Category: Business

The EU announced probes Thursday into Facebook owner Meta and TikTok, seeking more details on the measures they have taken to stop the spread of “illegal content and disinformation” after the Hamas attack on Israel. The European Commission said it had sent formal requests for information to Meta and TikTok respectively in what is a first procedure launched under the EU’s new law on digital content. The EU launched a similar probe into billionaire mogul Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, last week. The commission said the request to Meta related “to the dissemination and amplification of illegal content and disinformation” around the Hamas-Israel conflict. In a separate statement, it said it wanted to know more about TikTok’s efforts against “the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech”. The EU’s executive arm added that it wanted more information from Meta on its “mitigation measures to protect the integrity of elections”. Meta and TikTok have until October 25 to respond, with a deadline of November 8 for less urgent aspects of the demand for information. The commission said it also sought more details about how TikTok was complying with rules on protecting minors online. The European Union has built a powerful armory to challenge the power of big tech with its landmark Digital Services Act (DSA) and a sister law, the Digital Markets Act, that hits internet giants with tough new curbs on how they do business. The EU’s fight against disinformation has intensified since Moscow’s invasion …

A reedy pipe and a high-pitched trill duet against the backdrop of a low-pitched insect drone. Their symphony is the sound of a forest and is monitored by scientists to gauge biodiversity. The recording from the forest in Ecuador is part of new research looking at how artificial intelligence could track animal life in recovering habitats. When scientists want to measure reforestation, they can survey large tracts of land with tools like satellite and lidar. But determining how fast and abundantly wildlife is returning to an area presents a more difficult challenge — sometimes requiring an expert to sift through sound recordings and pick out animal calls. Jorg Muller, a professor and field ornithologist at University of Wurzburg Biocenter, wondered if there was a different way. “I saw the gap that we need, particularly in the tropics, better methods to quantify the huge diversity… to improve conservation actions,” he told AFP. He turned to bioacoustics, which uses sound to learn more about animal life and habitats. It is a long-standing research tool, but more recently is being paired with computer learning to process large amounts of data more quickly. Muller and his team recorded audio at sites in Ecuador’s Choco region ranging from recently abandoned cacao plantations and pastures to agricultural land recovering from use to old-growth forests. They first had experts listen to the recordings and pick out birds, mammals and amphibians. Then, they carried out an acoustic index analysis, which gives a measure of biodiversity based on broad …

The U.S. Commerce Department on Tuesday tightened its export controls to keep China from acquiring advanced computer chips that it could use to help develop hypersonic missiles and artificial intelligence. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the new controls are “intended to protect technologies that have clear national security or human rights implications.”    The new controls could increase tensions between the United States, the world’s biggest economy, and No. 2 China. In recent talks over several months with high-ranking U.S. officials, Beijing had appealed for “concrete actions” from Washington to improve relations between the two countries, although U.S. officials warned that the new export rules were in the offing. Raimondo told reporters, “The vast majority of [the sale of] semiconductors [to China] will remain unrestricted. But when we identify national security or human rights threats, we will act decisively and in concert with our allies.” The Commerce Department said the new restrictions came after consultations with U.S. chip manufacturers and conducting technological analyses. The new controls allow the monitoring of the sale of chips that could still be used for military aims, even if they might not specifically meet the thresholds for trade limitations. The U.S. said chip exports can also be restricted to companies headquartered in Macao, a Chinese territory, or other countries under a U.S. arms embargo, to prevent them from circumventing the controls and providing chips to China. The updated restrictions, an expansion of export controls announced last year, also make it more difficult for China to …

Artificial Intelligence is being used to create musical “deepfakes” – songs that sound like one artist but were made by a computer. Deana Mitchell brings us the story of one artist who is engaging with machine learning to create new kinds of music. …

