Hasta La Gadget!

A judgment has been handed down by a federal court in Virginia ruling that politicians can’t block people on social media. The ruling might have an impact on a lawsuit pending against President Donald Trump for blocking people on Twitter. The ruling concerned the chairwoman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors who blocked a constituent on Facebook.

The U.S. District Judge James Cacheris ruled that Phyllis Randall, chairwoman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, had violated the right to free speech of a constituent that she blocked on Facebook.

The constituent in question, Brian Davison, says that he was blocked on Facebook by Randall after he accused the Loudoun School Board of corruption in his reply to the chairwoman’s post on her Facebook page in which she invited feedback from the citizens.

Judge Cacheris explained in the ruling that since Randall is acting as a public official on her Facebook page, she couldn’t block the constituent without violating the First Amendment as the act of blocking the constituent lead to “suppressing critical commentary regarding elected officials.” The judge further added that Randall’s actions were a form of viewpoint discrimination.

The judge didn’t consider the argument put forward by the chairwoman’s lawyer that since she doesn’t use county resources to manage her Facebook page, it doesn’t represent the government.

“We hope the courts look to this opinion as a road map in holding that it is unconstitutional for President Trump to block his critics on Twitter,” said the senior staff attorney of Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute that has filed a lawsuit against President Trump for blocking people on Twitter.

Politicians Can’t Block People On Social Media, Court Rules , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

The world’s largest social network brought its Snapchat Stories clone to Facebook proper back in March this year. Like Snapchat Stories, users can post videos and photos to their Facebook Story throughout the day and all of it disappears automatically the following day. However, Facebook users could only share their stories with their friends on select contacts on the social network. Now, they can share them publicly.

The ability to share stories on Facebook publicly will vastly increase their visibility. It will let users share them with people they don’t have as contacts as Facebook but don’t mind sharing a particular story with them.

This change was first spotted by Carlos Gil, a social media researcher, and has since been confirmed by Facebook. The social network said that “This is something we rolled out a few weeks ago. The Public setting allows your Followers to see your story, in addition to your Friends.”

In order to share a story publicly, users have to allow public followers and post their story publicly so that any and all followers are able to view it. As far as Pages are concerned with regards to posting stories, Facebook says that “For Pages – no specific timing to share there quite yet.”

Facebook Stories Can Now Be Shared Publicly , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

He’s old Rick. … Do ya love him? Could ya learn to love him?

Rolls-Royce is keeping busy lately, notably by unveiling the new eighth-generation Phantom for 2018, but the luxury car maker is continuing to make progress on its upcoming SUV, the Cullinan. A new series of spy photos have turned up, offering the first look at the Cullinan since the prototype shown back in December. With a debut coming sometime in 2018, … Continue reading

It was recently reported that China was going to tighten its ban on VPN services which would more or less make it impossible for internet users in the country to bypass restrictions placed by the government. Though the government later issued a clarification in that regard, it still appeared that China would make it more difficult to rely on VPNs. According to a new report, almost all major VPN apps on the App Store in China have been removed by Apple.

ExpressVPN, a provider that’s based outside China, notes that all major VPN apps have been removed from Apple’s China-based App Store. The company’s own VPN app is no longer available for iOS users in the People’s Republic.

The VPN provider mentions that the explanation it received from Apple regarding this was that the company had removed the ExpressVPN app because it “includes content that is illegal in China.”

Just because these apps have been removed from the App Store in China doesn’t mean they won’t be available for users elsewhere. ExpressVPN, and all other major VPN apps, continue to be available for iOS users across the world.

VPN providers are now required to have approval from Beijing before they can provide their services to users in the country. Apple seems to have purged apps of those VPN providers that don’t have the necessary approvals from Beijing.

VPN Apps On App Store Removed In China , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.