US Business

Google on Wednesday said it has allowed Donald Trump’s Truth Social app in its Play Store for Android devices — after receiving assurances the app would meet the platform’s standards for moderating harmful content.

The app — which Trump launched after being barred from Twitter over the 2021 Capitol riot — had been kept out of Google’s store over its lack of moderation tools, including for violent threats.

Google said Truth Social has since been updated to comply with its policies barring objectionable posts, and has built in effective systems for reporting and removing unwanted content as well as blocking abusers.

“Apps may be distributed on Google Play provided they comply with our developer guidelines, including the requirement to effectively moderate user-generated content and remove objectionable posts such as those that incite violence,” a Google spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry.

Developers can make Android apps available elsewhere on the internet, but the Play Store is a main source of content for users. 

A Truth Social app for Android devices is available on the social network’s website and other venues that may not have Google’s content moderation rules, according to the Alphabet-owned tech titan.

“It’s been a pleasure to work with Google, and we’re glad they helped us to finally bring Truth Social to all Americans, regardless of what device they use,” Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) chief executive said in a released statement.

TMTG early this month announced today that a Truth Social app was freshly available for people in the United States who use Samsung smartphones, which are powered by customized Android software and have their own app shop.

Samsung’s share of the US smartphone market is about 30 percent, according to industry analysis firm Counterpoint.

A version of Truth Social tailored for Apple mobile devices is available at the App Store, which also enforces rules about content moderation.

– Trump take on Twitter –

Google said in August that it had notified Truth Social that its app violated Play policies and required “effective systems for moderating user-generated content” in order to be offered on the platform.

The online giant said at the time that Trump’s app broke rules barring content that incites physical threats and violence, but was working on addressing those issues.

Truth Social was conceived as Trump’s answer to Twitter — from which he was ejected in January 2021, days after a mob of his supporters refusing to accept his election defeat to Joe Biden stormed the US Capitol.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who has made a $44-billion deal to buy Twitter, has said he would likely allow the former US leader back on the platform. After trying to walk away, Musk now says the troubled deal is back on and could close by the end of this month.

Meanwhile, a merger between TMTG and a blank check company named Digital World Acquisition Corp — intended to bring in fresh funding for the Trump platform — has yet to take place. Digital World shares were up more than seven percent to just over $17 in after-market trades in the wake of the Play Store news.

– QAnon –

Excluded from major social networks, Trump has regained only a fraction of his followers on Truth Social.

Trump has 4.18 followers at Truth Social, compared to the 88.8 million he had on Twitter and the 35.4 million he had on Facebook before being booted for encouraging real-world violence such as the deadly attack on the US Capitol.

Truth Social has become an online haven for QAnon fans to share conspiracy theories such as prominent members of the Democratic Party being involved with satanists or pedophiles. Misinformation watchdog NewsGuard has reported finding scores of Truth Social accounts sharing QAnon content, with Trump among those resharing posts.

Auctioneers unveiled the most expensive art collection ever to go under the hammer Wednesday, which belonged to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and is valued at $1 billion.

Five centuries of touchstone works featuring some of the most significant creators in history are being sold next month.

The collection of more than 150 pieces includes work by Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin and Jasper Johns.

“I think this is a sale that sort of exhausts superlatives,” said Johanna Flaum, vice-chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art at auctioneers Christie’s.

“This is… the most valuable collection ever sold at auction. It’s really a once-in-a-generation type of event.”

Highlights include “La montagne Sainte-Victoire” by Paul Cezanne, which is expected to fetch at least $120 million, and “Verger avec cypres” by Van Gogh, whose hammer price is estimated at over $100 million. 

Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975, becoming fabulously rich as the company grew into the computing behemoth it is today.

By the time he died in 2018 at the age of 65, he had bought some of the most important works created in the last half a millennium.

“The collection is quite wide-ranging, it really makes Paul Allen a unique collector in that sense,” said Flaum.

The previous most expensive collection sold at auction was the Macklowe collection whose two tranches netted $922 million.

The auction will take place in New York on November 9 and 10. All proceeds due to Allen’s estate are to be dedicated to philanthropy, in line with his wishes.

Parts of the collection will be available for public viewing in Los Angeles, London, Paris, Shanghai and New York ahead of the sale.