A technology, innovation and entrepreneurship summit sparked imaginations in Ethiopia last week. The inaugural Enkopa summit — a collaboration between the Ethiopian Ministry of Labor and Skills and other partners — brought in speakers and exhibitors from across the world to Addis Ababa to discuss technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. Speaking at the two-day event, Ethiopian State Minister of Labor and Skills Nigussu Tilahun emphasized the important role of the government in clearing a path for job creation in the country. Nigussu said government’s role in building the entrepreneurship ecosystem is to create and facilitate a conducive environment for it. The event, which was October 12 and 13, had 150 speakers from sectors like fintech, health care and agriculture. Feven Tsehaye, founder and CEO of Chakka Origins — which sources natural ingredients in biodiversity hotspots — said land management is crucial to the work the company does in Ethiopia. She said working with small holder farmers is essential. “It makes sense to work with them and more efficiently utilizing their space instead of engaging in land clearing or displacing people,” Feven said. Sessions during the two-day summit also explored the role of AI in agriculture, and sustainable farming in Ethiopia. Abrhame Endrias leads Lersha, which provides digital services to farmers. He said making technology accessible to farmers encourages tech adoption. Lersha provides climate and pest control advisories, farming inputs and options for mechanization. Abrhame said Lersha translates information into local languages so farmers can understand the information and make decisions. The …

Settlement talks have collapsed between Facebook’s parent company Meta and Kenyan content moderators over a lawsuit alleging unfair dismissal, a tech rights group working with the moderators said on Monday.  The 184 moderators sued Meta and two subcontractors earlier this year after they said they lost their jobs with one of the subcontractors, Sama, for organizing a union. They said they were then blacklisted from applying for the same roles at a second firm, Majorel, after Facebook changed contractors.  In August, the court asked the parties to hold out-of-court settlement talks and said the case would proceed if those failed.  British tech rights group Foxglove said in a statement on Monday that the negotiations had broken down, accusing Meta and Sama of making “very little attempt to address core issues raised by the petitioners.”  “The respondents were buying time and not being genuine. We kept waiting for them to participate … only for them to keep asking for an extension of time and then come back every time to refuse to take accountability,” the statement quoted Mercy Mutemi, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, as saying.  Sama said it was disappointed the mediation had failed and would not comment further on the case.  “We have been successful in coming to a mutually agreed resolution with about 60 moderators outside of the mediation process, demonstrating our commitment and willingness to find an amicable, beneficial solution,” it said in a statement, adding it was fully complying with all court orders.  Meta declined to …

In what Guatemalan authorities described as a national security incident, hackers affiliated with the activist group Anonymous disabled multiple government webpages Saturday. The attacks were in support of demonstrations led by Indigenous organizations in the Central American country. For almost two weeks, demonstrators have been calling for the resignation of Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras, saying she has tried to undermine the popular vote that made progressive Bernardo Arévalo the president-elect. Posting on the social media website X, formerly known as Twitter, hackers under the handle @AnonGTReloaded announced, “This October 14 #Anonymous will attack the Government of Guatemala, but this time we do not come alone.” The hackers targeted government webpages with floods of automated traffic until they crashed, a technique known as distributed denial-of-service attacks. Webpages for Guatemala’s judicial branch, Department of Agriculture and the General Secretary of the president were targeted, among others. Some pages were quickly reinstated, but others remained down. Guatemalan authorities said the hacking was a matter of “national security” and they are responding. The attacks come after 13 days of protests and road closures. Thousands of Indigenous people have demanded that Porras and prosecutors Rafael Curruchiche and Cinthia Monterroso, as well as Judge Fredy Orellana, all resign, accusing them of endangering the country’s democracy. Demonstrators maintain that after Arévalo’s victory in the August runoff election, Porras mounted an undemocratic challenge against Arévalo, his left-wing Seed Movement party and electoral authorities. A representative of Anonymous involved in the cyberattack, who agreed to talk about the …

Malawi launched its first-ever Centre for Artificial Intelligence and STEAM — Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics — Friday at the Malawi University of Science and Technology. Established with support from various U.S.-based universities, the center aims to provide solutions to the country’s innovation and technology needs. The project’s leader, Zipangani Vokhiwa, a science professor at Mercer University in the U.S. and a Fulbright scholar, says the center will help promote the study and use of artificial intelligence, or AI, and STEAM for the socioeconomic development of Malawi and beyond. “Economic development that we know cannot go without the modern scientific knowledge and aspect so the center will complement vision 2063 for Malawi as a country that needs to be moving together with the country developments in science,” Vokhiwa said. “Not to be left behind.” Vokhiwa said the center, known by its acronym, CAIST, will offer educational, technical, policy, and strategy products and services in emerging technologies such as AI. He said it will also offer machine learning, deep learning, data science, data analytics, internet of things and more that are based on humanistic STEAM education and research. A consortium of various U.S. universities provided the center with pedagogical and technical support. These include Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Tech University, Morehouse College, Colorado University, Georgia Southern University, Clemson University, New York University and Mercer University. There are fears worldwide, however, that the introduction of AI will result in loss of jobs. CBS news reported  that AI eliminated nearly 4,000 …

