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Anker’s first 3D printer might be the one you’ve been waiting for

2022-04-06T03:00:39-04:00

3D printing can be a time-consuming and expensive hobby — even if you try to do it on the cheap. It feels like I’ve adjusted, replaced, or upgraded half the parts on my Ender 3 Pro. It’s been fun, but never easy.

But what if a truly consumer-ready 3D printer changed that? We may be about to find out. Trusted phone charger company Anker is officially expanding beyond its Eufy smart home devices, Soundcore audio, Nebula projectors and Roav car accessories into 3D printing this year — and not in a small way. The just-revealed AnkerMake M5 looks like it could give leading brands a serious run for their money.

Image: Anker

Vases are a relatively fast thing to print on any FDM printer, but the M5 could make them even faster.

Launching on Kickstarter later today for an early bird price of $429 (though Anker suggests it’ll cost $759 or more at retail), the AnkerMake M5 will come standard with nifty features you’d often have to tack onto competing printers — like a webcam that lets you watch prints remotely, records timelapse videos of your creations, and can automatically pause a print job and alert you if it sees the printer produce a molten plastic mess instead of a useful part.

But its flagship feature is something far more fundamental: Anker claims it prints five times faster than the competition. And I don’t mean “theoretically you can set it to print really really fast if you painstakingly calibrate it.” I mean Anker is claiming that you can take the printer’s two halves out of the box, connect them with eight screws, plug in two USB-C cables and a power adapter, and it will automatically print at 250mm/sec because that is its default setting. “That’s our baseline for this,” Anker spokeperson Eric Villines tells me.

250mm/sec is indeed five times faster than my Ender 3 Pro’s default speed, and more than five times faster than the leading Prusa MK3S+’s quality setting, and I don’t think I can overstate how big a deal it might be for the hobby if it’s true. 3D printing can be an incredibly slow process, but Anker is suggesting it can cut that from a day to a matter of hours, or from a few hours to less than an hour, with a printer that lets you build parts the same size (maximum 235 x 235 x 250mm) as the most popular options on the market.

It’s not clear what secret sauce keeps your parts from getting shaken right off the printer at that speed, but it sounds like it could be a lot of things. Anker claims it’s moving the Y-axis build plate using a fancy stepper motor with “high-subdivision drivers” and two belts instead of one. The gantry is raised and lowered on two lead screws instead of one for stability. It’s got a removable magnetic build surface, similar to Creality’s printers. They gave it a weighty, die-cast aluminum alloy base to keep it stable. And Anker is claiming “advanced algorithms that align your printing with your course of action.”

I’ll believe it when I see it, but I want to believe.

Image: Anker

It looks like the spool of filament can be mounted on the side or up top.

For me personally, speed isn’t my biggest frustration with 3D printing. I’m happy to let a print run overnight out in the garage, as long as I’m reasonably sure it’ll wind up complete. But I am so, so tempted to upgrade for a 49-point auto bed leveling system (bed leveling is the root of so many problems in 3D printing), broken filament detection (another issue is filament can dry out and snap in the middle of a print), and a nifty one-button feature that automatically heats and ejects the filament so you can replace it with a different one while avoiding jams.

Villines tells me that Anker enters new product categories when it thinks it can fix the pain points that are keeping people away, and this was the time. “I think 3D printers are right at that moment where they could become, if not mainstream, then certainly more than niche.”

The vision here is a printer where you could download a design from the internet, send it right to the printer’s 8GB of internal storage over Wi-Fi or even remotely via the cloud, and it’ll handle the rest for you. No need to find a slicer app to translate it into printer code, or worrying about several of the other most common failure points, and when you’re done there’s a whole timelapse video ready and waiting for you to share it on social media.

