Meta 'concerned' by Iran telling citizens to stop using WhatsApp, spokesperson says
Iranian officials had warned people to stop using WhatsApp, Telegram and other "location-based applications," accusing them of being Israel's "main methods to identify and target individuals," according to a report from the country's state-run broadcaster IRIB earlier Tuesday.
"We're concerned these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most. All of the messages you send to family and friends on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted meaning no-one except the sender and recipient has access to those messages, not even WhatsApp," a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News.
"We do not track your precise location, we don't keep logs of who everyone is messaging, and we do not track the personal messages people are sending one another," the WhatsApp spokesperson said. "We do not provide bulk information to any government. For over a decade, Meta has provided consistent transparency reports that include the limited circumstances when WhatsApp information has been requested."
The claim made by Iran's state broadcaster comes as the country's Islamic regime appears to be cracking down on the public's access to the internet, as the Israel-Iran conflict intensifies.
Israel on Friday launched airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, scientists and senior military commanders, to which Iran responded with dozens of ballistic missiles. The countries have exchanged waves of missile attacks in the days since. At least two dozen people have been killed in Israel, according to the Israeli military, and dozens have been injured. Tehran has said at least 224 people have been killed in Iran since Friday.
The internet monitoring group NetBlocks said its analysis showed a 75% reduction in internet usage across the country on Tuesday, data the group says "comes amid an escalating conflict with Israel and is likely to limit the public's ability to access information at a critical time."
WhatsApp is owned by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads. Meta's platforms have previously been targeted by Iran's autocratic government during times of unrest in the country. In 2022, as the Iranian government faced widespread protests over the death of 22-year-old student Mahsa Amini while in Iranian police custody, Meta said Iranian authorities had clamped down on the use of Instagram in the country in an effort to suppress the ability of protesters to share information.
While WhatsApp is an end-to-end encrypted app, it is not impenetrable. Just last month, the Israeli software company NSO Group was ordered to pay WhatsApp $167 million for hacking 1,400 people, including activists and journalists, in 2019. The hack involved the use of a malicious software called Pegasus, which can be installed remotely on cellphones to access, among other things, people's microphones, cameras and GPS location settings.
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Anas al-Sharif's Last Words Before Israeli Strike Killed Him
Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Sunday, alongside four of his colleagues. Before his death, the 28-year-old had prepared a final message to be released posthumously. 'This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice,' he wrote in a message shared Sunday. 'I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification,' it continued. 'Do not forget Gaza… And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance,' it said. Al-Sharif leaves behind a wife and two young children. In a statement announcing the killing of al-Sharif, the IDF said he was the 'head of a Hamas terrorist cell and advanced rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF troops.' It shared images of what it claimed was a Hamas roster list and injury record with his name on both. TIME has not been able to independently verify these claims. Al Jazeera condemned the killings, calling the attack a 'targeted assassination' and a 'blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom.' 'Anas and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices from within Gaza, providing the world with unfiltered, on-the-ground coverage of the devastating realities endured by its people,' the Qatari network said in a statement. Al-Sharif had faced threats and allegations of ties to Hamas from the Israeli army for nearly a year before his death, but they intensified following a broadcast in July in which he broke down crying while reporting on Gaza's hunger crisis. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Avichay Adraee accused him of crying 'crocodile tears' and of being part of a 'false Hamas campaign on starvation.' Al Jazeera rejected the claims as 'baseless'. The Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ) issued a statement describing Adraee's statements as 'unfounded accusations [that] represent an effort to manufacture consent to kill al-Sharif,' and noted that Israel had killed four other Al Jazeera journalists about whom they had made similar statements. In messages sent to TIME in late July, during reporting for a separate story, al-Sharif said the IDF's allegations left him in fear for his life. 'I live with the feeling that I could be bombed and martyred at any moment,' he wrote in one message. 'These threats are clear incitement and an attempt to assassinate my voice, either through bombing or moral distortion,' he added. Al-Sharif, who had covered the war from the first days of the conflict, told TIME how he had received direct calls from Israeli military officers demanding that he stop his coverage and leave northern Gaza. He also received WhatsApp messages that detailed his precise whereabouts, which he considered a threat to his life. The IDF responded to a request for comment from TIME with a statement from October 2024 that accused al-Sharif and five other Al Jazeera journalists of belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, along with documents that TIME could not verify. An investigation into the allegations by Reporters Without Borders, when they were first made last year, noted 'numerous inconsistencies' in Israel's evidence, including the assertion that one of the journalists received a military rank in 2007, when he would have been 10 years old. Deadliest conflict for journalists ever recorded The airstrike that killed him struck a tent being used by media near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. It also killed Al Jazeera staff members Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Al Thaher, Moamen Aliwa, and Mohamed Nofal, as well as freelance journalist Mohammad al-Khaldi. Their deaths brought the total number of journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, to 186—180 of those journalists being Palestinian, according to the International Federation of Journalists. Hundreds gathered at the Sheikh Radwan cemetery in the Gaza Strip to mourn the five journalists on Monday. The airstrike came just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended a planned military offensive into some of Gaza's most populated areas, including Gaza City, where the team was based. CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah accused Israel of 'murdering the messengers,' in a statement condemning the strike. 'Israel wiped out an entire news crew. It has made no claims that any of the other journalists were terrorists. That's murder. Plain and simple,' she said. 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Yahoo