The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn Russia’s annexation of parts of Ukraine, a move US President Joe Biden said sent a “clear message” to Moscow.

The General Assembly approved the resolution with 143 in favor and five against, but 35 nations abstained including China, India, South Africa and Pakistan despite a major US diplomatic effort to seek clearer condemnation of Moscow.

The resolution “condemns the organization by the Russian Federation of so-called referendums within the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine” and “the attempted illegal annexation” announced last month of four regions by President Vladimir Putin.

It calls on all UN and international agencies not to recognize any changes announced by Russia to borders and demands that Moscow “immediately and unconditionally reverse” its decisions.

The vote showed Russia that it “cannot erase a sovereign state from the map,” Biden said in a White House statement.

“By attacking the core tenets of the UN Charter, Russia is tearing at the very foundations of international peace and security,” the statement said. “The stakes of this conflict are clear to all — and the world has sent a clear message in response.”

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, had urged all nations to send a message that the world “will not tolerate seizing a neighbor’s land by force.”

“Today it is Russia invading Ukraine. But tomorrow it could be another nation whose territory is violated. It could be you. You could be next. What would you expect from this chamber?” she said.

– International condemnation –

The United States had put special energy into seeking to persuade South Africa and especially India, a growing US partner that has a historically close relationship with Russia and also abstained in the Security Council, where it holds a non-permanent seat.

The vote was largely the same — with a net two more votes against Russia — as when the General Assembly in March condemned the initial invasion of Ukraine.

Bangladesh, Iraq and Senegal — which abstained in March — on Wednesday voted to condemn Russia.

Eritrea, one of the world’s most closed states, moved from a “no” to an abstention, while Nicaragua, under growing international pressure over human rights, switched from abstaining to voting “no” alongside only Russia, Belarus, North Korea and Syria.

“South Africa considers the territorial integrity of states and that of Ukraine to be sacrosanct, and we reject all actions that undermine the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and international law,” said South Africa’s representative, Mathu Joyini. 

“We have abstained on the resolution because we believe that the objective of this assembly in keeping with its mandate must always be to contribute to a constructive outcome conducive to the creation of sustainable peace in Ukraine,” she said. 

Western powers counter that Russia is not genuinely interested in peace, as witnessed by deadly strikes on civilians in Kyiv and western Ukraine. 

India’s envoy, Ruchira Kamboj, said that “the entire Global South has suffered a substantial collateral damage” from the war and that “pressing issues” were not addressed in the resolution. 

Bangladesh, explaining its move to condemn Russia, said that the international community should also stand firm against any attempt by Israel to annex occupied Palestinian territory. 

“We strongly believe that the purposes and principles of the UN Charter regarding respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and peaceful settlement of all disputes must be complied universally for everyone, everywhere, under all circumstances,” said Bangladesh’s ambassador, Muhammad Abdul Muhith.

President Joe Biden’s administration said Wednesday it would prioritize winning over China, seeing it as the only global rival to the United States, even as it also works to constrain a “dangerous” Russia.

“The post-Cold War era is over, and the competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next,” Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, said in a speech at Georgetown University to unveil the national security strategy.

The strategy said the 2020s would be a “decisive decade for America and the world” — for reducing conflict, promoting democracy over authoritarianism and confronting the key shared threat of climate change.

“We will prioritize maintaining an enduring competitive edge over the PRC while constraining a still profoundly dangerous Russia,” the strategy said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia “poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown,” the strategy added.

China, “by contrast, is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective.”

The release of the strategy was delayed by the Ukraine war, with Biden spending most of this year rallying allies against Russia and marshalling billions of dollars in weapons to Kyiv, but it remains largely consistent with interim guidance laid out shortly after he took office in January 2021.

“I don’t believe that the war in Ukraine has fundamentally altered Joe Biden’s approach to foreign policy, which long predates his presidency,” Sullivan earlier told reporters.

“But I do believe that it presents in living color the key elements of our approach — the emphasis on allies, the importance of strengthening the hand of the democratic world and standing up for our fellow democracies and for democratic values,” he said.

– China wants to be ‘world’s leading power’ –

The strategy said the United States was willing to work even with competitors on shared interests, amid the Biden team’s talks with top carbon emitter China on climate change, described as “the existential challenge of our time.”

