters before them. Federal ethics principles require recusal, Amazon argued, when a new commissioner previously has expressed views about specific factual and legal issues relating to a particular company.

Amazon cited Khan’s law school paper, and her work with anti-monopoly organization Open Markets Institute, where she wrote articles stating Amazon has engaged in antitrust violations. The company also pointed to her role on the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel, which put out a report last year accusing Amazon and other tech platforms of abusing their market power.

“Given her long track record of detailed pronouncements about Amazon, and her repeated proclamations that Amazon has violated the antitrust laws, a reasonable observer would conclude that she no longer can consider the company’s antitrust defenses with an open mind,” Amazon said. “Indeed, doing so would require her to repudiate the years of writings and statements that are at the foundation of her professional career.”

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Bill Cosby expected to be released from prison as sex assault conviction overturned

06/30/21 9:57 AM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

WATCH LIVE: Florida officials give update in condo collapse after more bodies found

06/30/21 8:36 AM

New story in Technology from Time: Facebook’s Surprise Antitrust Victory Could Inspire Congress to Overhaul the Rules Entirely

Facebook won a major victory this week when a judge dismissed two lawsuits that argued the social media giant was a monopoly. But critics of Big Tech hope the rulings will be just the leverage they need to update antitrust laws that still have legal grounding in the effort to break up Standard Oil more than a century ago.

Monday’s ruling means that Facebook, for now at least, is safe from being forced to spin out its WhatsApp and Instagram subsidiaries into separate businesses.

Facebook’s stock market valuation surged to more than $1 trillion for the first time ever as investors reacted to the news—a rise of nearly 5%.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

But Facebook is not out of the woods yet. The court noted in its ruling that competition watchdog the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could refile an amended complaint with more evidence within 30 days. And in Washington, bigger threats are brewing.

What did the ruling say?

The decision, by the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., was based on its finding that the FTC had failed to make the case that Facebook has a monopoly over the social network market.

“The FTC’s complaint says almost nothing concrete on the key question of how much power Facebook actually had, and still has, in a properly defined antitrust product market,” Judge James Boasberg wrote in his ruling. “It is almost as if the agency expects the court to simply nod to the conventional wisdom that Facebook is a monopolist.”

The court also dismissed a separate lawsuit against Facebook by 48 state attorneys general, who argued that Facebook had engaged in a systematic strategy to eliminate threats to its monopoly by acquiring WhatsApp and Instagram.

Read more: The Facebook Antitrust Case Is a Vital First Step. But More Needs to Happen

“We are pleased that today’s decisions recognize the defects in the government complaints against Facebook,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “We compete fairly every day to earn people’s time and attention and will continue to deliver great products for the people and businesses that use our services.”

A new era for antitrust?

The court’s ruling is a blow to the FTC’s case, but experts say it could lend momentum to lawmakers and Biden Administration officials who are on record as saying that current antitrust laws, which have not been used successfully against a large tech company since a case against Microsoft in 2001, are outdated.

“The decision reinforces the belief among many in Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, that current law governing conduct by dominant firms is inadequate,” says Bill Baer, President Obama’s antitrust Assistant Attorney General from 2013 to ’16. “This has already increased the momentum of efforts to alter our century-old laws against monopolization.”

“Anybody on the internet knows that Facebook has monopoly power,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, (D-Mass.), who ran for the Democratic ticket in 2020 on a promise to break up the company, wrote on Twitter after the ruling. “They control 85% of social network traffic, bulldoze competition, and undermine our democracy. We need stronger antitrust laws to #BreakUpBigTech and finally unwind mergers like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.”

Under current antitrust laws, complainants must first define a market, then prove that a company has monopolized that market, then show that the company has abused its monopoly. The FTC called Facebook’s market “personal social networking services,” and alleged Facebook has a “60%-plus” share in that market. But the court ruled that the FTC had not provided enough evidence to back up its claim that Facebook had such a large share, calling the assertion “vague” and “too speculative.”

The FTC will have the opportunity to refile its complaint with more evidence. But critics of Big Tech in the White House and Congress want to change the rules entirely, removing some hurdles that agencies must clear in order to take action against tech giants. This, they say, would stimulate competition, allowing smaller businesses to compete on a more level playing field against the larger tech companies.

President Biden has made appointments indicating that he won’t be sympathetic to tech giants either. Earlier this month Lina Khan, a 32 year-old legal prodigy, was sworn in as Biden’s pick for FTC chairperson.

Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty ImagesLina Khan, then a nominee for Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), speaks at a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on April 21, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Khan first gained wide attention in her field in 2017 with the publication of a research paper in which she argued that monopolistic practices in the tech industry should not be measured by consumer price increases alone. Prices have been a conventional indicator under American law of whether monopolies are harmful since the inception of antitrust rules in the days of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.

But Khan argued that they are an outdated measure in the era of Big Tech. Amazon, for example, may offer lower prices to consumers, but only by using tactics that damage the wider economy by leveraging its market dominance—such as its privileged access to data—to crowd out competitors, Khan argued.

Read more: Lina Khan is on the 2021 TIME 100 Next

In March, Biden appointed Tim Wu, another critic of anticompetitive conduct by Big Tech companies, as his special advisor for technology and competition policy.

It’s not just the executive branch that is making moves on antitrust. Congress is also examining a clutch of new proposals that would give regulators greater powers to rein in big tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple. One of them seeks to beef up the FTC’s funding, allowing it to undertake more investigations into potential violations of monopoly law. The FTC’s 2021 budget of $330 million, for instance, is a fraction of that of the Securities and Exchange Commission ($1.9 billion), which regulates financial markets.