Africa is the site of a new battle for influence as Washington ramps up efforts to build an alternative critical minerals supply chain to avoid reliance on China. Beijing dominates the processing of critical minerals such as cobalt, lithium and other resources from the continent that are needed for the transition to clean energy and electric vehicles. But at the Green Energy Africa Summit this week in Cape Town, which was held on the sidelines of Africa Oil Week, few were willing to talk about it directly. Asked whether the U.S. was playing catch-up with China, one of the panel’s speakers, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources Kimberly Harrington, said simply that Washington was looking to “diversify.” For his part, fellow panelist Chiza Charles Newton Chiumya, the African Union’s director for industry, minerals, entrepreneurship and tourism, told VOA he didn’t want to use the term “competing” to describe the relative approaches of the West and China but agreed there is “lots of interest” in Africa’s critical minerals. The Chinese Embassy in Washington was also circumspect when asked whether it sees itself in competition with the U.S. for the natural resources. “The tangible outcomes of China-Africa practical cooperation throughout the years are there for all to see,” spokesperson Liu Pengyu wrote in an emailed response. “Supporting Africa’s development is the common responsibility of the international community. We welcome stronger interest and investment in Africa from all quarters to help increase the continent’s capability to achieve self-driven …

As Hamas militants and rockets entered Israel Saturday, so too did a barrage of disinformation. The conflict is being fought not only on the ground but also on the internet. VOA’s Robin Guess has the story. Liam Scott contributed to this report. …

The European Union has expanded its warnings that tech companies must remove illegal content from their platforms, or risk facing severe legal penalties. Following the militant Islamist group Hamas’ attack on Israel and Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, social media firms have seen a surge in misinformation related to the conflict, including doctored images and mislabeled videos, alongside images of graphic violence. On Tuesday, EU industry chief Thierry Breton told Elon Musk to curb disinformation on his messaging platform X, warning it was being used to disseminate illegal content and false information in the wake of recent violence in the Middle East. Breton issued a similar warning to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, urging the company to ensure strict compliance with European law. In his letters to Musk and Zuckerberg, Breton said their companies had 24 hours to inform the EU how they were stopping harmful content on their platforms. Now, the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, has sought to remind all social media companies they are legally required to prevent the spread of harmful content related to Hamas. “Content circulating online that can be associated to Hamas qualifies as terrorist content, is illegal, and needs to be removed under both the DSA [Digital Services Act] and TCO [Terrorist Content Online Regulation,” a commission spokesperson told Reuters. “The commission will fully apply the DSA and monitor the full implementation of the TCO. The commission urges online platforms to fully comply with EU rules.” The …

“Digital currencies have played a pivotal role in backing Myanmar’s Spring Revolution,” following a military takeover of the government in February 2021, said NUG Deputy Minister of Planning, Finance and Development Min Zayar Oo, in a statement to VOA. The minister was appointed by the National Unity Government, or NUG, made up of members of Myanmar’s former democratically elected government and other opponents of the junta. Centralized digital currencies, however, can be a double-edged sword, with authoritarian regimes seeking to use them as a tool for financial surveillance and censorship.  “The primary advantage for pro-democracy activists lies in the fact that these currencies operate independently of government control, enabling individuals to offer support to their chosen recipients discreetly, without disclosing their identities,” said Aung Paing, an expert on digital currencies living in exile from Myanmar. The NUG introduced its own digital currency, the DMMK (Digital Myanmar Kyat), last year as a creative means to bypass banks controlled by the junta. According to a recent statement, the NUG is on the verge of establishing its own online bank, the Spring Development Bank, using digital currency and targeting NUG supporters and the Myanmar diaspora as customers. The DMMK is tied to the value of the Myanmar kyat one-to-one, much like higher classes of cryptocurrencies, such as Tether (USDT), are tied to the value of the dollar. This class of cryptocurrency is known as “stablecoins.”  DMMK is used both locally and internationally via a mobile wallet app, NUGPay. In June 2023, NUGPay released …