But Anker has a lot to prove, and its spokesperson was upfront that the company may not have it all figured out quite yet. While Villines says Anker will make the printer regardless of how it does during the Kickstarter campaign (it’s more marketing than anything else and Anker has a good track record there), there is a reason it’s not shipping now — software features like intelligent failed print detection, promised voice assistant compatibility and, well, most of the software hasn’t yet been built. “I like to say the hardware is at 75 percent and the software is at 2 percent,” he tells me, admitting that the company is anticipating a lot of customer service calls moving into a fraught new category like 3D printing.

It’s also not clear how much of an ecosystem the new printer will have yet, which today’s 3D printing hobbyists tend to expect in return for their investment. It does accept GCode like other printers, uses standard (though longer than the most common type of) nozzles, and the company does intend to offer replacement parts, but it’s not yet clear what might be interchangeable between the AnkerMake and other products on the market.

I’d want to see it in action before I buy one, but this could absolutely be my next — and the first 3D printer I could actually recommend — if Anker gets it right.

Vevo to ‘review’ security after YouTube feeds for Lil Nas X, Justin Bieber, and others were hacked

2022-04-06T02:42:36-04:00

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

On Tuesday morning, YouTube channels for some of the world’s biggest stars showered fans with strange music videos. Vevo channels for artists like Lil Nas X, Eminem, Drake, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Harry Styles, The Weeknd, Michael Jackson, Kanye West, and many others were affected. The channels in question have subscriber counts that add up to hundreds of millions. Before the videos disappeared, viewers saw bizarre clips of Paco Sanz, a Spanish conman sentenced to two years in jail after being convicted of fraud for lying about having terminal cancer, and rapper Lil Tjay.

YouTube did not respond to requests for comment from The Verge; however, Vevo — which bills itself as “the world’s leading music video network” — did acknowledge the incident. A spokesperson responded to contact via Vevo’s public press information and requested not to be named, citing the “nature” of the incident. They said in a statement that “Some videos were directly uploaded to a small number of Vevo artist channels earlier today by an unauthorized source.”

ATTENTION: Major artists are currently being hacked by @lospelaosbro
so far it looks like Juice WRLD, Eminem, Ariana Grande, Harry Styles, Justin Bieber, Travis Scott, Trippie Redd, Michael Jackson, The Weeknd, and even more artist's YouTube channels have been hacked! pic.twitter.com/UtL6yiKxRF
— Music Countdowns (@MCountdowns) April 5, 2022

Besides noting that the videos are gone, they also claimed, “No pre-existing content was accessible to the source. While the artist channels have been secured and the incident has been resolved, as a best practice Vevo will be conducting a review of our security systems.”

Another Vevo-related breach in 2018 saw popular music videos defaced, while the then-most-viewed YouTube video of all time, “Despacito” (it is now second, behind “Baby Shark”), was vandalized and briefly removed.

Google and YouTube have recently focused on trying to secure popular channels. Last year a report highlighted a phishing campaign targeting creators, YouTube required millions of popular channels to enable two-step verification, and Google says it gave away hardware authentication keys to over 10,000 high-risk users.

Despite those precautions, an apparent compromise somewhere along Vevo’s pipeline allowed the attacker, who pointed to their Twitter handle @lospelaosbro in the posts, to continue uploading across high-profile channels for several hours.

The artists or the people who operate their pages were likely unable to do anything about the issue. Vevo’s artist information page explains that it works by creating a separate verified Artist Channel to upload videos, and YouTube merges that content with videos on the artist’s own YouTube page. A support page states that “Vevo does not provide access directly to artists.” Instead, independent content providers or the artist’s music label will upload the content to Vevo, which sends it to YouTube and other channels.

Plex’s latest beta features can help you navigate every streaming service you have

2022-04-05T21:35:24-04:00

Image: Plex

Plex’s latest beta features are a modern solution to a modern problem — having to search through HBO Max, Netflix, Disney Plus, and like, three other services to find something to watch. The company announced a new “Discover” feature, which aggregates and recommends content from various streaming services and a universal watchlist that gathers everything you want to watch all in one place.