The other bills would make it easier for the government to break up anticompetitive companies and could place the burden of proof on big companies like Facebook to prove that mergers are not anticompetitive, rather than on authorities to prove that they are. One bill would force companies to make it easier for users to take their data and move it elsewhere, in a step lawmakers hope will lower the barriers to competition.

The proposals are similar in scope to others that are being drafted in the European Union and United Kingdom. The E.U.’s antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, has been influenced by Khan’s work, and on June 16 said, “I look very much forward to our cooperation,” raising the prospect of transatlantic collaboration toward reining in big tech.

Read more: How the E.U’s Sweeping New Regulations Against Big Tech Could Have an Impact Beyond Europe

The future of the FTC’s case against Facebook

Despite Monday’s setback, there could still be a future for the FTC’s current case against Facebook.

In Washington, Democrats and Republicans seem to be in more agreement than in many other public policy areas when it comes to tackling the outsize power of Big Tech companies, notes Baer, who is also a former FTC official. “But assuming that agreement can’t be reached on changes to antitrust laws, the judge in this case did leave the door open to the FTC to come back with greater specificity what market Facebook is accused of dominating, what its market share is in that market, and left open the possibility of proceeding with the challenge to Facebook’s prior acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram.”

Khan, the new FTC chair, is likely to be able to reframe the complaint in a way that will satisfy the judge, Baer says. But even if that happens within the 30 day timeline stipulated by the court, it will be a long time before any final decision is made on Facebook being forced to divest from WhatsApp or Instagram.

“If there is a new complaint and if the judge accepts it, we are still at the beginning of a years-long process,” Baer says. There will be a trial, and then almost certainly an appeals process. “This will be a very lengthy and, no doubt, a very contentious process.”

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Death toll rises to 16 in Florida condo collapse as officials find more victims' bodies in rubble

06/30/21 8:07 AM

New story in Technology from Time: Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen Take Equity Stake in Crypto Firm FTX

Celebrity couple Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen have taken an equity stake in crypto firm FTX as part of a long-term partnership, marking the duo’s newest foray into the world of digital assets.

Both Brady, a celebrated American football player, and Bündchen, a world-renowned supermodel, will serve as ambassadors for FTX, according to an announcement Tuesday. The cryptocurrency exchange declined to disclose their equity stake, but did say they will both receive an unspecified amount and type of crypto. Bündchen will also take on the role of FTX’s environmental and social-initiatives adviser, according to the release.

“Tom and Gisele are both legends and they both reached the pinnacle of what they do,” Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive officer of FTX, said in a phone interview. “When we think about what FTX represents, we want to be the best product that is out there.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

FTX, with 29-year-old Bankman-Fried at the helm, has become one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges since its launch just two years ago. Bankman-Fried said he’s spoken with others in the past about possible partnerships, but something FTX always comes back to is, “How excited are they about it? How excited are we to deal with them?” When it comes to Brady and Bündchen, “they were both really into it.”

Brady has been an advocate for cryptocurrencies and even added to Bitcoin’s volatility in May when he changed his Twitter profile picture to show himself with so-called laser eyes — a stealth crypto remark to signify support for the industry. But on Monday, the quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers tweeted again to ask if anyone had any ideas after the laser eyes “didn’t work,” a reference to Bitcoin’s price-drop over the past month.

“This isn’t the first time that they’ve been involved in crypto, not the first time they’ve thought about it or even used it, which I think makes it a much more natural and authentic partnership,” said Bankman-Fried. “They’re examples of audiences we’d really like FTX to be the product for.”

Brady also, as part of a conversation with Bankman-Fried during a conference earlier this year, said he, his coaches and teammates had been talking about cryptocurrencies and their vacillating prices on a daily basis. “It’s on all of our minds because we’re very interested, we’re learning more and more about these emerging markets,” he said. “So I’m a big believer in it, I don’t think it’s going anywhere,” though he added there will “absolutely” be volatility.

Alright the laser eyes didn’t work. Anyone have any ideas? https://t.co/43WyShRxr2

— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) June 28, 2021

“It’s an incredibly exciting time in the crypto-world and Sam and the revolutionary FTX team continue to open my eyes to the endless possibilities,” Brady said in a statement. “This particular opportunity showed us the importance of educating people about the power of crypto while simultaneously giving back to our communities and planet.”

FTX was founded with the goal of donating to charity and has earmarked more than $10 million so far to do so. FTX, Brady and Bündchen have all committed to annual multi-million dollar contributions for the duration of the partnership and Bündchen will play a role in choosing the charities. Her mandate will not be crypto-specific, Bankman-Fried said. She’s been “really involved in giving back basically her whole life and I think this is part of what appealed to her the most,” he said, adding that she’ll likely be working with the FTX Foundation “a fair bit.”

Meanwhile, FTX has been making waves elsewhere in the world of sports, cinching a pact with Major League Baseball earlier this month and renaming the Miami Heat’s National Basketball Association stadium to FTX Arena, the first NBA stadium deal from a crypto firm.

“A lot of what we’ve been looking at is what are the things that we can do that will really stand out and represent us well, fit our brand and really capture people’s attention,” said Bankman-Fried. “We’re going to be doing what we can to try to get news about FTX out there and get more eyeballs on it.”

