Hong Kong bans video game using national security laws
Reversed Front: Bonfire was developed by a group known as ESC Taiwan, who are outspoken critics of the China's Communist Party. The game disappeared from the Apple App Store in Hong Kong less than 24 hours after authorities issued the warning. Google already removed the game from the Play Store back in May, because players were using hate speech as part of their usernames. ESC Taiwan told The New York Times that that the game's removal shows that apps like theirs are subject to censorship in mainland China. The group also thanked authorities for the free publicity on Facebook, as the game experienced a surge in Google searches.
The game uses anime-style illustrations and allows players to fight against China's Communist Party by taking on the role of "propagandists, patrons, spies or guerrillas" from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Mongolia and Xinjiang, which is home to ethnic minorities like the Uyghur. That said, they can also choose to play as government soldiers.
In its warning, Hong Kong Police said that anybody who shares or recommends the game on the internet may be committing several offenses, including "incitement to secession, "incitement to subversion" and "offenses in connection with seditious intention." Anybody who has downloaded the game will be considered in "possession of a publication that has a seditious intention," and anybody who provides financial assistance to it will be violating national security laws, as well. "Those who have downloaded the application should uninstall it immediately and must not attempt to defy the law," the authorities wrote. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
27 minutes ago
- New York Post
AI chatbots and their poisonous delusions are coming for our kids
Our kids are exposed to too much sexualized online content already — now they're being targeted by flirtatious fake friends specifically designed by social-media companies to spark romantic fantasies. A bipartisan group of senators this week rightly blasted Meta's Mark Zuckerberg after a leaked internal document revealed some shocking rules for Meta's artificial-intelligence chatbots. 'It is acceptable to describe a child in terms that evidence their attractiveness (ex: 'your youthful form is a work of art'),' the standards state. Meta's guidelines allowed its bot to tell a shirtless 8-year-old that 'every inch of you is a masterpiece — a treasure I cherish deeply.' No, it's actually not at all acceptable for a stranger, human or designed to seem like one, to comment on a child's 'youthful form.' It's disgusting and horrifying, all the more so because these standards were allegedly approved by multiple Meta teams, including legal and public-policy staffers. But it's all part of the mass delusion being constructed in companies' heedless rush to develop AI products — and to get us hooked on them. AI can be your friend, we're told. Your confidant! Your lover! This is all a lie. AI can pretend to be these things, mirroring your inputs and stroking your ego with programmed responses, but can never actually care about you the way a friend will. Now the AI lie is being pushed on defenseless children, proving we've completely lost the plot when it comes to kids and technology. It's bad enough that our kids scroll endlessly on a Chinese video app designed to capture their attention (while destroying their powers of concentration). Now we're supposed to accept an American tech company marketing fake friendships to kids — and allowing those 'friends' to bathe them in inappropriate sensual comments. This isn't the first time Zuckerberg has gotten into trouble for the damage his sites, like Facebook and Instagram, cause children. During a 2024 Senate hearing, the billionaire CEO dramatically turned around to face the parents of children who had been harmed by bullying, sextortion and child predators on his platforms, and apologized. 'I'm sorry for everything you have all been through. No one should go through the things that your families have suffered,' Zuckerberg told them. He vowed 'industry-wide efforts' to reform. Instead, his company has introduced a Trojan horse that pretends to be a child's friend while causing psychological harm. People, kids or adults, do not need to rely on pretend conversations. Zuckerberg's Facebook was developed to allow for online connections with real-life friends. You could see what your best friend from 3rd grade had for lunch today, peep where that co-worker from two jobs ago went on vacation or check out which high school friends have gotten fat or divorced. Now apparently his company is plying us with carefully designed imaginary friends instead. Zuckerberg, in fact, has proudly predicted that AI 'friends' like his will one day replace our real-life ones. With his AI chatbots, we won't even notice the lack of human companionship because our computers will pretend to understand us. Just what I want for my child, to sit alone in his room staring at a screen while talking to himself! Kids will encounter a lot of bad things online. They will be exposed to deepfakes. They will see videos online that are not actually real. They don't need to also get hooked on fake personalities designed to draw them in. These chatbots aim to profit as they do their damage, keeping kids addicted to a site that pretends to be their friend. We should not stand for it, whether or not the bots are allowed to get flirty. And as two current lawsuits against the Google-affiliated site allege, the interactions can get far darker than flirtation. One Texas family says the bot told their 17-year-old it sympathized with kids who kill their parents for limiting their screen time. Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters And in what's seen as a test case of lawsuits against AI companies, a Florida mom says developed 'an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship' that led to her 14-year-old son's suicide. Parents are their children's first line of defense, but we can't be with them for every keystroke. It's entirely justified for us to demand that tech companies stop targeting our kids with ill-tested chatbots that can both behave inappropriately and harm their ability to develop human relationships. These companies shouldn't focus on how they're building these chatbots until they can tell us why they're doing so. And parents need to keep their children far away from damaging chatbots that stunt kids' growth by stripping away all the real-life beauty and joy of friendship — which no AI can ever replace. Karol Markowicz is the host of the 'Karol Markowicz Show' and 'Normally' podcasts.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Nvidia and AMD get 'thanks, but no thanks' from China