But the White House emphasized risks from China, warning that its rapid advances in technology aimed to mold the world order in support of “its own authoritarian model.”

Despite Beijing’s repeated denials it is seeking hegemony, the strategy said China “has ambitions to create an enhanced sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and to become the world’s leading power,” using the favored US term for the broader Asia region.

The White House also tied a rising China to Biden’s vows to prioritize the US middle class, saying Beijing was seeking to make the world dependent on its economy while limiting access to its own billion-plus market.

The strategy called for major investment at home, two months after Biden signed a $52 billion package to improve US capacity for building semiconductors, but also said the United States sought to “coexist peacefully” with China and manage the competition “responsibly.”

“We are not seeking to have competition tip over into confrontation or a new Cold War and we are not engaging each country as simply a proxy battleground,” Sullivan said.

The strategy release comes as Biden vows a reassessment of relations with one longtime US ally, Saudi Arabia, which moved to slash oil output — benefitting energy exporter Russia and potentially raising gas prices for American consumers weeks before congressional elections.

Amid reconciliation between Israel and Gulf Arab states, the strategy called for a “more integrated Middle East” that would reduce the long-term “resource demands” of the United States, which for decades has provided security for oil-producing nations.

The strategy also acknowledged the need to address democratic shortcomings at home, where former president Donald Trump refused to concede defeat in the 2020 election and whose supporters led a deadly assault on the US Capitol.

“We have not always lived up to our ideals and in recent years our democracy has been challenged from within. But we have never walked away from our ideals,” it said.

US President Joe Biden traveled to Colorado Wednesday at the start of a three-state swing through the American West to promote his record with less than a month to go before the crucial midterm elections.

Biden’s first stop was at Camp Hale, a former US Army World War II training ground in the Rocky Mountains.

Sporting his signature aviator sunglasses, he designated the site as a national monument in honor of its military history, the local Native American community and the area’s natural beauty.

Protection of the site, where the 10th Mountain Division trained for conditions in the mountains of Italy, has been a long-standing goal of Democratic Party leaders in the state.

The move, which raises hope for significant tourism benefits, fulfills a request by Democratic Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, who is seeking reelection in November — a vital seat for the Democrats’ hopes of retaining control of the Senate.

“He came to the White House and he said, ‘I told you what I need.’ And I said I’ll do it. You know why? I was worried he’d never leave the damn White House,” Biden joked during the ceremony.

“In my first year in office, I have protected more lands and waters than any American presidents since John (Fitzgerald) Kennedy” in the 1960s, Biden said, accusing his predecessor Donald Trump of having “rolled back protections.”

“We’re investing billions of dollars to protect our iconic outdoors, preserve our historic sites, and addressing the devastating effects of climate change,” he added.

Some of those funds, linked to a broad program of environmental investments and social spending passed by Congress this summer, will be used to address the region’s drought problems.

– Campaign ramping up –

A month before the midterms, Biden is increasing his travels to promote his record in office, hoping it will boost his party’s chances.

After Colorado, the president will head to California and Oregon to push his cost of living and infrastructure reforms.

The 79-year-old Democrat will also take part in fundraising efforts, a vital part of US politics.

A Democratic Party spokesperson recently said that “thanks in a large part to engagement from President Biden,” the party has raised $107 million so far in 2022, a record for this point in the year. 

Since January, Biden has participated in 12 fundraising events.

US political commentators have, however, pointed out that this tour will not take the president to Arizona and Nevada, the two western states that promise to be key Senate battlegrounds.

A US citizen on temporary release from prison in Iran was taken back into custody Wednesday, his family said, in what Washington called a “tremendous setback” after hopes for his permanent freedom.

Siamak Namazi, 51, was returned to Tehran’s Evin prison, a day before the seventh anniversary of his detention on espionage charges which he denies.

He was temporarily released a week ago when his father, 85-year-old Baquer Namazi, was permitted to leave the country for medical care.

The younger Namazi’s furlough from prison had also been extended on Saturday for three more days.

“I was genuinely hopeful for the first time that my father’s departure was the beginning of a new, less painful chapter in the struggle to make our family whole again. But Siamak’s return to Evin has shattered that hope,” his brother Babak Namazi said in a statement.