New story in Technology from Time: Facebook’s Market Value Climbs Over $1 Trillion as Judge Dismisses Antitrust Suits Against the Social Network

Facebook Inc. won a court ruling dismissing two monopoly lawsuits filed by the U.S. government and a coalition of states that sought to break up the company, dealing a blow to the effort of antitrust officials to take on the biggest tech platforms.

The decision by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington on Monday sent Facebook shares soaring, pushing the company’s market value to more than $1 trillion.

Boasberg granted the company’s request to dismiss the complaints filed last year by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general led by New York, saying in his opinion that the FTC failed to meet the burden for establishing that Facebook has a monopoly in social networking.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The judge said the FTC failed to clearly define the market and said its assertion about Facebook’s share of the market was “too speculative and conclusory to go forward.” He said the agency could refile the complaint within 30 days.

“Although the court does not agree with all of Facebook’s contentions here, it ultimately concurs that the agency’s complaint is legally insufficient and must therefore be dismissed,” Boasberg wrote.

Facebook shares gained as much as 4.9%, the most since April 29. The shares have advanced 30% this year.

“We are pleased that today’s decisions recognize the defects in the government complaints filed against Facebook,” said a company spokesman.

With the ruling, Facebook has escaped — at least for now — the most significant regulatory threat to its business to emerge out of the wider crackdown on U.S. technology giants. The FTC didn’t immediately comment on the decision. The New York Attorney General’s Office said it’s reviewing the decision and considering its legal options.

The ruling delivers a blow to the FTC and the states, which claimed Facebook violated antitrust laws by buying photo-sharing app Instagram and messaging service WhatsApp in order to cut off emerging competitive threats and protect its monopoly.

It also puts new emphasis on antitrust legislation advanced by the House Judiciary Committee last week that would make it easier for enforcers to challenge anticompetitive conduct by the biggest tech platforms.

Antitrust Hurdles

Boasberg’s decision to toss the Facebook complaints shows the hurdles U.S. antitrust enforcers face in trying to take on the internet giants. Officials on their own can’t break up companies or impose other remedies, but instead must persuade judges to take action. The process can take years.

In a separate opinion about the states’ lawsuit, the judge criticized the attorneys general for waiting years after the Instagram and WhatsApp deals to challenges the acquisitions.

“The states’ long delays were unreasonable and unjustified as a matter of law,” Boasberg said. “Both acquisitions were, per plaintiffs’ allegations, publicly announced, and the states were thus aware or certainly should have been aware of them from those points onward.”

The Facebook lawsuits were filed in December as part of a widening crackdown on America’s tech giants. The cases followed a Justice Department complaint against Alphabet Inc. for allegedly monopolizing internet search, and the findings of a House investigation that accused tech companies of abusing their dominance. Lawmakers have since proposed a pile of bills that would cast a broad regulatory net over the companies.

Antitrust investigators at the U.S. Justice Department have stepped up scrutiny of Google’s digital ad market practices in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter, showing that the Biden administration is actively pursuing a probe that started under former President Donald Trump.

For more: Google Ad Business Faces Scrutiny as DOJ Extends Trump-Era Probe

The Facebook lawsuits centered on the 2012 acquisition of Instagram and the 2014 takeover of WhatsApp. Officials say Facebook made the deals because it saw both companies as threats to its business. Rather than compete with its own products, Facebook followed Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s mantra: “it is better to buy than compete,” according to the FTC complaint.

Facebook offered $1 billion for Instagram when it had only 25 million users and no revenue, but had already started to capture the market for mobile photo-sharing. Zuckerberg said the threat from Instagram was “really scary,” according to the FTC complaint. The company paid $19 billion for WhatsApp because it saw messaging apps as another danger to its business. A Facebook executive said the apps “might be the biggest threat we’ve ever faced as a company,” the FTC complaint said.

Facebook attacked the complaints on several grounds. One of its key arguments was that the FTC investigated both acquisitions when they were announced and allowed both deals to proceed. While antitrust enforcers can challenge completed mergers, Facebook argued the FTC’s case was unprecedented and the agency never explained why its prior decisions approving the purchases were mistaken. The government simply wants a “do-over,” Facebook said.

The company also had argued that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in April that curtailed the FTC’s authority to recover money for defrauded consumers required that the complaint be dismissed.

The case is Federal Trade Commission v. Facebook Inc. 20-cv-3590, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

MIDEAST CHAOS: US launches airstrikes against Iran-backed militias under cover of darkness

06/27/21 4:40 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

WATCH LIVE: Authorities give new update in Miami condo collapse as death toll rises to 5

06/26/21 3:54 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

WATCH LIVE: Miami officials give update as search for condo collapse survivors enters third day

06/26/21 7:49 AM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Poll: Voters say IRS, Facebook have too much power

06/25/21 3:06 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Derek Chauvin sentencing: Ex-Minneapolis cop sentenced to 22.5 years in prison in murder of George Floyd

06/25/21 1:05 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

WATCH LIVE: Former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin to be sentenced in George Floyd's murder

06/25/21 11:32 AM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

WATCH LIVE: VP Harris holds press conference in El Paso during southern border trip

06/25/21 10:52 AM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

VP Harris just arrived at the southern border: What you need to know

06/25/21 7:03 AM

New story in Technology from Time: Facebook Tried to Ban Myanmar’s Military. But Its Own Algorithm Kept Promoting Pages Supporting Them, Report Says

Facebook promoted pages that shared pro-military propaganda in Myanmar, even after it banned accounts linked to the military from the platform due to human rights abuses and the risk of violence, according to a report by the human rights group Global Witness.