The Discover screen acts like most streaming services’ homepages, giving you recommendations on what to watch next, but with the ability to show content from many different catalogs. It shouldn’t overwhelm you with selections you don’t have access to, though. There’s a setting that lets you choose only the services you have. Plex has been working for several years to slide into position as a legitimized one-stop-shop for streaming — and an ad-supported free TV business model — which the new menu may finally be able to pull off.

Image: Plex

The Discover screen, which is currently in beta, showing content from Disney Plus, HBO Max, and Apple TV Plus.

There’s also a new “watch from these locations” feature, which helps if you know what you want to watch but not where to find it. It adds a section to the info page for movies and TV shows showing which streaming services offer that content. On some versions of the app (which is available on devices like the Apple TV, Fire Stick, Roku, PlayStation, smart TVs, etc.), Plex can even bounce you right to the streaming service from the page.

“Watch from these locations” makes it so you don’t have to search through multiple apps to find a specific show.

The list of streaming services Plex supports with these features is, to put it lightly, immense. It includes all the big names, like Hulu, Disney Plus, Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, and Peacock, along with — no joke — almost 150 others (many of which, like Martha Stewart TV, I’d never heard of). Basically, if you can legally stream what you’re watching somewhere on the internet, Plex can probably tell you about it, with only a few exceptions. And, of course, you can also let it search your Plex libraries of self-hosted videos or other media.

Look how small that scroll bar is.

Plex’s support page says that “not all platforms allow sending the user to the corresponding streaming app.” From reports on Reddit, it seems like one big platform that can’t do the linking is Roku. Testing it out on my Apple TV, it seemed to work okay, but it was very clearly a beta. I could open links to Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV Plus but got an error trying to open links for HBO Max and YouTube. Plex said the apps weren’t installed, even though they were. On the web version of Plex, it worked for every platform I could think to try (though when opening things on YouTube, it just took me to the search results page for the title instead of the actual page for the movie itself).

Personally, this might be what finally gets me to use Plex. I recently experienced what the company cheekily refers to as “the streaming struggle,” where my wife and I spent an hour figuring out what to watch. Most of the features Plex is adding here aren’t unique to it — the Apple TV has a built-in universal search and kind of lets you make a watchlist (though these features have very limited support for content on Netflix). Google does a decent job of telling you what services a show or movie is available on, and other smart TV platforms have universal search features too. But it would certainly be nice to have it all in one place and in a relatively neat interface that works across many different devices.

These features should be available for free on most platforms, as long as you’re using the most up-to-date version of the Plex app. I didn’t have to sign up for a beta program to get access to them, but you may have to follow Plex’s instructions to find them depending on your settings.

Block is contacting 8.2 million customers after a former employee downloaded company reports

2022-04-05T19:18:42-04:00

Block’s logo. | Image: Block

Block, the parent company of products like Cash App and Tidal, said in an SEC filing that a former employee downloaded “certain reports” that “contained some US customer information” without permission from Cash App Investing (via Protocol).

Data in the reports, which Block said were downloaded on December 10th, included “full name and brokerage account number” and for “some customers” included “brokerage portfolio value, brokerage portfolio holdings and/or stock trading activity for one trading day.” The employee, who downloaded the data after they left the company, had access to the reports “as part of their past job responsibilities,” according to Block.

“The reports did not include usernames or passwords, Social Security numbers, date of birth, payment card information, addresses, bank account information, or any other personally identifiable information,” Block said. “They also did not include any security code, access code, or password used to access Cash App accounts. Other Cash App products and features (other than stock activity) and customers outside of the United States were not impacted.” Block says it is contacting “approximately 8.2 million current and former customers” in regards to the incident.

“At Cash App we value customer trust and are committed to the security of customers’ information,” Cash App spokesperson Danika Owsley said in a statement to The Verge. “Upon discovery, we took steps to remediate this issue and launched an investigation with the help of a leading forensics firm. We know how these reports were accessed, and we have notified law enforcement. We are also contacting customers whose data was impacted. In addition, we continue to review and strengthen administrative and technical safeguards to protect information.”

