A popular podcasting platform, Pocket Casts, has been removed from Apple’s app store in China at Beijing’s request, according to the company’s Twitter thread. Pocket Casts confirmed Wednesday on Twitter that the request was made by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), Beijing’s top internet watchdog agency that controls which apps can be accessed on iOS and other platforms in the country. “We were contacted by the CAC through Apple around 2 days before the app was removed from the store,” it said.Pocket Casts has been removed from the Chinese App store …

Microsoft has become the third big tech company this week to say it won’t sell its facial recognition software to police, following similar moves by Amazon and IBM.Microsoft’s president and chief counsel, Brad Smith, announced the decision and called on Congress to regulate the technology during a Washington Post video event on Thursday.”We’ve decided we will not sell facial recognition technology to police departments in the United States until we have a national law in place, grounded in human rights, that will govern this technology,” Smith said.The trio of tech …

Videoconferencing company Zoom temporarily shut down the account of a U.S.-based activist group days after it held an event commemorating the 31st anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square protests. Humanitarian China, an organization focused on providing relief for political prisoners and activists, held the Zoom conference on May 31. A week later June 7, the account used for the conference displayed a message that it had been shut down.  The meeting was streamed by 4,000 people and joined by more than 250 participants worldwide, including organizers of the Hong Kong Candlelight Vigil, …

Amazon on Wednesday banned police use of its face-recognition technology for a year, making it the latest tech giant to step back from law-enforcement use of systems that have faced criticism for incorrectly identifying people with darker skin.   The Seattle-based company did not say why it took action now. Ongoing protests following the death of George Floyd have focused attention on racial injustice in the U.S. and how police use technology to track people. Floyd died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into the handcuffed black man’s neck …