Myanmar’s armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, overthrew the country’s civilian government in February, claiming that elections in November 2020 had been rigged. Later that month, Facebook said it had decided to ban the Tatmadaw from its platform, citing the military’s history of human rights abuses, record of spreading misinformation and the increased risk of violence after the coup.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

In April, Facebook introduced new Myanmar-specific rules against praising or supporting the military for arrests or acts of violence against civilians. It also banned praise of protesters who attack the military or security forces. But according to Global Witness, Facebook’s own recommendation algorithms have been inviting users to like pages that share pro-military propaganda that violates the platform’s rules.

The report highlights the extent to which Facebook is still struggling to police its own platform in Myanmar, where in 2018 the social media company admitted it could have done more to prevent incitement of violence in the run-up to a military campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority the previous year. U.N. investigators said the campaign, which involved mass murder, rape and arson, was carried out with “genocidal intent.” More than 1.3 million people fled the violence across the border to Bangladesh, where many remain in refugee camps, according to the World Health Organization. Myanmar has repeatedly denied that the campaign was genocidal.

Read more: Facebook’s Ban of Myanmar’s Military Will Be a Test of the True Power of Social Media Platforms

Since the period of violence against the Rohingya people, Facebook has hired more than 100 Burmese-speaking content moderators to monitor the platform for hate speech, and has built algorithms to detect hatred. But observers say hate and incitement to violence are still widespread on the platform in the wake of the military coup, in part because those algorithms are still rudimentary, and because the platform is not doing enough to stop repeat offenders from returning after being banned.

“This points to Facebook’s continued failure to effectively enforce their policies,” says Victoire Rio of the Tech Accountability Initiative, who has been engaging with Facebook on harmful content in Myanmar since 2016.

The pages that Global Witness found Facebook was recommending hosted posts including a “wanted” poster bearing the name and two photographs of a woman, offering a $10 million reward for her capture “dead or alive.” The post claimed the woman was among protesters who burned down a factory, Global Witness said. “This girl is the one who committed arson in Hlaing Tharyar. Her account has been deactivated. But she cannot run,” the caption read, according to the report.

The pages also shared a video of a forced confession by a political prisoner, Global Witness said, as well as a video of an airstrike by the Myanmar military against rebel forces, accompanied by laughter and a caption reading: “Now, you are getting what you deserve.” Global Witness also found several examples on the pages of content that supports violence against civilians, the campaign group said.

“We didn’t have to dig hard to find this content—in fact it was incredibly easy,” Global Witness said in its report. The group said it found the content after typing “Tatmadaw” into the platform’s search box in Burmese, and clicking “like” on the first page that appeared. The rights group then “liked” the first five “related pages” that Facebook suggested. Three of those five pages contained content that violated Facebook’s policies, the report said.

Facebook has removed some of the posts and pages in the Global Witness report, a spokesperson for the company said.

In a statement, Facebook said: “Our teams continue to closely monitor the situation in Myanmar in real-time and take action on any posts, Pages or Groups that break our rules. We proactively detect 99 percent of the hate speech removed from Facebook in Myanmar, and our ban of the Tatmadaw and repeated disruption of Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior has made it harder for people to misuse our services to spread harm. This is a highly adversarial issue and we continue to take action on content that violates our policies to help keep people safe.”

Read more: Facebook Says It’s Removing More Hate Speech Than Ever Before. But There’s a Catch

But activists say Facebook’s statistics mask broader failures. “While Facebook proudly claims that it is self-detecting a higher percentage of the content it removes, this does not account for the very large volume of problematic content that continues to span the platform undetected,” says Rio, although she notes that Facebook is now removing much more problematic content than it used to.

One weakness in Facebook’s approach to problem accounts so far is that repeat offenders are able to easily return to the platform with new profiles, even after being banned, Rio says.

“It is very likely that the admins behind these pages are known problematic actors, posting problematic content not just on the pages but also on their profiles,” Rio tells TIME. “Facebook has very little capacity to deal with recidivism, so it’s often the same people coming back after getting banned, often with the same name and the same photo. Though Facebook has policies against recidivism and the use of multiple accounts, it is not enforcing them,” she says.

New story in Technology from Time: ‘Someone’s Going to Be Left Holding the Bag.’ How Finance TikTok Is Navigating ‘Meme Stock’ Hype Among Young Investors

A growing cadre of Gen Z investors are anticipating a summer of meme stock mania, ready to capitalize on the next big short squeeze after a fateful two weeks in January when GameStop’s stock price skyrocketed over 1500%.

But while meme stocks may have introduced a new, young audience to the wonders of investing, popular finance TikTok creators say the viral trading craze is fueling unrealistic expectations.

According to a recent report from financial services giant Fidelity, more than half of Gen Z-aged people surveyed made a trade in the first three months of 2021, a period of time when attacks on short sellers had begun fueling heightened market volatility. Fidelity’s findings support the notion that these attacks were driven by hyper-online investors and indicate that rather than relying on traditional market monitoring methods, around 41% of 18-24-year-old investors turn to social media platforms like Reddit, Instagram and TikTok for investment advice.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

On TikTok alone, there’s a huge appetite for so-called StockTok videos, with the corresponding #stocktok hashtag garnering a total of over 1.3 billion views. The more general #investing hashtag has amassed an even more impressive 2.8 billion views on the popular video sharing app.