Update April 5th, 7:34PM ET: Added Cash App statement.

Elon Musk updates the paperwork on his shocking Twitter purchase to avoid extra SEC drama

2022-04-05T18:56:09-04:00

Photo by Christian Marquardt - Pool/Getty Images

Within the news of Elon Musk taking a significant ownership stake in Twitter — and the revelation that it really is working on an edit button for tweets — many people noticed a wrinkle that seemed small at first but could cause problems later.

On Monday, Musk filed beneficial ownership report paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to note his ownership of 73,486,938 shares of Twitter (about 9.2 percent of its outstanding common stock and enough to make him the company’s largest individual shareholder), and the box checked on the form (pdf) indicated it was a Schedule 13G, which allows for a simple disclosure for investors who intend to remain “passive” in the company’s affairs.

We don’t usually get into stock market minutiae, but this is important because of what happened next. This morning, Twitter and its CEO, Parag Agrawal, announced Elon Musk is becoming a board member, and that news raised eyebrows because it suggests a much more active role, which requires filing a more detailed Section 13D form about the stock purchase.

Failing to have the right disclosure could result in a fine from the SEC, and as much as Elon seems to enjoy his ongoing standoffs with the federal agency (alleging broken promises, accusing the agency of leaks, claiming he was coerced into an unjust settlement over his tweets, and citing Eminem in a court filing are just a few), it looks like this is one he’s decided to avoid. At about the same time news broke about the edit button, an updated filing appeared, amending the previous one, checking off the correct box, and seemingly avoiding an unnecessary headache for the billionaire and his new 9.2 percent toy.

Most notably, the new form includes language relating to Musk’s plans for his stake in the company and the company overall. It references the agreement that he not try to own more than 14.9 percent of Twitter’s stock as a condition of joining the board and that other than potentially selling or buying shares, he doesn’t have plans to try and sell the company or its subsidiaries, propose a merger or take any other actions listed underneath Item 4 on the form. A report by The New York Times indicates that, unlike some other board members, Musk did not sign an agreement promising not to influence the company’s policies.

The new filing also has considerably more detail than Monday’s form about how we got here. It indicates Musk has been buying Twitter shares almost daily since January 31st. He never bought fewer than 371,075 shares on the days he acquired them, peaked at 4,839,507 purchased on February 7th, and the last noted batch was purchased on April 1st. On April 4th, Twitter announced his new role, and one day later, we heard the news about the edit button (which Twitter says has been in the works for over a year and has nothing to do with any poll posted by its newest board member).

Whistleblower says DeepMind waited months to fire a researcher accused of sexual misconduct

2022-04-05T18:52:17-04:00

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A former employee at DeepMind, the Google-owned AI research lab, accuses the company’s human resources department of intentionally delaying its response to her complaints about sexual misconduct in the workplace, as first reported by the Financial Times.

In an open letter posted to Medium, the former employee (who goes by Julia to protect her identity) says she was sexually harassed by a senior researcher for months while working at the London-based company. During this time, she was allegedly subject to numerous sexual propositions and inappropriate messages, including some that described past sexual violence against women and threats of self-harm.

Julia got in contact with the company’s HR and grievance team as early as August 2019 to outline her interactions with the senior researcher, and she raised a formal complaint in December 2019. The researcher in question reportedly wasn’t dismissed until October 2020. He faced no suspension and was even given a company award while HR was processing Julia’s complaint, leaving Julia fearing for her — and her other female colleagues’ — safety.

Although the Financial Times’ report says her case wasn’t fully resolved until seven months after she first reported the misconduct, Julia told The Verge that the whole process actually took 10 months. She claims DeepMind’s communications team used “semantics” to “push back” on the Financial Times’ story and shorten the amount of time it took to address her case.

“It was in fact 10 months, they [DeepMind] argued it was ‘only’ 7 because that’s when the appeal finished, though the disciplinary hearing took another 2 months, and involved more rounds of interviews for me,” Julia said. “My point stands: whether it was 10 months or 7, it was far, far too long.”