“Iran has proven the humanitarian gesture of letting my father go remains the exception and does not represent a changed reality.”

State Department spokesman Ned Price said the end of Siamek’s furlough “comes as a tremendous setback.”

Also pointing to two other US citizens detained in Iran, Price told reporters: “We are working to do everything we can to advance the prospects for their release and for their safe return to their families just as soon as we can.”

The Namazi family says that espionage accusations are absurd and that Siamak had been questioned over past associations with US think tanks. His father, a former UNICEF official, was detained in February 2016 after flying in to help his son.

Baquer Namazi was allowed to leave for Oman and then to the United Arab Emirates where has been examined at the Cleveland Clinic over an artery blockage.

All the US citizens known to be detained in Iran are of Iranian origin. Tehran does not recognize dual nationality and has had no diplomatic relations with the United States since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

President Joe Biden’s administration has vowed the release of US citizens amid separate, slow-moving negotiations on reviving a 2015 nuclear accord with Iran.

The nine justices of the US Supreme Court took on the role of art critics on Wednesday as they grappled with whether a photographer should be compensated for a picture she took of Prince used in a work by Andy Warhol.

In a lighter vein than in most cases before the court, arguments were sprinkled with eclectic pop culture references ranging from hit TV show “Mork & Mindy” to hip hop group 2 Live Crew to Stanley Kubrick’s horror film “The Shining.”

Justice Clarence Thomas volunteered at one point that he was a fan of Prince in the 1980s while Chief Justice John Roberts displayed a familiarity with Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian.

The case, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts v. Goldsmith, could have far-reaching implications for US copyright law and the art world.

“The stakes for artistic expression in this case are high,” said Roman Martinez, a lawyer for the Foundation, which was set up after Warhol’s death in 1987.

“It would make it illegal for artists, museums, galleries and collectors to display, sell profit from, maybe even possess, a significant quantity of works,” Martinez said. “It would also chill the creation of new art.”

The case stems from a black-and-white picture taken of Prince in 1981 by celebrity photographer Lynn Goldsmith.

In 1984, as Prince’s “Purple Rain” album was taking off, Vanity Fair asked Warhol to create an image to accompany a story on the musician in the magazine.

Warhol used one of Goldsmith’s photographs to produce a silk screen print image of Prince with a purple face in the familiar brightly colored style the artist made famous with his portraits of Marilyn Monroe.

Goldsmith received credit and was paid $400 for the rights for one-time use.

After Prince died in 2016, the Foundation licensed another image of the musician made by Warhol from the Goldsmith photo to Vanity Fair publisher Conde Nast.

Conde Nast paid the Foundation a $10,250 licensing fee.

Goldsmith did not receive anything and is claiming her copyright on the original photo was infringed.

– ‘At the mercy of copycats’ –

The Foundation argued in court that Warhol’s work was “transformative” — an original piece infused with a new meaning or message — and was permitted under what is known as the “fair use” doctrine in copyright law.

Lisa Blatt, a lawyer for Goldsmith, disagreed.

“Warhol got the picture in 1984 because Miss Goldsmith was paid and credited,” Blatt said.

The Foundation, she said, is claiming that “Warhol is a creative genius who imbued other people’s art with his own distinctive style.

“But (Steven) Spielberg did the same for films and Jimi Hendrix for music,” Blatt said. “Those giants still needed licenses.”

The Foundation is arguing that “adding new meaning is a good enough reason to copy for free,” she said. “But that test would decimate the art of photography by destroying the incentive to create the art in the first place.

“Copyrights will be at the mercy of copycats.”

Several justices appeared bemused about being thrust into the role of art critics.

“How is a court to determine the purpose or meaning, the message or meaning of works of art like a photograph or a painting,” asked Justice Samuel Alito. “There can be a lot of dispute about what the meaning of the message is.

“Do you call art critics as experts?”

“I think you could just look at the two works and figure out what you think, as a judge,” Martinez replied.

The Foundation lawyer added that a ruling in favor of Goldsmith would have “dramatic spillover consequences, not just for the Prince Series, but for all sorts of works in modern art that incorporate preexisting images.”

The Supreme Court heard the case after two lower courts issued split decisions — one in favor of the Foundation, the other in favor of Goldsmith.

The justices will issue their ruling by June 30.