Meme stock mania has led to an influx of amateur investors seeking outsized gains on their investments and online advice, says finance TikToker Robert Ross (@tik.stocks), a professional stock analyst who joined TikTok in 2019.

“A lot of people who are new to investing think this type of price action is normal. But really, it’s not,” Ross says, referring to the dramatic price increases that stocks like GameStop, AMC, and BlackBerry have seen after going viral on social media forums like Reddit’s WallStreetBets. “Meme stocks aren’t really something that you can analyze and make an educated guess on what the share price should be because they’re based on hype and how many people are trying to pump the stock at any particular time.”

Since meme stocks arrived on the scene, Call to Leap founder and TikToker Steve Chen (@calltoleap), a former public school teacher who became “financially free” after learning how to invest in the stock market, says there’s been a noticeable shift in finance TikTok conversation.

“When all these meme stocks started coming out, a lot of the comments on my videos began gravitating towards hype,” he says. “You’d see people’s comments shift from understanding the fundamentals of companies to like, ‘My friend Joe is investing in AMC,’ or, ‘I saw this guy on Reddit who’s about to buy 1000 shares in GameStop.’ The conversation moved from sound investing to just kind of YOLO-ing money.”

For Chen, that kind of talk is indicative of the misguided notion that meme stocks are a surefire get-rich-quick scheme.

“These hype stocks can be very dangerous for new investors if they get into the stock market with the mindset of, ‘I’m going to buy these meme stocks and make a quick buck,’ rather than seeing the market as a vehicle to grow their wealth slowly over time,” he says. “I think it’s great that all these investors are able to band together to try to move the market, but at the same time, people can lose a lot of money.”

While there are people who have made a lot of money in a short amount of time on meme stocks, Ross says that investing in them can be a risky business. “I tell people to stay away from meme stocks for the most part,” he says. “For me, it’s kind of like a game of hot potato. Someone’s going to be left holding the bag.”

As newbie investors seek to educate themselves on the stock market in the wake of meme stock mania, Errol Coleman (errol_coleman), a 22-year-old creator with over 265,000 followers who’s been trading for over four years, says it’s important to take any financial advice on social media with a grain of salt.

“There are a ton of creators who popped up after the GameStop and AMC situation who, in my opinion, just spew misinformation that shouldn’t be out there,” he says. “It’s cool to get ideas from social media, but I think it’s super important to then go and do your due diligence. One thing I say on my account is don’t take my word for anything. I’ll bring attention to certain things, but I remind people that they need to put in the time to actually understand what they’re doing.”

TikTok itself offers the following warning on relevant finance hashtag pages: “Before following any financial advice, keep in mind that all investments involve risks and consider doing your own research.”

“People are giving away this information for free, because that’s probably what it’s worth,” Ross says. “For the most part, creators on finance TikTok are kind of winging it to try and build an audience. So people need to be really, really skeptical of who they follow and always do their own research when getting advice from anybody on social media”

People using social media platforms like TikTok to try to manipulate others for their own profit also isn’t a new phenomenon, Ross says. “Even before the GameStop stuff, you would have people posting videos about penny stocks where they would make all these outlandish claims, like Bill Gates is investing in this company or it’s about to get acquired by Amazon. That spreads really fast on TikTok because everyone wants to buy a stock that Bill Gates is investing in. But really, it’s not true at all and the person who made the video probably bought a bunch of it beforehand. Then they sell when the price jumps and everyone else gets left holding basically a worthless penny stock.”

In the same vein, creator Zaid Admani (@admani_explains), a civil engineer who’s been investing in the stock market since he was a teenager, says it’s important to remember that meme-centric StockToks don’t have to be accurate to go viral. “Because of how TikTok works, you don’t have to have a lot of followers for your video to take off. And there are a lot of people on the platform now who are just there to pump whatever meme stock they might be invested in.”

Ultimately, whether younger investors decide to invest in meme stocks or not, Admani says he hopes the mania surrounding them serves as their motivation to learn more about investing as a whole.

“Finance doesn’t have to be as complicated or as intimidating as a lot of people think it is,” he says. “Yes, there are some very complex finance topics. But you shouldn’t be intimidated by the stock market, you shouldn’t be intimidated by investing. Once you understand the basics, a lot of other stuff starts making sense.”

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Search and rescue underway in deadly apartment building collapse near Miami

06/24/21 5:05 AM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Emergency crews respond to partial apartment building collapse in South Florida

06/24/21 12:26 AM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

FOX NEWS POLL: What sparked the COVID-19 pandemic?

06/23/21 3:11 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Kamala Harris to make first trip to border more than 90 days since being tapped for crisis role

06/23/21 10:24 AM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Data suggests 'likely' link between COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, rare heart issues in teens, CDC panel says

06/23/21 10:07 AM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Republicans derail ‘federal takeover’ of elections

06/22/21 3:31 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Supreme Court sides with student athletes, rules NCAA improperly capped education-related benefits

06/21/21 7:41 AM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Jon Rahm wins US Open with unbelievably clutch on final holes

06/20/21 5:19 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Wreck on rain-soaked Alabama interstate leaves 10 dead, including 9 children

06/20/21 9:39 AM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Supreme Court sides with Catholic foster agency that excludes same-sex couples in closely watched religious liberty case

06/17/21 8:06 AM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Supreme Court upholds Obamacare law, dismissing challenge from some red states

06/17/21 7:21 AM

New story in Technology from Time: They Shared a Video of a Muslim Man Being Attacked in India. Now They’re Being Investigated by Police

Indian authorities have launched a fresh attack on freedom of expression, escalating a crackdown on press freedom and social media platforms. It’s yet another indicator that India, often called the world’s largest democracy, is lurching toward authoritarianism.