an hour ago
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For Gaza students, big ambitions replaced by desperate search for food
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Boston Globe
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Delivery drones are coming to more US neighborhoods after getting off to a slow start
While the rule is intended to streamline the process, authorized retailers and drone companies that have tested fulfilling orders from the sky say they plan to make drone-based deliveries available to millions more U.S. households. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Walmart's multistate expansion Advertisement Walmart and Wing, a drone company owned by Google parent Alphabet, currently provide deliveries from 18 Walmart stores in the Dallas area. By next summer, they expect to expand to 100 Walmart stores in Atlanta; Charlotte, North Carolina; Houston; and Orlando and Tampa, Florida. After launching its Prime Air delivery service in College Station, Texas, in late 2022, Amazon received FAA permission last year to operate autonomous drones that fly beyond a pilot's line of sight. The e-commerce company has since expand its drone delivery program to suburban Phoenix and has plans to offer the service in Dallas, San Antonio, Texas, and Kansas City. The concept of drone delivery has been around for well over a decade. Drone maker Zipline, which works with Walmart in Arkansas and the Dallas-Fort Worth area, began making deliveries to hospitals in Rwanda in 2016. Israel-based Flytrex, one of the drone companies DoorDash works with to carry out orders, launched drone delivery to households in Iceland in 2017. Advertisement But Wing CEO Adam Woodworth said drone delivery has been in 'treading water mode' in the U.S. for years, with service providers afraid to scale up because the regulatory framework wasn't in place. 'You want to be at the right moment where there's an overlap between the customer demand, the partner demand, the technical readiness and the regulatory readiness,' Woodworth said. 'I think that we're reaching that planetary alignment right now.' Flying ice cream and eggs DoorDash, which works with both Wing and Flytrex, tested drone drop-offs in rural Virginia and greater Dallas before announcing an expansion into Charlotte. Getting takeout food this way may sound futuristic, but it's starting to feel normal in suburban Brisbane, Australia, where DoorDash has employed delivery drones for several years, said Harrison Shih, who leads the company's drone program. 'It comes so fast and it's something flying into your neighborhood, but it really does seem like part of everyday life,' Shih said. Even though delivery drones are still considered novel, the cargo they carry can be pretty mundane. Walmart said the top items from the more than 150,000 drone deliveries the nation's largest retailer has completed since 2021 include ice cream, eggs and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Unlike traditional delivery, where one driver may have a truck full of packages, drones generally deliver one small order at a time. Wing's drones can carry packages weighing up to 2.5 pounds. They can travel up to 12 miles round trip. One pilot can oversee up to 32 drones. Advertisement Zipline has a drone that can carry up to 4 pounds and fly 120 miles round trip. Some drones, like Amazon's, can carry heavier packages. Once an order is placed, it's packaged for flight and attached to a drone at a launch site. The drone automatically finds a route that avoids obstacles. A pilot observes as the aircraft flies to its destinations and lowers its cargo to the ground with retractable cords. Risks and rewards of commercial drones Shakiba Enayati, an assistant professor of supply chain and analytics at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, researches ways that drones could speed the delivery of critical health supplies like donated organs and blood samples. The unmanned aircraft offer some advantages as a transport method, such as reduced emissions and improved access to goods for rural residents, Enayati said. But she also sees plenty of obstacles. Right now, it costs around $13.50 per delivery to carry a package by drone versus $2 for a traditional vehicle, Enayati said. Drones need well-trained employees to oversee them and can have a hard time in certain weather. Drones also can have mid-air collisions or tumble from the sky. But people have accepted the risk of road accidents because they know the advantages of driving, Enayati said. She thinks the same thing could happen with drones, especially as improved technology reduces the chance for errors. Woodworth added that U.S. airspace is tightly controlled, and companies need to demonstrate to the FAA that their drones are safe and reliable before they are cleared to fly. Even under the proposed new rules, the FAA would set detailed requirements for drone operators. Advertisement 'That's why it takes so long to build a business in the space. But I think it leads to everybody fundamentally building higher quality things,' Woodworth said. Others worry that drones may potentially replace human delivery drivers. Shih thinks that's unlikely. One of DoorDash's most popular items is 24-packs of water, Shih said, which aren't realistic for existing drones to ferry. 'I believe that drone delivery can be fairly ubiquitous and can cover a lot of things. We just don't think its probable today that it'll carry a 40-pound bag of dog food to you,' Shih said. The view from the ground in Texas DoorDash said that in the areas where it offers drone deliveries, orders requiring the services of human delivery drivers also increase. That's been the experience of John Kim, the owner of PurePoke restaurant in Frisco, Texas. Kim signed on to offer drone deliveries through DoorDash last year. He doesn't know what percentage of his DoorDash customers are choosing the service instead of regular delivery, but his overall DoorDash orders are up 15% this year. Kim said he's heard no complaints from drone delivery customers. 'It's very stable, maybe even better than some of the drivers that toss it in the back with all the other orders,' Kim said. For some, drones can simply be a nuisance. When the FAA asked for public comments on Amazon's request to expand deliveries in College Station, numerous residents expressed concern that drones with cameras violated their privacy. Amazon says its drones use cameras and sensors to navigate and avoid obstacles but may record overhead videos of people while completing a delivery. Other residents complained about noise. 'It sounds like a giant nagging mosquito,' one respondent wrote. Amazon has since released a quieter drone. Advertisement But others love the service. Janet Toth of Frisco, Texas, said she saw drone deliveries in Korea years ago and wondered why the U.S. didn't have them. So she was thrilled when DoorDash began providing drone delivery in her neighborhood. Toth now orders drone delivery a few times a month. Her 9-year-old daughter Julep said friends often come over to watch the drone. 'I love to go outside, wave at the drone, say 'Thank you' and get the food,' Julep Toth said. AP Video Journalist Kendria LaFleur contributed from Frisco, Texas.