As Indonesia celebrates the launch of its first high-speed railway, the government is dealing with cost overruns and Chinese bank loans with high interest rates. In Jakarta, Devianti Faridz has the story. Camera: Ahadian Utama …

Tourists at the Acropolis this holiday season can witness the resolution of one of the world’s most heated debates on cultural heritage. All they need is a smartphone. Visitors can now pinch and zoom their way around the ancient Greek site, with a digital overlay showing how it once looked. That includes a collection of marble sculptures removed from the Parthenon more than 200 years ago that are now on display at the British Museum in London. Greece has demanded they be returned. For now, an app supported by Greece’s Culture Ministry allows visitors to point their phones at the Parthenon temple, and the sculptures housed in London appear back on the monument as archaeologists believe they looked 2,500 years ago. Other, less widely known features also appear: Many of the sculptures on the Acropolis were painted in striking colors. A statue of goddess Athena in the main chamber of the Parthenon also stood over a shallow pool of water. “That’s really impressive … the only time I’ve seen that kind of technology before is at the dentist,” Shriya Parsotam Chitnavis, a tourist from London, said after checking out the app on a hot afternoon at the hilltop Acropolis, Greece’s most popular archaeological site. “I didn’t know much about the (Acropolis), and I had to be convinced to come up here. Seeing this has made it more interesting — seeing it in color,” she said. “I’m more of a visual person, so this being interactive really helped me appreciate it.” …

Amazon launched the first test satellites for its planned internet service Friday as a rival to SpaceX’s broadband network. United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket blasted off with the pair of test satellites, kicking off a program that aims to improve global internet coverage with an eventual 3,236 satellites around Earth. Amazon plans to begin offering internet service by the end of next year. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has a huge head start over Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos, who has his own rocket company, Blue Origin. SpaceX flew its first test Starlink satellites in 2018 and the first operational satellites in 2019. It has since launched more than 5,000 Starlinks from Florida and California, using its own Falcon rockets. Europe’s Eutelsat OneWeb also is launching internet satellites, with around 600 in orbit. Amazon originally agreed to put the satellites on the debut launch of ULA’s Vulcan rocket. But with the Vulcan grounded by problems until at least the end of this year, Amazon switched to the long-established Atlas V. When licensing the program, the Federal Communications Commission stipulated that at least half of the planned satellites be operating by 2026 and all of them by 2029. Amazon has reserved 77 launches from ULA, Blue Origin and Europe’s Arianespace to get everything up and orbiting before the deadline. …

An Ethiopian digital app inventor has been given a prestigious award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for creating an application designed to link refugees with employers. Last week in New York, Eden Tadesse accepted a Goalkeepers Global Goals Award at a ceremony attended by Kenyan President William Ruto, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Bill and Melinda Gates, among others. Eden was given the award for her digital app Invicta, which connects refugees seeking jobs with employers. Invicta is credited with helping 2,500 refugees find employment, most of them in Africa and the Middle East. Through the app, 7,000 refugees have been able to continue their education by completing online courses. Mohammad Jamalaldeen, who left his hometown of Khartoum following the outbreak of war in Sudan, used Invicta to find work with a company in his profession of software and web development. “She told me that I could look into working as a software engineer and has been actively searching for opportunities for me,” Jamalaldeen said. “Every member of Invicta has been so friendly towards me.” Refugees or internally displaced people register with Invicta by filling out a form. The applications are assessed by a team, and selected candidates are trained and introduced to companies looking to fill positions. Eden said she came up with Invicta after her work supporting education at a refugee camp. “Once I arrived, I saw that refugees were incredibly talented and hardworking, and what they really needed was access to labor markets,” she said. …