The trigger was a video of a violent assault on a Muslim man that went viral on Twitter, which ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) officials say was used to spread misinformation aimed at stoking religious tensions.

Late Tuesday night, Indian police opened an investigation into three Muslim journalists and three Muslim members of the opposition Congress party who had shared the video, along with Twitter and news site The Wire—one of the few media outlets in India that have remained independent.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

India’s IT Minister also accused Twitter of failing to comply with the government’s new Internet rules on Wednesday, intensifying an ongoing confrontation that some observers have speculated could culminate in the social media platform being banned in the country.

The video in question showed a group of men attacking an elderly Muslim man in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The individuals named in the police investigation had shared comments from the victim, who said that his attackers had cut off his beard and forced him to chant “Jai Shri Ram” (Glory to Lord Ram), an expression that has become a rallying cry for Hindu nationalists, in a suggestion that the attack was religiously motivated. Many mainstream Indian media organizations also reported the victim’s comments but were not named in the investigation.

Police investigating the case denied that the incident was motivated by religion, saying Tuesday that some of the attackers were Muslim. In a statement announcing the investigation, police said that those named had “tried to create animosity between Hindus and Muslims,” and “did not make an attempt to establish the truth in the case,” adding that they had spread “false news.” Police said the six individuals would be investigated for several possible offenses including attempting to provoke a riot, promoting enmity between religious groups, public mischief, and criminal conspiracy.

The move has been heavily criticized by journalists and free speech organizations. “The accusation brought by the Uttar Pradesh police is based on absolutely no tangible element and clearly amounts to judicial harassment,” said Reporters Without Borders in a statement on Thursday. “Reporters Without Borders calls on the police of northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state to immediately withdraw the absurd charges.”

The Uttar Pradesh state government had not responded to a TIME request for comment at the time of publication.

Intimidation of journalists

One of the journalists named in the police investigation was TIME and Washington Post contributor Rana Ayyub, an award-winning journalist who recently reported from overstretched Indian hospitals for a TIME story arguing that governmental failures were to blame for the country’s devastating second wave of COVID-19. Others include Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of fact-checking website AltNews, which regularly debunks misinformation shared by the government and its supporters, and Saba Naqvi, an author and journalist. The other three people named were members of the opposition Congress party.

CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty ImagesRana Ayyub speaks during the launch of her book ‘Gujarat Files’ in New Delhi on May 27, 2016.

In an interview with TIME, Ayyub said that, while the victim’s comments that the attack was religiously motivated had been reported by many newspapers across the country, she believed police had targeted her and other prominent Muslims in order to intimidate them. “It shames the Indian government that they are targeting journalists for reporting basic facts,” Ayyub says.

Press freedom in India has been rapidly declining, and the country now ranks 142 out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. India’s government intensified its crackdown on journalists this spring, as it battled a devastating wave of COVID-19. Earlier this year, U.S.-based non-governmental organization Freedom House downgraded India’s democracy rating from “free” to “partly free,” citing attacks on press freedom as a contributing factor.

Read More: The Indian Government Is Silencing Critics Even As Its COVID-19 Crisis Surges

In a statement, The Wire said it stood by its reporting on the attack in Uttar Pradesh. “This is an attempt to criminalize the reporting of anything other than the official version of events,” the publication said in a statement, adding that its reporting was “based on accurate and truthful reports, by many media organizations, of what the victim of the crime has himself said about the incident.”

Twitter declined to comment about being named in the police investigation.

Ayyub, who is recovering from spine surgery, recently posted a message on her social media accounts saying she was going offline to rest and recover. She “had to get out of bed” to fight the latest allegations, she says, adding that she is in constant pain. “If I do go behind bars, I’ll keep fighting the good fight. Because they can’t chain my thoughts.”

Escalating tensions with Twitter

In addition to police beginning an investigation into Twitter, India’s IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad launched a scathing attack on the platform on Wednesday. In a series of posts that marked the sharpest escalation yet of tensions between the Indian government and Twitter in recent months, Prasad accused the platform of failing to comply with the government’s new social media rules that came into force in May.

Prasad suggested that Twitter’s “failure to act” on the implication that the attack on the elderly Muslim man was religiously motivated—what Prasad called “fake news”—was an example of Twitter only applying its rules “when it suits [Twitter’s] likes and dislikes.”

“It is astounding that Twitter, which portrays itself as the flag bearer of free speech, chooses the path of deliberate defiance,” Prasad said on Twitter.

Read More: India’s New Internet Rules Are a Step Toward ‘Digital Authoritarianism,’ Activists Say. Here’s What They Will Mean

The latest criticism comes after Twitter publicly refused to remove several tweets by journalists and political opponents in response to a legal demand by the Indian government in February, although it did agree to remove some others. In April, the government demanded Twitter and Facebook remove dozens of posts, including some by opposition lawmakers, that were critical of its COVID-19 response. Then, in May, Twitter labeled several tweets by members of India’s ruling party “manipulated media,” applying a policy that had first been designed to combat misinformation in the run-up to the 2020 U.S. election. In response, police visited Twitter’s New Delhi office with broadcasters in tow.