Besides believing her case was “intentionally dragged out,” Julia also claims two separate HR managers told her she would face “disciplinary action” if she spoke out about it. Her manager allegedly required her to attend meetings with the senior researcher as well, despite being “partially” aware of her report, the Financial Times says. While Julia herself didn’t sign a non-disclosure agreement, many other DeepMind employees have.

In a separate post on Medium, Julia and others offered several suggestions as to how Alphabet (Google and DeepMind’s parent company) can improve its response to complaints and reported issues, such as doing away with the NDA policy for victims and setting a strict two-month time limit for HR to resolve grievances.

The Alphabet Workers Union also expressed support for Julia in a tweet, noting: “The NDAs we sign should never be used to silence victims of harassment or workplace abuse. Alphabet should have a global policy against this.”

In a statement to The Verge, DeepMind interim head of communications Laura Anderson acknowledged the struggles Julia went through but avoided taking accountability for her experiences. “DeepMind takes all allegations of workplace misconduct extremely seriously and we place our employees’ safety at the core of any actions we take,” Anderson said. “The allegations were investigated thoroughly, and the individual who was investigated for misconduct was dismissed without any severance payments... We’re sorry that our former employee experienced what they did and we recognise that they found the process difficult.”

DeepMind has faced concerns over its treatment of employees in the past. In 2019, a Bloomberg report said DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, also known as “Moose,” was placed on administrative leave for the controversy surrounding some of his projects. Suleyman left the company later that year to join Google. In 2021, a Wall Street Journal report revealed that Suleyman was deprived of management duties in 2019 for allegedly bullying staff members. Google also launched an investigation into his behavior at the time, but it never made its findings public.

“If anyone finds themselves in a similar situation: first, right now, before anything bad happens, join a union,” Julia said in response to the broader concerns. “Then if something bad happens: Document everything. Know your rights. Don’t let them drag it out. Stay vocal. These stories are real, they are happening to your colleagues.”

Correction April 5th 6:51PM ET: A previous version of the story stated Julia signed an NDA. She did not, but other DeepMind employees have. We regret the error.

Microsoft’s pen-first notetaking app Journal graduates from a Garage project into a fully supported app

2022-04-05T18:29:43-04:00

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft has elevated its Garage project Journal, a notetaking app designed for styluses and pens, into a full-fledged product now called Microsoft Journal, the company announced Tuesday.

The app offers “a delightful freeform personal notetaking experience that lets you take notes and reason through ink,” Microsoft’s Renee Malone said in a blog post. The app lets you write and draw like many other notetaking apps, but it also supports gestures like scratching out words to erase them and circling words or phrases to select them. You can use the app to mark up PDFs, which is a popular thing to do, according to Malone; a pie chart in her post says that 59 percent of all page types in Journal were PDFs.

Image: Microsoft

A screenshot from Microsoft Journal.

Garage is Microsoft’s brand for its more experimental products. As a fully supported product, the company “has plans to address the most common requests and a backlog of new features,” Oz Solomon, principal engineering manager of the Journal team, said in the blog post.

If you want to get an idea of what you can expect from Microsoft Journal, check out this video from when the app was first announced in February of 2021. If you want to try the app yourself, you can download it for free from the Microsoft Store. It’s compatible with both Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices.

Netflix actually added a short-ass movie category

2022-04-05T18:27:25-04:00

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Yes, Netflix actually added a “short-ass” movie category in response to Pete Davidson’s Saturday Night Live ode to movies shorter than an hour and 30 minutes. Netflix quote-tweeted the SNL rap on Twitter, casually saying “good idea” and linking to the new short-ass movie category on Netflix.

good idea https://t.co/PIIix3MZUK https://t.co/lyJmpuGBko
— Netflix Is A Joke (@NetflixIsAJoke) April 4, 2022

On the page, you’ll find a list of movies — organized by genre — that won’t have you stuck on the couch for hours, like Zoolander, Death at a Funeral, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Midnight in Paris, and a whole lot more. It, disappointingly, lacks some of the titles mentioned in the SNL skit, like Driving Miss Daisy and The Lion King (but maybe Netflix will bend to Davidson’s will on that as well).