An updated rule curbing exports of U.S. chipmaking equipment to China is in the final stages of review, according to a government posting and a source, a sign the Biden administration is poised to soon tighten restrictions on Beijing.  Reuters exclusively reported Monday that U.S. officials had warned China in recent weeks to expect rules restricting shipments of semiconductor equipment and advanced AI chips to China to be updated this month.  The updates would add restrictions and close loopholes in rules first unveiled on October 7, 2022, sources say. Those rules angered Beijing and further strained relations with Washington.  A regulation titled “Export Controls to Semiconductor Manufacturing Items, Entity List Modifications” was posted on the Office of Management and Budget website on Wednesday.  A person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity, confirmed the posting refers to the expected restriction on sending chipmaking tools to China.  Export control rules are generally not posted by OMB until there is agreement between the State, Defense, Commerce and Energy departments on their content, former officials said.   The government has yet to post an anticipated companion rule updating restrictions on exports of high-end chips used for artificial intelligence. A source said the Biden administration is seeking to publish both rules simultaneously. A spokesperson for the Department of Commerce declined to comment. …

In less than a year, ChatGPT — the AI-powered chatbot — has altered the way people use and abuse artificial intelligence. And while some educators are working to keep it out of the classroom, some say it’s welcome. Karina Bafradzhian has the story. Camera — David Gogokhia. …

As the U.S. government seemed headed for a possible shutdown last week, cybersecurity firms began picking up on an alarming trend: a spike in cyberattacks targeting government agencies and the U.S. defense industry. It has some analysts concerned that U.S. adversaries and criminal hackers might have been preparing to take advantage of weaker-than-usual cybersecurity if lawmakers had not been able to reach a deal to keep U.S. agencies open past September 30. Check Point Software last week said it had detected an 18% increase in cyberattacks against U.S. agencies and U.S. defense companies during the previous 30 days, compared with weekly averages for the first half of the year. The attacks, according to Check Point, focused on using malware programs designed to steal information and credentials, as well as a focus on exploiting known vulnerabilities. A second cybersecurity company, Trellix, told VOA that it too saw “a significant spike” in ransomware attacks on U.S. government agencies over the past 30 days. Trellix attributed 45% of the malicious cyber activity to Royal ransomware, which previously had been used to target a variety of U.S. manufacturing, health care and education sectors. Agencies would be affected A surge in the use of Royal ransomware earlier this year prompted the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue an advisory this past March. And some cybersecurity analysts have linked Royal ransomware to Russian cybercriminals. As for the recent spike in attacks, using Royal and other malware, analysts are concerned. “I can’t …

Meta is proposing to offer European users subscription-based versions of Instagram and Facebook if they would rather not be tracked for ads, a source said on Tuesday. The idea, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes as the social media giant seeks to comply with a growing list of EU regulations designed to curb the power of U.S. big tech. The company founded by Mark Zuckerberg makes its billions of dollars in profit by offering advertisers highly individualized data on users, but new European regulations and EU court decisions have made that practice harder to do. The proposal has been put to EU regulators and is another example of big tech companies having to adapt long-held practices to meet oncoming EU rules. The source close to the matter said subscribers in Europe could pay $10.50 a month for a desktop version of Instagram or Facebook, or $13.50 a month for Instagram on their phones. Social media platforms have increasingly floated the idea of charging users for access to their sites, whether to comply with data privacy regulations or better guarantee the identity of users. But the practice would be a major shift for the social media industry that grew exponentially over the past decade on an advertising model that made the site free for users in return for being tracked and seeing highly personalized ads. The proposal could help meet several regulations, including the Digital Markets Act, which imposes a list of do’s and don’ts on big tech companies …