The Indian social media regulations that came into force on May 26 say social media companies must comply quickly with government takedown requests, and appoint a “chief compliance officer” who may be arrested if the rules are not followed. The government says the rules are designed to prevent “abuse and misuse” of social media by users.

In a statement to TIME, a Twitter spokesperson said the company has appointed an “interim” chief compliance officer, adding that “Twitter continues to make every effort to comply with the new Guidelines.”

Silencing critics

According to Aatish Taseer, a British-American writer who had his Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status revoked soon after he authored a TIME cover story that was critical of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government’s recent measures against Twitter and journalists are part of a broader project to stifle dissent. (The Indian government says his citizenship was revoked for a different reason: that he “concealed the fact that his late father was of Pakistani origin.”)

Read More: I am Indian. Why Is the Government Sending Me Into Exile?

Taseer believes the Indian media are increasingly in thrall to the Hindu nationalist BJP. “Twitter remains one of the few avenues where people like Rana and [Mohammed] Zubair can speak and be heard and set the record straight,” he says. “So it really is a concerted attack.”

Ayyub agrees. “It seems like the government is killing two birds with the same shot,” she says. “They are targeting journalists and also social media platforms, which have made sure that people with divergent views can tweet out their critical views of the government.”

Still, Ayyub is defiant. “The government should know that I do not fear them arresting me,” she says. “I will keep speaking the truth no matter what happens.”

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Offices of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy newspaper raided, executives arrested

06/16/21 9:38 PM

New story in Technology from Time: Do Mindfulness and Health Trackers Mix? Deepak Chopra and Fitbit CEO James Park on Managing Stress With Data

A version of this article also appeared in the It’s Not Just You newsletter.Sign up here to receive a new edition every Sunday.

I’m a tech believer. My first job with TIME was to set up new communications systems and convince cranky foreign correspondents to trust them. Alexa and Google Home have colonized my apartment. And not only did I give my DNA to 23andMe, but I even answer their follow-up questions about whether I like olives or get carsick so they can map those genes. (Naturally, I also want to donate my body to research after I’m done with it–and if there were a way to send me a report in the afterlife about what they find, I’d request it.)
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

So you can imagine how very excited I was when Fitbit and other wearable health trackers, including Amazon’s Halo and the Apple Watch, started coming up with ways to show us data on our stress levels. There’s a bevy of new devices that monitor not just our heart rate, daily steps, and the quantity of our sleep, but the quality of our sleep by hour, skin temperature, and fluctuations in our blood oxygen saturation. Many of these biomarkers relate to our mental wellness and physical health, and there’s new wearable technology that picks up on our emotions.

But even data geeks like me realize there are crucial questions about whether technology is a solution or part of the problem when it comes to stress management. It’s fair to ask whether the very act of constantly checking personal health stats on our phones is antithetical to the kind of mindfulness and meditation practices that alleviate stress. And then there are all the sticky issues around data privacy.

So as annual global spending on wearable tech rises to more than $80 billion a year and rates of stress and anxiety skyrocket simultaneously, we wonder: Is a quantified self a happier self?

I spoke to mindfulness expert Deepak Chopra, M.D., and Fitbit CEO James Park about some of these questions. They’ve recently partnered on a series called “Mindful Method,” an expansion of Fitbit Premium‘s health tracking and content offerings. It includes short video meditations led by Dr. Chopra on cultivating the mind-body connection, getting better sleep, mental wellness, and my favorite, “resetting your bad mood.” This collection is paired with new Fitbit technology that detects electrodermal activity (EDA) responses–tiny electrical changes on your skin that can indicate a stress response.

Both Park and Chopra will tell you they see tech as a neutral actor, one that can be used to better lives or exploit societal weaknesses. Park uses the example of controversial algorithms that favored the sharing of extreme content on Facebook and other social platforms, which can lead to negative behavior. But Park sees positive opportunities in applications that provide ever-more customized health offerings: “What’s fascinating to me is that you can use these same tools to look at populations and try to nudge them in ways that actually result in really positive behavior.”

Did someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here to get a fresh edition every Sunday

And on the fundamental question of whether health tracking devices are an impediment to mindfulness or an facilitator, Chopra is unequivocally in the latter camp.

<strong>I think of technology as the evolution of human consciousness. Who created technology? We created technology, right? And technology is unstoppable. So how do we use it to our benefit?</strong> says Chopra.

To that end, more wearable health trackers like Fitbit are adding mental wellness features and content. For example, these devices can help you become more aware of your emotional fluctuations by asking you to log your moods and showing you data about related wellbeing biometrics (like the quality of your sleep, your physical activity, heart rate, or some of the newer wearable capabilities that can recognize stress reactions in your voice or skin).

There isn’t much independent research on whether digitally logging your moods is effective in managing your mental health. Still, the concept is similar to longstanding suggestions that it can be beneficial to keep a mood journal manually to identify your emotional patterns and triggers.

However, according to some studies, monitoring one’s biometrics can leave some users feeling both empowered and anxious. You could say our smartwatch relationships are complicated. Not only do we share intimate information with them, our weight, what we eat, how we feel, but they now give us biometrics that only elite athletes once had. These are things we didn’t know we had to worry about like whether we’ve enough REM sleep or our heart rate variability. That amount of information can be overwhelming, and dispiriting if you’re not meeting your goals. And on the flip side, some people become anxious when they don’t have access to their health trackers.

In a lot of ways, our gamified brains are primed to respond to trackers’ immediate feedback. Follow a guided breathing exercise and see your heart rate drop–it’s satisfying.