Despite the existence of this short-ass movie webpage, I, and a number of my colleagues at The Verge, just can’t seem to find it on the app. However, Netflix spokesperson Kumiko Hidaka says it’s “been available since 10 am PT on Mon 4/4,” and that you should be able to find it on all devices if you search for it.

Netflix

The short-ass movie category is very, very real.

If you love short-ass movies, I guess you have Davidson to thank for this one — whether you’re sick of him or not. Sure, Netflix already has a 90-minute movie category, which is basically a carbon copy of the short-ass movie one. But I think this makes things a little clearer; a 90-minute movie just sounds longer than a short-ass movie.

Update April 5th, 10:05PM ET: Updated to add that the short-ass movies categories is available on all devices.

Germany shuts down servers for Russian darknet marketplace Hydra

2022-04-05T18:25:26-04:00

German authorities shut down the server infrastructure for the Russian darknet marketplace Hydra, seizing €23 million (~$25.2 million USD) worth of Bitcoin in the process, Germany’s Federal Crime Police Office (BKA) announced on Tuesday (via Bleeping Computer).

Hydra is a large marketplace on the dark web that serves as a hub for drugs, stolen credit card information, counterfeit bills, fake documents, and other illegal goods or services. The market primarily caters to criminals in Russia and surrounding nations. “Treasuremen,” or dealers connected with the site, push drugs throughout the region by hiding them in geo-tagged pickup locations.

With the shutdown of the German-based server, authorities are now launching an investigation into the “unknown operators and administrators” of Hydra, whom they suspect of selling narcotics and engaging in money laundering. German authorities say they have been investigating the marketplace with the help of the US since August 2021. The BKA told The Verge that no arrests have been made as of yet.

Although Hydra is known for aiding in the sale of narcotics, a report from risk intelligence organization Flashpoint (via Wired) points to cryptocurrency laundering as another growing trend. Cybercriminals could purchase cryptocurrency from other sellers in exchange for rubles, and then receive their cash through payment apps like YooMoney, Tinkoff, or QUIWI. Other crypto launderers would opt for a delivery method similar to the one used for drugs — a courier would bury money in a discrete location, which the customer would later dig up.

As noted by Wired, cryptocurrency investigation firm Chainanalysis found $200 million in stolen cryptocurrency floating around on the platform in 2021 and early 2022, including $5 million linked to fraud, $4 million linked to ransomware, and $4 million from sanctioned sources. About $2 billion in transactions in total came from “risky” sources.

In response to the shutdown, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced that it has sanctioned Hydra and Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex. The US is also working to identify over 100 cryptocurrency addresses with ties to the illegal marketplace.

“Our actions send a message today to criminals that you cannot hide on the darknet or their forums, and you cannot hide in Russia or anywhere else in the world,” Secretary of Treasury Janet L. Yellen said. “In coordination with allies and partners, like Germany and Estonia, we will continue to disrupt these networks.”

With about 17 million customer accounts and 19,000 sellers, Germany’s BKA and Central Office for Combatting Cybercrime (ZIT) say Hydra has the highest turnover rate out of any illegal market in the world, estimating a turnover of about €1.23 billion (~$1.35 million USD) in 2020 alone. German authorities note that cryptocurrency transactions on Hydra are especially hard to track due to a crypto-concealing service called the Bitcoin Bank Mixer.

Last year, German authorities shut down the darknet marketplace DarkMarket, which had nearly half a million users at the time. Authorities across the world have long been trying to crack down on illegal marketplaces, taking down Silk Road, Wall Street Market, and AlphaBay over the course of several years.

Update April 5th, 6:25PM ET: Updated to add context surrounding money laundering on Hydra from Flashpoint report.