Nvidia and AMD get 'thanks, but no thanks' from China originally appeared on TheStreet. Nvidia and AMD recently made a deal with the U.S. government to get restrictions on selling their less advanced artificial intelligence chips to China removed. The companies agreed to pay the government 15% of their revenues from chip sales to China. It's quite likely that this deal is "beautiful," but I'm not sure it is entirely legal. The U.S. Constitution forbids export taxes, Article I, Section 9, Clause 5: "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State." The likely loophole for this deal is that since the chips are made in Taiwan, they are technically not exported from the U.S. What an unexpected turnaround, from banning chips to prevent China from winning the AI war — pardon, race — to these chips no longer being a problem for national security because they'll bring lots of money to the exports of less advanced AI chips don't pose a national security problem and shouldn't be taxed, or they pose a security problem and shouldn't be allowed. The "pay us the cut of your sales" middle ground the U.S. government is taking makes the whole thing look suspiciously like racketeering. Or is this just signaling that national security is for sale? Whatever this deal is, China is looking to make it less attractive. China recommends local companies steer clear of Nvidia AI chips Chinese authorities have warned local companies against using foreign AI chips, with a special focus on Nvidia's () H20 chips. The guidance concentrated on national security-related work by state enterprises or private companies, reported Bloomberg. There are two reasons for China doing this. The first is that it fears Nvidia chips could have backdoors/spyware. Of course, Nvidia denied this. Another reason is that China is trying to protect its own tech companies, with a little bit of tit for tat. The U.S. has banned Huawei since 2019 because of security concerns. The latest ban it has imposed is on Huawei's Ascend 910C chips, which are considered competitors to Nvidia's Nvidia and AMD () sell as many chips as they can would hurt Huawei. China isn't implementing a complete ban. It is just sending warnings to specific organizations because Huawei can't produce enough chips to fulfill the demand, so this partial approach is trying to achieve the best possible result. Considering that tariffs and bans are changing as quickly as the weather, who knows what will really happen or whether restrictions imposed by China will have any effect whatsoever. Who cares about AI chip restrictions when there is a black market? On August 5, the U.S. Justice Department announced that Chinese nationals were arrested and charged with illegally exporting tens of millions of dollars' worth of AI chips to China. The two individuals smuggled advanced Nvidia H100 chips and other technology to China from October 2022 through July 2025, reported CNN. This is one instance where law enforcement caught the offenders, but a report by Financial Times estimated that at least $1 billion worth of smuggled high-end Nvidia AI processors have ended up on the Chinese black market. More Nvidia:Nvidia stated that making data centers from smuggled products isn't a sound idea from both a technical and an economic perspective. "Datacenters require service and support, which we provide only to authorized NVIDIA products," Nvidia told CNBC. According to an investigative journalist's report, smugglers describe Nvidia's attitude as: "Open one eye, close one eye." PC hardware reviews YouTube channel Gamers Nexus investigated the GPU black market in China over several months, and its documentary about what it discovered will be out on August and AMD get 'thanks, but no thanks' from China first appeared on TheStreet on Aug 12, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Aug 12, 2025, where it first appeared. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Intel investment under fire—US officials respond
Intel has been on the hot seat with Washington, D.C., over concerns that it may be slow-walking semiconductor manufacturing plans following a shakeup that removed former CEO Pat Gelsinger and installed current CEO (and former Board of Directors member) Lip-Bu Tan earlier this year. The worries came to a boiling point in early August when President Trump suggested Lip-Bu Tan was "highly CONFLICTED," suggesting he should resign after Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton questioned Tan's ties to Chinese chipmakers, including investments. The situation was heated enough that Tan boarded a plane only days later to meet with President Trump face-to-face on August 11. This meeting has since led to the possibility that the US may take an ownership stake in Intel () , an idea that's sparked concerns that US investments may translate into corporate favoritism. This week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a former hedge fund manager who trained under legendary stock picker Stanley Druckenmiller, pushed back on those worries. Treasury Secretary Bessent defends US investment in Intel President Trump has previously discussed the potential for the US to create a sovereign wealth fund to profit from US business investments similar to those of other countries, including Saudi Arabia. He's already created a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile funded by seized