“Today, we are not even talking about bio-feedback; we’re talking about bio-regulation, which means real-time data, real-time feedback, and real-time intervention,” says Chopra. “But,” he adds, “it’s a mistake to think that the quantified self is not the qualitative self as well. The quantitative self is data that makes you feel better about yourself without feeling guilty.”

Brian Ach—Getty Images for TIME Fitbit CEO, President and Co-Founder James Park (L), speaks with MSNBC Live Anchor, Stephanie Ruhle, at the TIME 100 Health Summit on October 17, 2019 in New York City.

If you’re like me, this kind of data revolution isn’t so alarming, but there are obvious sensitivities about all the personal health information in the hands of private companies. This issue particularly current for Fitbit, which was acquired by Google earlier this year. Park assures us that Fitbit’s data will not be used by Google for ad targeting, explaining the terms of the deal this way: “The regulators have said, ‘Hey look, you can’t just make a verbal commitment, it actually has to be enshrined and encoded in the technology itself, and in the systems that enforce the separation.'”

How data is gathered and used is undoubtedly one of the most vexing questions of our time. But Chopra believes it is medicine’s most valuable tool in managing chronic health conditions. He is working on a separate project for which a thousand people have agreed to share their biometric and other personal data from cradle to grave. “Data can give you instant knowledge of how to manage somebody’s concerns, whether they’re mental, emotional, physical, or even spiritual,” he says.

Read more: My Fitbit Is More Interested In Me Than I Am

Even those who have avoided the quantified-self movement would likely agree that we need more and better mental wellness interventions. There’s evidence the pandemic worsened what was already a stress epidemic. The American Psychological Association recently reported that 84% of U.S. adults reported feeling at least one emotion associated with prolonged stress in the prior two weeks. And, as Chopra and other health experts point out, long-term stress has all kinds of cascading physical health consequences, which can include high blood pressure, obesity, depression, and more.

At the very least, the debate over whether tech helps with mental wellness is bringing more awareness of the tremendous toll of rampant stress and burnout. And this conversation goes beyond changing our individual lifestyles and behaviors. It’s also about transforming institutions and workplace culture to get at some of the systemic causes of stress. And in that fight, data is an ally.

 

 

Did someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here to get a fresh edition every Sunday.

As always, you can send comments to me at: Susanna@Time.com.

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announces whopping 'down payment' for border wall

06/16/21 1:59 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

WATCH LIVE: Putin, Biden hold separate press conferences after high-stakes Geneva meeting

06/16/21 8:57 AM

New story in Technology from Time: General Motors Will Open 2 U.S. Battery Plants to Support Increasing Electric and Autonomous Vehicle Production

DETROIT — General Motors will raise its spending on electric and autonomous vehicles and add two U.S. battery factories as it gambles that consumers will eagerly switch from gasoline to the new technology.

The announcements Wednesday came as crosstown rival Ford said its entire Lincoln luxury brand lineup would be electric or gas-electric hybrid by 2030, including four fully electric vehicles.

For months, the automakers have been one-upping each other with electric vehicle announcements, which have fueled stock price increases for both companies.

GM wouldn’t give details about where it will build the new plants, but Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said they would be similar in size to two factories now under construction in Lordstown, Ohio, and Spring Hill, Tennessee. Those factories each will employ more than 1,000 workers and cost about $2.3 billion.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The new plants were to come later in the decade, but now have been pulled forward and are expected to be in operation around 2025. They are part of GM’s plan to spend $35 billion on electric and autonomous vehicles from 2020 to 2025. The company also said it will switch more U.S. assembly plant capacity to electric vehicles, but gave no details Wednesday.

GM has previously said it would spend $27 billion on electric and autonomous vehicle development by 2025 as it rolled out 30 new electric vehicles worldwide. Jacobson said the company would increase the number of electric vehicles but gave no details.

Electric vehicles accounted for less than 2% of U.S. vehicle sales last year, largely in luxury brands. But industry analysts are predicting big growth later in the decade as EVs move beyond tech-savvy early adopters.

Jacobson said GM is seeing success with its a new version of its Chevrolet Bolt hatchback and a new Bolt small SUV, giving it confidence that electric vehicle adoption is reaching an inflection point. “The Bolts have done well for us,” he said. “This is really no-regrets capital. We know that we will need those battery plants as we further our goals.”

Also Wednesday, GM raised its first-half pretax earnings guidance from $5.5 billion to between $8.5 billion and $9.5 billion, with net income of $6.2 billion to $7 billion.

On a conference call with reporters, Jacobson said the increase comes as GM continues to see strong demand for its vehicles, and because it has been able to mitigate production losses due to a global shortage of computer chips. He said the company remains cautious about the full year.

GM also announced more deals to sell its battery and hydrogen technology to other companies. GM said it will build two electric vehicles for EV and hydrogen partner Honda, and it will supply hydrogen fuel cells for Liebherr Aerospace. Earlier the company said it would supply batteries and fuel cell technology to Pittsburgh-based locomotive maker Wabtec, and it would supply fuel cells to heavy truck maker Navistar.

Ford said Wednesday the Lincoln brand’s first fully electric vehicle will go on sale next year, but gave no details. The company said that by mid-decade it expects that half of Lincoln’s global sales will be zero emissions vehicles.

Shares of GM rose nearly 2% in premarket trading after the battery plant and spending announcements were made. They were trading at $61.95, near a record high. Ford shares were up slightly to $15.05.