Twitter takes a harder line on POW photos and shadowbans Russian government accounts

2022-04-05T18:24:27-04:00

Twitter says it doesn’t want to be used to violate the Geneva convention. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter announced on Tuesday that it will “require the removal of Tweets posted by government or state-affiliated media accounts” if they contain images or videos that show prisoners of war from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The company also said it would “drastically” reduce the chances of people seeing posts from Russian government accounts.

In its most recent updates to a post detailing how the company is responding to the conflict, Twitter says this decision is meant to ensure its platform isn’t used to spread content that violates the Geneva Conventions, one of which requires prisoners of war be protected from “acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.” This comes after the government of Ukraine has been criticized for posting images of dead soldiers, as well as videos of captured soldiers being interrogated.

We’re doing so in line with international humanitarian law, and in consultation with international human rights groups. To protect essential reporting on the war, some exceptions apply under this guidance where there is a compelling public interest or newsworthy POW content.
— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) April 5, 2022

While Twitter will ask government accounts to remove media showing prisoners of war, there will be some exceptions for “compelling public interest or newsworthy POW content,” according to a thread by Twitter’s head of site integrity, Yeol Roth. According to the post, users will see a “warning interstitial” if a post is allowed to stay up. The company also says that content showing PoWs that’s “shared with abusive intent” (e.g., is mocking or threatening) by anyone will be removed.

Governments sharing media depicting POWs is a controversial subject, especially in a conflict where one side is a clear aggressor. As Slate points out, the videos of prisoners of war posted by Ukrainian government accounts can be viewed as sympathetic — they seem to suggest that some Russian soldiers have been lied to by their government and are also suffering because of the invasion. Some, like Malcolm Nance, a commenter on terrorism and torture, have acknowledged that the images may violate international law but say that it’s acceptable in this instance.

Others disagree. Slate spoke to Adil Haque, a law professor and legal ethicist, about the media being posted, and he argued that context wasn’t particularly important in this kind of conflict. “Even if a particular instance of recording a POW might seem harmless, especially if they’re actually being portrayed in a sympathetic light, the idea is we need a broad prohibition so we don’t have to debate on a case-by-case basis whether this is a good or bad subjection to public curiosity,” he told the publication. In other words, the Conventions should be used as a blanket policy.

A paper written by Gordon Risius and Michael Meyer (pdf) as part of the Red Cross’ international review argues that there could be other downsides to governments sharing media of POWs. It says that the media could be used against the prisoners or their families by their governments and that pictures can be staged, making it hard to rely on them as evidence of humane treatment (especially when they’re taken explicitly to be viewed by the general public).

This debate isn’t new. The Red Cross paper from Risius and Meyer was written in the 1990s following the Gulf War and argues that the Geneva Conventions need to be updated for the age of mass media. (The article about protecting against insults and public curiosity has been around for almost a century.) There were also debates around what media could show during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. While Twitter says its new rules allow for “essential reporting,” it does pretty firmly put its foot down on the side of not allowing states to share images of POWs.

In addition to its rules around POWs, Twitter is de facto shadowbanning Russian government accounts by removing them from follow recommendations and ensuring they won’t be “amplified” on peoples’ timelines or on the Explore and Search pages. Roth says in his tweet thread that this action will be taken against any “states that limit access to free information and are engaged in armed interstate conflict.”

What does this mean?

We won’t recommend these accounts, and we won't amplify them across the Home Timeline, Explore, Search, and in other places on Twitter. This measure drastically reduces the chance that people on Twitter see Tweets from these accounts unless they follow them.
— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) April 5, 2022

Twitter’s post explains the rationale behind the decision by saying that a government blocking citizens’ access to a service while continuing to post on it creates a “severe information imbalance.” Early on in the invasion, Russia restricted how citizens could access Twitter and later outright blocked Instagram. Roth does clarify that Twitter will apply these rules even if it isn’t among the platforms being banned in a country.