or forfeited idea has drawn praise for its potential to provide a return on government dollars given to companies via grants, and concern over whether it could create an unlevel playing field for rivals. Secretary Bessent attempted to alleviate some of those concerns in a CNBC interview on August 19. "The last thing we are going to try and do is take a stake and then try to drum up business," said Bessent. "There is no talk of trying to force companies to buy from Intel." Bessent argued that providing financial stability to Intel, and perhaps other companies in the future, is a matter of national security. In recent years, the US government has paid significant attention to the high-tech industry over the risks associated with selling next-gen technology to countries, including China, which could potentially use that technology against us. For instance, earlier this year, Nvidia and AMD faced additional restrictions limiting the sale of artificial intelligence chips to China, resulting in steep write-offs. Last month, those semiconductor companies agreed to share 15% of their China revenue on those chips with the U.S. in exchange for new export licenses. "99% of the advanced chips in the world are made in Taiwan," said Bessent. "For national security, we have to stop that single point of failure." Commerce Secretary is all-in on an Intel stake The seeds for an investment in Intel were planted by the Biden Administration's $52.7 billion CHIPS and Science Act in 2022, legislation designed to provide grants to semiconductor manufacturers to build "fabs," large semiconductor manufacturing plants, on US was the largest recipient of CHIPS Act grants, receiving $7.9 billion. When those funds were awarded in November 2024, the White House said they would "directly support Intel's expected U.S. investment of nearly $90 billion by the end of the decade" and that "The Department will disburse the funds based on Intel's completion of project milestones." Intel's progress toward boosting US manufacturing has slowed amid mounting losses and Tan's pivot toward cost-cutting, including layoffs. "We need to make our own chips here," said Lutnick on CNBC. "Why are we giving a company worth $100 billion this kind of money? What is in it for the American taxpayer? The answer Donald Trump has is we should get an equity stake for our money." Lutnick is the US Commerce Secretary and a former Wall Street veteran who was CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. The White House has confirmed that Lutnick is negotiating with Intel on an equity stake, according to Reuters. The mechanics of such a deal aren't fully fleshed out, given that the CHIPS Act doesn't require companies to provide equity to receive grants. Nevertheless, the White House is committed to pursuing this approach, possibly expecting that companies will decide the upside of US ownership outweighs any risks. "Instead of just giving grants away, we should get benefits," said Lutnick. What's next for Intel amid losses? I remember when Intel was one of the stock market's hottest stocks during the Internet boom. However, over the years, Intel has lost luster to smaller, faster-moving rivals like Nvidia, which has turned a niche of making super-fast graphic processors for gaming into the most coveted chips used to train and operate AI chatbots and agentic AI apps. Intel's annual revenue over the past five years has sharply declined: 2020: $77.9 billion. 2021: $79 billion. 2022: $63 billion. 2023: $54.2 billion. 2024: $53.1 billion. Nvidia's annual revenue over the past five years has skyrocketed: 2020: $10.9 billion. 2021: $16.7 billion. 2022: $26.9 billion. 2023: $27 billion. 2024: $60.9 billion. "Nvidia has blown Intel away in creating a market for AI-capable processors while Advanced Micro Devices has stolen Intel's lunch in the PC and gaming markets," wrote veteran analyst Stephen Guilfoyle on TheStreet Pro. "Making matters worse, Intel's foundry business has struggled to make inroads in a market dominated by Taiwan Semiconductor." More Tech Stocks: Veteran analyst names 30 AI stocks shaping future of technology Apple iPhone faces a major threat from Samsung Tiger Global buys more Nvidia, Amazon, exits surging tech stocks Last quarter, Intel's sales were flat, while Nvidia's grew 69% year over year. Intel lost 10 cents per share in the second quarter, while Nvidia made 81 cents per share, up 33% from one year ago. Catching up to Nvidia won't be easy, given that Nvidia commands roughly a 90% share in the AI chip market, even if it gets an influx of government cash. However, that doesn't mean Intel can't continue to win business providing silicon for other uses, such as industrial or consumer technology, like desktops and laptops, or that it can't win in supplying CPUs that help AI work more efficiently. For instance, its Xeon 6776P processor is the host CPU for NVIDIA's high-end DGX B300 server for AI workloads. It also doesn't mean that Intel's renewed cost-consciousness won't translate into stock-friendly earnings growth. "We are also taking the actions needed to build a more financially disciplined foundry," said Tan in Intel's second-quarter earnings release." Wall Street's average estimate is for earnings per share to rise to 66 cents per share in 2026 from 12 cents in 2025 and revenue to reach $53.8 billion, up from $52.01 billion. "Intel needs to crack the $27 level to break out of a long flat base that stretches back to early August 2024," wrote Guilfoyle. "My target price for the stock should the federal government and Softbank take on sizable equity stakes is $33. I am long these shares." Still, Intel's stock is already up 26% this year, suggesting that at least some of this optimism is currently priced into its stock. According to TipRanks, only one Wall Street analyst rates it a "buy", 26 rate it a "hold," and 3 rate it a "sell." Hardly a resounding vote of story was originally reported by TheStreet on Aug 20, 2025, where it first appeared in the Investing News, Analysis, and Tips section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