A Kenyan parliamentary panel called on the country’s information technology regulator on Monday to shut down the operations of cryptocurrency project Worldcoin within the country until more stringent regulations are put in place. The government suspended the project in early August following privacy objections over its scanning of users’ irises in exchange for a digital ID to create a new “identity and financial network.” Worldcoin was rolled out in various countries around the world by Tools for Humanity, a company co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. It has also come under scrutiny in Britain, Germany and France. The project still has a virtual presence in Kenya and can be accessed via the internet, even after the August suspension. The regulatory Communications Authority of Kenya should “disable the virtual platforms of Tools for Humanity Corp and Tools for Humanity GmbH Germany [Worldcoin] including blacklisting the IP addresses of related websites,” the ad hoc panel of 18 lawmakers said in a report. It also called for the suspension of the companies’ “physical presence in Kenya until there is a legal framework for regulation of virtual assets and virtual services providers.” Worldcoin’s press office said it had “not seen anything official announced by the Committee directly.” The panel’s report will be tabled at the National Assembly for consideration and adoption at a later date. During the suspension of data collection in August, authorities said the project’s method of obtaining consumer consent in return for a monetary award of just over $50 at the …

A Swiss-led team has driven electric vans across Europe and the Arabian Peninsula to Qatar to showcase zero-emission battery powered vehicles, organizers said Sunday. The five-strong Swiss and German team set out from Geneva on August 28 in two electric Volkswagen vans on a 6,500 kilometer (4,000 mile) journey that ended in Doha on Saturday. “The motivation was really to do something unusual,” the group’s leader Frank Rinderknecht told AFP. “Certainly we did have the risk of not arriving — technical issues, health issues or an accident.” The journey aimed to raise awareness about the environmental benefits of electric vehicles, he said. “If our trip put just a little bit of rethinking, of initiative, into people’s minds then I am not unhappy.” The journey started with a crossing of the Swiss Alps and included what organizers believe was the first west-to-east crossing of Saudi Arabia with electric vehicles. The team’s ID. Buzz VW vans — modelled on the German manufacturer’s Combi campervan — travelled across 12 countries, reaching Aqaba in Jordan from Turkey by ship. However, the trip highlighted shortcomings of the charging infrastructure, Rinderknecht said, comparing the mismatch of technologies to the “early days of telecommunication.” In Europe, the team had to use numerous apps to pay for charging points across different regions. In Jordan, they had to adapt their European systems to the Chinese hardware they found. The journey to Doha was completed in partnership with the Geneva International Motor Show, which is being held outside the Swiss …

Apple is blaming a software bug and other issues tied to popular apps such as Instagram and Uber for causing its recently released iPhone 15 models to heat up and spark complaints about becoming too hot to handle. The Cupertino, California, company said Saturday that it is working on an update to the iOS17 system that powers the iPhone 15 lineup to prevent the devices from becoming uncomfortably hot and is working with apps that are running in ways “causing them to overload the system.” Instagram, owned by Meta Platforms, modified its social media app earlier this week to prevent it from heating up the device on the latest iPhone operating system. Uber and other apps such as the video game Asphalt 9 are in the process of rolling out their updates, Apple said. It didn’t specify a timeline for when its own software fix would be issued but said no safety issues should prevent iPhone 15 owners from using their devices while awaiting the update. “We have identified a few conditions which can cause iPhone to run warmer than expected,” Apple in a short statement provided to The Associated Press after media reports detailed overheating complaints that are peppering online message boards. The Wall Street Journal amplified the worries in a story citing the overheating problem in its own testing of the new iPhones, which went on sale a week ago. It’s not unusual for new iPhones to get uncomfortably warm during the first few days of use or …

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether state laws that seek to regulate Facebook, TikTok, X and other social media platforms violate the Constitution. The justices will review laws enacted by Republican-dominated legislatures and signed by Republican governors in Florida and Texas. While the details vary, both laws aim to prevent social media companies from censoring users based on their viewpoints. The court’s announcement, three days before the start of its new term, comes as the justices continue to grapple with how laws written at the dawn of the digital age, or earlier, apply to the online world. The justices had already agreed to decide whether public officials can block critics from commenting on their social media accounts, an issue that previously came up in a case involving then-President Donald Trump. The court dismissed the Trump case when his presidential term ended in January 2021. Separately, the high court also could consider a lower-court order limiting executive branch officials’ communications with social media companies about controversial online posts. The new case follows conflicting rulings by two appeals courts, one of which upheld the Texas law, while the other struck down Florida’s statute. By a 5-4 vote, the justices kept the Texas law on hold while litigation over it continues. But the alignment was unusual. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett voted to grant the emergency request from two technology industry groups that challenged the law in federal court. Justices …